Life threw us a curve ball today with baby sister under the weather. Honestly I’m amazed any school work got done with Travis at all, but we squeezed in a little.

9-9.15: Social Studies. After a workbook page about different stores in a neighborhood, I invited Travis to set up the store of his choosing. He opted for a toy store, and loved setting up baby sister’s toys to “sell”.

9.15-9.30: Math. He did one math workbook page that skip-counted Ewoks, so then of course we needed to play skip-count hopscotch. (Simply make a hopscotch board where each jump is worth 2 points).

9.30-10: Snack/free play.

10-10.15: Science. After an encyclopedia page and QR link about dinosaurs, we repeated an old favorite activity: visualizing how big dinosaurs really were with masking tape. Because we played indoors, we had to cap ourselves at the 30 foot stegosaurus.

10.15-11: ELA. Following his teacher’s recommendation, we listened to two versions of the Three Little Pigs: one from the pigs’ point of view and the second from the wolf’s!

Travis did a compare and contrast (what was the same, what was different). We then sequenced the story and made little puppets to act it out.

For a little STEM extension, the idea was to build the house of bricks from Legos….though you may notice he veered off into Star Wars direction. Finally, Travis also did about 10 minutes on Lexia.

That was it for the day; Travis enjoyed a movie, which was well-earned. He also had the special treat of an online session with a local high school student through a new town initiative. This was fantastic, and we were so thankful to our new buddy!

I actually had to rein Travis in today! He was eager to forge ahead on his 1st grade writing and math books that arrived, but I really intended to use these in the late summer and early fall on the off-chance school is still not in session (sob!). Once I brought him back to age-appropriate Kindergarten materials, we had a productive day.

9-9.30: ELA. His summer workbook page focused on letter I. To extend beyond the handwriting, I had him name a rhyming word for each “i” word on the page. He also did 20 minutes on Lexia. Yes, in the living room, in a “ball pit”.

9.30-10: Math. The summer workbook page featured adding 10 soccer balls + X more balls, for a number in the teens. We knew how to make this hands-on!

First we made up math problems with our bag of ball pit balls, and then of course just enjoyed silly play with the balls. Then…

10-10.30: Recess. We extended the soccer theme with real soccer outside. A laundry basket made a handy goal.

10.30-11: Science. We read Travis’s encyclopedia pages about birds, and watched three QR video links in conjunction. I made things hands-on with a simplified version of an old bird beak experiment. Which bird beak was meant for which food if I gave him: tweezers, a pipette, and a slotted spoon. (Answers: the tweezers are for a sparrow to eat seeds, a hummingbird uses the “pipette” to drink up flower nectar, and a pelican is the slotted spoon for scooping up fish.

11-11.30: Spanish. This week’s video was about counting fruit. Travis was disappointed it wasn’t very silly and lost interest quickly.

11.30-12 – Lunch/free play.

12 – Friendship Day. There was a special Zoom “assembly” on the theme, an annual event at his school. Travis lost interest quickly, which made me sad, although I understand that it was hard to feel connected via computer.

1-2: Outside. We headed to the park, both for play and a shape hunt.

2-2.30: Specials. Travis had to record his voice for the Music teacher. We capped our day off by doing a kind deed: drawing pictures to mail to our cousins!

Tonight’s bedtime story was the fantastically illustrated What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?

It was such a busy Wednesday that we never even got around to daily routines like the Lexia ELA platform online. But innovative ideas prompted by Travis’s K-to-1st summer workbook kept things fun and tantrum-free.

9-9.30: Math. Travis’ workbook page involved coloring in shapes (both flat like a square and 3-D like a cone), on an ice cream truck image. We made it hands-on with an ice cream playset the kids have. Travis even turned baby sister’s food truck into his ice cream truck! I had hoped to use the opportunity for more math (like addition or subtraction problems), but he just wanted to play. Not worth a battle…

9.30-10: STEAM. After an encyclopedia page on bugs (creepy-crawlies!), we watched the QR video and then made a firefly craft. We also pulled out an old bug set with a magnifying glass for further exploration.

10-10.30: Snack/recess. Travis got involved with some of little sister’s tube play.

10.30-11: ELA. Travis loved writing in his Star Wars book, thrilled that he was forming complete sentences. There was also a quick page on letter H in the summer workbook.

11-1: Lunch/free play.

1-1.30: Outside: In honor of National Frog Jumping Day (yes that’s a thing!) we played “jump like a frog” hopscotch.

Veronika learned to ribbit and hop, too!

1.30-2: Class Zoom! The class went around sharing what they are thankful for, and Travis thanked the bees and pollination.

2-2.30: Counting. We finished the day with a return to math because his 1st Grade Star Wars math workbook arrived and he was so excited. (I hadn’t even intended to open this up until summer!) After filling in numbers up to 120, we played “Light Saber Interrupted Counting”. One person started to count, but if tagged by the opponent’s light saber, the tagger took over. This was a great way to trick him into counting so high, purely for fun!

After that we traded in lessons for cooking! His bedtime story was a video of his teacher reading Peter’s Chair.