Kindergarten at Home - Day 32 - Sense of Touch

Science meets Art: Sense of Touch.  Today, we explored our sense of touch through creating a work of art utilizing different textures.  Represented in my daughter's original caterpillar artwork are textures ranging from rough to soft.  Feathers are soft.  Pompoms are round, tall and soft, and squishy.  Glitter is rough.  Pasta is rough and soft at the same time, and is hard and solid!  Leaves are soft and crinkly.  Brother (who is 3, going on 4) got to make one too.

Then, we played a game where you must rely on your sense of touch alone to guess what an item is behind your back.  I tried to choose objects with different texture attributes, and different levels of solidity.

Language Arts - Reading Comprehension: Using visual and verbal clues to help you predict what will happen next in a story.  The pictures and the words in the story can both help lead you towards what might happen next, or what to expect in a story.  We bought this really cool Pop-Up book from Costco and in the pictures below, she is interpreting the pages to her brother, and showing me how the Unicorn leaps from the page!  The book also utilizes her sense of touch when she is able to flip different objects on each page, and make certain items move.

For "recess" today, we got to go see the movie Brave at the local discount theater/nickel arcade (the theater plays movies after the initial release period, up to the DVD release.  I love these type of theaters because you can take the whole family for close to the same price as one ticket at a new-release theater!  Only $8 for the three of us!  Plus, the theaters are usually not packed.  This one has an arcade, so if the kids are too cranky for the movie, you can cheer them up with a few nickel games!).  We met up with one of my girlfriends and her 2 1/2year-old son; it was his very first real movie!  The kids loved the movie, but there are a couple scary scenes with a mean bear, which prompted my son to climb in to my lap.

Technology Studies: Typing letters A-Z, plus numbers 0 - 9.  The kids did this lesson together, taking turns who would be able to find and press the requested letter or number key.  [note: my daughter is letting the Unicorn from her pop-up book watch too]

Kindergarten at Home - Day 28 - Tin Can Telephone (or, Paper Cup Phone!)

Telephone Etiquette.  The assignment for today was to practice talking on the telephone using basic telephone etiquette, and to practice reciting your phone number.  I decided to take it a step further, and made cup-and-string phones after we practiced with real phones (they played with my vintage rotary-style telephone and my modern Bluetooth handset that is a replica of a vintage phone.  I rarely us it - I bought it because I was nostalgic for the way I used to talk on the phone.  It's not hands-free... kinda defeating the purpose of the Bluetooth technology, but hey, it's fun!)

To make the homemade cup phones, we used Kite String and two disposable cups.  First, poke a hole through the center of the bottoms of each cup; then, connect them by feeding each end of the string through each cup (tie a knot at the end after feeding it through the hole in the cup); stand apart, keeping the string taught; then, one person can talk into their cup while the other person listens in their cup!  The sound will follow along the string!
First, we tried a short string, then tried a longer string.  We also tried turning a corner with the string, which does work, but not well.  I'm sure we could play around with it and look it up to see what the best method for keeping the sound on the string while turning a corner would be, but the kids just wanted to play, so I'll save that science lesson for another day after some research.

 Language Arts: Zig-Zagging Zany Zz's, Zealously [while in the] Zone!

Art: What can fit in my pocket?  I had her try to think of different objects that could fit into the pocket she sewed the other day, then to draw them, cut them out, then put the paper version of the object into her pocket.  She decided she should trace each item so that they would be the accurate size.  Later, we played a game where you had to guess what object she was describing that is in her pocket.

Technology Studies: Typing letters on the keyboard - practicing finding and typing N-Z.  Daddy got to help with this one after he got home from work.  [We've been doing school outside this week, so, as you can see, we haven't updated our Days of the Week board behind the computer!]

Kindergarten at Home - Day 24 - Food Groups + Sense of Smell

Lesson 1 - Science: Healthy Eating Habits - The Food Groups.  Meat & Protein, Vegetables, Fruit, Dairy, Grain, Oils (includes nuts, cooking oils and fish).  I separated each food group onto it's own dish/container so it would be easier to see and remember for the kiddos.  We ate Dino Chicken Nuggets (meat/protein), mixed veggies (vegetables), Watermelon (fruit), Milk (dairy), Multi-Grain crackers (grains), and organic nut bar (oils).

Lesson 2 - Math: Cone and Cylinder.  After some workbook exercises, we looked at some objects we had around the house that were a cone-shape (the witch's hat, and the cone on the ice cream cone toy), and a cylinder shape (Pam cooking spray can and a pillar candle).

Lesson 3 - Activities: Testing Sense of Smell.  I blindfolded my little Kindergartner and made her do a blind smell-test to see if she could guess what each item was.  We tried a few more than pictured, but the ones she got right away were: Salsa, Cinnamon, Broccoli, and she guessed Syrup first for the Honey, but got it on the second guess.  We reviewed the five senses, and showed her how if you were blind, you could use other senses to provide clues about your surroundings.

