Category Archives: fun

March 25, 2020 · 9:52 pm

Technology Deployment

I spent the morning at school helping with the technology deployment. We were distributing chromebooks to families that needed them for distance learning. We had over 100 families that had requested technology, but by noon less than half had actually come to pick them up. I’m not sure how the afternoon went.

When I got home a little after noon, Monkey Boy told me he was already done with all his class work, but Squirrel Girl hadn’t even finished her Reading/Writing assignments. I have to wonder if he ACTUALLY got everything done or if he skipped some of the directions. I didn’t bother checking.

After lunch was Specials time, and being a “Wellness Wednesday” I found a yoga video for them to do.

Back to work at 2:00 and by 2:30 SG wasn’t much farther along and she was in tears because it was taking so long. I hate that she compares herself to her brother. They approach work with very different attitudes. She is a perfectionist and he just does what he needs to do to move on to fun. Honestly, I don’t know what is taking her so long. According to the estimates of time it shows on the Learning Plan, they should only need to be working a total of 140 minutes. Yet after a supposed 3.5 hours of work she wasn’t even half done. I asked her if she was getting distracted, but she said she wasn’t. I’m not sure what to do to speed her up. At 2:30, I told her she needed to be done for the day because it was just too upsetting.

She asked me to read my favorite childhood book to her, but I had a virtual faculty meeting to attend. I could see her disappointment. It killed me. After the meeting, I walked away Friday my computer to spend time with family. The kids and I went outside while Nathan started getting things ready to grill fajitas.

Squirrel Girl decided to pull weeds while Monkey Boy and I tossed the basketball back and forth.

We also rescued a worm that SG must have dug up while weeding!

We got warm and moved back inside where I read the first 5 chapters of Julie Andrews Edward’s Mandy. It is one of the few books that I read over and over again as a kid and it still makes me cry as an adult. I’ve read the book to Squirrel Girl before, but she said she doesn’t remember the story, just that we read it while she was home sick several years ago.

Dinner was delicious and we followed that with fresh baked cookies and watching Masked Singer and LEGO Masters as a family.

Today my takeaway is that we need to find balance. SG can’t spend 8 hours of the day working on schoolwork. She needs to find a more efficient way of doing her assignments, but I’ve been too busy with my work to help her figure it out. I’m hoping to find at least a little time to work on that with her before next week.

By that same token, MB needs to realize he doesn’t get to spend 5 hours on video games or YouTube just because his work didn’t take all day. I think I need to make a list of things he has to do before he can ask for non-school electronics.

We are going to get through this. That much I know. And hopefully we will learn some valuable skills along the way. 🙏

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Filed under emotions, family, fun, lessons learned, Parenting, social distancing, work

March 17, 2020 · 10:53 pm

Word of the day: Flexibility

So our schedule got rearranged a bit today, but we still got most of it in. I’m not sure that Monkey Boy got a shower (sneaky monkey!), but he really wasn’t as stinky as days that he gets to play with friends at recess, so no harm done.

The first thing we did was take the dogs for a walk. MB begged to take a basketball with us so he could shoot hoops at the park and I gave in, figuring the kids that were playing there last night wouldn’t be out yet. I was right. While Squirrel Girl and I ran with the dogs in the roller hockey rink, MB played one man basketball. Unfortunately, one of the baskets was too small and the ball got stuck! 😮

So we walked home to get a broom handle to try to rescue the ball. SG stayed home with the dogs and we drove to the park. After one (failed) attempt to push the ball up and out, a kind lawn guy on a riding lawn mower stood on his seat to get it down.

Afterwards, we decided to grab breakfast at a drive thru while we were out. MB said to me that if he were paying with cash and there was change, he’d say “Keep the change!” so those that were working would have more money and know they were appreciated. 🥰

After eating our breakfast, I gave them time to write and socialize with their friends. SG even set up a Google Slide to share with all of the 4th graders we could think of (that I could contact through their parents) so they could share what they were doing.

While they did that, I set up a Flipgrid to post in Google Classroom, hoping some of the students would see it and share what they have been doing. It’s amazing how much I miss them!

