End of Week Reflections

So, this is what we actually did this week:

Read the following books (in addition to others):

Hibernation Station by Michelle Meadows and Kurt Cyrus
When Will it Snow? by Kathryn White and Alison Edgson
Jingle Bells by Darcy May
When Will it Be Spring? by Catherine Walters
Hello, Snow by Hope Vestergaard 
Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson

Video Resources:

We watched these videos:

Dora the Explorer The Mixed Up Seasons (season 4, episode 15)

Activities:

Math

✓1. Back to work on counting. I think I'll print some BIG numbers and put them around the basement. It will be more active and fun to have her get up and move around to find the number and what is underneath it.  I'll divide the basement into four seasons and reinforce the seasonal stuff.

✓2. She has chosen to play some basic addition games on my iPad, so I think I'll do a formal introduction of the + sign. We've done it casually previously. She can easily grasp 1, 2, and 3 without counting now. She's internalized the amount.

Map Skills

1. She has asked to go visit the woods and have an adventure, so I think I will take the iPad out and we'll go for a walk, take some photos, and then recreate the walk on paper using photos and toys.  I have a trail marking/GPS app on the ipad which would facilitate this.

Language Arts

✓1. I want to focus for the next few weeks on getting her to tell more stories. She makes them up all the time and I'd like to encourage that more.  Perhaps this week, we'll try to actually put her story down in a book (with my help).

Science

1. We'll take some time this week to look at photos of all sorts of animals that hibernate and where they “sleep”.

2. We've been talking about how snow and ice are made (the temperature required), so I think we'll freeze some water in the freezer. Then we can compare it to water outside and water from the faucet and from the refrigerator. 

3. We'll cover the seasons and which months go in which season.  Since we have a globe, we might try to talk about the planet and sun in terms of the seasons, but I suspect that will still be over her head.  However, if I use one of my floor lamps that emits heat as the sun.....she might feel the difference.

✓4. We hung up a calendar in the basement and check it everyday to see what day it is.  We also added some art work that shows it is the season of winter and the month of January.

Kitchen/Meals/Snacks
I'll get my ice cube trays out that are fun shapes.  We can fill them up with juice and other liquids.

Feelings

✓1. She's been asking me a lot recently if I'm happy. So, I think we'll talk about being happy and what makes her happy. Since she know a lot of words to use to describe emotions, I think we'll talk about how we express being happy in ways other than using words. Then, we can branch out to talking about other feelings and how we communicate them in addition to using words.

Art

✓1. Origami snowflakes which we will paint and decorate.  I need to buy some thinner paper.  (Used parchment paper from the kitchen)

Fine Motor

✓1. I think I'll make some tracing patterns of different animals and snowflakes for her.

✓2. We'll get back to tracing letters this week.

✓3. The origami project also strengthens fine motor and use of scissors.

✓4. On a whim, I bought some lacing cards at a store this week. We'll spend some time playing with those this week.

Reading

1. She is absorbing words amazingly quickly, so I think we'll start on learning to spell and recognize three new words a week. We'll adjust the number up or down as needed.  No need to do this in a formal way.  She is learning a ton of words from all the reading we're doing.