Week 36 – How to Train Your Dragon

The relationship between Hiccup and his father is one that has interested me since the beginning, and is one of the pivoting focusses of the movie. And, your know, dragons. I had to include this.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieDesign a dragonLearn about prostheticsMake a paper boatFlex

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

Design a dragon – link to reference

Learn about prosthetics – video how it’s made, video beyond bionics

Make a paper boat – link to reference

Next week – Finding Nemo

Week 34 – Matilda Results

Virtual school went fairly well, despite what I’m sure was a broken sleep because Pegasus woke up so often screaming (I’m so done with this lack of sleep). She answered what day of the week and month of the year it was, and she sang along with all the songs that were played.

They learned the letter ‘Y’. The class devolved into a discussion about yetis when that was the first word, and they talked about bears (made me think of last week’s Brave), and legends.

Dragon unexpectedly showed off her lit and orieller that she had made in Week 29. She had drawn a picture of them, then she asked the teacher if they wanted to see them, and then she grabbed the actual object. Oh well.

The next word was ‘yak,’ and the teacher told them that yaks were in Alberta, and Dragon raised her hand to say that yaks are in Mongolia, buffalo are in Alberta. I guess she does listen to me sometimes.

After recess they learned the difference between mammals and reptiles. One of the students has a turtle and a bearded lizard and showed them. That was cool. Dragon didn’t understand much of what was going on and got very frustrated and upset.

After lunch, they watched a video about mammals. Dragon was asked if she understood the video, which she didn’t because it was in French and she gets flustered. So I had to explain to the teacher that she understands the concept of mammal, but she doesn’t understand the French.

Then four kids presented things, which took some time.

Then they measured objects with blocks and counted how many blocks high different objects were. Dragon grasped it well.

Homeschool went well. Dragon really enjoyed the movie.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. Lesson: started with finger exercises, very obvious she’s been practicing. She’ll continue with them. Then they did lesson 4 with no problems. Lesson 5, working on the timing. Lesson 6, she insisted she didn’t know what the notes were, but then she read them out no problem. Then she played it, and she needs to work on her timing. She had trouble focussing, so they didn’t try a new lesson. They played chopsticks and Dragon tried to teach her grandfather how to play it. That didn’t go so well.

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

Crochet

We 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 responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week, although she says she doesn’t enjoy it.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 100.

Math went well. She’s still resisting thinking of the highest number and counting the lowest when adding. It’s very frustrating.

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

Activity

Write a book and put it together – she brainstormed several ideas before getting really excited about writing about the characters in Éric’s and my book. She was concerned that the characters were ours, and I said that I give her permission to use them in a unique story. So she rolled with it. She drew inspiration images. (Our first fanfiction and the book hasn’t even been accepted by the publisher yet! I’m so proud. This is an AU, meaning Alternate Universe. This is not how Jason and Kennedy meet in our book.)

One of her pages required having a drawing of a motorcycle. I looked up how to draw a motorcycle for kids, and we were both pretty impressed with the result.

Then, because the motorcycle drawing worked so well, she insisted on doing from reference for the last picture as well. I had to help her occassionally with guide lines, but she did it all herself. Here’s the link that we used: how to draw a chibi kiss for kids.

Completed book

Learn about telekinesis – Dragon was very interested in this. She kept asking if it was real.

Week 35 – Mulan

I know that Mulan is about her protecting her father, but there are strong mother figures in this movie as well, and I really love this movie.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieplay with make-uppaint fireworksmake a puzzleFlex

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

Play with makeup

Fireworks with paint (link here)

Make a puzzle (link here)

Next week – How to Train Your Dragon

Week 33 – Brave Results

I missed the beginning of virtual school this week because I was in with Pegasus, but Dragon assures me that she sang the months of the year song and said that it was the month of mai.

Dragon also told the class that it is printemps and nuageux.

They learned the letter ‘X’ this week. Dragon had no problem writing all the words. (And she put the tails of the ‘p’s below the line!)