We extended their writing/social time and decided to push lunch back a bit. At 12, Monkey Boy made lunch with me while Squirrel Girl did Imagine Math. Then we watched Mo Willams’ Lunch Doodles while we ate.

Then we did more art with JJK. Today’s lesson: emotions.

In STEAM time (that’s what they’ve dubbed it) they each chose activities on a list their AIM teacher shared. We started with making music with water in glasses.

Monkey Boy

Squirrel Girl

Then SG tried an experiment with pennies in vinegar (didn’t go too well) and MB froze a toy in ice in anticipation of creating a time lapse video of it melting tomorrow.

I stumbled upon a lesson from Dan Santat on Instagram that taught the meanings of the words quarantine vs isolation and gave them a challenge of doing nothing for 20 minutes (they wouldn’t even try) or reading for 20 minutes. They had no problem with that, and it took us right into DEAR time!

Today, chore time was much better received. Clean your bathroom sink and the counter around it! I did mine as well.

I told them that the faster they finished their chore, the more free time they would have! They got it done quickly (amazing how much time can be saved by not complaining!) and immediately wanted to check the Google Slide to see who had contributed. They desperately need human (other than family) interaction. I certainly can’t blame them. After checking in, they spent a good chunk of time watching TV. Monkey Boy kept asking if he could watch another episode. I told him he was free to do what he wanted with his free time.

Dinner was potato skins stuffed with ground pork, cream cheese, and chopped spinach. It was super yummy and got no complaints! I used the potato that was scooped out to make potato soup for later. 😋

After dinner, MB asked if he could have skittles. When he started to divide the colors into piles, I told him he should figure out the fractions and simplify them. He did a great job!

Squirrel Girl didn’t want to be left out of the Math lesson, so she pulled out all the different types of kisses we had in the candy box in the pantry to find the fractions.

We ended the day with barely any time for reading together, but managed one chapter. We may have to adjust when we read together if we are ever going to finish!

While we did deviate from the plan a little, I told the kids that we will have to stay flexible. Some days may need more time in one area than others. The whole purpose of the schedule is to help us all, in this time of uncertainty, know what to expect. Boy do I wish I knew what to expect beyond this week!

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Filed under family, fun, Learn, Parenting, social distancing, waiting

March 16, 2020 · 10:34 pm

Schedule started

Today we started our schedule. It went surprisingly close to plan! We may make some slight adjustments, but overall I think I timed activities appropriately.

We decided not to shower right away so that we could get in some exercise first. After eating breakfast we took the dogs for a walk.

But we’d barely made it to the end of our road before it started sprinkling. So I told them we could try again later. But to get in our exercise for the day, we did some Go Noodle. I used my school account, but there’s a free home account too. We all did it together.

Mirrored my iPad using the Apple TV so we could all see.

While Monkey Boy showered, I went through the workout CG had sent. While I showered, he and Squirrel Girl got onto Google Docs and wrote to their friends from school. By sharing with the friends, they are able to write back and forth. It’s something we discourage when school is in session, but I felt like having an intrinsic reason to be writing was more important.

SG used my iPad and wrote out a long letter to her friend with proper format.

MB used his computer to chat with his friend in real time.

Had I let him, Monkey Boy would have chatted with his friend all day. But at 11:00, it was time for Math. MB did Imagine Math and then worked on his LEGO story while SG helped me with cooking lunch. Tomorrow they will switch.

Clockwise from the top:
Cream cheese stuffed breadstick “wands”
Homemade mayo using the colored egg wash leftover from the breadsticks
Ham wrap
Carrot chips

At 1:00, there were several live streams we were interested in viewing, but luckily the recordings can be viewed later. So we watched the marine biologists from Oceans Initiative and learned about orcas on FB Live. When that was over, we watched the recordings of Mo Willams and Jarrett J Krosoczka teaching art. They will be doing these every day on YouTube, so go check them out!

Then came Squirrel Girl’s favorite part of the day. DEAR! (Drop Everything And Read). I made sure to read at that time as well.

