S: Sanji’s Seed

Welcome! The following is the 2nd in a series of 24 lesson plans, Learning the ABC’s through Literature, the 1st year. It was written especially for classroom use within a homeschool co-op, and was designed to teach the alphabet, over the course of a school year, using classic children’s literature. The books are primarily taken from the Five in a Row Curriculum by Jane Lambert, with several others added as well. The plans were designed to give just a little bit more, so it could be more usable within a classroom setting. Teachers’ questions, printables, craft ideas, classroom handouts, etc are included within all the lessons. This is geared towards a K-1st grade class. If you are interested in something similar for older children, the Learning through Literature series is a more developed concept of this same idea, geared towards 1st-3rd, and also uses mostly Five-in-a-Row books. You can find it here, Learning Snippets of History through Literature, (the 2nd year), For 2nd-5th graders, try this one: Learning the USA through Literature, (the 3rd year)

Letter S: Sanji’s Seed*

*This is a similar story to “The Empty Pot”, and is probably based on the same Chinese folktale, though this story is based presumably, in India. If you can’t find the book Sanji’s Seed, and don’t care about matching up a letter of the week to your story, you could use this lesson for “The Empty Pot” as well. If you’d like to stick with purely FIAR books, The Salamander Room, is not used in any other lesson, and has similar themes that could be used with letter “S” as well.

Things I Need:

Sanji’s Seed Book
World Map (with clear picture of India,
China)
Peas
Green M&M’s
Letter S Handwriting sheet (Printable version here)
Tin cans (1 for each child)
Paint and brushes (optional – you also can spraypaint)
Dirt
Seeds
Verse Print out (Printable version here)

Review: If you are following along with the full ABC book curriculum, take a moment to review: Q – goes with U, R says “R” for Miss Rumphius.

Introduce the Story:

Today’s Story has 2 S’s in it.

Who knows what S says? “sssssss” Can you give me words that begin with s?

Today’s story is about a boy who has to decide if he’s going to be honest
even when it is really hard. Do you know what honest means?

Hands-On Honesty Experiment: the Peas and the M&Ms

We’re going to do a little experiment to figure out why it’s important to always be truthful.

This is a fun and easy-to-do lesson idea borrowed from Haley O’Connor’s fun site. It works like this:

Tell each child to close their eyes and put their hands out, and that you are going to give them a piece of candy. Put a pea or two in each hand. Tell them they can open their eyes and eat their candy. Wait for reactions … “that’s not candy!” “hey!”

Tell them again, you are going to give them a piece of candy. Does everyone believe you? Repeat the experiment. You can either hand them the M&M, or if want to draw out the example, you can give them a pea one more time, and then the M&M.

Discussion:

Did it make you disappointed when you saw that I had lied to you and given you the green pea instead of a piece of candy?
Did you believe me when I said I was going to give you candy the 2nd time?

- When we lie, people don’t trust us anymore.
- Whenever we say
  something, they wonder, “is it true?”
- In the Bible, God very specifically says, “do not lie”.
“Even when it’s hard to do, always always tell what’s true”

Read the Story / Locate the Setting on a World Map

So our story today is called, “Sanji’s Seed.” It’s based on a Chinese story, but has been rewritten to take place probably in the country of India. We can tell based on what they are wearing, the names used, the buildings. Can we find India on our map? Can we find China on our map? You could also discuss the Himalayan mountain range that runs through Northern India, and the tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, located within that region.