There was a bit of dancing before recess, which Dragon always enjoys.

She paid close attention to the story.

After lunch, the teachers taught the kids how to measure using objects. Dragon discovered that one of her books is a spoon and a half tall and a spoon and a bit wide.

Then Dragon got to present her movie from two weeks ago. The teacher played it four times. I think she was impressed. One of the kids asked how the toys moved by themselves, so Dragon had to explain that she took pictures and I moved the toys, and that string was used to lift the toys during the fight scene. I’m not sure the kids fully understood, but they kinda got it.

Homeschool went well this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week.

We started with the finger exercises. It is obvious she’s been practicing, so she’s been given another exercise to do to correct get hand positioning and strengthen her fingers. Then we did lessons 4, 5, and 6. Timing needs to be worked on, but she recognizes all the notes. She’s doing very well.

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

Crochet

We 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 responds in complete sentences.

Printing words

Printing went very well this week. I created a random string of number/letters and read them off to Dragon for her to print. She did very well, once she stopped worrying about making a mistake.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She had no problems with the counting worksheet. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 100 a couple times. SHe also counted down from 10 with only one mistake. She was very excited to do this for the first time.

Math went 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 Raiponce in French on Disney Plus, one episode a day. Dragon is enjoying it immensely, and is even recognizing some words!

Activity

Elements of a Fairy Tale – She got really into this. We came up with a short story on the spot each, neither of which made any sense, but that’s fine.

Learn about bears – She enjoyed the video and I found a couple others about cute cubs.

Bake Spell Cake – We decided to make something from Dragon’s Princess cookbook instead, so she made scones. They were delicious.

Week 34 – Matilda

You might think this an odd choice for a “mother” movie, but I wanted to show an adoptive mother.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieWrite a bookput book togetherlearn about telekinesisFlex

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

Write a book
Put book together
Learn about telekinesis – link to reference

Next week – Mulan

Week 32 – The Odd Life of Timothy Green Results

Virtual school went well this week. Dragon answered some questions about the days of the week and the months of the year and seasons.

She wrote words starting with the letter “W”. She says she likes that letter.

She had lots of fun dancing along with the music in class.

Math was learning how to read a pictogram. Dragon enjoyed that.

They were split into small groups to “play” after that, and Dragon’s group played music, at her suggestion.

Homeschool went well this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. No lesson.

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

Crochet

We 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 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. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 100 a couple times.

Math was easy for her this week. We also talked about counting by fives and how to draw it out.

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

Activity

Build a house mood board – Despite getting distracted by the toys, she did very well at picking out things that she liked that she would put in her house.

Plant beans – She pre-planted beans and zucchini for our garden. She enjoyed it.

Write personality characteristics – Apparently we did this in Soul, so instead, we did an online Personality test. I was curious to see how she did (very good at answering the questions…no hesitation).

Week 33 – Brave

When I think about mothers in movies, Queen Eleanor is the first person who springs to mind. I love this movie and haven’t seen it in quite a while, and look forward to sharing it with Dragon. Hopefully she’ll neve turn me into a bear.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieelements of a fairy talebake Spell Cakelearn about bearsFlex

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

Elements of a Fairy Tale – sheet found in download materials
Bake Spell Cake – link to recipes
Learn about bears – link to references, link to video

Next week – Matilda

Week 31 – Boxtrolls Results

Virtual school started out a bit rough – Dragon was unfocussed and not able to listen well for the regular morning routine. But then they did an exercise video, which Dragon adores, and she was much more focussed after that.

Then they did printing words that begin with the letter ‘G’ and she did very well.

After recess, they did a short reading, and then the teacher had set up a powerpoint with images that the students used to “read” a sentence. There were some very funny sentences made. My favourite was “Le Tyranosaur mange les enfants.” Dragon’s was “Le docteur pleur parce qu’il a pincé le doigt.”

After lunch, they were split into groups to talk in French. I don’t think that it went particularly well, because the kids don’t know what to talk about with each other AND they don’t know much French. When it was led by the teacher, it went okay, but when she left, not so much. Maybe if they had a goal like doing math like last week…

They did not do math because too many kids were tired.

