Day: May 26, 2020

Kindergarten Home School Week 11: Tuesday

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We took yesterday off for Memorial Day after just doing a workbook page on letter M (for memorial of course!) but jumped back into home schooling today.

9-9.30: Letter N/O. To start the morning on a fun note, Travis made a nest for an owl from which he could tackle these two letter pages. We capped off ELA with about 15 minutes on Lexia.

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9.30-10: Social studies. Travis completed a maze to help a child get ready for school in the morning. He then wanted to act out all the steps with dolls! This was a great way to include baby sister, too.

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10-10.30: Snack/recess.

10.30-11: Math. We acted out a workbook page about greater than and less than… with Star Wars battles, of course. Travis had to solve each equation (i.e. 4 is less than 5) then he acted out a fight between good versus evil before we moved on to the next. This was a great way to keep him engaged.

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11-11.30: Cooking. We gave a whole new meaning to the term “submarine sandwich“!

11.30-12: Science. Our ants arrived, and Travis quite literally couldn’t stop watching. As an extension, he wrote a sentence about why ants make great pets and drew a picture to go with it.

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12-1 – Lunch/free play.

1-2: Outside. A trip to a local arboretum was the perfect dose of “recess” and vitamin D.

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2-2.30: Social/emotional learning. After watching a read-aloud of the book One, by Kathryn Otoshi, Travis made a recording for his teacher about his take-away from the book.

2.30-3: Cooperative play. We ended the day with a game. His teacher had recommended sight word bingo. We used our Zingo game, and every time a player got a match, he or she had to select a sight word fish to place on the board. This was an easy way to sneak in sight words without making him feel bored about rote learning.

Home School 55 kSee you tomorrow!

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Sky’s the Limit

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Skys the Limit (1)

Today, I took some time with Veronika just to pause and look at…the sky! Yup, that’s it. With all the busy activities we do, sometimes we forget to stop and just look.

So we headed to the park and lay down on a blanket. Now she had a perfect view… up!

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We talked about everything we could see up. The leaves on the branches of the trees, the birds and butterflies going by, the puffy clouds. And of course the blue sky.

If it’s a bit bright as you head out for this activity, don’t forget the sunglasses!

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We even spotted an airplane!

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I made up song verses for all the things she could see, choosing a favorite tune (Wheels on the Bus), but instead we sang: “The birds in the sky go tweet tweet tweet” etc. This brought a big smile to her face.

 

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She was proud making the connection between the butterflies fluttering past and the one on her water bottle!

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Mostly, I tried to just lie still, and enjoy the peaceful moment. She seemed to appreciate the pause, too.

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Lettuce Tear

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Lettuce Tear (4)

Veronika got to help make lunch today! Okay, not exactly, but here’s a fantastic way to include a toddler while the rest of the family is cooking.

I gave Veronika the extra lettuce from a head we were using, and she didn’t need any instruction about what to do: tear it of course! I provided her with a big plastic bowl, and soon she had a little salad.

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Your toddler is the perfect member of the family to patiently tear salad pieces, happily keeping busy with a task that might feel mundane to bigger kids.

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In fact there was something beautiful in her concentration, as she worked.

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I also gave her a little jar of dressing to shake shake shake, part instrument and part sensory bottle.

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Between shaking and tearing, she kept busy with this for a full half hour. What a lovely project for a late spring afternoon.

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Fine Motor Pom Pom Sorting

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Fine Motor Pom Pom (4)

There are so many ways that toddlers can play with pom poms, and no doubt Veronika and I will play more complicated games with them down the line. But today we kept it as simple as can be: pom poms, a muffin tin, her fingers, and that was it!

Since she’s learning her colors, my initial idea was to sort the pom poms by color and see if she could help with the process…

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…but Veronika was so eager to get her hands into the mix that my color piles never stayed that way for long!

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She loved the feel of scooping them up from one muffin cup to the other, and seemed very proud of her transferring skills! I wasn’t about to deny her the fun.

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In fact I think she found it funny that I kept trying to arrange the pom poms one way, and she kept messing them about. She said the name of each color pom pom as she picked it up, so it turned into color learning in a different way.

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Picking up pom poms one by one is of course also great for fine motor development.

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She started to move them more deliberately in this way after she tired of big handfuls.

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Eventually  I also handed her a pair of toddler tweezers. She was so proud to move the bigger pom poms from one compartment to another, using this tool.

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This is one of those great ways to keep a toddler busy solo without too many materials or much prep work.

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Submarine Sandwich

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Submarine Sandwich (3)

After recently learning about submarines, Travis has a whole new appreciation for why we call it a “submarine” sandwich now. We put together this fun lunch to play up the name.

To start, slice a long bread roll in half. Spread with your child’s filling of choice. We made one version with hummus and one with non-dairy cream cheese!

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Add other toppings (Travis chose lettuce and tomato) then top with the other half of the bun.

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We added a strip of red bell pepper as the “periscope” sticking out from the top, then used additional hummus or cream cheese as “glue” to stick on cucumber circles for “portholes”.

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Of course the lunch inspired some imaginative play; Travis loved pretending he was a giant squid attacking the boat as he ate, of course!

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