Educational

Week 28 – Springtime with Roo Results

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Virtual school was a bit of a struggle this week, especially at the beginning, mostly because one of the teachers was having trouble with her microphone. There was a special visit from a firefighter, who talked about the importance of fire safety in the home. (Although we have a Nest protect, not a traditional fire detector, so Dragon was very confused.)

They learned the letter ‘c’. Dragon loves the printing portion of the day.

After lunch, they did a subtraction game, and Dragon DEMOLISHED it. But when she tried a more complicated one that was timed, she panicked and forgot everything. Poor thing. I don’t like timed math either.

Homeschool went well this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. Their lesson went really well. Dragon was very focussed. Finger exercises, you could tell that she had practiced. They did lessons 3,4,&5. She did very well, focussed and tried hard. They did clapping and counting before playing, and it worked a little bit; they’ll keep trying that. Then they did chopsticks, and she’s improving in that too.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 72 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a small amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s. We continued counting by tens. It’s a work in progress that’s getting easier each week.

She loved that “neuf oeufs” rhymed!

Math went well and we finally had a breakthrough with adding large numbers, where she started with the large number and added the smaller number to it.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words! We’re almost done the second season and we’ll have to find a new show to watch soon.

Activity

Painting eggs – We made paper mache eggs on Wednesday and let them dry. Then we painted them on Saturday. I think they turned out rather well.

Make a daffodil – we ended up not doing this one

Paint a flower pot – We painted flower pots on Friday. Dragon really enjoyed it.

A green and blue heart and a yellow sun
A blue horse and a purple and red butterfly

For your Aurora Considerations – How I Taught My Dragon

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Hello!

Since September, Jen of JenEric Designs has been writing, preparing, running, and posting a new adventure called How I Taught my Dragon: Kindergarten education through genre media.

Effectively it’s a guide (and results) for parents to use films as a jumping off point for kindergarten education, each week a new film with activities and learning sheets designed around the film’s themes and content.

It was designed with the Ontario Curriculum in mind and to supplement our daughters 1 day a week of online school. It could easily be scaled up to be a full home school, or down to simply add some extras for parents who keep their kids home.

What she’s done over the past 8 months is spectacular both as a tool for other parents and as a journey with Dragon.

Please check out the blog and consider nominating it for the Aurora Awards in the category of Best Fan Related Work. Nominations are open until April 24th.

What are the Aurora Awards?

aurora

The Aurora Awards are awards “for excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy works and activities.” They are administered by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.

It’s a fan voted award in the vein of the Hugo’s, but with way more awesome people.

You’ll have to join the CSFFA for a pittance of $10 before you can nominate anyone. Once you’ve paid, you can nominate 5 works in each category. You can nominate works from now until May 18th.

The extra bonus of joining the CSFFA is you’ll get a voters package that includes most of the works that make the ballot. That’s 8-10 novels plus a bunch of other awesome stuff.

Thank you!

Éric

Week 29 – The Secret World of Arrietty

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I’m going to be honest with all of you; I have NOT seen this movie! I have read the book (a VERY long time ago) and I enjoyed it, and I’m looking forward to watching this adaption.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieMake a fairy doorMake a hair clipMake a miniature roomFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials

Storytime

Activity

Make a fairy door – link to activity
Make a hair clip – link to activity
Make a miniature room – link to activity

Next week – Totoro

Week 27 – Rise of the Guardians Results

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Virtual school started a bit rough. Dragon had trouble focussing at first, when asked questions, but once they started learning the new letter “h”, she was able to write down all the words they were given. She added some math at the top of the page on her own as well.

Math in the afternoon, they learned about quantities (smaller than, bigger than, equal to). Dragon said that it wasn’t “real math” (I’m quoting her), but grasped the concept quickly.

She presented her Emotions Touch and Feel book that she made the previous week, but I’m not sure the teachers understood what it was because they kept asking if it was a journal.

Homeschool went well this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: Still has trouble with the first note, no matter what order she’s asked in, it will always be trouble. Did the finger exercises, with only a little hand adjustment. Did lessons 3,4&5. Five is a new one and she did very well. She was very focussed, paid attention, and tried very hard.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 72 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s. We continued counting by tens. It’s a work in progress.

Math: The math went very well this week. We also did some coding, both the bee and the first kind. She did the first kind so quickly that I feel as though I blinked and she was done!

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words! We’re almost done the second season and we’ll have to find a new show to watch soon.

