We started off Monday with our usual walk. It was cold and windy today! We said our verses and then Grant modeled a cube with the fingertips of his left hand. The cube is proving to be a bit more of a challenge than the sphere, but of course that is the idea. After that we added in a new math game for math review. It was called "What Did I Do?" and it is from this book:
(I like the totally 80's girl on the front :) The good thing is math games are timeless.)
I put a certain number of beads in my hand and had Grant count them. Then I either took some away or added some in and then asked Grant to re-count and tell me what I did to change the number.
Afterward we did our penny whistle lesson, and then I read this book:
It had the coolest actual photos of snowflakes. I didn't go into all the details because I didn't want to take all of the magic out of snow for the kids, especially Johanna.
After I read the book it was snack time and then on to our main lesson. On this day we talked about Monday.
Grant decided that since Monday was a school day, he should draw a picture of a book. He decided to call the book "The Three Little Chickens".
On Monday afternoon, Grant and I used a magnifying glass to look at snowflakes which had landed on a black surface. We saw a couple good ones, but Grant was to busy wanting to play to take a really good look. We will probably try this again later on when we are getting another good snow.
On Tuesday, the kids enjoyed playing in the freshly fallen 5 inches of snow. We WILL be able to do some fun things with snow this week! Once we came inside, we did another math game called, "Star Count". Grant rolled the dice once and then drew that number of circles. He rolled the dice again and drew that number of stars inside each circle. Once he did that he had to tell me the total number of stars he had. We had a friendly competition to see who would have the most stars after four rounds.
After the math game, Grant jump-roped to this rhyme sung to the tune of the Adam's Family theme song:
Days of the week (clap, clap)
Days of the week (clap, clap)
There's Sunday and there's Monday
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday
There's Thursday and there's Friday
And then there's Saturday.
Days of the week (clap, clap)
Days of the week (clap, clap)
Days of the weeks, days of the week,
days of the week, (clap, clap).
I found this rhyme in this cool little book I picked up in a gift shop in Okoboji, Iowa:
Today during our main lesson, we talked about Tuesday and Grant drew a picture in his lesson book. Tuesdays are jump-roping days, so Grant drew himself jumping rope.
On Wednesday we started out with our string game and penny whistle lesson, and then I read this book:
For snack we had vanilla "snow"cream. We went outside and collected some snow and mixed it in with the other ingredients. This snack was a big hit with the kids!
I used this recipe from www.cookingTF.com:
1/2 cup coconut milk (which is what we used) or dairy cream
1 Tbs honey
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
dash salt
4 or more cups clean snow
In a bowl, whisk together the milk, honey, salt and vanilla. Gently stir in the snow until you reach the desired consistency.
You can also make eggnog snow cream by stirring snow into your favorite eggnog recipe. Or add mashed banana or pureed fruit.
After snack, Grant and I talked about Wednesday, Grant drew a picture in his main lesson book. Wednesday is string game day, so Grant drew two pairs of hands with strings (in case you were wondering).
We continued to work more on the spelling of the days when Grant wrote them all out (M-Th), read them out loud, then closed his eyes and spelled them out loud.
On Thursday we took a trek through the woods looking for animal tracks.
"Tracker" Jo
We couldn't figure out what animal made these mysterious dinosaur-like prints.
It was always Grant that seemed to find them though.....
Our woodland trek took awhile, so once we were in the school room I read a cute little story from Little Acorn Learning's January guide. It was about how a little snowflake formed from a raindrop, but it was much more age appropriate for Johanna. After that we went right into our main lesson and started talking about Thursday. Dad is home on Thursday, so Grant drew the two of them building a Lego tower.
For spelling practice, I said the day of the week out loud and Grant had to write it down.
On Friday, we made Snowy Day "salt" paintings. We painted our pictures using wet-on-wet watercolors, then sprinkled salt on them and let them dry. My salt went crazy and made my picture look like a blizzard in the middle of Minnesota.
Mom's Snowy Day Picture
Grant's Snowy Day Picture
Johanna's Snowy Day Picture
Next week we will finish covering the days of the week, and then review them all. Look for a new video of Grant playing his penny whistle coming next week, too!