Then it was Makerspace time. Which wasn’t quite the same as when I do this at school, but they each chose a random challenge from a 30 Days of LEGO calendar I saw floating around Facebook and got busy building.

Chore time is when it almost fell apart. I gotta say, though, that I totally impressed myself with how calm I stayed. Thankfully, only one of them gave me trouble.

I told them that we would have one task to complete and when it was done, they could start their free time. The task was to gather any clothes that was not where it belonged and put it away. Monkey Boy thought this was going to be easy, until I reminded him about all of the clothing on his closet floor. That’s when he went nuts and threw a gigantic tantrum, complete with throwing things, laying on the floor kicking, slamming doors… if I haven’t mentioned, he’s TEN not two.

After 30 minutes of him yelling at me that I wanted to ruin his life and I’m the meanest person in the world, and truly trying to get me to yell back (quite frankly, I’m not sure how I managed to keep my cool), he asked if I would help him. Once he calmed completely, I did just that. And lo and behold, we got it done. (I’m still fully expecting a medal for my parenting skill today.)

I made dinner and we ate, then we decided to take the dogs for anything walk, since the clouds were clearing up. We were not the only people out walking. It was nice to get fresh air and I met my (super low at this point) step goal for the first time in days! We played in the roller hockey rink so the dogs and kids could run before heading back home.

This is the hockey rink where Puck got his name. 😍

We ended the day with me reading the first chapter of The Girl and Her Sweep out loud. Then bedtime.

Bring on tomorrow!

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Filed under Exercise, friends, fun, Parenting, social distancing

March 13, 2020 · 10:39 pm

Social Distancing Day 1 recap

Not too bad for the first day! I can’t say there was no fighting, because that would be lying, but the tv stayed off until 7 PM, so I’d call that a win!

When I showed Monkey Boy the slips of paper (not what was on them), he was immediate intrigued. He wanted to draw one right away, even before Squirrel Girl was out of bed! Fortunately, the first one he drew was “Treasure Hunt,” so he was able to work on his clues while I showered and SG emerged from her room.

He came up with this completely on his own! He used lines from Green Eggs and Ham as clues to lead us to his drawing of green eggs and ham. He even came up with his own Seuss-style rhyming clue! SG and I had fun following his clues.

Then it was SG’s turn to hide treasure and leave clues. While she worked, MB and I read a couple of Seuss books in my room. (No pics of her clues. Sorry.)

Next we drew “Build with legos.” I spent a lot of my time taking apart old creations to find their desired pieces, but it was actually quite satisfying for me.

The Leaning Tower of Pizza (that’s what he said!)

While they continued to build, I took the opportunity to run to Kroger. We needed a few things (I was out of shampoo and face swabs), so I decided to brave the madness. Yes, it was crowded. But everyone was very courteous and while there were a LOT of empty spaces in the store, I was able to get what I needed. I was impressed by the customers that offered sanitary wipes to others for wiping their carts, the employees continuously restocking shelves (I made sure to say thank you!), the lines of customers waiting patiently to check out, the cashier that wiped down his scanner between every customer… Yes, we are in an unusual situation, but look at all the kindness still going on all around us!

Back home, with all of the groceries put away, we had lunch and then worked on building more legos to make a city and a racetrack! Lots of fun seeing which cars could make it to the end! Every car I chose was a dismal failure! 😂

It was then time for my annual ICD check, so the kids grabbed books and we headed out. They got in quite a bit of reading while I had my checkup and afterward we stopped at Sonic for a little Happy Hour treat!

Back home, it was time for a game of Balloon Tennis! We all had fun with this, and it got in some active minutes too!

We ended the day with home made pizza and a movie. 🥰 I definitely think today was an overall success. Tomorrow, Daddy is home, so we shall see how that changes the dynamics.

When I get a chance, I hope to share some great (free) resources that have been circulating with my teacher/librarian friends. I never know if the non-educator people see these things, so I don’t want you to miss out! I’m particularly excited about the authors and museums that are doing free online visits!

Stay safe!