Activity

Colour Easter eggs – I was pleased that she switched colours without prompting. She also mostly stayed inside the lines, which was a pleasant surprise, as I haven’t seen her colour in a while.

Design Dreamland – She melted down a bit when asked to draw, but I managed to get her back on track fairly quickly by breaking the castle down into it’s basic shapes.

  • Hard at work
  • Learning how to draw a castle
  • Rainbow and candy canes
  • Dreamland castle with a rainbow road and candy canes

Learn about the moon – The weather didn’t cooperate this week, so we didn’t get a chance to use the telescope. We’ll do that later on. Instead, we watched a bunch of YouTube videos about the moon. Both kids enjoyed watching them.

Week 28 – Springtime with Roo

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I watched this movie for the first time last year. I don’t particularly enjoy it, but Dragon does, and it’s kinda cute. (I love Roo)

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch moviepainting eggsmake a daffodilpaint a flower potFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet in download materials

Storytime

Activity

Painting eggs – link to paper mache egg

Make a daffodil – link to activity

Paint a flower pot – link to activity

Next week: The Secret World of Arrietty

Week 26 – Inside Out Results

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Virtual school was interesting this week. She sang along with every song in the morning. But when the teachers asked her a question, she wasn’t able to concentrate long enough to formulate her response. I blame time change.

They learned about the letter ‘d’. They initially tried having the kids listen to words and tell them which ones had the sounds ‘d’ in it, but the sound quality wasn’t great. Dragon suggested that they write the letters, and she wrote ‘dauphin’, ‘dragon’, and ‘deux’.

The story was about different professional jobs. Dragon liked the pictures.

In the afternoon, they learned about solid shapes. Dragon had a LOT of fun playing the games and did very well with it.

She presented her giant Yoshi to the class. The teacher asked her what shape it is, and she was completely stumped.

Homeschool went well this week, although I completely underestimated how long making a board book would take, so we ended up not doing the paper maché.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: We started with the fingering exercises, which she did very well with. Then they did the recognition of the notes and the clapping and counting, and my mom has discovered that Dragon has memorized them based on where they are on the page. So they tried a different page, and yes, she has them memorized. So there will be a game devised to help her actually count properly. Lesson 3 was perfect, no problems. Then they did lesson 4 and it did not go well at all, so they stopped at the end of that.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 70 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s. We tried counting by tens for the first time this week. She kinda got it.

Math: Dragon found the math fun this week. She liked the second worksheet.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Write touch and feel book
Put touch and feel book together – Dragon made a 4-page book about emotions, based on the movie emotions. We didn’t do anger, because we couldn’t figure out how to draw it. It took a lot longer than I realized to make this, so we didn’t manage to make the emotion ball. We might do paper maché at some other time.

  • Brainstorming
  • Working hard
  • The balloon and pages, pre-used
  • Decorating th mirror
  • Colouring darkness is hard!
  • Weight to hold the glued pages down
  • Painting the spiders
  • Scared page is glued
  • Disgust page is glued
  • Sadness page is glued
  • Happy page is glued
  • Gluing the pages together
  • Trying to line the pages up
  • The cover is cut – but I measured wrong…oops!
  • Writing the cover
  • Didn’t notice until later that she spelled her name wrong :O
  • Full cover
  • Completed book! Front
  • Completed book! Happy
  • Completed book! Sad
  • Completed book! Scared
  • Completed book! Disgust
  • Completed book! Back

Week 27 – Rise of the Guardians

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This movie has Santa and Jack Frost, but it’s set at Easter, so that’s when I like to watch it. It is absolutely GORGEOUS, and if you haven’t read the books it’s based on, you really should, because they’re stunning picture books.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch moviedraw Easter eggsdesign Dreamlandlearn about the moonFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet

Storytime

Activity

Draw Easter eggs – template in download files

Design Dreamland – imagination drawing, mood board, etc

Learn about the moon – can look through a telescope, video

Next week: Springtime with Roo

Week 25 – Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest Results

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Virtual school went well this week. They had a guest speaker again, and Dragon was much more amenable to the change in routine today. They talked about respect.

They learned the letter ‘p’ and wrote a couple words with that letter. She did very well.

After lunch, they practiced ‘sur’, ‘sous’, and ‘dans’, putting a toy on, under, and in objects. She enjoyed that.

Then they did some coding with a little bee. Dragon didn’t seem to understand what was going on, and I didn’t know how to help her. I think the French was making her stress out. We’ll try it again later in the week.

