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I Hear Thunder

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I Hear Thunder (1)

We’ve had crazy weather lately, including unseasonable May snow today. It had me thinking about weather songs to sing with Veronika, and this one has always been a favorite.

First, I simply sang the words for Veronika:

I hear thunder. I hear thunder.

Hear it roar. Hear it roar.

Pitter patter raindrops,

Pitter patter raindrops.

I’m all wet. I’m all wet.

The second time through, we added actions. You can just use your body at first: stomp feet on the floor for thunder, flutter your fingers through the air for rain, and give a big shiver at the end.

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The shiver in particular made Veronika laugh every time!

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Then we added props. Drums made the perfect thunder of course.

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And shaky instruments like maracas and rain sticks were great for raindrops.

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Veronika chimed in (literally!) on the triangle.

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This all made for fun musical play on a windy cold morning.

Dress-Up Box

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Dress Up Box (7)

Veronika has played dress-up with tot-sized clothes in the past, but sometimes it’s even more fun just to raid mommy’s closet!

Today, I pulled out items that were either old or that I simply didn’t mind Veronika playing with, and we set everything out on the ground for easy access.

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In no time, she was trying on old bathrobes and sports jerseys (which looked more like adorable dresses on her!).

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Add accessories like hats, purses, and shoes, and the mixing and matching can begin!

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For added fun, we decided our dress-up trunk (really just an old box) needed some sprucing up.

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Big brother joined in to help paint the sides of the box in multiple colors. This got pretty messy pretty quickly, but there’s no time like a chilly May morning to make a mess indoors!

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We left the pile of clothes out pretty much all day, and every time she went over to it, Veronika selected something new.

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Do your kids have a favorite dress-up item? Please share in the comments!

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Kindergarten Home School Week 8: Friday

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Home School 39 d

There was very little schoolwork today because it was… National Field Day! We did start out with a few pages in Travis’s workbook, the first of which involved drawing a map of his neighborhood. Which meant instead of starting with circle time, we headed outside on a walk!

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8-9: Geography. It was a crisp spring morning and Travis had so much fun walking and discussing our neighborhood that we walked for a full hour! When we returned, he was ready to draw his map on the corresponding workbook page.

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9-9.30: ELA. Travis worked quickly on a workbook page about letter E and did about 10 minutes on Lexia, and that ended the academics for the day. (Baby sister kept busy with glue!)

9.30-10: Snack.

10-11: Field Day. Let the games begin! Travis and I picked 4 of the 20 suggested activities, and tackled the following:

Backboard Bank It: Roll up pairs of socks into balls, and place a laundry basket against a wall. Aim the socks at the basket, making sure they hit the “backboard” before landing. See how many you can get in 1 minute!.

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Clothes Relay: Start at one cone and run to a second cone where an over-sized shirt is waiting. Put on the shirt and run back to the first cone to put on a hat. You can also include a stop at a cone with over-sized shorts, but Travis didn’t want to wear those. Time yourself!

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Flip Your Lid: Start with a Tupperware lid lying right-side up on a table. Use a spatula to flip the lid, and count the number of times it lands upside down in 1 minute.

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Tennis Shoe Tower: Pile a whole bunch of sneakers (or any shoes!) in the center of a room. Divide into teams (Mommy versus Travis!). Players run to take one shoe from the pile and run it back to their home space. Continue returning for another shoe and adding to your tower, until all the shoes have been used. Player with the most shoes wins!

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That was the end of our Field Day. The afternoon included social time with a friend online and a music class for baby sister, and I confess there was some extra screen time thrown in since it was a bit of a lazy TGIF. Story time included a read of Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Improv Games, 3 Ways

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Improv Games (2)

Travis and Veronika were playing dress-up this afternoon and I seized on the opportunity to introduce a few improv games. It was a reminder that Travis is missing out on such play, now that his acting class is cancelled for the season, and it felt good to have silly fun!

First, we warmed up with a round of “Zip Zap Zop”. Point your hands at another person (ideally you’ll want three or more people, although Travis and I made do just the two of us) and slide them against each other, saying “Zip!” The next person says “Zap!” and then on to a third person (or back to the original first), who says “Zop!” Repeat and get faster and faster until everyone is hopelessly giggling.