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Filed under family, fun, Parenting, planning, social distancing

March 13, 2020 · 7:46 am

Social Distancing Day 1

After the announcement yesterday that school will be closed an extra week due to the pandemic, my son’s immediate response was “What?! I can’t stay in this house for another week!” Mind you, we had been going, going, going all Spring Break long and this was the first day at home.

This is what happens when you have a single extroverted child living in a home of introverts. The rest of us see the recommended social distancing as an opportunity to catch up on reading or other hobbies. He sees it as a jail sentence. His wails of “But what will we DO?!” echoing in my ears reminded me that I used to be quite good at keep my kids engaged and entertained without the use of the tv babysitter.

So when something woke me up at 4:45 this morning and my overactive brain didn’t allow me to go back to sleep, I went into planning mode. I started a list of activities we can do here at home to be creative and active too. It’s raining (of course!) so all activities will have to be indoors, but pulling from my years of lesson planning in theatre, the library, and even Tot School, I’ve at least got a start. For today, we will choose at random. But as the time goes on, I may be more intentional with what we do. I guess it just depends on how long we are here.

I know others will be in the same boat, so I decided to resurrect my old blog and share what we are doing. I’ll try to update each day on how things went. What was a hit, what was a flop, and what I’d do differently. I’d love to hear your ideas as well!

Activities in the jar:

Use Book Creator to tell a story

Invent/build something to solve a problem

Build a box fortMake a movie (script first!)

Make puppets and put on a show

Create crazy costumes and put on a show

Build a racetrack and race cars

Dance Party

Build a city out of recyclables and household items

Build with legos

Read a picture book and act out the story

Balloon tennis

Draw pictures/comics

Research a place to visit and plan what you would want to do

Stop motion

Treasure hunt

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Filed under family, fun, Parenting, planning, social distancing

October 13, 2013 · 9:56 pm

Week 7: Soccer

Well, this was a crazy week! We went to my mom’s for the weekend and didn’t return until Monday, so no homeschool on Monday. And Thursday and Friday were my first days to work as a substitute teacher, so no homeschool those days either. So we really only had Tuesday and Wednesday. I tried to get at least a few things in.

Tuesday–
We had speech first thing in the morning, so I found some soccer books while they were busy. I found Dinosoccer by Lisa Wheeler, Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London, and Franklin Plays the Game by Paulette Bourgeois. I was actually familiar with all three of these books from my library days.

When we came home we read a few of the books before heading off to Dance class, then lunch with friends (I’m telling you, Tuesdays are busy!). When we came home we sat down to do some soccer math.

First we played a game of “I have, who has?” created by Jill Gillen. This is the first time we’ve really worked with the written numbers higher than 10 (this set went to 25). I did a quick lesson on the numbers 1-30, showing them how they looked and the pattern they make. I realized I really need to print out a chart for them that makes it easier to see the pattern. We then played the game by putting the cards face up in front of us so that I could help them “read” the cards. They caught on pretty well, and I’ve heard them trying to count higher lately. Even if they do say “Twenty-ten” (which I think is super adorable), at least I know they are catching on to the way numbers work! (N said he played this game again with them on Friday and he was surprised at how well they did, though the “teens” were definitely their weakest part.)

Next, I found a Roll and Cover Game from a math and literacy set that went with the Froggy book, created by Karen Swihart. The kids rolled two dice and counted up the dots and found the number on the soccer balls. Rather than print out the frog covers, I just had them use dot markers. Kyla got frustrated because she kept getting the same number over and over, so she started just turning the dice to get the numbers she wanted. I was actually okay with this, since she still had to figure out what numbers each die had to be on in order to make the numbers she was missing.

Roll & Cover

That was really all we had time for before I had to get dinner together and then off to soccer practice (Hey! That works for the theme, right?! 😉 ).

Wednesday–
While we were less scheduled, we didn’t seem to be any less busy on Wednesday. 😉 I worked with the kids on word families using this

Score a Word game created by KidSparkz. I didn’t have them write down the words, we just sounded them out together. Lucas really started hearing how the individual sounds came together into a word. Kyla was completely lost. She didn’t hear the word until I had said the actual word. I know we’re still a ways off from learning to really read, so I’m not concerned in the least. Exposing them to it is my main objective.

