It was a busy one! And honestly, I’m finding that the busier a home school day is, the better, in that it keeps us all from going stir-crazy. Please note that when I delineate the day by hours, we’re not spending a full hour on each subject. Rather, it’s generally closer to 20 minutes per topic; then Travis fits in some free play, or zones out for a bit, and I can do a few chores around the house or change a diaper or whatever it is that needs doing in life before we move on to the next block of time. I’ve found it helpful to think of the day in these hour chunks, though, and I hope it’s helpful to other novice Covid-19 home school parents, too!

9-10: ELA. We started out with a sight-word poem, and Travis was so proud circling or underlining all his sight words. Then we acted it out, lots of jumping and clapping and smiles!

Next up was a lesson on syllables: We clapped out words and circled the correct number of syllables for each.

To make it interactive, play syllable hopscotch! Make a board on your floor with masking tape (or outside with chalk if it’s sunny), up to 4 levels high.

Draw cards from a pile and jump the proper number of spaces. This was fun for a few rounds, and then of course the kids had more fun pulling up all the tape.

10-10.30: Math. With the assignment to sort a toy by color, Travis chose Magnatiles and was avidly interested to see which color “won”. Then we colored in a graph with the results.

We then played a round of a card game called Garbage, which teaches kids to recognize where a number fits in on a line from 1 to 10. “Mom, this is really fun!” he said. So a win!

10.30-11: Snack/free play (indoors due to rain).

11-11.30: Science. After watching a video on how to make a collage, Travis made one with our recyclables. He was initially fussy but then confessed he doesn’t like collages because of messy glue. So we used tape, and he got so into it!

11.30-12: Social studies. We made a thank you card for First Responders in our area as part of his school’s initiative. I was proud to teach him about local heroes in this moment.

12-1: Lunch/free play.

1-1.30: Spanish. His teacher’s suggestions had us laughing and moving today, including a game of “Simon dice” (Simon Says), to learn Spanish verbs. He sang me his Spanish days-of-the-week song and hunted for three objects in the house that that were “azul.”

1.30-2: Music. By the time we got around to his Thursday special, Travis was tired and grumpy and didn’t like that class felt “different” online. Basically I let the teacher’s class stream in the background while he played.

2-3: We finished on a high note with an indoor fort!

This was the perfect place for puzzles, quiet “reading”, and just being silly with baby sister. Hopefully the weather is nice enough for a walk, tomorrow, because we all need it.

Oh boy was today a struggle. Travis fought me every step of the way on home schooling, but I was so proud I kept calm and we made it through! Thank goodness it was a town-wide Tuesday half day.

9-10: ELA: Tuesday is Writers Workshop, so we sat down after circle time with the assignment to write about something he could do for Earth Day. Well, here’s what happened to his paper.

Ok, deep breath for everybody. We skipped ahead to the day’s lesson on social/emotional learning. After watching an online read of Moody Cow Meditates, we made a mind jar like the one in the story. Fill a small jar with water, and add beads for your child’s emotions. I had Travis designate each color bead as a different emotion – starting with red for angry of course! We put them in and stirred, then watched his “thoughts” settle. I had him laughing a few times with this, but once the activity was over, it was right back to a mood.

10-10.30: Ok, let’s reset with recess.

10.30-11: ELA cont. He still didn’t want to write, so I had him sit with Lexia. He alternated feeling great and confident (“I love Lexia!”) to temper tantrums (“I hate this!”). Yes, those two statements came three minutes apart. It probably didn’t help that I was cleaning up a painty mess from baby sister.

11-1: We took a long break for lunch, free play, and testing out lemon batteries just for kicks. Baby sister napped.

1-1.30: Writers Workshop redux. Grudgingly, with hugs and encouragement, he drew the Earth and wrote one sentence (actually, a fragment). I considered this a win.

We’re done for the day! Off for a spring walk.

You’ve likely noticed that I paused on posting daily home school updates, as I didn’t want to overwhelm people’s inboxes. Starting next week, Travis’s school will be sending actual lesson plans, rather than suggestions, so I may go back to daily posts. Either way, the week had its ups and downs, some days where we felt on top of home school, some that were a struggle. This post can’t really capture all that, but here’s a run-down of activities from our third week home schooling for COVID-19.

Please stay safe everyone!

Math:

• Computer games through a school program, all focused on concepts of greater than/less than or addends to 10.
• Stuffed animal counting. We had fun making up silly equations, like “3 animals are having a tea party, and one more joins in. 3+ 1 = 4.”
• April weather graph, with predictions for what we’ll see most (rain) and least (snow).

