The first thing to note about the day is how Travis needed me. Beyond all the school lessons I had planned, he wanted me in his games every time there was “recess” or “free play”, reminding me how sorely he misses interaction with other kids. It is hard to be there not just as a teacher and mom and chef, but also as playmate! Luckily, the constant need for my attention was woven through with lots of fun, and here’s what we did:

9-9.30: Letter F/Food. After completing a workbook page on letter F with a focus on food, we set up a restaurant!

Using an old play set, Travis thought it was just a riot to be my waiter, including menus to look at and guest checks to fill out.

This doubled as our math lesson for the day because everything had prices. If my check was $28, which bills did he need?

We also had an adorable waitress, when she wasn’t busy with math of her own.

9.30-10: Letter G/Games. After a workbook page on letter G, we switched over to a game of “golf”.

I had hoped for this to count as his P.E. for the day, but it was short-lived. He much preferred selecting a board game. Taking the time to sit and play a few rounds together really mattered to him.

10-10.30: Snack/free play.

10.30-11: ELA. Travis did about 20 minutes on Lexia. Little sister learned about emotions!

11-11.30: Science. Our encyclopedia page today was about magnets, prompting me to pull out an old magnet set. It turned out to be the hit of the day! Travis wanted to go through all of the experiment cards, plus just had exuberant fun with the set.

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Zoom. From now on his teacher will lead the class in circle time songs every Monday. It was really hard for Travis to sit still for this; he’s out of practice when it comes to following teacher rules. Something to work on…

2-2.30: Writing. Travis opted to do a few pages in his Star Wars book instead of writing an “Over the Weekend…” assignment.

2.30-3: Spanish. This week’s silly video was his teacher asking her niece what foods she likes and doesn’t like. Travis then went through the food from our earlier restaurant play and gave a big thumbs up “si me gusta!” or thumbs down “no me gusta!” to each one.

Lessons ended there, and it was time to make a batch of homemade lemonade. Too rainy for a walk, so we’ll need our exercise and sunshine tomorrow!

His bedtime story was the non-fiction Wild Ideas.

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!

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.

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!.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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).

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.

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!

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

We seem to have settled into a rhythm whereby Travis loves school in the morning, but protests anything I suggest after 1 p.m. or so. That’s why our schedule is so front-loaded, so feel free to space out activities more if you have kids who aren’t freshest first thing!

9-9.30: STEAM. Travis’s workbook page today involved reading the names of ocean animals and then coloring them in. We expanded on this ocean theme with porthole scratch art!

9.30-10: ELA. His workbook page involved sequencing a story about a coyote chasing a prairie dog.

He then invented what would happen next/last in the story with a drawing. I did try to entice him into writing this out, similar to a classroom Writers Workshop, but he only wanted to do the picture. That was fine, since he gamely sat for 20 minutes on Lexia. (Little sister was busy painting with trucks).

10-10.30: Snack/recess. (Li’l sis had a toddler sing-along class).

10.30-11: Social/emotional learning. We read an encyclopedia page about healthy bodies, which overlapped nicely with wellness questions sent home from the school counselor. The QR code took us to a link about yoga poses, so we followed up with yoga of our own… Jedi-style of course!

With Tuesday as his half day, we never got back into academics from here. The afternoon involved social time (Skype with a friend!), time outside (a leisurely neighborhood walk), and cooking!

His bedtime story was Leo the Late Bloomer.

Before I dive into Monday, a quick note on the weekend! I had planned to do a shadow activity on the previous Friday but the weather was too cloudy. So it made for a nice Saturday morning activity instead. After tracing a maze in his summer workbook (helping a camel follow shadows to a shady oasis), Travis and I talked about shadows and then headed outside for a shadow chalk experiment. Full details are here.

Meanwhile, it’s Monday and we had a successful morning, once more going off-book from teacher suggestions.

9-9.30: Math: The corresponding page in his summer workbook involved counting jewels from a box of hidden treasure. This was great because all the numbers were in the teens, and he was due for a review.

There were so many ways to extend the play from there! We did a repeat craft of old “acorn jewels” (although to make it quicker I filled them with hot glue instead of waiting for white glue to dry) and then hid them all around the house. We also pulled out an old treasure box to play with.

9.30-10: STEM. Floating fish made for a quick lesson on density and buoyancy.

10-10.30: Snack/recess. We played a game of tag out in the yard, which counted both as play and exercise, since I knew he would nix any gym suggestions from the P.E. teacher.