Sounding out CVC words

We went to the library for story time and managed to find two Franklin DVDS that had episodes about soccer! One was even the exact same as the book we got from the school library. So while I worked on making lunch when we got home, they watched that episode. Which of course meant we had to watch all the other episodes on the DVD after lunch! Daddy let them watch the other DVD on Friday while I was at work.

Oddly enough, I’m not even sure what we did with the rest of our day, but I know we got some reading in (those kids are fiends for reading!). We had a nice quiet evening, since I knew I’d be going in to work for the first time in over 4 years the next day! Saturday they played in their 3rd Soccer game. Such cuties!

Lucas pretending he knows what he’s doing while Kyla waits on the bench.

While we weren’t able to do as much as I might have liked, I’m glad I was able to fit in a few things. Future weeks will probably be slimmed down some, depending on what days I am working. I’m seriously considering leaving sub plans for N to follow when I’m gone! Next week I’ve only got 2 days that anything will be likely to get done as well. But I certainly don’t want to give up on our homeschooling, as the kids enjoy it so much.

Week 5/6: Instrument Families

I had this theme planned out several weeks ago and by the time we got to it I’d lost my enthusiasm for it. Thankfully, the kids found the enthusiasm and then some! This turned out much different than I’d originally expected, but I love that I was able to go with their interest and keep them excited about the theme!

Monday–
As an introduction to our theme I showed them several videos of musical instrument families that I’d found on YouTube (see links below) and an interactive presentation I’d found on Teachers Pay Teachers.

When I first started this theme I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of families, but that was what the kids immediately latched onto. They loved the story of the String Family in this video I found:

They really got into the idea of the family aspect and acted out the story several times throughout the day.

We also gathered all of our musical instruments, listened to our Fresh Beat Band CD, and marched around the house. Then talked about what we use to be able to enjoy music (ears, listening, hearing, etc.). I then gave them each this checklist for a Listening Walk that I found on TeachPreschool.com. We took a walk to a park where we happened to find a group of families doing Homeschool! They thought it was really neat seeing other kids doing homeschool and were able to play with the youngest kids and pretend to build a campfire.

On the way home we looked at our list to see what we had not heard and tried our very best to be quiet and listen for those sounds. Unfortunately, they always scared the squirrels away before we could get close enough to actually hear them and (thankfully) we did not have any firetrucks come by. The clock was another tricky one, since all the clocks in our house are digital. If I had this to do over again, I probably would have made my own check list so that we would be more likely to hear all of the items on the list. Live and learn!

Tuesday–
We had Speech and Dance in the morning, so when they got up from Quiet Time (Lucas actually slept, Kyla did not) they came out to find letters on all of the keys of their keyboard. I showed them music notes and told them they had letters just like the alphabet, but they only went up to g, rather than z. I then had some sheet music for them to try playing: Mary Had a Little Lamb from Homemade-Preschool. They enjoyed being able to pick out the notes, though they aren’t quite there on the rhythm yet. 😉

Playing Mary Had a Little Lamb

I tried doing a lesson using notes and pattern making, but it just wasn’t working, so I put it aside and pulled out this Instrument Family Sorting Game. I put the family names on file folders and the kids and I worked on putting the instruments into the correct family groups.

Finding Instrument Families

While we were doing this activity I remembered that I had a song/story by Danny Kaye called Tubby the Tuba. I pulled it up on my computer and let the kids listen to it. At first they were distracted by the fact that there was nothing for them to watch, but eventually they started to really listen to the story and enjoyed it. I pointed out to them the instruments mentioned and the sounds they made along the way. Then I saw that on the same CD there was a track called “The Little Fiddle” and even though I didn’t remember what it was I thought it was worth a shot. Sure enough, it was another story using instruments as characters. They loved it. I then went online and found a YouTube video for each of the stories, including one that is a cartoon made in the 60s, and also an entire web site about Tubby the Tuba, which was turned into a picture book (Danny Kaye was not the original performer, apparently). I printed out a coloring page from that web site that they enjoyed coloring.

