Kindergarten Fall History — Family, School, Community Helpers, and the First Sense of Past, Present, and Future
Lesson 3 20 min hist.gK.f.lesson_03

Yesterday, today, tomorrow — meeting the three time-cards

Skills targeted
Objectives
  • Students can place three picture cards in yesterday / today / tomorrow order.
  • Students can use 'yesterday,' 'today,' 'tomorrow' in a complete sentence about their own day.
Vocabulary
yesterdaytodaytomorrowbeforeafterfirstthenlast

Lesson plan

Warm-up

3 min

Calendar routine: 'Yesterday was ___, today is ___, tomorrow will be ___.' Whole class echoes.

Teacher moves
  • Point to each day on the wall calendar as the class says it
  • Mark today with a magnet
  • Establish this as the DAILY opener for the rest of the term
Media
MG-2 Chart Physical / non-image

Three-card chronology anchor chart 'YESTERDAY — TODAY — TOMORROW' with a calendar icon under each. Under YESTERDAY: a picture of a child going to bed. Under TODAY: a picture of a child at school. Under TOMORROW: a question-mark icon and the words 'will be'. Colors: yesterday in soft purple, today in green, tomorrow in light blue. Same chart pattern repeats for PAST / PRESENT / FUTURE on the back.

M-K-F-CHR-03-A Chart Physical / non-image

24x36-inch poster, three colored vertical bands. Band 1 YESTERDAY (soft purple, moon icon, child in pajamas going to bed). Band 2 TODAY (green, sun icon, child at school desk). Band 3 TOMORROW (light blue, sunrise icon, question mark with 'will be...'). Below each band: the sentence frame in 28pt sans-serif. Permanent wall display.

Direct instruction

6 min

Time has a shape: it moves forward. Yesterday came before today. Today is happening RIGHT NOW. Tomorrow will come after today. I'll show you three cards from MY day. Listen to me sort them.

Key examples
  • Notice the WORDS — went, brushed, will. The word tells me WHEN.
    model Yesterday I went to bed -> Today I brushed teeth and ate breakfast -> Tomorrow I will...
    prompt Cards: brushing teeth, eating breakfast, going to bed
Checks for understanding
  • Did you brush your teeth yesterday, today, or tomorrow?
  • If I'm eating breakfast right now, is it yesterday, today, or tomorrow?

Guided practice

7 min
Tasks
  • With a partner, sort 3 picture cards onto the Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow mat
    scaffold Mat is color-coded — yesterday purple, today green, tomorrow blue (matches MG-2)
  • Tell your partner the sequence as a story: 'Yesterday ___, today ___, tomorrow ___.'
    scaffold Sentence-strip on each table
Media
MG-2 Chart Physical / non-image

Three-card chronology anchor chart 'YESTERDAY — TODAY — TOMORROW' with a calendar icon under each. Under YESTERDAY: a picture of a child going to bed. Under TODAY: a picture of a child at school. Under TOMORROW: a question-mark icon and the words 'will be'. Colors: yesterday in soft purple, today in green, tomorrow in light blue. Same chart pattern repeats for PAST / PRESENT / FUTURE on the back.

M-K-F-CHR-03-B Manipulative Physical / non-image

12x18-inch laminated mat with three color-coded bands matching MG-2 (purple/green/blue). Velcro strips down the center of each band. Picture-card deck: 12 child-routine cards (bedtime, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, putting on shoes, walking to school, sitting at desk, playing at recess, eating lunch, art class, walking home, eating dinner, story time).

Formative assessment

1 min
Exit ticket
  • Tell me one thing you did YESTERDAY and one thing you will do TOMORROW.
scoring Both correctly tensed = mastery snapshot; one correct = practicing; neither = re-teach

Closure

Moves
  • Establish the daily 'Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow' opener for every class day going forward
  • Preview: tomorrow we'll talk about OUR names and when we were born

Homework

5 min
Tasks
  • Tonight at dinner, tell one person at your table: 'Yesterday I ___, today I ___, tomorrow I ___.'

Exercises in this lesson

hist.gK.f.chr.yesterday_today_tomorrow.ex_01
Place these three cards in YESTERDAY-TODAY-TOMORROW order: (a) brushing teeth this morning, (b) going to bed last night, (c) what you...
 sequence three cards · diff 1

Differentiation

Scaffolds
  • Mat with picture icons (moon for yesterday, sun for today, sunrise for tomorrow)
  • Verbal model from teacher first 3 times
  • Pre-printed sentence-frame strips
Extensions
  • Extend to a 5-card sequence with morning/afternoon/evening
  • Practice with a hypothetical: 'If today is Tuesday, yesterday was ___'
English Learners
  • Bilingual time-vocabulary card
  • Allow home-language equivalent with English echo
Ieps 504s
  • Allow pointing instead of sentence-production
  • Pre-built card sequences to choose from
  • Extended time

Teacher notes

Reversing yesterday/tomorrow is universal at K — do not flag it as a deficiency. The repair is the DAILY calendar routine; consistency over weeks does the work. The anchor chart needs to be on the wall and pointed to daily for the rest of the term.