ELA: 

• Reading a story and then retelling it in your child’s words. We chose ‘Corduroy‘ for this activity, and I then asked him to imagine what might happen next. He said they’d go back to the store and buy a new stuffed animal friend, a giraffe!
• A book ‘scavenger hunt’, in which Travis had to find things like the title, author’s name, count the words in a sentence, locate a question mark, etc. When we finished the book (Click, Clack Moo), he went back to tell me what had happened in the beginning, middle, and end.
• Workbook pages
• Letter tracing pages (G, H, I, J, K)
• Online story time with his teacher
• Writing a sentence with a sight word. Travis’s sentence included several (I, am, the): “I am swinging on the swings”. I loved his picture!
• Online read-through of Puff the Magic Dragon, followed by drawing a dragon in an online paint program.
• Writers’ Workshop. Travis really stuck with it this this week, thinking abut a story instead of his latest Star Wars movie. His tale featured skeleton pirates, and he drew a boat to go with it!
• Sight word rainbow writing, using a different color for every sight word.

Social Studies:

• Community helper video. Travis drew himself as a doctor (which was more about his latest fascination with skeletons and bones).
• Discussion of why a society might have rules.

Science: 

• A BrainPop video about making and testing a hypothesis, after which we tested out what would float and what would sink.
• An online video about plants, followed by a nature walk to find plants.

Recess:

• Spring walks!
• Chalk! Travis drew pictures of pirate skeletons and we also wrote some sight words.

Specials:

• Library:
  • Going through his shelf to sort fiction from non-fiction.
  • Online video of I Am Yoga – with poses, too!
•  Art:
  • Travis drew a self-portrait on a big piece of craft paper, and little sister joined in!
• Spanish:
  • Online video with food words
  • Zumba dancing
• Gym:
  • An online P.E. video from Mr. Joe. Loved watching him do this one!
  • Sock Toss: Place a target on one side of the room and make balls out of pairs of socks. Every time he made a goal, Travis had to take a step back.

• Music:
  • His teacher sent a full 15 minute class video to follow along! This was super appreciated.

Mental Health:

• The school counselor sent a link for a three hour loop of relaxing sounds!

Family activities:

• Puzzles
• Board games
• Handprint cookies
• Purple crayon play dough
• Melted crayon paperweights
• Mini robots
• Graphite circuits

Another week under our belt. I can’t claim today felt as strong as yesterday, but we did enough, and sometimes that’s OK.

8.30: Check-in. We started early because Travis’s teacher had recorded their morning meeting songs. He grinned to see her on video as we went through all the songs and watched her read a story.

9-10: ELA. First we played ‘I Spy’, taking turns finding something that started with each letter of the alphabet. “I spy something that starts with B: Banana!” and so on.

He also did one ltter page (F), a few worksheets on concepts (wet, hot, cold), and loved sitting down for Lexia online again.

10-11: As a special treat, there was a class Zoom session. The kids took turns doing show-and-tell and clearly loved the chance to see classmates.

11-12: Math: There were three assignments today, which felt like too much. First he hunted for a shape in the house, then took a picture of it with the camera of an online program. The program allowed him to then trace the shape and record himself saying what it was.

From there, he formed the letters 10 through 20, first with colored crayon, then with Legos.

We were supposed to go on a hunt for numbers around the house, but I could tell he was tired. Instead we made t-shirts!

12-1: Lunch/free play. Little sister needed to nap.

1-1.30: Science/Art: He watched a BrainPop video on spring and took the quiz, then drew a picture of himself in the springtime. Love those sunshine hands!

1.30-2: Outside time: We went for a nature walk looking for items that the school’s counselor had suggested, including something you find beautiful.

2-2.30: Mental Health: It was a low-key afternoon. We played a board game to get laughing and went through a few more of the counselor’s suggestions, including a 5-minute guided meditation video; looking through old photos and sharing memories; and learning something new about a family member.

Is your school counselor providing mental health resources for kids in this strange time? Please share in the comments!

Hallelujah, we finally had what I would call a great day of home school. Travis stayed in a positive mood, we powered through lots of activities early while everyone was fresh, and there was even time for a baby gym class online with my toddler.

9-10: Check-in/ELA: After watching an online read of Clark the Shark, it was time to make a shark and feed it words! We loved this activity, first coloring in a shark and then cutting it out so the mouth was open with lots of jagged teeth.