These stories really seemed to grab the kids because they took the instrument cards from the sorting game and started using them to act out the stories. So fun!

Wednesday–
Wednesday tends to be “craft” day for us. So I found two instrument coloring pages that also required some cutting and gluing practice from Homemade-Preschool. One was a Violin that required gluing on the strings and the other was a Xylophone that had them cut out the keys and glue them on in size order. I think the xylophone one would have been better if they hadn’t been in size order already on the page, but the kids did a great job of cutting them out. Lucas did glue one on out of order, but only because he ran out of room. He’s not too concerned about perfection like Kyla is. 😉 We also put together homemade kazoos using toilet paper tubes and wax paper. They didn’t last very long with Distructo Boy around, but they were fun while they lasted.

Craft Day!

We also went to the library and were able to get several books about instruments and music that were fun to read.

Slight Pause thanks to a super busy schedule and distraction from my mom’s surgery. We did not get to any activities on Thursday thanks to being away from the house from 8:00 AM to 7:30 PM for speech, doctor’s appointment (mine), zoo school, and dinner out. Friday became a family day, Saturday was their first soccer game, and Sunday thru Wednesday I was out of town.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to the lessons when I got back. Thursdays are just too busy, apparently. And Friday (once again) turned into a family day (which is great!). We did watch some Fantasia and talk about the music, but that was really it.

Starting now things are going to get trickier to plan. I’ve finally been fully approved to sub for our local school district, so I won’t be home with them every day anymore. We’ll see how this goes…

Week 4: Pirates

With Talk Like a Pirate Day being September 19th, I thought it would be perfect to use a Pirate theme for this week. With Jake and the Neverland Pirates being their favorite TV show at the moment, it was very easy to get them excited about the theme (and to find a computer game for them to play!). There is a LOT of stuff out there that uses a pirate theme, so it was really just a matter of filtering through what I found and deciding what skills I wanted to work on and what would interest them most. Here’s what we did.

Monday–

To introduce the theme we started off reading some pirate books I’d gotten from the library, watched the Veggie Tales movie The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, and acted like pirates all day. We all wore head scarfs the whole day, even while running errands. I meant to get a picture of all three of us dressed up, but never got it. Oops! We also played the game Pirate Island. It’s a game of listening, thinking, and doing. Each card had a phrase which indicated a specific 2-3 step action that the players must perform. When I would call out the phrase, they had to think about what those steps were, then do them. I was actually quite amazed at how well they did this. Later Lucas called out the phrases (he can’t read, but apparently the pictures on the cards gave him enough clue and he remembered the correct phrases!) and Kyla did the actions. It was a super cute game. To keep it interesting I made them do everything super fast once I knew they really knew the actions. They really enjoyed it.

Pirate Island Game

Tuesday–
We started the day at speech, then dance, then played a Pirates Arrr! board game. The cards are blank, so you can use them for any skill you want to work on. I decided to use it for identifying lower case letters. They did great! Unfortunately, it didn’t hold their attention quite like I thought it would. We played once and they didn’t want to play again. But they DID want to do another pirate activity. Which I hadn’t planned for because we had several scheduled things going on that day. But taking naps away last week means we have extra time in our day that I hadn’t factored in. So I quickly pulled out an activity that was meant for Wednesday. I used a Pirate Vocab Cards set and had them “trace the room.” They had to hunt for the picture/word cards that I’d taped up all over the house, then find the matching word on their tracing sheet and trace it. They seemed to really enjoy this one and I think it really helped them to see how slightly different letters can create different words. Lucas started to trace “pirate” when he found the “parrot” but quickly noticed they were not exactly the same, even though they both started with P. He began to really pay attention to all of the letters, rather than just the beginning. I think this was a great activity and one I may use for future themes as well.

Arrrr and Hunting (and tracing) words

Wednesday–
Since we did a Wednesday activity on Tuesday, I moved an activity from Thursday to Wednesday along with an art project I’d already planned to do that day. We made paper bag puppets from a Pirates packet by Rainy Day Learning. There were lots of good activities included in the packet, but this was the only one I used. I just didn’t have time for everything I found! I probably could do a pirate theme for a whole month and not run out of new activities!