10.30-11: 20 minutes on Lexia, once again working on story sequencing.

11-11.30: Science. Our encyclopedia page of the day focused on rocks.

After a quick watch of the QR code video, I pulled out an old set of rocks and a magnifying glass for further exploration. Just as I hoped, the props from the day were now coming together in imaginative free play. You’ll notice the rocks and minerals are being guarded as treasure, as the pirate ship comes to plunder!

11.30-1.30: Lunch/free play.

1.30-2: Spanish. His teacher had recorded a wonderful read of Mouse Paint using the Spanish words for colors. Travis flipped the pages of our home copy to follow along.

I didn’t want to deal with the mess of paints, so we mixed food coloring to see how this worked in real time, naming all the colors in Spanish as we went.

2-2.30: Outside. We walked in a local park and picked flowers for Teacher Appreciation Week!

2.30-3: Art. Back home, we fit in some last-minute art in a project that was actually intended for baby sister, since he wasn’t interested in his class’s standard “Over the weekend…” writing and drawing.

His bedtime story was Ira Sleeps Over.

TGIF! We’re off book from the teacher’s suggestions again, and whoops, maybe had a few too many projects. But it kept Travis (and baby sister!) engaged and happy all day, so I can’t complain.

9-9.30: Letter A/Apples: His summer workbook page focused on the letter A, including coloring in apples marked with “A” and circling words with the short a sound (I asked him to give me a rhyme for each of these, too). Then we carried forward that theme of apples for some silly fun!

First up was erupting “apples” made from baking soda and vinegar. We then did a simplified version of an old apple experiment to test whether an apple browned faster in lemon juice or vinegar.

Late day results revealed that lemon juice had kept the apple white! As a bonus, all of these activities allowed baby sister to happily get involved (when she wasn’t busy with bottles and lids).

9.30-10: Social studies. The corresponding workbook page was about matching community helpers to their tools. I liked that it featured some unexpected ones like sanitation workers and lifeguards.

We made the play hands-on with a magnet doll dress-up set, and Travis proudly dressed it as a firefighter, police officer, and more.

10-10.30: Snack/recess. Travis wanted to join in some super messy toddler shaving cream fun, perfect for a rainy day pause.

10.30-11: ELA. Travis did about 20 min of Lexia story sequencing.

11-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: STEAM. The encyclopedia page today was about storms, expanding upon yesterday’s tamer lesson on the weather in general. Travis watched the QR code video about hurricanes, then we made a “tornado in a jar”, an old experiment that is really just watching glitter swirl through water.

The sun came out from the clouds just in time for us to make a rainbow, too, using a CD tilted in a tray of water, then reflected against a sheet of paper.

2-3: Little sister had an online music class, and Travis joined in, making this his music for the week, too!

3-3.30: Outside. I thought we would use a walk for his teacher’s suggested “jump and count” math game, but after a rain storm, it turned into art class instead! That meant we really didn’t do any math today, but there’s always next week…

Travis nixed the lessons that came home from school as suggestions today. So I was glad to be armed with a lesson plan all my own!

9-9.30: Math. Today’s page in his summer workbook was counting animals “hiding” in the desert. He counted and wrote these out, making a few of the numbers backwards… a good reminder that we haven’t written numbers in a few weeks!

We then extended the activity. For each animal, how many more were needed to a make 10? Counting this out in rainbow cereal made it silly and yummy.

The bonus on the page was to spot the letter 4 made out of sticks. So we then brought in sticks from outside, and made a whole bunch of numbers!

He was particularly proud of his 5. (Meanwhile, baby sister was busy with crayons).

9.30-10: Recess/snack. Riffing off the animal “hide and seek”, I challenged him to a real game of it for recess. It made him so happy to play together this way, a good reminder of the play he’s missing out on with friends at the playground.

10-10.30: ELA. I went light on this subject today. We played a round of fishing with sight word fish.

Then he sat down for Lexia but quickly grew frustrated with the day’s topic of story sequencing. He looked so relieved when I said he could stop, in favor of…

10.30-11: STEAM. Our encyclopedia page of the day was about the weather, specifically clouds and the rain cycle. It was good timing, since he completed his weather chart for all of April today (sun won!).

Then we made a demonstration of rain falling from saturated clouds, and old experiment I last showed Travis three years ago!

We also made cloud “paintings” (another repeat project) for the art in our STEAM, which got baby sister involved, too.

11-1: Lunch/free play. Magna-tiles have been one of my favorite toys during home school, because I can give him an engineering design challenge!

