Let’s sing together our song “Rise and Shine – Welcome to School Today” by Dr. Jean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyAD2OoFuoY and our greeting song “Hello to all the children of the world”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYjGy_ZUG8
My favorite Closing Song sung on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” tune with movement:
Twinkle, twinkle little stars! Time is over and we say goodbye. (Open and close hands)
We had fun with all our friends. Let’s come back and do it again! (Arm moved up and back)
Twinkle, twinkle, little stars! What a wonderful bunch you are! (Blow kisses)
For the writing/reading process, have your child trace or copy (advanced skill) daily his/her name on paper/dry eraser board/ mini blackboard (kindergarten handwriting page) starting at the top of each letter (you could draw an emoji 🙂) either in all uppercase letters or just first letter in capital/uppercase and the rest in lowercase. If your child is starting to write on paper, you can write your child’s name with a highlighter and your child can use a crayon to trace it.
I realize that you might have to survey other members of your family for the question of the day so that your child have enough tally marks to count or have your child put more than one tally mark.
What is your favorite?
CAR 🚗/ TRUCKS 🛻/ BOAT 🚣♀️/ TRAIN 🚂/ PLANE ✈️
Let’s start with Walter Walrus from Letterland and listen to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDPhSwygBgw After listening to the song, have your child trace a capital W and a lower case w, starting at the top (song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJnZePnDo-U), do a diagonal line down, do a diagonal line up, do a diagonal line down, and a diagonal line up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUifh-6Z7cg
A whole week activity:
For the phonetic part, have a big yogurt container with a lid filled with small objects or pictures that start with the letter W (walrus, walk, want, warm, wash, water, wave, way, wax, we, week, well, wet, whale, what, win, wind, window, winter, wish, with, word, witch, wicked). You might want to add a picture of a violin, so that your child can say Violin does not start with W! Here is a book of V word pictures: https://www.first-school.ws/t.asp?t=http://www.first-school.ws/images/alpha/ap1/w.gif and https://twistynoodle.com/my-letter-w-minibook/ Also, you can add new objects/pictures starting with the letter W every day and let your child explore the container all through the week.
Science
Let’s explore light and heavy with Speed! For this activity, you need (1) cars and trucks, (2) piece of wood or cardboard to build a ramp. Which car or truck will go farther down the ramp? Position your cardboard or wood ramp on an incline with an open space at the end and encourage your child to roll cars/trucks down the ramp. Observe with your child how far each goes and discuss why.
On the tune of “Oh, my Darling Clementine”, we can sing: what’s the weather, what’s the weather, what’s the weather like today? Is it cloudy, is it rainy, is it sunny, is it cold? (You can also change the weather words).
Let your child check the weather and tell you about it. You might want to ask your child to do a weather drawing that you can label.
Language Arts
Transportation Literature:
1. Transportation by Gail Gibbons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KCxQFdqzXo.
2. Pete the Cat. Go, Pete, Go by James Dean (advanced) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU-86Ibb5Go
3. “We all go traveling by”, Barefoot Books Singelong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSw50Jw0H34.
4. Car, Car, Jeep, Truck by Nick Sharratt Singalong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlzTDOkbt4Q
After viewing a book, help your child sequence the story: what happened first, next,… at the end. Brainstorm with your child different types of transportation you use or have used (cars, trucks, planes, boats,…)
For an advanced activity, have your child fill in a simple story map. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into 3 equal size parts. Write “Beginning”, “Middle”, and “End” and encourage your child to make a drawing about the beginning, the middle and the end of the story.
“Red, Yellow and Green” Song (“Three Blind Mice” tune)
Red, yellow and green.
Red, yellow and green.
What do they mean?
What do they mean?
Red means stop and yellow means go;
Green means go and now we know
What these colorful lights mean so.
It’s red, yellow and green.
It’s red, yellow and green.
”This is the Way….” Song and Movement (“The Mulberry Bush” tune)
This is the way we drive our car, drive our car, drive our car. (Pretend holding a stirring wheel.)
This is the way we drive our car so early in the morning.
This is the way we fly our plane, we row our boat, we drive our truck, we pedal on our bike, ….
Math
With a variety of cars or trucks (matchbox cars or others), encourage your child to do a sort by colors, sizes or shapes, or to do patterns (ABAB, ABBA, AABAA, …). For further exploration, encourage your child to sort cars by colors and positioning cars in columns (red cars column, blue cars column, green cars column) to give a visual representation (like a bar graph) helping your child to see immediately the column with the most cars, the least cars or the same number of cars.
Spring is in the air in March! The calendar is a daily activity to do with your child that develop number and pattern recognition. Here is the link to print a calendar to update daily with your child. The set has a weather component, if you like. https://www.themailbox.com/magazines/march-calendar-set/march-calendar-set-4
Daily counting of tally marks and show your child a number card or write the number down to show your child. The numbers of the tallies will be different every day. Extend the concept by comparing numbers: which has more? Which has fewer? Which are the same?How many more (count with fingers)?
Art
For Letterland Letter W Art Project, you need (1) green, red and black construction paper, (2) template https://twistynoodle.com/my-letter-w-2-coloring-page/, (3) scissors, (4) glue, (5) black marker, (6) pasta wheels, (7) dry black beans/seeds, (8) hole puncher, (9) yarn, and (10) tape.
Directions for 4 projects:
1. Watermelon: cut 2 templates out of green and red construction paper, green slightly bigger for the red W to fit in, glue together on paper and black seeds/beans on top, and label “W for watermelon”.
2. Wagon: cut template out of green construction paper and big red rectangle fitting under letter W, cut 2 black circles for wheels, cut a black letter T for handle, glue all together on paper, and label “W for wagon”.
3. Wheels: cut template out of black construction paper and glue on paper, glue pasta wheels on W, and label “W for wheels”.
4. Web: cut template out of black construction paper, punch holes around the letter W, cut a long piece of yarn to tape 1 end to the template and 1 end to lace in and out through all holes. (Optional-attach plastic spider.)
5. If you have a Letterland binder, add it to other crafts.
Small Motor Skills
Transportation Book https://twistynoodle.com/transportation-105-minibook/.
Letter W Puzzle https://twistynoodle.com/letter-w-puzzle-coloring-page/.
Letter W Activity Book https://twistynoodle.com/letter-w-activity-book-minibook/
Gross Motor Skills
Outside time with climbing, jumping, bicycling, running, walking are great ways to develop the whole child.
We often remind our young children, before crossing a road:
1. to stop,
2. to hold an adult’s hand,
3. to look left and right and right and left for vehicles,
4. and, when there are vehicles, to stop, wait and look again,
5.and, when there is no vehicles, to cross.