1. A Week in the Life of an Egg:
An exploratory project that leads to creating a baby sitting kit for kids aged 6 months – 5 years old

2. Directions
This comprehensive kit guides kids through a week of caring for eggs, aged 6 months to 5 years old. They will choose activities, plan meals, and set schedules. They will also complete daily reflections.
While they are taking care of their eggs, they will also be creating a babysitting kit. This is a great project that you can bend and shape to match the needs of your curriculum and your students.
Enjoy!

3. Sample letter for familes…
Hello families, This week your child will be babysitting an egg. Your child must bring the egg to school every day. We will be creating menus, activities, and keeping a journal about our project. When the egg comes home, he or she is allowed to be kept in the refrigerator over night. Of course the egg can accompany your family at any event you deem appropriate. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can contact me at Thanks,
Hello families,
This week your child will be babysitting an egg. Your child must bring the egg to school every day. We will be creating menus, activities, and keeping a journal about our project. When the egg comes home, he or she is allowed to be kept in the refrigerator over night. Of course the egg can accompany your family at any event you deem appropriate. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can contact me at
Thanks,
Hello families,
This week your child will be babysitting an egg. Your child must bring the egg to school every day. We will be creating menus, activities, and keeping a journal about our project. When the egg comes home, he or she is allowed to be kept in the refrigerator over night. Of course the egg can accompany your family at any event you deem appropriate. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can contact me at
Thanks,

4. Rules You must carry your egg to school Tuesday-Friday
Your egg must rest in the refrigerator each night
You must plan the egg’s schedule, food, activities, and development each day.
The egg cannot be a distraction in class.
You must return the egg on Friday to receive full credit.
You must complete a journal entry each day to detail what you experienced with your egg.
You must speak to your family about this experience to make sure they understand your obligations.

5. Meeting your egg 6-12 months 12-18 months 18-24 months 2-3 years
Choose a tile to find the age of your egg.
Name your egg.
Decorate your egg.
Create a safe carrier for your egg.
6-12 months
12-18 months
18-24 months
2-3 years
3-5 years

6. My Journal Today we… List three fun moments. List three problems.
How did you solve the problems?
List one activity you did.
List three things you will do differently tomorrow.
Anything else?

7. Schedule: Create a schedule for your egg
Schedule: Create a schedule for your egg. Make sure to include meals, nap, activities, bath time, and play time. Start at 7:00 am and put your egg to sleep at 8:00 pm
Time
What you did
How did it go?
Two changes

8. Food: You will plan all the meals your egg will eat
Food: You will plan all the meals your egg will eat. The meals need to be age appropriate and nutritious. Keep the budget in mind.
Day of the Week
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Snacks
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

9. Play: Find one activity that is age appropriate for your egg
Play: Find one activity that is age appropriate for your egg. Make sure your egg is playing in a way which builds small motor skills or in a way which is teaching them something.
Day of the Week
Activity
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

10. Learning: Find one activity that is age appropriate for your egg
Learning: Find one activity that is age appropriate for your egg. Make sure your egg is learning reading or writing skills which are at their level.
Day of the Week
Activity
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

11. Baby Sitting Kit Project Outline
Item
I did it!
Rate my work (1-5)
Resume
Business Cards
Advertisements
Interview questions
Activities for each age group
Recipes for each age group

12. My Name Address Contact email and phone
Education Susie B. High School, 9th Grade
Knowledge (List all the things you know that would make you a great baby sitter)
Work Experience (List anything you have done, including chores around the house)
Volunteer Experience
References (List at least two people who can talk about you as a baby sitter. Make sure to include their phone number or .)

13. Business card template: Use this template to create your own business cards. You can change the font, add a logo, or change the colors.
My Name
My Contact Information
What you do best/Your slogan
A logo

14. Any rules or restrictions? Any special skills and knowledge?
Use this template to plan a flyer that advertises your baby sitting services. You can change the font and of course can redesign, re-color, or add pictures to make this pop.) My Name and What I do
Who do I babysit?
Where do you babysit?
Any rules or restrictions?
Any special skills and knowledge?
Sale or call to action
(Make sure to include your contact information

15. Interview Questions
Write three questions that will help you get to know the babysitter.
Write three questions about a babysitter’s background.
Write three questions about what they know about kids.
Write three questions about a safety issue.
Write one scenario that they have to solve.
Think about the things that would make you choose to hire and the things that would be warning signs to not hire.

16. Activity Scavenger Hunt
Find a reading or writing activity for each age group.
Find a recipe for each age group. Make sure it is nutritious and budget friendly.
Find a playing activity for each age group. Make sure they are learning something from each activity.

17. Scavenger Hunt Tracker
Reading and writing activity
(List what they are learning.)
Recipe
Playing activity
6-12 months
12-18 months
18-24 months
2-3 years old
3-4 years old

18. 6-18 months academic info card
During this time babies are exploring their world mostly orally. That’s why they slobber everything up by sticking it in their mouths. They love to scrunch and tear and rip. So when you are introducing books, make sure they are sturdy. Board books, fabric books, and books that can survive a bath are perfect for this age group. To teach print awareness, start with the pictures.
These are simple things you can do to help focus baby’s attention when you are introducing the idea of a book:
Hold your baby close when reading so he or she associates words with safety and love.
Point to the pictures.
Compare pictures to real objects.
Talk about the colors in the pictures.
Dissect the pictures, naming different parts of the pictures.
Track the words as you read.
Point to important words and read them using silly voices, continually pointing at the words as you speak.
Make exaggerated motions as you turn the pages and explicitly tell baby what you are doing.
When you are out in the world, try these things to bring awareness to the idea that words are everywhere.
Point to words in the grocery store. Show baby the items those words are naming.
Point to words that give direction. Explain to baby how you follow those words. For example, “This sign says drive left. Left
is this way. So we are going to turn left.” Repeating key words is an excellent way to build baby’s vocabulary.
Connect colors to words.
Point out letters in the words you see that are also in baby’s name.