As mentioned, Travis nixed the suggestions from his teachers, including Music, Spanish, and a wellness presentation from the school counselor. It felt nice not to push him, and he rounded out the day with solo play, a game together (Charades), and reading a book from the summer list: Frog and Toad All Year. Meanwhile my toddler had some fine motor building with knobs and got to enjoy an online library storytime.

We had a day with…wait for it… no tantrums! Our journey through a K-to-1st Grade summer workbook continues to be a success.

9-10: ELA. The corresponding workbook page was similar to what his teacher terms “writers workshop”, a topic that normally prompts Travis’s anger. But seeing it in this novel format, he was an eager participant!

The assignment was to write abut what a desert woodpecker might do when it arrived in its cactus home. Travis used his imagination to say the woodpecker would remove the prickers! He proudly sounded out this sentence, then drew a picture. To make it a bit more scientific, I prompted him to think about how the bird’s nest might be in the cactus, too. Travis proudly added 3 stickers to his chart after these pages. We even found an old set of toy sticks and balls that helped us engineer a “nest”!

He finished with a proud stint on Lexia, working on sight words. (Baby sister was busy with colored cups).

10-10.30: Snack/free play.

10.30-11: STEAM. Today’s encyclopedia page was about the seasons. We watched the QR code video explaining the Earth’s tilt, then returned to an old art project: four seasons trees. The last time we did this, Travis wasn’t even 3 years old! This time, he drew his own tree trunks.

He didn’t want to get his fingers messy, so his job was to the find the right color tissue paper for each season’s tree leaves and crumple it, then I dipped it in glue and adhered to the tree. Snipped q-tip swabs made “snowflakes” on our winter branches. This craft nicely kept my toddler busy, too!

11-1: Lunch/free play. I’ve learned that giving him this chunk of time during little sister’s nap really helps his mood.

1-2: Outside time. We squeezed some math into our walk by making patterns from nature finds.

We also used the walk for a letter hunt!

2-3: Snack/Health: A homemade ranch dip with veggies was a great chance to talk about the colors and review the way a rainbow of veggies impacts our health. This led to good play with an old veggie farm set. That was the end of the school day, with some quiet solo puzzle play rounding things out.

Tonight’s storytime read was Don’t Throw It To Mo! with a nice, can-do message.

 

For the second time, I built Travis’s school lessons around a summer K-to-1st grade workbook instead of the school’s lesson plan. This method continues to engage him far more.

9-9.30: STEM. The corresponding workbook page was about following directions for a train maze (words like up, behind, left, right, etc.). Travis gamely followed with a pencil…and then it was time to engineer the real thing!

He set up a track with masking tape and then gave me instructions toward “treasure”. Things got a bit off track (pun intended!) when he started adding Magna-tile structures as traps along the way, but I guess it was good to encourage extra building and imagination!

As a bonus, the train play kept baby sister busy, too.

9.30-10: Weather. The corresponding workbook page was about packing for a trip to the hot desert, crossing off items that didn’t belong in the suitcase. We made this hands-on with a real suitcase after!

Travis selected shorts, baby swim diapers, summer sandals, and other hot weather gear. We even threw in a little subtraction: If I have five items and angry pirates take two, how many items are left? Get silly with your subtraction stories!

10-10.30 – Snack/free play. Chances are that suitcase full of items will spark a game or two. Meanwhile I kept baby sister busy with magazines.

10.30-11: Science. Our encyclopedia page of the day was about sunrise and sunset, as well as a solar eclipse. Travis followed the QR code to a video about a total eclipse. We then tried to recreate one at home! How could the tiny moon block out the enormous sun? With a Styrofoam ball on a pencil as our moon and a big beach ball as the sun, we explored the idea.

We took turns holding each item and walking down the hall away from each other to see how perspective (his big word for the day!) allowed the small ball to block the bigger one.

11-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: Outside. A nature walk was also a mini lesson on migration today.

“School” ended thereafter since Tuesday is his half day. We rounded things out with a board game and a little movement play, but he also had time to socialize with a friend online.

Our bedtime story for review was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, an old favorite, but it was interesting to read it in a new light. He answered questions after like who was the main character, and what problem needed to be solved.

Tantrums today? Only when I made the mistake of seeing if he wanted to do the actual lesson plan sent home from his teacher (rainbow writing, writers workshop).

These suggestions received lots of attitude, confirming my decision to “go rogue”. I thought he might enjoy the day’s social/emotional learning on the Power of Yet, but this too received only tantrums. Onwards!