Kindergarten at Home - Day 38 - Colors all around

It was GORGEOUS outside today!  So, we took the opportunity to pull the paints back out, go outside, and practice mixing colors: Red and Blue make Purple; Red and Yellow make Orange, etc.  Then, we used some fun sponge shapes we had received in a goodie bag from one of the weekend parties to make some underwater scenes.  Advertised as "clean" art tools for kids, the sponges seemed like a GREAT idea.  It doesn't last long before they start using their fingers... then two fingers... then their whole palm... then, paint up to their elbows.  Think blueish-greenish bath water after the "fun" was over.

Math: One Greater and One Less.  This activity was actually before the painting fun, hence the nice, clean hands in the following photos.  We used rocks from our front yard to help visualize the concept.  Both my kids can recognize when a number spoken aloud is greater than, or less than another number, but they were both slightly confused when I had two rows of rocks and asked them how many fewer/less rocks one row had than the other.  So, adding or taking away only one from each row helped them understand which row had "one less", rather than merely "less".

Technology Studies: F, J, Space Bar.  We practiced proper finger placement, with the pointer fingers placed on f, and on j, and your thumbs resting on the space bar.  Then, we accessed a practice portal where it gave a series of j's and ff's and spaces to type correctly and it would make a "donk" sound if you typed incorrectly.  I think it mildly amusing that my daughter is learning how to type in Kindergarten, and I was mid-high school when I first learned proper typing!

Social Studies: Neighborhood Map.  With very little help, my daughter drew a map of our neighborhood, and where the cemetery and the church are down the street, and the big hill we live at the top of...

Art: Night Scene.  The art assignment from the Connections Academy was to use black construction paper and experiment with which colors will show up on the black backdrop to create a night scene.  Both kids (independently of one another!) decided to draw mean raccoons coming out at night.  We have mean raccoons that eat our chickens and get into the trash in the middle of the night, so that's the first nocturnal animal that came to mind for the both of them.  I like how my son drew a frownie face on his raccoon, and my daughter drew mean, sharp teeth.

Language Arts: Colors All Around.  My daughter wrote sentences to describe what she was wearing, using descriptive color words, and then drew a picture of herself.  To help her form the letters correctly, I used a highlighter to write what she dictated to me on handwriting paper, then she traced it with a pencil.

 These last two photos are just for fun - we bought these horsie costumes from Target earlier today, because we're going to a family-friendly Costume Party on Saturday, and we're planning to be characters from the Gangnam Style video!  The kids will both be horses, I will be Hyuna, and my husband will be Psy!  I need to alter the powder blue blazer jacket I found at the Salvation Army store, add black accents to it, and then it'll be the PERFECT Gagnam jacket!  My daughter has been prancing around the house all night in the horsie outfit!

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 31 - Presidential Town Hall Debate

Social Studies: Presidential Debate.  Today was the 2012 Town Hall format Presidential Debate.  Although this was not an assignment from the Connections Academy, I feel it is important to start learning about how our country works at a young age.  She knows that the President is Democrat, Barack Obama, and she has heard us talk about Republican Nominee, Mitt Romney.  I also made sure to point out that there are other people we can vote for who were not represented at the Town Hall Debate, such as: Libertarian, Gary Johnson, and Green Party nominee, Jill Stein, and Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party... among others.  I told my daughter about how we get to vote every four years for the President, and that the President may serve two consecutive terms (4 + 4 = 8 years!).  So, Obama can be voted to be President again for 4 more years, or, we can vote a new person to be President if we think Obama (or the current president) didn't do a good job.
She tuned out after about 6 minutes.
Afterwards, we decided to have a debate of our own!  Daddy and the kiddo sat at their mini podeums, while I asked them questions about the important issues, like: "Why do we need to learn how to read?" and, "Should we have candy for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner?"

Then, we read the Bearnstien Bears book "The In Crowd" and I told her that she needs to make her own choices, and not just follow what everyone else is doing, or what you think someone else would do.  In 2008, it was "cool" vote for Barack Obama.  I want her to stand above what is "cool" and make the choice for herself because the candidate represents the issues she believes in. 


