lesson plans

Week 8 – Hocus Pocus Results

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Virtual school this week was MUCH better than last week. Dragon raised her hand and got to list out both the days of the week and the months of the year (with assistance on the latter). She answered 2-3 counting questions in French. She asked a question during the presentation of another kid, although she didn’t understand the follow-up response. And she got to present the geometry cut-and-paste that she had done with four different shapes, responding to requests to point at each different shape and many different colours. She repeated French said to her by the teachers, and even responded a tiny bit in French (oui). And she paid attention throughout the school day. There was another minor incident with the playdough – she still doesn’t quite grasp the rolling of it and doesn’t care to learn. She does enjoy using the cutters to make shapes and will make a series (pattern) with them, but ask her to roll it out and place it along a letter? Tears. Screams. “I can’t do this!” Result: I will ask her to use a crayon to print the letter instead of using playdough to make the shape. I see no reason to get her all upset for no reason.

The home school portion was quite fun this week, with a couple special surprises.

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

Her letters are doing well.

She had a rhythm piano lesson on Wednesday afternoon at our house. She did very well. Whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes and rests were clapped (or not).

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album. But we also listened to Isabelle Boulay, whom I also very much enjoy. (Yay for remembering to change the CD lol)

Crochet

We did not crochet this week. I am crocheting advent calendar boxes all the time!

Basic Information

Working on the days of the week verbally is going well. She remembers without prompting, and can even pick out the words and put them in order when given the full seven days. As for the months of the year, she has the first 6 down and can repeat them without prompting. The second half of the year is a bit of a struggle still, but she can figure out the rest of the word if given the first sound.

Printing words

Tracing letters went well on Wednesday, but Friday when she had to print the letters did not go as well. I think she didn’t sleep well the night before, because everything was very dramatic.

Counting objects/math-type activities

She seems to be doing better with verbal counting. Her printing needs work on some numbers – 5’s come to mind right now – but she is working hard. She can count to 12 in French, but not consistently yet.

  • Counting 12 random objects

We started doing patterns (les suites) this week, as the virtual school teachers mentioned it again this week, to one of the other students. I thought it might be a good idea to do more with that.

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Experiment: elephant toothpaste – this was quite fun, although it was mostly a demonstration. We didn’t have the right kind of yeast, and we didn’t realize that the narrowing at the top was relevant, so we ended up trying this three times. First was as written in the experiment. Second was halving it. Third was with the right yeast AND the right kind of bottle, but I shook it and didn’t wait for the bubbles to go away, so it had a similar reaction as the first two. Also – don’t buy the cheap food colouring. It doesn’t work as well.

Pumpkin carving: Dragon picked her stencil (stencil weblink) and drew it onto the pumpkin. It turned out very well!

Learn about Samhain – we had a video call with one of our friends, who celebrates Samhein (pronounced Sow-in). He told us about the history behind it and how it is celebrated today. We won’t be having a feast, but we set out an extra place on Halloween night in honour of our ancestors. No pictures of the chat, but here’s one of Dragon waiting for the chat to start:

Week 9 – Coco

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I adore this movie. And I cry. A lot. It’s a perfect way to introduce the Day of the Dead to your kids.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieRemember the deadBake traditional Mexican foodLearn about Dia de Los MuertosFlex
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

Download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

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

Count flowers/petals and group them (fake flowers or real)

Count and group nuts

Storytime

Activity

Remember the dead: go through old photo albums

Bake traditional Mexican food (link to 15 traditional recipes)

Learn about Dia de Los Muertos (+ watch Elena of Avalor special episode)

Next week: Abominable

Week 7 – Curious George Halloween Results

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This week was not as good as the previous week for virtual school. I’m not sure what happened, but she didn’t want to talk to, listen to, or try to speak French with her teachers. And then there was the thing with the playdough. She had never played with playdough before, and the teacher asked them to make letters out of playdough. Dragon just had a complete meltdown because, and I quote, “but the playdough is ripped apart now!!” Cue tears. She got a nice bit of one-on-one with Mme at this point, which was nice. It was just a little frustrating on my end, because she *is* doing better with her French.

  • This was a worksheet from the teacher. She LOVED it.

As for the home school portion, it felt like there was less to do this week, thankfully, as there were a lot of handouts from virtual school to complete.

Dance

No martial arts again this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

I forgot to get her to practice with the letters, so we did it verbally just now as I’m writing this post. I’d say she’s doing pretty well.

