I’m hitting a nice stride now where I touch on the concepts that Travis’s teacher sends each day, but we learn them in our own way. This method keeps Travis’s skills up to state standards and keeps him focused. Please share how your home school journey is going in the comments!

9-9.30: Math. After a quick Star Wars workbook page introducing the notion of tens place and ones place, Travis was left with a string of numbers all in the teens. We ordered these from least to greatest on a sheet sent home from the teacher. We followed it up with a game of War which is fantastic for teaching kids to recognize the greater or lesser number quickly.

9.30-10: STEM. After reading about boats in his encyclopedia and watching a QR video, Travis tested how he could make play dough float. If he shaped it into a ball, it sank!

But once we hollowed it out like a real boat, it floated (though you can see that it was far from water-tight). Little sister got in some boat play, too!

10-10.30: ELA. His workbook pages focused on J and K, and he did 20 minutes on Lexia.

To add to the J lesson, he traced his name in jelly, then got in some quick exercise for each J verb (jump, jog etc.). Then we headed outside with a kite for…

10.30-11: Recess/snack. He tried hard to get that kite up in the air!

11-11.30: Library. His teacher read a yoga book and sent videos of sample poses. Travis wasn’t interested, but we did dot-color a spring picture together as we watched.

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Zoom. Travis is getting the hang of sitting still for this half hour with his teacher and classmates, and even shared that he’s thankful for his sister.

2-3: Outside. The best part of the day was a trip to a local farm for strawberries, both to celebrate National Pick Strawberries Day and as a nice follow-up to yesterday’s lesson on living and nonliving resources.

His bedtime story was Separate is Never Equal.

The word of the day, my friends, is beleaguered. If I wasn’t wrangling a reluctant Travis into doing his lessons, I was calming toddler tantrums (the classic kind, like throwing all the crayons because she wanted a marker instead). But we made it through and carved out pockets of fun! Here’s how:

9-9.15: Social Studies. Travis did a quick workbook page on living versus nonliving resources, drawing examples of each on a farm. I didn’t extend the play, but was proud to see him think carefully before drawing.

9.15-9.30: STEAM. After reading about submarines in his encyclopedia, we made one! It was so complicated it merited its own blog post.

9.30-10: ELA. Travis preferred to practice handwriting in his Star Wars workbook instead of a school assignment about persuasive writing and ice cream. I did have him talk me through how he would persuade someone that lemon ice cream is the best flavor, and hit on the main points of persuasive writing (tell your opinion, tell a story, etc.). He finished with 10 minutes on Lexia.

10-10.30: Snack/recess.

10.30-11: Math. After a page skip-counting droids by 10 and filling out a chart that counted by 10s to 100 we extended the play by making droids out of play dough.

11-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: Social/emotional learning. Travis watched a read-aloud of Kindness is Cooler, Mrs. Ruler and then we headed off on a walk to leave kind notes on a bench! Here Travis has spelled out “Be brave.”

Tuesday is his short day, so we ended there.

His story tonight was The Napping House, a silly favorite.

 

Week Ten? I had to do a double-take typing in that title, but I’m happy to report that things feel… good. We’ve settled into a nice rhythm and I dare say we’re all getting the hang of it. There even was a magical moment for about 5 minutes today, with both kids learning from screens, when nobody needed me for (gasp!) just a moment.

9-9.30: STEM. After a summer workbook page about drawing and labeling the parts of a plant, Travis and I turned it into reality; a ripe avocado was all we needed. Pit the avocado, then pierce it with three toothpicks (they’ll poke in more easily than you think).

Fill a glass jar with water nearly to the top. Position the pit, broad side down, so it just touches the water, then place on a sunny windowsill and wait! We hope to see the roots growing within a couple of weeks. (Meanwhile, little sister was planting seeds of her own!).

9.30-10: Math. Travis did workbook pages counting the number of animals (or Star Wars creatures!) in a group. This involved topics like greater than/less than, as well as skip counting by 5’s. Then we made a “Star Wars space train”. We pretended our train was arriving at a new planet and made up a math problems for each stop. “Two people got off, so 20 minus 18 equals…”) and so on. Needless to say, then it was time for…

10-10.30: Recess/snack. Travis needed time to play with all those Star Wars toys (and little sister’s birds!).

10.30-11: ELA. He did a page in his writing workbook, then drew a picture to go with it using 5 colors for his age, 5!

11-11.30: I tried to interest Travis in his Spanish teacher’s video about big and small (grande and pequeno). But after pointing out to me drums that were big and small, Travis told me the kids were having “brother/sister time” and they were having so much fun I let them be and made muffins!

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Zoom. The time with his class did not go well today. Travis was rudely making faces the entire time. I’m reminded that our kids learn a lot more than “learning” in a classroom, and there will be a bumpy ride getting back into a routine in 1st grade.

2-3: Outside. This portion of the day, on the other hand, was glorious. Nixing any lesson plans, I just watched the kids run around in a meadow filled with butterflies and dandelions.

3-3.30: P.E. To get moving for his Monday special, we danced to a favorite song (the Imperial March of course) and then Travis did Star Wars-themed yoga.

We finished with a bedtime read of This is Me: A Story of Who We Are & Where We Came From.

See you tomorrow!