19. 18 months- 2 years academic info card
During this time toddlers may begin to recognize words, tell stories, and exhibit reading behaviors. This is the time in a baby’s life when you may catch them reading to their stuffed animals with the book upside down and making up a story as they go. In other words it’s a perfect time to teach them the correct way to access the information in a book.
Try these suggestions to teach print awareness.
Start to focus on the words themselves. Point out letters that your child may recognize, such as those in his or her name.
Point out any print that is different—different colors, size, or text style. Explain to baby why the text is different and why that is important to the story.
Instead of just pointing out pictures, start to dissect them. Discuss colors, style, and name the pictures you see. For example say, “This is a picture of a yellow duck. Why do you think this duck is yellow? What else in the picture is yellow? Is there anything yellow in this room?” Remember, repetition is a key to vocabulary building.
When you read, change your voice to fit the story.
Have baby repeat words after you read them.
Start to name things in the baby’s world. You may want to label items in baby’s room.
Read signs or words. You can also point out familiar letters that you see. This is referred to as reading environmental print.
Allow baby to correct your reading habits. For example read the book upside down and ask baby what is wrong.
Read predictable text books and books with silly sounds. Encourage baby to repeat, predict, or make silly sounds as you read.
Let baby interrupt your reading. Validate their interruptions by answering their questions or repeating what they are saying.

20. 2-3 years academic info card
Two--three year olds are starting to learn about themselves. They are just beginning to notice other people and are beginning to decide what they like and what they don’t. They should be telling you lots of information about who they think they are. This is the perfect stage to introduce nonfiction texts which teach them about their world. You should encourage their interests by supplementing the books with outside activities that help baby build schema. (Schema is an educational term which simply means all the knowledge and skills we carry with us. The more we experience, the more we build our schema. This is why field trips and experiential learning is so valuable.)
You may want to try these print awareness activities with your two--three year old.
Explain what the author does. Explain what the illustrator does. Show baby where their names are listed on the book.
Encourage baby to help tell the story even if he or she doesn’t follow the lines of the actual story.
Encourage baby to predict what will happen next. When baby answers make sure to ask, “Why do you think that?” Baby might be incorrect, but don’t correct them without a discussion. It is important to learn more about HOW they are thinking than WHAT they are thinking.
Practice rhyming with baby. This is a great car game.
Sing with baby. Singing is an ideal way to build memory and help baby learn how sounds work together.
Encourage baby to speak with gestures. When you are reading, model this behavior. If something exciting happens in the story, reflect that in your face, the tone of your voice, and your gestures.
Create activities where baby can use writing as pretend play. Give baby a grocery list pad, an old check book, a restaurant ticket book, or sketch book and a chunky writing utensil. Allow them to pretend to write just the way they see adults around them doing. (You may want to check out Baby’s Pretend Book as a fun play space.)
Highlight characters in the book. Connect their actions and emotions to your baby. “How is she like you?” “Remember when you did that?” “Can you remember a time when you felt like she is feeling?”
Write a shopping list and have baby check off the food as you put it in your cart. They can also start their counting as they count each item that goes in the basket.
Start baby’s daily journal. but instead of writing an entry. have them write a daily scribble. (Check out Baby’s Scribble Journal if you need a tool to help direct and document baby’s daily scribbles.)

21. 3-4 months academic info card
This is a great age for literacy. Babies understand who they are, and they understand who you are. They are learning words every day and doing a good job of retaining them. This is a great age to introduce a foreign language because like the little sponges they are, they will just soak it up. Babies experience as much print as you have time to provide. It is also a great age to start building text sets for baby. A text set is a group of different texts: nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and picture books that all focus on the same topic. This allows baby to learn about a topic through many different voices and genres. Babies should be encouraged to do lots of drawing and talking at this age so you can gauge their understanding of their world, their family, the concepts they are learning, and their own self-understanding.
Try these print awareness activities with your three--four year old.
Talk about the sequence of the story. After you read, ask baby what happened in the beginning, middle and how did the story end.
Talk about and have baby redraw the setting of the story.
Go into more depth about the parts of the book. Point out the cover, page numbers, title page, publisher, and end papers. Explain the purpose of each.
Have baby help you label things. Then play games with those labels. For example label things in the kitchen with baby. Have baby close her eyes while you mix up the labels. Then have her open her eyes and try to find out where you changed the labels. Finally let baby mix up the labels and help you fix them.
Make books with baby. Scribe his stories and encourage him to provide the illustrations. Use a variety of art products for these illustrations.
Cook together and have her help read the recipes.
Point out patterns in words.
Start to introduce high frequency words. (I provided flash cards in the Appendix.)