She had another piano lesson on Saturday. She worked on rhythms and clapping (eighth notes seem to be the easiest for her), as well as the song she played last week and Chopsticks.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

No crochet this week.

Basic Information

Rather than pull out the papers, we did these verbally this week. She can now recite the days of the week in French without prompting. She has the first five months of the year down pat (when she remembers to start with Janvier and not Février) and is working on remembering Juin. Next week, I think I’ll add the next 3 months.

Printing words

Despite not wanting to complete the printing words on Friday, she did pretty well.

  • Words are traced
  • Not sure this is the best way to sit to print properly….
  • Words are printed

Counting objects/math-type activities

She’s still forgetting that sept comes after six. We tried repetition both verbally and written. I’m guessing that this will just take time. Her printing of numbers is getting better, I think.

  • Objects counted
  • Numbers are coming along nicely.

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Draw pumpkin face – she wanted to draw a scary pumpkin face. This is the one she chose. Appropriately spooky.

  • The middle face is the one she deemed spookiest
  • Trying to copy
  • Look at all those teeth!
  • Very spooky. I approve.

Finger painting with Crayola washable paint on paper – she decided that although it was fun to make hand prints, she didn’t like washing her hands in between each colour. Verdict: prefers painting with a brush.

  • Set up
  • Two by two, hands of blue
  • Cleaning station
  • Purple prints
  • Look! The water is green!
  • Completed abstract art

Learn about monkeys – she found this fact sheet very interesting.

  • Les chimapnzees!

Week 8 – Hocus Pocus

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Yet another movie that I did not watch in childhood. This one is a tad bit scarier for younger kids, and lots of fun for adults.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieelephant toothpastepumpkin carvingLearn about SamhainFlex
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

Download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

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

Count pumpkin seeds after cleaning them

Count candy packages and group them (do some subtraction)

Storytime

Activity

Experiment: elephant toothpaste (link to experiment) ingredient list[JD1] 

Pumpkin carving: pick stencil and draw it on pumpkin, help scoop seeds (adult do carving)

Learn about Samhain (link to worksheets)

Next week: Coco

  1. [JD1]Ingredients for Elephant Toothpaste Experiment:
  1. A clean 16-oz plastic soda bottle.
  2. 1/2 cup 20-volume hydrogen peroxide liquid (20-volume is a 6% solution; you can get this from a beauty supply store or hair salon)
  3. 1 Tablespoon (one packet) of dry yeast.
  4. 3 Tablespoons of warm water.
  5. Liquid dishwashing soap.
  6. Food coloring.
  7. Small cup.
  8. Safety goggles.

Week 6 – ParaNorman Results

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This Tuesday at virtual school, she was able to turn on and off her microphone (although it took a bit of time sometimes). The small groups were a bit chaotic, as it was the first time trying to do them. Hopefully they’ll be worked out by next Tuesday (although when this post goes live, it will have been yesterday…). Dragon raised her hand to talk three times – to sing the “Bonjour song”, to recite the days of the week, and to answer a question about trees. All of which she did in French! I’m so very proud of how well she’s doing. I’m very impressed by her teachers. She loves them. The homeschool portion of the week was short by one day, because of Thanksgiving, but that’s why we have a flex day worked into the schedule every week, to give us some wiggle room.

Dance

No martial arts this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Good toes!

Music

I forgot to get her to practice with the letters, so we did it verbally just now as I’m writing this post. I’d say she’s doing pretty well.

She had another piano lesson on Saturday. They reviewed whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes, and tried clapping their rhythms. She was introduced to whole and half rests and how not to clap them. She played the piece from last week, as half notes, and had no trouble at all. She is holding her wrists properly. They’ve started learning “Chopsticks”.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Friday.

Basic Information

Rather than pull out the papers, we did these verbally this week. She can now recite the days of the week in French without prompting. I took my thought about 12 being too many and shrank it down to only the first three, which we started learning on Friday. I think she’s remembering them by sound, but that’s okay for now. We’ll work on the first three months until she can say them with minor assistance before adding the next three months. I think this is working. *fingers crossed*

Printing words

Tracing the letters went better this week than printing them. I think she was having an off day today.

Tracing
Printing

Counting objects/math-type activities

She’s still forgetting that sept comes after six. I’ll need to figure out a game or something to help her remember (note to self…)

Counting
Writing numbers
She wanted to be in the picture

Storytime

We didn’t read any French books together this week.

