Kindergarten at Home - Day 26 - Repeating Patterns

Math: Repeating Patterns.  Both kids enjoyed this activity.  I would create a pattern using connecting cubes, then they were tasked with repeating the pattern.

Art: Sewing a pocket.  We used a simple rectangle of felt and we folded it so it would have a sturdy bottom, then she sewed both sides.  This was an assignment to create a pocket for the activity we'd do tomorrow.

Social Studies: Family and Home.  We made a basic line-drawing family tree, going back to Great Grandparents.  Then, I explained to her how aunts, uncles and cousins are related to us.  Then, she drew a picture of our home and who lives in our household.  She drew a cute picture of the outside of our house, and the four of us humans and our dog are looking out the window, and then our chickens and horse are outside in the yard.

Language Arts: Yielding Your Yy's Youngly, Yet Yearningly.

Kindergarten Activities & Games: Target practice.  Trying to throw a ball into various size "holes".  After she mastered getting the ball into the hole, she had to take three steps back and try again.  [Yes, that is a Cheesehead hat as the middle target!  None of us are official Cheeseheads but the kids love to play with it... it was a souvenir gift from Great Grandpa's trip to Wisconsin]

Kindergarten at Home - Day 15 - Homemade Playdough

The kids painted their birdhouse outside in the Fall sunshine today! I can't believe it's Fall already!  Time for the ceremonial lowering of the Summer wreath on the door, and raising of the Fall one! I'm going to love coming up with seasonal Kindergarten/Preschool projects and lessons for the kiddos!  I love everything Autumn: Crisp air, pears and apples, harvest colors, costumes, pumpkin patches, layering with cardigans and scarves... but NOT corn mazes.  I once got stuck in one with my Bonus Daughter when she was about 7 years old for seemingly hours (I'm sure it was only an hour) but we were both tired and crabby and ready to just cheat and run straight through the rows until we found the parking lot!  We made it out without corn stalks sticking out of our seams, but if I ever do one again, I'll bring a pen so we can mark every turn on the map.

Lesson 1: Art - Making an umbrella.  We did two different styles of umbrella - a smooth cone-style, and an accordion-folded style.  I drew the circles, and let the kids cut them out.  My son (who is 3) didn't want his blue circle to be an umbrella - he cut his in half and said it was a Half Moon instead.  For my daughter's umbrellas, I helped fold the first one as an example, and let her put the umbrella stick in.  Then, she did two more on her own - one larger one for her full-sized Barbie (she is actually Jasmine from Aladdin), and one for her miniature Barbie.

Lesson 2: Kindergarten Activities - Home Made Play Dough! 1 cup salt, 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup water, and Play Dough is born!  I started to add food coloring, but stopped at the kids demand, because they wanted it to look like cookie dough so they can play Bakery!  They thought it was pretty novel that the Play Dough was actually dough-colored (they were used to the fun, bright colors the store-bought comes in)!  The assignment from the Connections Academy was to decorate a Gingerbread person from the play dough - we had a bunny person shape, so we did that instead.  My daughter had her bunny person hold the mini umbrella she made earlier - so cute!

Lesson 3 - Math: Unit Review.  Today's Connections Academy Math assignment was actually a Test, and a Unit Review.  SO, I decided to make our own Math lesson for today: Fractions using the play dough we just made!  I had my daughter cut out a few circles with the Happy Face cookie stamper I have.  Then, I drew on a piece of paper some of the most common fractions: Whole, Half, Fourths and Thirds.  Then, I told her to cut her happy face in Half, and then Fourths, and then Thirds and put them in their proper place on the paper.  I showed her how if you take one fourth away, we say 3/4; if we take one third away from the whole, we say 2/3, etc.  It was just an introduction to fractions and we'll get more into the subject another day.

Lesson 4: Social Studies - Proverbs (cont.): Look before you Leap; It's raining cats and dogs; A place for everything and everything in it's place; and Practice makes perfect.  I explained to her what each saying means, and then had her draw her interpretation of the Proverb.  I especially liked her 'raining cats and dogs' drawing - she drew two HUGE raindrops among other large rain drops and drew a cat face in one, and a puppy face in the other.

Lesson 5: Language Arts.  
After Neatly Noting Nn's Nonchalantly Narrowing Neighboring Nodes, we added to my daughter's All About Me book with a page listing all of the things she likes to play.  Some of the activities were: Playing restaurant, playing with puppies, playing games, and smelling flowers when she passes by them.  My son said that he wanted to make a 'Me' book too (he was not interested when I asked him last week), so I let him make one.  He drew a picture of himself laying down in his bed on the cover (it was nearing nappy-nap time for him!), and he made sure to draw his belly button too.

Kindergarten at Home - Day 13 - All About Me! + Sewing a Dog

Community: This morning was our first Meet and Greet with other students in our area who are also attending the Connections Academy online school... I failed to get a single photo - D'oh!  I was just too occupied to remember!  Conveniently for me, the meeting spot was at a park near our house. There were only four total Kindergarten students there (the rest were older), but my daughter is always quick to meet new friends when we go to playgrounds, regardless of their age.  I normally end up making small talk with other moms and dads when we're at a park (never to be seen again), but this time we were all there for the same reason: meeting other people like us!  I don't normally give out my number to a mom I talk to on the playground, but this time, I did!  Playdates ahoy!
Then, when we got home, she had a play date with one of her chickens!

Lesson 1: Art - Create a Dog.  Both my son (who is 3), and my daughter got to do this one.  I had my son cut and paste with paper, and my daughter sew and stuff a fabric dog; I cut out the pattern pieces and then let them have at it.  I let my daughter practice pinning pieces together to help them to stay put while you sew.  For the stuffing, I had some left over batting from making a baby blanket several years ago, so we ripped off pieces of that to fatten our Weenie Dog.  Then, she sewed on green felt ears.  My daughter wanted her new fuzzy friend to have pink button eyes and nose -- I helped a little with this to make sure they would actually stay on! [Yes, she is wearing the gold metal from yesterday!].  My son drew robot buttons on his dog - the type of button you press, not fasten.