Math: Subtraction through eating.  For a snack, I made them fruit and vegetable caterpillars.  We practiced subtration by counting up each of the caterpillar's segments, then I had them eat a certain number and tell me what is left.  We also practiced repeating more complex patterns than in previous days, but I didn't get a picture.

Language Arts: Live Lesson, Dibels Testing & Making Predictions.
We had a Live Lesson today with her teacher online (it works sort of like video conferencing, where all of the students are connected to the teacher and can interact within the virtual classroom).  Her teacher read, "Benny's Pennies" to the whole class, and we did a mini math lesson with the pennies.
After the Live Lesson, my daughter was first on the list to preform her Dibels testing with her teacher over the phone.  Her teacher connected with her over the internet and the telephone to show her letters on the computer and ask her over the phone what sound it makes.  Then, the teacher showed her pictures and asked her which letter-sound the word began with.  This is a required state benchmark test.
Later in the day, we did workbook exercises and practiced making predictions with the book, "I Went Walking."  We went for a walk outside (I forgot my camera) and she made observations about what she saw outside that day.  THE LEAVES ARE FALLING!  Yes, it is officially Fall, and it has been cold and rainy here for most of the last week - booooooo.  So, most of the pictures are taken from our bedroom, where it was warm and cozy!

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 22 - Make Heavy Objects Move + Emotions

Lesson 1 - Activities: How to Make Heavy Objects Move.  We got to go outside to put our muscles minds to work!  Work smarter, not harder - that's a new proverb for her book!  The assignment was to discover different ways you can make a heavy box or bucket move.

(above) I showed the kids how to make a simple [non-metal] pulley system by using a rope to raise a bucket full of apples we gathered off the ground from around our apple tree.

(above) Using the same bucket, I showed them how you can put round objects (like a log, or a ball) under the heavy bucket to slide it like it is on rollers - this required teamwork to move the last log to the front to keep the bucket rolling along!

The last method we played with was using leverage with two logs stacked perpendicularly.  This helped to lift the bucket, but if done too high, the bucket would eventually flip over!



Lesson 2 - Language Arts
Unbelievably Undertake Umpteen Undulating Uu's Upon Unwrinkled Underwear (I couldn't think of something that starts with "U" that you could write on - let me know if you think of something that makes better sense than underwear?  I decided to run with underwear because it's silly)

We read a shortened version of, "City Mouse, Country Mouse" and then she answered questions, recalling details from the story.  Then, I had her draw pictures of what she thinks the Country and the City looks like. She drew a lovely Country Cow and Horse enjoying hay in a grassy meadow, with a long, windy road that leads to the barn.  Her city scene showed sky scrapers, houses, people walking on the sidewalk, and two large construction vehicles on the road.  While she was doing that, I drew four different boxes with similarly-shaped, or same items from the country and city.  I had her tell me where each belonged: Silo vs. Skyscraper, Car vs. Tractor, Modern house vs. Traditional Farmhouse-style House, and Trees on rolling hills vs. trees along the sidewalk.

Lesson 3 - Social Studies: Emotions.  First, we looked at a book that showed different kids displaying emotions on their faces:  I had her guess what each emotion is, then show me what her face looks like when she feels that way too.  It's okay to feel different ways, even angry, but it is what you do with your feelings next that might not be okay (such as hitting).

 Happy

 Tired

 Mad

Glad

This one was how she felt in that moment, and she said she felt "Hungry!"

Lesson 4 - Math: Introducing Solid Shapes - Sphere, Cube, Cylinder, & Cone.  We did a workbook exercise, and watched a Brain Pop video to introduce the concept of the solid, or 3-dimensional shapes.  (Didn't get a photo of this one.)

Lesson 5 - Technology Studies: Introduction to keyboarding, A-M.  Connections Academy provided a link to a game that has you simply find, then type the requested letter.  Basically, to help the kids become familiar with how the keyboard is laid out.  This round was for the letters A, through M.