Whilst not the most exciting activity, practicing writing letters is extremely important for students in the primary grades, especially in Kindergarten as they are learning their letters. You can find these printables everywhere, and if you want to focus your child's attention on one specific letter, you could google search up some images and come up with very reasonable options for free. Below are two options I found for free online. You can choose to have your student practice with just a pencil, different colored markers, or even like we did, with paints. I swear Jay will work happily on anything if I give him paint.
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The Omaha Doorly Zoo has been creating fun online experiences and lessons because their doors are closed, so that your child can experience the wonders of the zoo remotely. You can click to explore yourself below, or keep reading my explanation!
They have special activities for Earth Day week posted, as well as clickable drop-down postings on different topics, usually specific animals. They have some themes, like "Caturday". When you drop down the menu, it will give you several options. If you like to be able to return to the page without going back and having to reload and find the topic again, left click and select "Open in new window"- otherwise, it connects you through the same window, and you lose the original page. The zoologists always provide a "Keeper Clip" for students to see a short video of an animal keeper at work, which is explained in the text above. Occasionally, they also have an education specialist create a video- they tend to be cheesy, which is good for primary grades and early intermediate, but older children may not be excited about the content. The videos seem to be reasonably short- from around 5-7 minutes each. After engaging with that content, they have a short activity you can do with your child. They have the activities grouped K-5 and 6-12, so adjust the expectations to fit your child's needs.
In Kindergarten, Jay has been learning about different letters, practicing how to write them, and identifying the sounds they make. A large part of early literacy is identifying the sounds of different letters in words. This activity can also change to looking for words that just contain the sound of different letters, or that end with different letters. Jay is still using some invented spelling, especially for blended sounds, but the idea is to identify different things they regularly see with the letters he is already learning. In the picture below, he is writing "washer" or "woher", exactly, next to the W, one of the letters we were focusing on that day. All you need is a piece of paper with each letter in the alphabet, and some kind of writing utensil. Jay had fun running around the house and picking out things that started with different letters.
Recently, COVID-19 has spread to my hometown and to the factory here. Because of this, my sister's daycare provider may have been compromised, so I have taken over caring for my niece and nephew. My nephew is 6 years old and participating in distance learning for Kindergarten. I will call him Jay. I have a lot of worksheets and suggestions from learning from his teacher I have been following. Occasionally, because my nephew hates worksheets, I take the concept and adapt it to something more fun. These are some of the activities we did recently.
Math: Learning Coins and Adding/Counting
One of the skills Jay is learning about is counting, and counting money. I have a jar of loose change that we dump out, and he and his 3 year old sister Adaline (Addy) separate the coins. This is good for her too, because it allows her to learn the concepts of sorting, and she likes "playing school" with Jay.
After we've separated the coins, Jay gets to choose one out of the pile, and tries to tell me what it is, and what it's worth. We do this for all the coins, and I challenge Jay with setting out a few coins in a pile and asking him how many coins, and how much they are worth. It allows practice counting by 5's and 10's, and familiarity with currency. Once your child is comfortable with money, you could challenge them. I want to take Jay to get drive through ice-cream at Dairy Queen, which costs 1.99. Once he can count out and figure out that amount, he can help me and see the application of learning the coins by counting out what he needs to pay for it. Science: Exploring Insects
My nephew's teacher sent out a video she thought would be helpful to learn about insects, and Jack really enjoyed it. I attached it below.
I decided to add to his understanding of the parts of insects and taught him about the head, thorax, and abdomen. There are versions of the hokey pokey song that teach about the different parts of insects. My favorite is below.
We finished this lesson by looking at my example drawing of an insect, and talking about the body parts. Then Jay took out his crayons and got to draw his own insect. He could color it in any way, make the body however he wanted, and could add things- he just needed to include all the main body parts. His drawing is below. I wrote the labels, he just had to tell me what part was what. He titled it the "Flower Sucker".
Reading: Word Creation Using Base Words/Sounds
Jack's teacher particularly wanted them to work on Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words and creating those, and the base sounds ub and ut. Creating these words helps build his vocabulary and reading ability. I made watercolor letters for him to cut out and put together like puzzle pieces to create words. You can make your own, or print out mine. All of the letters are on there- I just started by trying to only do the letters that would make successful combinations, then changed my mind and created every letter. If you would prefer, your child can also write out each letter of the alphabet as practice and use those to do the word building. Jay is always more motivated if I let him use watercolors.