Lesson 2: Language Arts - Rhyming and Reading.
La-La-La! Lovingly Listing Letter Ll's, Licking Lips Lightly.
We read a few classic nursery rhymes, then I had her try to listen for the rhyming words as I read the poems and prose aloud.  She discovered that in poems, the rhyming words usually come at the end of each pause, segment or sentence. Then, I brought out one of the Teacher Aid materials the Connections Academy provided, called a Slider.  Basically, you have the ending sound of a word (like "an") static on the page, and then you slide different beginning sounds in front: "c"-"an"... can! "p"-"an"... pan!  "v"-"an"... van!  They all rhyme because they share the same ending sounds... added bonus: it makes an easy introduction to reading!

Lesson 3: Math - Problem Solving: Sorting.  I didn't get a picture, but she did workbook exercises where she sorted items using different methods: Matching up same items with same attributes, then different items that share an attribute (color, size, location on page, thickness, etc.).

Lesson 4: "Me" Book.  ME, ME, ME, ME, MEEEEEE!  Today, she started her very own All About Me book.  On the cover, she drew a profile of herself singing and walking - she even drew music notes floating up into the air.  She decided that she wanted to number the pages too, because she noticed that books have numbers on their pages - the cover is page 1.  On the first few pages, she drew things that she likes to do for fun (I wrote at the top what she wanted me to write as a title for the page)

Lesson 5: Social Studies - Emergency Preparation: Natural Disasters.  Since we covered what we would do in the case of emergency the other day, I wanted to show her today what kind of natural disasters could cause an "emergency situation."  We watched a movie on Brain Pops Jr, that talked about different natural disasters (like earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis) in a way that kids could easily understand.  The kids recently experienced their very first small earthquake about a week and a half ago, and after she watched the earthquake segment of the video, she said, "ohhhhhhh, so thaaaaats what happened!" Then, both of the kids drew what they remembered about volcanoes.  We chose that because we are surrounded by volcanoes where we live.  Both kids drew the magma coming up from the earth, through the volcano and bursting out from the top.  My daughter drew one volcano, but my son wanted to draw lots of volcanoes, in order by size on his page (his idea).

Kindergarten at Home - Day 11 - Different Homes + Tanagram

Lesson 1: Math - Classifying by shape.  My daughter is The Shape Master, so we did the required workbook exercises (which was to group different sizes/colors/appearances of the same shapes together, and to find matching patterns, etc.), then we moved on to do some "fun" Tangram puzzles using shapes.  Tangram is a Chinese mind-exercise puzzle where you must use and arrange each shape provided to create a predetermined picture.

Lesson 2: Social Studies - Emergency Preparations.  We are, what you might call, "Preppers." We're not extreme enough to make it past the first round of casting calls for the next reality show, but we are prepared for almost anything.  I pulled out some of the basics that most people should have in their Readiness Kit and explained to my daughter what each item is, what it is for, and why we would need it in an emergency.  Related story: we saw this really cool episode of MythBusters, where they were "stranded" on an island with nothing but duct tape.  They made everything from a mat, to a hunting net, to an escape canoe from found items in nature and duct tape!  My daughter LOVES that episode!  So, we have Duct Tape in our kit because it is magical.  We also have bins full of 20-year shelf life food, and I showed her where we keep most of the supplies, just in case we need to "grab and go"!

Lesson 3: Language Arts - Joyfully Jot Jumbo Jj's Juggling Junctions Jubilantly
We watched a video link the Connections Academy had sent, on Brain Pops Jr that told all about the concept of Plot.  We reread "The Little Engine That Could," "The Tortoise and the Hare," "The Lion and the Mouse," and "The enormous Turnip" and answered questions about the Plot, Characters, and Main Ideas.

Lesson 4: Discovery Walk Activity (Science & Social Studies related) - Different types of homes.  First we walked around our property (there is a lot to see because we live on acreage, with greenspace/forest area and creek in the back!).  We took a picture of a [currently empty] nest on our deck that houses baby birds twice a year.  Then, we looked under rocks to find earwigs, ants and spiders.  Next, we checked on the chickens in the coop (Rosabelle, our Miniature Horse, is free to roam around and she is hanging out in the shade behind the chicken coop in the photo!). We walked down to the creek and found water skimmers and evidence of the newts who live there  - we saw tail trails in the mud under the water, but didn't see the newt.  Then, we walked down the street a little bit to see the "big" homes humans live in - although we live on acreage, we are in the middle of a suburban neighborhood!  Then, when Daddy got home from work, he helped the kids make a bird house from scrap wood!

Lesson 5: Music - Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  I saved this lesson for after it got dark, because I just thought it would be much cuter to sing it with the stars twinkling above us.  She did, of course, make a wish!  After we sang it a couple times, I told her about how stars are millions of miles away and that the stars only appear to be twinkling.  I know it is kind of a Childhood Wonder buzz-kill, but she has to know someday that they aren't really "diamonds" twinkling in the sky!  She learned that it is just our atmosphere creating the illusion of a twinkle - it is sort of like we are looking through a dirty window, making what we are seeing blurry.  If we were looking at the stars from outer space, through the windows of a Space Shuttle, the stars would NOT twinkle!  That is because we are not looking at them through layers of atmosphere that our planet has surrounding it like a protective shell or blanket.  Then, I told her that Planets in the nights sky do NOT twinkle, not even when we look through our atmosphere!  So, if she is on Earth and sees a "star" that is not twinkling, it might be a planet.