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You’re warmed up!

Next we played “Yes, Let’s!” I demonstrated for Travis how to say, “Hey everyone, let’s all…” after which you choose an action. First we rode on broomsticks! Travis predictably had us marching like Darth Vader.  We also hopped like frogs, at which point baby sister wanted to join in.

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For the final game, we played “World’s Worst”, i.e. a firefighter who decided to chill out instead of fighting a fire.

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We were world’s worst construction workers dropping things or world’s worst weight lifter, too weak to lift a beach ball. Travis really got into these!

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It was great to have pure silly fun together.

Color Match

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Color Match (7)

Veronika is showing great interest in colors now. She knows all the words of the rainbow, but adorably gets them all wrong. “Yellow!” she’ll say with confidence, holding a blue crayon. “Purple!” she calls out, to just about anything. So today we played this little game to help associate each color with the correct word.

I set out pairs of construction paper and crayons, sticking with only four colors so as not to overwhelm her. We used: blue, red, yellow, and green.

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For each color, I showed her the crayon and said (for example), “Yellow. Can you find me the yellow paper?” I then directed her to the right sheet so she could draw yellow on yellow.

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Repeat with the remaining colors, or reverse it: “Here is blue paper. Can you find me the blue crayon?”

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After she’d scribbled for a while, I wrote the name of each color on the paper, using black crayon.

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Don’t expect your toddler to get this “right” on the first try, of course, as that’s not the point. These early color games are all about introducing the concept.

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And of course she loved just scribbling.

Glue Play

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Glue Play (2)

Your toddler is going to be a using a lot of glue in the next few years, since it’s part of just about every nursery school and preschool project. But how often is glue itself the object of play? The point of this activity was simply for Veronika to explore glue… and yes, you can probably count on it to be messy.

I lined the bottom of a shallow tray with two pieces of construction paper just to contain some of that mess, and then showed her how to squeeze a glue bottle.

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Squeezing glue bottles is actually great for muscle development in the hands, and she was so proud when she could do this all by herself. “Dot dot dot!” she said.

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Then we opened up the nozzle and really let the glue pour out, which she found fascinating.

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From here, she wanted to touch it, and I used the word “sticky” as she played. She was not at all afraid to get hands-on with the stuff.

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Thinking to extend the play, I added a few plastic spoons and little pom poms she could sprinkle into the glue.

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But really she was mostly interested in the glue itself! Then it was time for a hand wipe and clean up.

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Kindergarten Home School Week 8: Thursday

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Home School 38 c

Beach-themed fun made for a different feel to our home school day, and I could tell Travis loved the shake-up! It felt like playing with learning thrown in, rather than learning with play thrown in. Hopefully we can keep this up!

9-9.30: Math. His workbook page involved finding and coloring shapes on a beach picture (hence the day’s theme). I turned this into reality by dressing both kids in bathing suits, putting down beach towels and a few toys, and having Travis tackle the page right in our living room “beach”! The change in setting alone made him so happy.

9.30-10: Art. A flapjack octopus was a nice craft extension to the beach theme. (Little sister kept busy, meanwhile, at the nearby scribble table)!

10-10.30: ELA. We’re starting a Star Wars-themed 1st grade writing book, so I had Travis work on handwriting for about 10 minutes. Star Wars pictures kept things lighthearted! Then it was 15 minutes on Lexia. Again, he got to do this right on our “beach”. (Little sister was busy with stained glass).

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10.30-11: Snack/free play.

11-11.30: Science. His encyclopedia page was about friction. The topic seemed dry to Travis at first, including the QR video, but then I showed him how we could make a cold penny turn hot! Place a penny on a pad of paper, and pin it down with one index finger. Rub back and forth 50 times (again, counting practice!). By the end, the penny is quite warm to the touch.

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11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play. During Veronika’s nap, I also taught Travis how to play the card game War. Beyond the thrill of this game (it brought back so many memories!), War teaches kids to quickly recognize less than and greater than.

1.30-2: Spanish. His teacher had recorded a game involving colored cups, which we then acted out. The kids also danced to the Mexican Hat Song!