Lesson 4 - Social Studies: I am Unique.  Mommy: "What makes you unique?"  Daughter: "I can roll dough with both my hands at the same time!"  Mommy: "Show me!"  Mommy: "What else makes you unique?" Daughter: "How I twirl when I dance!"

Lesson 5 - Language Arts: Willfully Write Wonderful Ww's When Working With Wabbling Wands

Kindergarten at Home - Day 18 - The Senses + Games from Around the World

Lesson 1 - Language Arts: The Senses and writing.  Also, to Quickly Quantify Qualified Qq's, Quaintly Quaking Quasi Quills
The Senses.  For this lesson, we got to do outside!  We learned about, and memorized the 5 senses: Touch, See, Hear, Smell and Taste.  We thought about how the senses can help us in everyday life, and also how the senses can help us be creative in writing and in art.  First, I wrote each on a piece of paper, and had her try to sound out each word (See and Smell were easy for her to read, but the others had groupings she hasn't mastered, like "ou", "ea", and the silent "e" in taste threw her off).  Then, we walked around the yard to find an example of each sense that my little Kindergartner wanted me to take a picture of...

See - she wanted to show in the picture that she saw TONS of apples on the apple tree (they are Gravenstein apples, and they are deeeee-lish from that tree - we have another tree of the same age in another area of our property and it's just not as good).

Touch - she pretented she was blind, then she touched the first thing she bumped into (it was premeditated; she directed me to come over to where the mini ATV is first, before she pretended she was blind).

Taste - She found some nice, ripe tomatoes to eat!  We planted all sorts this year: Cherry, Pear, Heirloom (pictured), Roma, Hothouse, and a few obscure varieties that I can't remember their names.

Smell - Our Autumn Crocus are up and in full bloom!  I don't think they have very much of a smell, so she was doing it all for show. : )

Hear - I know from the picture, you wouldn't guess "hear", but the rings make a clanking sound with the chains when you swing on them.  Imagine the classic clanking of chains, and squeaking of pulleys in the schoolyard playground; that is what she was hearing.

Lesson 2 - Social Studies: How Kids Play.  The original lesson was to think about different ways you can play.  I decided to throw in a little spin on the lesson: to study different ways children play around the world.  First, we looked at pictures of kids from around the world playing Soccer (or, 'Football' in most countries) and how the game is the same, only the scenery changes.  The image shown below is of kids playing Football/Soccer outside at night in Rio because it was very hot that day, so they chose to play at night to beat the heat.  Then, we looked at different games kids play around the world.  We chose one from each continent except for Australia (we just ran out of time)

South America - Brazil: they play a game called, Cinco Marias.  (above) It is similar to our game of Jacks. While a stone is thrown up into the air, you must try to pick up stones that are on the ground before the thrown stone lands.  Try to pick up all five stones at once before the stone hits the ground.

Europe - France:  Escargot (which is snail in French) is similar to hop scotch, only you travel in a spiral and you must stay on only one foot the entire time (above).  You start at the outer part of the Escargot, and hop to the center, then back out again (I let them take a rest in the center spot).  If you make it back on one foot, you get to throw a stone onto one of the squares.  Only you may step on this square and everyone else playing must try to hop over it. Repeat.

Asia - Malaysia: Ram, Ram, Rip is popular among kids (above). One person puts out their palm, and the other person puts their first two fingers on the other person's palm.  Both say "Ram, Ram, Rip" at the same time, and the person on top tries to remove their fingers before the person on bottom grabs them.

North America - United States: this isn't a recognized game, but it's the game my kids and the neighbor girl sometimes play for fun!  The person on the ground gets to spin the two on the swing, then they take turns being the spinner!  There are tons of games they play that requires more thought, but this is what they played together today.

Lesson 3 - Math: Rectangle and Oval.  I asked my daughter what she could think of around the house that is an oval shape.  The first thing she thought of were the eggs our chickens lay.  We currently have three sizes of eggs: Large (sometimes extra-large), Medium (sometimes small), and extra small.  That is because we have mature chickens, newly laying chickens (young chickens usually lay small/medium eggs until after their first molt), and Bantie chickens (miniature chickens lay miniature eggs!).

Lesson 4 - Kindergarten Activities & Games: "Describe It".  We cut out pictures of every day things from magazines (like a chair, snowman, pumpkin, guitar, etc.) and put them in a bag.  One person pulls out a picture and tries to describe it, without naming it, and the others playing must try to guess what they are describing.  At first, I played with the kids, but as they "got it", I stepped back, then slipped quietly upstairs to do the dishes uninterrupted! 

Lesson 5 - Art: Making a Frog.  I waited until Daddy was home for this activity because I remembered that he knows how to make an oragami frog that you can jump when you push down quickly on it's rear end.  He also showed how to make a Lily Pad for the frogs.  My daughter remembered that frogs start out as a tadpole, so she also drew and cut out a cute tadpole shape to swim on her desk while the frogs jumped on the lily pad.