Travis nixed the lessons that came home from school as suggestions today. So I was glad to be armed with a lesson plan all my own!

9-9.30: Math. Today’s page in his summer workbook was counting animals “hiding” in the desert. He counted and wrote these out, making a few of the numbers backwards… a good reminder that we haven’t written numbers in a few weeks!

We then extended the activity. For each animal, how many more were needed to a make 10? Counting this out in rainbow cereal made it silly and yummy.

The bonus on the page was to spot the letter 4 made out of sticks. So we then brought in sticks from outside, and made a whole bunch of numbers!

He was particularly proud of his 5. (Meanwhile, baby sister was busy with crayons).

9.30-10: Recess/snack. Riffing off the animal “hide and seek”, I challenged him to a real game of it for recess. It made him so happy to play together this way, a good reminder of the play he’s missing out on with friends at the playground.

10-10.30: ELA. I went light on this subject today. We played a round of fishing with sight word fish.

Then he sat down for Lexia but quickly grew frustrated with the day’s topic of story sequencing. He looked so relieved when I said he could stop, in favor of…

10.30-11: STEAM. Our encyclopedia page of the day was about the weather, specifically clouds and the rain cycle. It was good timing, since he completed his weather chart for all of April today (sun won!).

Then we made a demonstration of rain falling from saturated clouds, and old experiment I last showed Travis three years ago!

We also made cloud “paintings” (another repeat project) for the art in our STEAM, which got baby sister involved, too.

11-1: Lunch/free play. Magna-tiles have been one of my favorite toys during home school, because I can give him an engineering design challenge!

As mentioned, Travis nixed the suggestions from his teachers, including Music, Spanish, and a wellness presentation from the school counselor. It felt nice not to push him, and he rounded out the day with solo play, a game together (Charades), and reading a book from the summer list: Frog and Toad All Year. Meanwhile my toddler had some fine motor building with knobs and got to enjoy an online library storytime.

We had a day with…wait for it… no tantrums! Our journey through a K-to-1st Grade summer workbook continues to be a success.

9-10: ELA. The corresponding workbook page was similar to what his teacher terms “writers workshop”, a topic that normally prompts Travis’s anger. But seeing it in this novel format, he was an eager participant!

The assignment was to write abut what a desert woodpecker might do when it arrived in its cactus home. Travis used his imagination to say the woodpecker would remove the prickers! He proudly sounded out this sentence, then drew a picture. To make it a bit more scientific, I prompted him to think about how the bird’s nest might be in the cactus, too. Travis proudly added 3 stickers to his chart after these pages. We even found an old set of toy sticks and balls that helped us engineer a “nest”!

He finished with a proud stint on Lexia, working on sight words. (Baby sister was busy with colored cups).

10-10.30: Snack/free play.

10.30-11: STEAM. Today’s encyclopedia page was about the seasons. We watched the QR code video explaining the Earth’s tilt, then returned to an old art project: four seasons trees. The last time we did this, Travis wasn’t even 3 years old! This time, he drew his own tree trunks.

He didn’t want to get his fingers messy, so his job was to the find the right color tissue paper for each season’s tree leaves and crumple it, then I dipped it in glue and adhered to the tree. Snipped q-tip swabs made “snowflakes” on our winter branches. This craft nicely kept my toddler busy, too!

11-1: Lunch/free play. I’ve learned that giving him this chunk of time during little sister’s nap really helps his mood.

1-2: Outside time. We squeezed some math into our walk by making patterns from nature finds.

We also used the walk for a letter hunt!

2-3: Snack/Health: A homemade ranch dip with veggies was a great chance to talk about the colors and review the way a rainbow of veggies impacts our health. This led to good play with an old veggie farm set. That was the end of the school day, with some quiet solo puzzle play rounding things out.

Tonight’s storytime read was Don’t Throw It To Mo! with a nice, can-do message.

 

For the second time, I built Travis’s school lessons around a summer K-to-1st grade workbook instead of the school’s lesson plan. This method continues to engage him far more.

9-9.30: STEM. The corresponding workbook page was about following directions for a train maze (words like up, behind, left, right, etc.). Travis gamely followed with a pencil…and then it was time to engineer the real thing!

He set up a track with masking tape and then gave me instructions toward “treasure”. Things got a bit off track (pun intended!) when he started adding Magna-tile structures as traps along the way, but I guess it was good to encourage extra building and imagination!

As a bonus, the train play kept baby sister busy, too.

9.30-10: Weather. The corresponding workbook page was about packing for a trip to the hot desert, crossing off items that didn’t belong in the suitcase. We made this hands-on with a real suitcase after!

Travis selected shorts, baby swim diapers, summer sandals, and other hot weather gear. We even threw in a little subtraction: If I have five items and angry pirates take two, how many items are left? Get silly with your subtraction stories!

10-10.30 – Snack/free play. Chances are that suitcase full of items will spark a game or two. Meanwhile I kept baby sister busy with magazines.

10.30-11: Science. Our encyclopedia page of the day was about sunrise and sunset, as well as a solar eclipse. Travis followed the QR code to a video about a total eclipse. We then tried to recreate one at home! How could the tiny moon block out the enormous sun? With a Styrofoam ball on a pencil as our moon and a big beach ball as the sun, we explored the idea.

We took turns holding each item and walking down the hall away from each other to see how perspective (his big word for the day!) allowed the small ball to block the bigger one.

11-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: Outside. A nature walk was also a mini lesson on migration today.

“School” ended thereafter since Tuesday is his half day. We rounded things out with a board game and a little movement play, but he also had time to socialize with a friend online.

Our bedtime story for review was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, an old favorite, but it was interesting to read it in a new light. He answered questions after like who was the main character, and what problem needed to be solved.

Tantrums today? Only when I made the mistake of seeing if he wanted to do the actual lesson plan sent home from his teacher (rainbow writing, writers workshop).

These suggestions received lots of attitude, confirming my decision to “go rogue”. I thought he might enjoy the day’s social/emotional learning on the Power of Yet, but this too received only tantrums. Onwards!