I cut “fish” from construction paper and added a consonant/vowel/consonant word to each one. The rule was you had to read the word before feeding a fish to the shark.

10-10.30: Math: Still in high spirits, we tackled a math shape hunt before snack, looking for: 3 triangles, 4 circles, 3 squares, and 5 rectangles. Travis learned that triangles are much harder to come by than the others!

10.30-11: Free play/snack. Travis requested to play inside with Legos while baby sister had some sensory fun.

11-12: Science/Social Studies. First we watched a Mystery Doug video on the world’s biggest tree, than did the website’s weather mystery lesson. Using “clues” in each picture, Travis aced figuring out which season was which. He loved coloring the pictures in so much he spent 45 minutes on it! I had time to prep dinner!

He was on such a creative roll that we went ahead with social studies. After saying the Pledge of Allegiance and talking about the American flag, he designed a flag for our family. This is a great project for raiding the craft bin.

12-12.30: Lunch break!

12.30-1: Music. His music teacher had recorded a full 15 minute video. Travis confessed that this felt different than really being in the class, and I was proud he stuck with it.

1-1.30: Spanish/Yoga. The afternoon, as you can see, was super light as a result of all the early academia. We did a Spanish video counting to 7, and I roped the kids into a few yoga poses.

1.30-2.30: Outdoor time. We took advantage of gorgeous weather for a “sandbox” on the porch and other fun games, including a homemade boomerang.

The afternoon was now beautifully open for free play, a family walk, and chatting with friends online.

Please do let me know how home school is going, if your district, too, is closed for COVID-19!

Pluses and minuses to our day, here on home school hump day! Read on…

9-10: ELA. Today’s suggestion, to have Travis pick a favorite book and “read” to himself for 20 minutes, turned out to be fantastic. I thought he might just look through the pictures of the Star Wars book he picked from his shelf, but he was determined to read the words. This meant it was a little more hands-on on my part than anticipated (my toddler happened to be smeared in peanut butter at the same time), but he was so determined I couldn’t turn him down. The assignment to then draw either his book or his reading nook, unfortunately, led to a temper tantrum. Emotions are high, folks.

10-10.30: A reset pause for snack and recess.

10.30-11: Math. This went great today!

We wrote out the first names of everyone in the family, and counted the letters of each name. Then he put the results into a graph. He was disappointed that ‘Travis’ “lost” to ‘Veronika’, though!

11-12: Science. We started two projects today but we’ll have to wait for the results. First was to see if we can waterlog a large piece of wood (like a craft stick). Set one in a container of water and wait. Our guess is that it will take a week before it sinks completely.

We also made a quick rain meter by ticking off inch marks on a mason jar. It’s out on our patio to collect the rain!

12-2: Travis got a long break because baby sister needed me for a nap, then lunch, then baby sister had a “live” music class. As a result, it was hard to rope him back in for some final activities.

2-2.30: Library. This is his Wednesday special and the suggestion was to explore any topic of interest on PebbleGo. Travis chose Inventions/the telephone, and sort of clicked through the links about it, but wasn’t interested in putting together a cup and string telephone craft. He also resisted drawing his favorite book character, or watching one of our local librarians do an online storytime.

2.30-3: Movement. So I got him moving instead. Check out my quick post about Line Dancing!

Honestly, the biggest hit today was a sensory tray meant for baby sister, so hey, sometimes the learning happens inadvertently.

Travis and I only had a half day of home school today, in keeping with our town’s early release Tuesdays. It made it much easier on him, I think – and on me, too!

7-9: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

9: ELA. Travis came over after our quick check-in for “writer’s workshop”. The assignment was to write a story with the structure of: first, next, and last. I loved watching him write about yesterday’s snowball fight. We also did one letter in his workbook (C).

9-9.30: Math: He played three different games on his class computer program involving counting the pips on dice and cards. (Baby sister was busy with tape).

9.30-10.30: Snack/recess. The kids were hungry early, so we hopped right to snack time and then headed out into the spring snow. Travis had so much fun that I let him get out his energy an extra long time. I wish I’d taken pictures!

10.30-11: We discovered the website Fluency and Fitness, a great site to get kids learning and moving. After solving a few problems on the topic of your choice (math, reading etc.), kids do a move like lunges or push-ups. He was a little antsy though…

11-11.30: …so we went off-book and finished the day with a recipe, still one of my favorite ways to spend time together. Check out our whole unit on Japan here!