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2-3: Letter D/Dump trucks. I had Travis do one final workbook page, devoted to the letter D, and we took the play outside toy dump trucks in a local sand lot. The kids played for an hour in beautiful sunshine! We returned home full of laughter.

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His bedtime book tonight was the nonfiction Me on the Map, which made for a good discussion as he gave it a “review” after.

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Stained Glass Window

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Stained Glass Window (8)

Any project that involves kid + sunlight + reflective colors somehow makes me so happy. Hence why I returned to the idea of toddler “stained glass” today, even though I’ve done similar projects in the past.

For this particular version, I cut strips of thin cardboard from an old cereal bo and taped them into a square on the patio door as a “window” frame. I then cut squares of cellophane in various colors and simply showed Veronika how we could tape them one at a time into the frame.

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The idea was to let her dictate where each piece should go, although I then had to be the one to tape it.

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After starting in this way, I decided to just cover the space inside our frame with tape pieces so she could start to stick the cellophane on herself.

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(Note: For this reason, I think it’s better to use contact paper as the background, instead of tape).

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Of course, being a toddler, Veronika was also interested in the materials themselves.

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She loved crumpling up the cellophane and handing it to me (“Trash!” she said), as well as the way it stuck to her feet.

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Once the sun hit our “window” at just the right angle, we had beautiful colors projected onto our floor.

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Like I said, I’m a sucker for any combination of beautiful reflected colors and an adorable toddler face.

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Scribble Table

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Scribble Table (2)

Veronika wants to scribble anywhere and everywhere these day, so today I made it easy for her – not to mention extra fun! – by setting up a low “scribble table”.

All you need for this activity is a table that’s about waist-high on your child, such as a coffee table or craft table. Cover it with long sheets of craft paper, taping securely and making sure that no tabletop shows through.

Add jumbo crayons and you’re ready to go!

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Veronika was thrilled to learn she could scribble on a normally-taboo surface. She made lots of, well, scribbles of course!

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She even experimented with holding multiple crayons at once.

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I added a few simple drawings and depictions for her, but mostly I just left the craft paper blank as her canvas to fill in throughout the day.

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Big brother did later realize he could use this as a backdrop for Lego games, making scenes of pirate ships and sea monsters. So we got multiple uses out of it!

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One note of caution: You may want to avoid this game with a toddler who is too young to follow directions, otherwise they might start to think any table or piece of furniture is fair game for scribbling.

Kindergarten Home School Week 8: Wednesday

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Home School 37 f

Happy hump day! We were busy and tantrum free except for one fit about pants (yes, pants). Here’s how the day went:

9-9.30: Letters B & C. We started with two workbook pages that focused on B and C. There were all sorts of activities crammed into these two pages: coloring pictures that started with the correct letter; drawing picture to go with a poem about a bee; practicing lowercase letters; completing rhyming words, etc. Whew! It was well worth the two stickers Travis could put up on his chart. (Good thing little sister was busy with texture swatches).

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9.30-10: Art. We extended the beach and crab theme with ocean watercolor scenes.

10-10.30: Math. This was simultaneously math and snack, because today we played “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar”. After watching a cartoon clip of the song, we sat in the playroom with a real jar of cookies. Travis liked chanting the rhythm, and then of course the kids’ hands were diving in for a snack.

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I challenged him to make up cookie subtraction stories as he munched. If we started with 14 cookies and the kids had eaten 4, how many were left? This was also good practice for writing out an equation by hand.

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10.30-11: Free play. (This allowed me to sit through an online storytime with baby sister).

11-11.30: Social studies. His encyclopedia page was about doctors and the work they do, including a QR link to a page with further info. We have a doll that zips open to reveal lungs, kidneys, a heart, a liver, etc. all in the proper place. I made Travis (and Veronika!) little doctor hats to wear to extend the hands-on play.

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11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Library. This would have been his special today. He was not terribly interested in the librarian’s online read of Ugly Vegetable Soup, though I tried to make it hands-on with a bowl and toy veggies!

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2-2.30: Outside. A walk downtown was a chance to search for signs of community helpers.

That was it for his school day, since I had a baby gym class with Veronika to attend. Luckily Travis kept busy building Legos! A Whistle for Willie as a bedtime story capped off the day.