Weekend Fun Trips - Fire Trucks and Racing Cars!

We went to two birthday parties over the weekend: one was at a REAL Fire Station with an old fashioned fire truck, and a modern fire truck they could sit in.  We got to take a tour of the working fire house and saw where the firemen sleep, eat, hang out, and do office work.  My daughter thought it was cool that they had three refrigerators (one for each shift).  The other birthday party had a racing car theme, so they brought in a REAL old-fashioned race car the kids could sit in!  AWESOME!  (It was pouring down rain that day, so they kept it under the cover on their trailer)

Kindergarten at Home - Day 8 - Paper Chains, Planet Mobiles, Fire Safety, Oh my!

Lesson 1 - Art & Motor Skills: Paper Chains.  Making paper chains is not only a time-honored tradition for elementary students (especially for countdown to Christmas purposes!), it is also a skill of dexterity, and hones in those fine motor skills.  Cutting, pasting, and looping-through requires a little bit of concentration at first, but after the second or third loop, the kiddos were on a roll and getting loopy!

Lesson 2 - Balancing. This time, we tried to balance objects using a tray and a small base.  She found out real fast that you must have equal weight on both sides... mastered! Then, we wanted to make a mobile and since both my son and daughter are interested in the planets, we decided to make our solar system!  I cut the circles so that they'd be approximately the right scale, and then we looked at pictures online of each planet, and I let my daughter color them each herself.  I had her lay them out in order from Sun to Pluto (I told her that Pluto is a Dwarf Planet), and I helped hang them on a hanger and a bamboo garden stake (we had to move the stick around to get it to "balance"). We hung it on the hallway mirror since it's next to the dining room, which is still our classroom (sigh, I still haven't gotten all those desk components put together - hopefully this weekend.)

Lesson 3 - Math: Left and Right. I traced her left and right hands in the shape of a mitten (fingers together, thumb out), and I let her cut them out.  Then, I cut out a little "L" and a little "R" and had her paste the "L" on the mitten she thought was the Left, and the "R" on the Right.  We practiced our lefts and rights by having her raise her right mitten, then the left... this lead to a boxing-style exercise full of, "left, right, left, right, left-left, right" and she had fun with that, especially when I went purposely too fast to keep up and it turned into laughter fits between lighting speed rounds.  Then we did some workbook lessons (while still wearing her Leftie), and her puppet from yesterday hung out to watch.

Lesson 4 - Social Studies: Fire Safety.  First, we watched some videos on Brain Pop Jr, and a link the Connections Academy had sent to help illustrate the steps you should take if the fire alarm goes off when you are in a building or your home.  Then, we rehearsed these steps... we were asleep in bed, dreaming of unicorns when we were suddenly awaken by the sound of the fire alarm!  We need to get out of the house calmly, but quickly!  First, we checked the door to see if it was hot... and it WAS!  So, we pretended to make our exit through the window.  Round Two: we checked the door, and it was not hot, so we opened the door to a billow of smoke hovering over head!  So, we got on all fours and crawled under the smoke (as not to breath it in) to the front door. Once out of the house safely, we pretended to dial 9-1-1 to tell them about the fire. (in the pictures, she's checking the hot door, and looking up at the thick smoke).

Lesson 5 - Language Arts: Gratifyingly Germinating Gg's Generously Generating Great Glee
Then, we read, “The Tortoise and the Hare” and I asked her some questions about the story during and after, like, "Do you think the tortoise or the hare will win?" and "Did the hare learn any lessons?" and "If they raced again, who do you think would win?" 
She also started a Vocabulary book where she can draw pictures of and write new words that she didn't know the definition.  The Connections Academy suggested we start with "Tortoise" and "Hare" and show/explain that there are similarities and differences between a Turtle and Tortoise, and a Rabbit and a Hare (yes, she is eating a carrot while learning about rabbits and hares!).  This lead to our first word that she didn't know: "nocturnal" - so began the vocabulary book!