Homeschool was very busy this week.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises and the practicing showed, she was doing well even with the hard one. She did lessons 4 and 5 were almost perfect, and then they did lesson 6, and she did such a good job. Then they started lesson 7 and she did the first row very well (other than mixing up D and F on her right hand). Then they did chopsticks, and it’s going well, so she was introduced to the next part. She focussed and tried hard and did really well.

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

Crochet

We 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 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. We counted by 10s to 100 and counted up to 70.

Math went well this week with no tears.

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

Activity

Make a movie – We put together the last prop and then set up for taking pictures. Dragon did an excellent job in directing me to move the characters. She used the storyboard she had drawn to help keep us on track. This movie, we decided to record her voice, rather than do it in the Silent Movie style that we did for the other one. We did include the dialogue in the background of the movie. She recorded the music for the movie as well.

Learn how to draw a 3-D box – This went super well. I queued up the video and we watched it, and then we went through the video slowly, pausing after each step for her to draw it. She needed a little bit of help with one or two lines and about which lines to erase, but she did all the work. I was very impressed.

Week 32 – The Odd Life of Timothy Green

I saw this in theatres when it came out and I was so enchanted by it, but haven’t seen it since. It felt like a good mother’s day month movie.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieBuild house mood boardPlant beansWrite personality characteristicsFlex

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

Build a house mood board – cut out inspiration from magazines like IKEA etc
Plant beans – link to activity
Write personality characteristics

Next week – Brave

Week 30 – Totoro Results

Virtual school was a bit rough in the morning. There was a misunderstanding when Dragon was stretching, not raising her hand, and then when she was raising her hand, the teacher called on someone else. Cue tears. I think she prefers one-on-one lol

They learned the letter Q today. Dragon loves printing because she’s good at it.

They were read a story about the beginning of Spring, and asked to describe what they saw on the page. Dragon raised her hand (yay) and said “des fleurs”, but then when she was asked if she saw anything else, I prompted her with “do you want to say more?” and she raised her hand and said “more”. I said, “No, more words in French.” and she raised her hand again and said “more words in French.” And I honestly think she wasn’t doing it to be funny! She got really upset when I asked her to describe the pictures in French and didn’t want to say anything else.

After lunch, they did math in small groups (I guess the teacher is feeling more comfortable with the technology now?) and Dragon was put in a group with two other kids that she’s familiar with. One of them presented their math first, and then Dragon presented (addition), and then the other one said that they couldn’t do it. Dragon reassured them that it was alright. (sweetie). Then when they went back into the main class, she presented her math again. Her teachers were very impressed with how well she did. (So am I, but I knew she could do it.)

Totoro was a big hit this week. Dragon watched the movie twice on Monday; once in French for homeschool and once in English at night.

Dance

She did ballet 2 times this week.

Music

Piano: she practiced her finger exercises every day this week. They started with finger exercises and the practicing showed, she was doing well even with the hard one. She did lessons 4 and 5 no problem, and then they started lesson 6, and she played the first two long lines very well. Chopsticks sounds like chopsticks now. She was focussed, paid attention, and tried hard.

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

Crochet

We did a few rows of 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 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. We took it easy this week, as it’s the first week back after the break, for the out loud counting, and only counted to 20, 30, and 40. Dragon found it easy.

Math was interesting. On Monday, she decided that she didn’t want to draw it out, and decided to use her toes. Great problem solving skills. Then the more complicated math had a series in letters, and she didn’t like that, so I changed them to numbers, which went much better.

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

Activity

Make a movie – Dragon is EXTREMELY excited about her movie. She’s done a dry run twice already. I wrote out her plot, she drew the storyboard, and I wrote out her dialogue. She then transcribed the dialogue onto pieces of paper that we can insert into the stop motion movie next week.

Make a soot sprite – Dragon enjoyed this and is very proud of the result. She was able to do most of it herself, too, which made her happy.