Activity

Film script in stop-motion (2 days: taking the pictures + putting them together on computer, find music to go with it) – She directed me in how to move the toys (and I showed her how to make the basket look fuller than it actually was – movie magic!) and followed her script and storyboard extremely well. She told Éric how long to make each frame and where to put the text. Then we recorded her playing her xylophone to make the music. Éric put it all together because the technical ability to do that was a bit beyond a 4 yo’s ability, especially since she can’t read yet!

Director hard at work
Movie magic!
Putting it together
Staged photo of her playing xylophone because I forgot to take one when we were actually recording!

The completed movie!

Make a shoebox diorama – we looked at the provided example, and then I asked her what she wanted in hers to make it Halloween-y. We searched google for the objects, put them in a word document, and added blocks underneath them (or on top) to be able to stick them to the inside of the box. Then we made the background very simply – just black with a yellow moon. She had fun using the “big-kid” glue.

Colouring and cutting
FIguring out where to place the pieces
The bottom ones are glued!
The ghost is still wet
Completed shoebox diorama!

Week 7 – Curious George Halloween

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Curious George is super cute, and throw in a little Halloween fun… your kids don’t want to miss this. You’ll have a smile on your face throughout watching this for sure!

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieDraw pumpkin facesFinger paintingLearn about monkeysFlex
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

Download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

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

Count and group buttons

Math with pumpkins (on paper)

Storytime

Activity

Draw pumpkin faces (website)

Finger painting with Crayola washable paint on paper

Learn about monkeys (link to web) (Factsheet)

Next week: Hocus Pocus!

Week 5 – Halloweentown Results

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This week was Meet the Teacher (vitually, of course) and I discovered that I was not letting Dragon be independant enough. So I taught her how to use the track pad on the keyboard so that she can turn on and off the microphone by herself. This is good – it means I can sit with my laptop or crochet and I don’t have to pay attention as much (only to what time we need to return). Also, starting next week, they will be doing small groups, which will allow her to (hopefully) talk more French. We’ll see how that goes. The homeschool portion was a little more relaxed this week, for some reason. Maybe she’s getting faster at doing her work?

Dance

No martial arts this week, but she did ballet 2-3 times this week.

Music

In order to prepare for piano this week, we practiced the alphabet forwards and backwards A-G.

  • Practicing the music alphabet

She had her second lesson on Saturday. They reviewed whole notes and half notes, and learned about quarter notes and eighth notes. She practiced the tune that she learned last week, and then tried to play it as all half notes – she did it perfectly! Then my mom taught her a bit of chopsticks. She had lots of fun with that.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Wednesday.

Basic Information

We played with the days of the week (four times) and the months of the year (once). It’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve, I think. She’s able to separate the days of the week into English and French. She can now list off the days of the week in French if I prompt with the first day (L for…?). Still a work in progress, especially for the months. I think it’s intimidating to have twelve pieces of paper in front of her rather than only seven.

Printing words

The words were much shorter this week, and she remembered that broom was balai from Monday to Friday. I was impressed.

  • Tracing
  • Printing – she had problems with “un balai” but eventually got it

Counting objects/math-type activities

I feel like we’re going backwards with the printing of numbers, which is weird. But she’s getting better at counting to dix – she still forgets sept, but we’re working on it.

  • Counting
  • Numbers

Storytime

We read a couple small books together.

Activity

Draw a monster mask – definitely a highlight for Dragon. She wanted a scary mask, picked this grotesque one, and was very pleased with herself when she coloured it. She also cut it out by herself (minus the eyes, which I did for her). I don’t know if I should be encouraging her to colour in the blank spaces more or not…. She’s happy with it, and that’s what matters?

Write a short Halloween script (2 days: writing + storyboarding) – we wrote a very short descriptive script (I wrote it because she had so many ideas too quickly and couldn’t get them down fast enough. They were all her ideas, though.), then I explained how to storyboard and she sketched it out, and then she wrote the dialogue for each step of the script so that we could know what was going on in the stop-motion video, which we will be doing next week.