The homeschool portion of her week went really well.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: They did lessons 3 & 4 perfectly with all the notes no problem. The fifth lesson, she lost her focus. They made some adjustments to how she holds her fingers because they’re not being held in the right position.

We have a French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did not do any crochet this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 70 out loud. I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s.

Math went incredibly well this week. We did the new coding (as well as doing it physically) and the old coding on the computer. We also did some physical movement with having her go on top of, beside, underneath, close to, far from, etc different objects (all in French).

  • Attempting the new coding in physical form rather than on the computer. It helped her immensely.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

3 Rs – Dragon really enjoyed the activities through the link, and we had a good dialogue about what we do in our house to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Learn about the Amazon Rainforest – Dragon loved watching videos that we found after reading the facts about the rainforest. Especially that sloths live there.

Plant seedlings in the house – we used the paper napkin/baggie method found here. Dragon is very excited to see what the roots look like. She planted 3 beans and 3 peas.

Week 26 – Inside Out

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This is a great movie to talk about emotions. Highly recommend. Bring tissues.

Here is the link for the downloadable materials. (Please let me know if you have any problems so I can fix it!)

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch moviepaper machéwrite touch and feel bookput touch and feel book togetherFlex

Summary of the week

Daily details:

Dance

Ballet and martial arts on alternate days

Music

Singing, listening to different pieces, learning piano

Crochet

The project she is working on (currently she is making herself a poncho)

Basic Information

We talk about the days of the week and play games with the cutouts of the names. We do the same thing with the names of the months of the year. You can find the print-outs here.

Printing words

In download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

Practice counting objects and writing how many of each type –in download materials

Addition and pattern – worksheet

Storytime

Activity

Paper maché emotion balls – link

Write touch and feel book

Put touch and feel book together – link

Next week: Rise of the Guardians

Week 24 – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Results

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Virtual school was good this week. I was feeling pretty awful because Pegasus had woken up every half hour during the night, but fortunately his wakeups hadn’t bothered her because I think she was pretty awake right away.

She paid attention to the regular morning songs and sang them when requested. She lost focus right before being asked about the seasons, but was able to get back on track fairly quickly.

She enjoyed writing out words that began with the letter “t”. She is remembering to write in small caps more often, which I’m impressed by.

They’re talking about professional jobs in school this month, so she had a bunch of questions for me regarding the strange words.

The story was about building toys with recycled materials, and Dragon was very excited about that idea.

Math was talking about solid shapes and having the kids go on fetch-quests to find household objects that fit the description. They had to organize them based on whether they roll or slide.

Homeschool was pretty great this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: Same issue with clapping and counting – the first one she misses, no matter which one it is, but all the rest are fine. They skipped lesson one and did lesson 2 (CD on right hand CB on left hand) and she does the whole lesson perfectly so they’re going to skip it in the future. Then they did lesson 3, which adds E on right hand and A on left hand. That went alright. Then lesson 4 was adding F on right and G on left, and she got it eventually, but it was like she’d never seen it before. And this was review. There was no focus by the end of lesson 4, so they did not learn anything new.

We have a new French playlist that I can play through the Google, with a variety of artists.

Crochet

She did several stitches this week.

Basic Information

We are working on yesterday (hier) and tomorrow (demain) around any given day. The months of the year is going well. We’re working on the month before and after any given month. That’s coming slowly.

The saisons de l’année are all memorized. We’re working on how each of them feel and the types of things we can do during each of them.

When I ask her “combien” for any of the above, she now responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week. She had some issues with the letters on her own, but I think she just wasn’t concentrating.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. She has been counting to 70 out loud (still remembering 16 without prompting). I have started using a counting book to show her what the numbers look like, and she counts to 100 while looking at it, with a large amount of assistance in the 70s and 90s.

Math went incredibly well this week.

Storytime

We read stories from the teacher’s outline that was sent to us on Monday. She enjoyed that, and we will continue to do it next week.

We watched Vampirina in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Weather – We looked at a book about weather that we have. We talked about the water cycle, water and air currents, and how geography can change what happens with the weather (Vancouver vs Ottawa). She enjoyed it so much that I added a water cycle colouring sheet.

Design an island – She had fun deciding what to put on her island, but had a little difficulty implementing it. She hadn’t really done much with markers before this and was upset when her lines were too thick.

Cook meatballs – Dragon made this for my birthday dinner (Friday March 5). It was delicious.