We also just read books during this time, and because I have two very high energy kids- a 6 and 3 year old, I put them down for a short nap. We always calm down before rest time with a few picture books, and I read them aloud. Sometimes Jay chimes in with sight words he knows.
Fun Activities
During school, students get free time, can interact with friends, and have recess. Create breaks for your child to just go play, or fun activities you can do together. With grandma, the kids made lemon cupcakes, they played tractors, cowboys, princess, and all kinds of imaginative games. Let them run.
Amazon Audible has removed the subscription fee for children's books. They have the books broken down by broad age groups, and students can choose any variety of languages to listen to, as well. Select from classics to more modern favorites, and enjoy!
If your student is tired of being inside, or staying in one place, why not let them actively play and practice math at the same time? While playing hopscotch, your student can practice adding and subtracting. This activity will probably work best for addition, but if you have older students you can adapt it for multiplication or division, which I will put below if you choose to read more.
What You'll Need: Masking tape OR sidewalk chalk A beanbag or rock Board game spinner OR dice, OR a piece of paper, a pencil, and a paper clip How it Works If inside, you or your student can use tape (like in the picture above) to create a large hopscotch space for your student or students. If outside, you or your student can create the hopscotch space by drawing it. Don't be afraid to get creative or create a different looking path! Just make sure your squares are big enough you actually get to move a little bit. I suggest creating the board for at least 10 spaces, to reinforce units of ten. If you have a Spinner Prepare your spinner for the game by covering the colors or marking them with different numbers that you will add- vary the numbers according to your child's age and comfort level. Smaller numbers and even numbers are usually easier to work with. If you have Dice Roll it! You're Ready to go! Maybe place it on a plate or something where they will not get lost. If you have Paper, a Pencil, and a Paper Clip You are essentially going to make your own Spinner. Draw a circle on the paper, and then create pie shaped pieces. If you cut it into 10 pieces then you can number them 1-10. Then place the paper clip in the center of the circle where all the pie tips meet, and place the pencil over the paper clip so that you can flick the paper clip and make it spin- voila! You can vary the numbers according to your child's age and comfort level. Smaller numbers and even numbers are usually easier to work with. Next, toss your beanbag, rock, or placeholder onto the board (you will have to hop to it). Then, use the number you either rolled or spun, and hop that many more spaces, counting up as you go. If it surpasses 10 and the end of the hopscotch, they've created a unit of 10, and should hop back to see how many more ones it creates, and so on. Happy hopping! I saw this on Facebook and thought it was a great idea! Help your student write, if they cannot currently write on their own, they could tell you what they wanted to say, and add a picture to go with their letter featuring Pete the Cat, other favorite characters, or even of someone they love reading with!
In my hometown, the library is now closed. You need to call in to ask for a specific book, and then you can drive to the library and pick up that specific book. The catch is, you have to know what you're looking for. There is no feature on the website where I get to read the first few pages, I don't have a lot of options to scroll through and just browse- I have to know what book I want. Libby helps with that.
Libby is available on most Apple, Android, and Windows 10 devices. It can also connect to Kindles. If you have a library card, you can select your library, type in the code beneath the barcode on the back of your card, and Libby will connect you to multitudes of audiobooks and ebooks that you can check out with the push of a button. Books are sorted by youth, young adult, and general. You can further narrow down choices by book or audiobook, and by book to compatibility. All books are available through the app, but others are sorted by Kindle, or Adobe-compatible e-reader. After choosing an age demographic, you can browse books in all categories, or further narrow your thousands of choices by topic, ranging from Thrillers, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Non-Fiction, or even as specific as Folklore. Depending on your library, you can even choose the language of book you are searching for. Scan titles by the pictures of their covers, and even benefit from knowing just how long it would take to finish the audiobook you plan on checking out. As far as I can tell, most loans last for two weeks, or fourteen days. And, for fans of the Hunger Games out there, may the odds be ever in your favor!" |
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