Kindergarten Home School Week 14: Wednesday

June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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It’s the second-to-last day of school! With an emphasis on tying up loose ends and having fun, here’s what we tackled today:

9-9.30: ELA. Travis filled out a page in his workbook with word tic-tac-toe, along with a page about punctuation marks like question marks and exclamation points. We finished with a real game of tic-tac-toe!

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9.30-10: Math. Travis rocked his math lesson today, a workbook page counting penguins and then filling in ice cubes with numbers up to 100.

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I surprised him with a break-the-ice board game (going along with the theme) after, which he absolutely adored.

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10-10.30: Snack/recess. Little sister got artsy with mud while Travis played.

10.30-11: STEM. Travis watched a read-aloud of Bartholomew and the Ooblek before we made it hands-on with the classic experiment of making ooblek. We mixed together 1 cup water and 2 cups cornstarch for some of our best homemade ooblek to date.

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Of course it needed to be green. Travis was unafraid to get his hands in, then filled out a worksheet describing it with all his senses.

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11-11.30: Craft. We had fun with pool noodles!

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Class Zoom. For the final online session with his class, his teacher shared a slideshow of the year. What memories!

For evening storytime, we not only watched his teacher’s final read-aloud online (Only One You), but also took time to make shadow puppets.

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Travis filled out a worksheet page drawing animals on provided shadow puppet templates before we tried our hand (ha!) at making our own. Travis was particularly proud of his spider!

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Pool Noodle Marshmallow Poppers

June 17, 2020June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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Travis’s latest issue of Highlights magazine featured tons of ways to craft with pool noodles. With summer mere days away, we decided to test out the first of the lot: a marshmallow launcher! This is similar to a project we made in the past using a cup, but the pool noodle makes a much sturdier version.

To start, cut 3-inch pieces of pool noodle, one for each popper.

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Tie a knot in a balloon, then cut off the top end of the balloon. Stretch over one end of a pool noodle piece.

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Secure with duct tape, and add other strips of tape for fun pops of color, if desired. Now fill the cavity of the pool noodle with mini marshmallow (we love Dandies of course!). Pull down on the knot of the balloon and… launch!

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In addition to great fun trying to catch the marshmallows and eat them, the poppers led to lots of silly marshmallow wars. Travis loved being pelted with them, or pelting me with them, or hiding around the corner waiting to ambush each other.

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You might just find yourself acting like a kid right alongside your kid! This craft is sure to add a sweet note to any summer day.

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Mud Painting

June 17, 2020Leave a comment

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Instead of getting your patio or driveway messy with paint that needs to be washed off, stick with nature and paint with… mud instead!

The first thing you’ll need to do for this project is make the mud, which in and of itself was a delight for Veronika. She took my hand and toddled over to the trees with me to scoop some dirt into a bucket.

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Once back on the patio, we added water to the bucket and stirred with a craft stick until the mixture was very muddy. If it gets too thin and watery, just add a little more dirt.

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Then I provided Veronika with paintbrushes and thick paper, treating the mud like it was real paint.

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At first, stirring the mixture in the bucket was such a joy that she focused on that. But then I showed her how to move her paintbrush over the paper, and soon she was happily swirling and dotting with her brown “paint”.

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She eventually discovered she could use the craft sticks to scoop out thicker globs of mud from the bottom of the bucket and smear onto the canvas.

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In fact when I moved one sheet of “painted” paper aside to dry in the sun, she started carrying blobs of dirt over to it to carefully balanced on her craft stick. Clearly the artist wasn’t done!

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This kept her so busy in the sunshine for quite a while. Perfectly dirty and messy fun!

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Bathtub Fingerpainting

June 17, 2020June 18, 2020Leave a comment

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If your toddler loves to fingerpaint but you worry about the mess, here’s the perfect solution: Get messy exactly where you’re going to clean off afterwards!

To wit, I stripped Veronika down to her diaper and sat her in a dry bathtub, then squirted generous amounts of fingerpaint on the tub walls. I used blue, yellow and green, which meant we had the possibility of playing with all three separately, or watching the blue and yellow combine into a new green.

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Veronika was hesitant at first, but the colors soon proved irresistible. Once her hands were messy, she began making big smears on the walls. She loved making a big mess with it…

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