  • Original script
  • Script after re-writes to make it more Halloween-y
  • Storyboard
  • Writing the dialogue
  • Writing the dialogue – she wrote each sentence (there are 4) in English and then in French

Example of a series of stop-motion images, not put into video form:

Week 6 – ParaNorman

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I’m going to be honest with you here; I BARELY remember this movie. I saw it in theatres, loved it, bought it, and haven’t seen it since. I’m pretty sure Dragon will love it, so here it is. Warning: could be a bit scary for younger audiences.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieTake stop motion picturesPut pictures together into movieMake shoebox dioramaFlex
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

Download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

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

How many zombies were on the council? (7) How many were judges? (1) How many were not judges? (6)

Count fairy tale objects (like beans or coins)

Storytime

Fairy tales

Activity

Film script in stop-motion (2 days: taking the pictures + putting them together on computer, find music to go with it)

Make a shoebox diorama (web instructions)

Next week: Curious George Halloween!

Week 4 – Tinker Bell Results

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Other than a few tech issues on the teacher’s side of things (videos not broadcasting properly, etc), virtual school went well this week. Dragon had to be coaxed to talk to the teachers, but she really opened up about Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (we had watched the new movie the night before and she was really excited about it.)

The home school portion was a lot of fun this week, with a nature walk, building a new LEGO kit, and putting together a new and challenging puzzle as the major activities.

Dance

I kind lost track of how many times we did ballet this week. Essentially, I do this whenever she stops sitting still, so more often on some days than others.

Music

First piano lesson happened this week! She paid attention and tried really hard. She started to hold her hands properly and knows where middle C is. Whole notes (doughnut) count to 4, half notes (doughnut with a stick) count to 2.

We listened to a bunch of French music. Coeur de Pirate was the favourite yet again and I am thrilled because it is a beautiful album.

Crochet

We managed to get a few more stitches in on Friday. This is definitely the category we do the least, as it involves me not crocheting on my own project in order to help her with her own.

Basic Information

We played with the days of the week (twice) and the months of the year (once). It’s going to be a pretty steep learning curve, I think. She’s able to separate the days of the week into English and French. After watching the journées de la semaine video (thank you, Mme Samaké), she was able to remember the days of the week in French, which is pretty exciting. This was the first time she saw the months, so that was a bit difficult. I definitely consider this a work in progress.

Printing words

The words were very long this week. I think this was the point that I realized I should be trying to make the answers be words that she will actually remember. (hopefully – I made these worksheets at the beginning of August so I don’t actually remember)

  • I trace words!
  • I write words!

Counting objects/math-type activities

Her numbers have really improved in the few short weeks since we started doing this. I’m so impressed and love seeing the progress!

  • I forgot to get a picture of the traced numbers, but here is the second one

Storytime

We read a couple small books together.

Activity

Nature walk – look for different kinds of leaves, acorns, maple keys, flowers, etc. Because this week was incredibly rainy, only Thursday had no rain, so we didn’t pick up leaves and stuff. Instead, I had Dragon bring her camera along and she took pictures of things she found interesting!

My pictures:

  • Grand-dad accompanied us for the first little bit
  • Taking a picture of a picture of a leaf
  • On the bike path

Dragon’s pictures:

Build a Lego kit – This was the only thing that we bought in preparation for teaching Dragon at home (that wasn’t necessities like a bookcase for storage or a computer). We had many books and craft supplies generously donated by a couple people, so we were fortunate in that respect.

  • A new LEGO kit!
  • All the pieces
  • Does it match?
  • I think I’ve got it
  • I’ve got it!
  • Complete!!

Puzzle – put a puzzle together. I gave her several options, all of puzzles she hadn’t done before. She decided to do the 200 piece Little Mermaid puzzle. She was elated and frustrated by turns, but in the end, it only took her about 3 hours to do the whole thing. I’m very proud of her.

  • Start with the edge pieces…
  • Flounder and King Triton were easy to place
  • Ariel next…
  • Start on the statue
  • End of day 1
  • More of the statue
  • Ah, Ariel’s tail
  • Putting in the last piece!
  • Complete!!

Week 5 – Halloweentown

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My Dragon LOVES Halloween, so we’ll be watching Halloween movies all month! I didn’t watch this movie until I was already an adult, so there’s no nostalgia for me, but it’s super cute and Dragon loves it.

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

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday
Watch movieDraw monster maskHalloween scriptHalloween storyboardFlex
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

Download materials

Counting objects/math-type activities

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

There are how many children in the family? How many girls? How many boys?

Count and group with cheerios/chocolate chips

Storytime

Activity

Draw a monster mask (web templates)

Write a short Halloween script (2 days: writing + storyboarding)

Next week: ParaNorman!