Paper Bag Pirate Puppets

The rearranged Thursday activity was Pirate Pattern activity within a larger packet of Pirate themed math. While the kids have done patterns before and are pretty good at them (thanks Umizoomi!), I had never referred to them as AB, ABC, etc. So I wasn’t sure how they would do with this one. When they finished making their puppets I talked to each of them individually about what the letters meant. I wasn’t sure if I had explained it well, but as I was talking to Kyla, Lucas started laughing and said “I colored that one purple and it supposed to be blue!” He thought it was quite funny. I told him that was okay and I was proud of him for realizing his mistake. I suggested he color blue over the purple, even though it wouldn’t look exactly right. The other patterns (ABC and ABBC) were a piece of cake for him apparently! Kyla, on the other hand, had a bit of difficulty. She didn’t do badly, just made a few mistakes. I wanted to make sure that I showed her where she’d gone wrong, but I also know that she falls apart when she’s told she has made a mistake. So I decided to approach it a bit differently. I said “Why don’t we look and see what you got right?” I then went one by one through the patterns and which colors should be the same. I had her tell me which ones were different and what color they would need to be to fit the pattern. I then had her circle the incorrect ones with the correct color. It worked well and there were no tears! As a matter of fact, Lucas was disappointed that he didn’t have any to circle! LOL

Pirate Patterns

Thursday–
Although Thursdays are another busy day for us now, we were able to work in one activity. This one we did together, since it is a new skill for them. We’re talking Pirate Addition. I did not use these exactly as they are in the packet. I printed all of the addition problems, but I only printed off the number pages in such a way that I had at least one of every number 0-10. We then worked together to put those numbers in order. Then I gave each of them a pile of gold dabloons to use for counting. I would turn over a card and talk them through putting out the right number of coins for each number in the problem and adding them all up. We then placed the problem under the appropriate answer on our “number line.” Once again, Lucas caught on quickly and Kyla struggled a bit. I think more from a fear of being wrong than actually not getting it. After I knew they understood the concept, I gave a pile of cards to Lucas and a pile to Kyla and had them work on different problems at the same time and place them under the correct answer. Lucas worked quickly, while Kyla struggled and asked for help often. Of course, because I was so focused on helping Kyla out, I didn’t discover until later that Lucas was not always getting the right answer. By the end, we had quite a graph of sorts of all the different ways to add up to each number. By no means do I think they are addition experts now, but I think they’ve definitely got the beginning knowledge in place now!

Pirate Addition

I also quickly designed a rhyming lesson the night before using the vocab cards from Tuesday. I made my own cards with pictures and words that rhymed with 8 of the pirate words. We worked together to match the rhyming words. This was where Kyla caught on faster than Lucas. I don’t like to stereotype boys and girls, but it sure is interesting to notice where my boy and girl have their biggest strengths! (I didn’t get pictures of this activity because it was really quick.)

Friday–
Computer day! Of course, since we’re doing a Pirate theme, we HAD to do Jake and the Neverland Pirate games on the computer! I let them chose the games they wanted to play while I worked with the other child on ordinal numbers from the same packet as the patterns from Wednesday. I knew they had a good grasp on what first meant (how many times have I heard “Me first!” from one or both of them?), but wasn’t sure how they would do with the rest. As I suspected, they really didn’t know the others, so it took quite a bit of coaching on my part to help them through the task. I do think it was helpful for them to do this activity as an introduction, but I’m glad I chose to do it on Friday when the other child would be busy with the computer. And thankfully, N was home, so when the child on the computer was needing help he was able to step in so I could focus on what I was doing.

Ordinal Numbers

Overall–
I think this week went well. I wasn’t as fond of the books we got for this theme, but we didn’t really need them since pirates is a known thing for them. Today (Sunday) we also played Pirates and ate on the last two pirate map paper plates from the pantry (why not?!). I know the kids enjoyed this theme and it will probably make it’s way back into homeschool, since there is so much out there with this theme.

Category Archives: fun

Week 7: Soccer

Week 5/6: Instrument Families

Week 4: Pirates

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