Today was FUN FRIDAY but before I explain the fun activities l wanted to share some age appropriate explanations about COVID-19. We had a virtual meeting with our Parents As Teacher home educator the other day and she sent us files of two age appropriate books to help young children better understand what is happening. One explains, in a child friendly way, what Contraviris is and the other offers young children support on why they are having school with their teachers from home. Click on the links below to read on line or print them out and make them into a book to read with your child.

What Is the Contravirus

My New Home School

Jelly Bean Math– My daughter really enjoyed doing math with jelly beans! We each got a baggie of jelly beans and used the free templates created by Simply Kinder on line to sort the jelly beans by color. Then we used the tally mark sheet and made tally marks next to each color indicating how many of each color we had. Our last step was creating a bar graph showing how many jelly beans of each color we had in our bag. We practiced math vocabulary by commenting on which color we had more or less of and which colors were equal. Since my daughter struggles with writing numbers I had her write the total number of each color on the sorting page. This was a great exercise in sorting, counting,  comparing numbers, number recognition and number writing and the best part was eating the jelly beans at the end! 

Holes in the Jelly Beans?– We cut out our jelly bean shapes and punched holes in the jelly beans by using a hole punch to punch the correct number of holes on each jelly bean. Then we strung them together and made a necklace. My daughter needs to work on hand strength and this activity suggested by her teacher really challenged her. Jan Brett– One of my favorite authors is Jan Brett so I pulled out all of my Jan Brett books and shared them with my daughter. We had read some of the books previously but some were new to her. After I took the picture I discovered even more Jan Brett books in my daughters closet! Her intricate illustrations are simply captivating and the fact that she loves animals and incorporates animals from around the world in her stories is one of the reasons why she is one of my favorite authors. Her creative spin on classic fairy tales is another reason why I love her so! In 1994 I had the privilege of meeting Jan Brett and her husband Joe (a double base player for the Boston Pops) at an early childhood conference in southern Illinois. This was decades before smart phones so I don’t think I got a picture of our meeting but she did sign and date one of my favorite books, Berlioz the Bear. My daughter’s favorite book is Comet’s Nine Lives and we adore the Gingerbread Baby books and of course her most famous book, The Mitten.  A family friend presented us with a copy of The Easter Egg a few years ago and my daughter has been requesting it be read every night now that we are nearing Easter. We went to Jan Brett’s website where we played games, watched a video of Jan reading one of her newest books (Cozy, a delightful story of a helpful musk ox from Alaska) and printed out some coloring pages of Hegie the Hedgehog. We also wrote her a letter and are anxiously anticipating a response. Backyard Animal Discovery– My daughter’s teacher shared the brilliant idea of watching for animals (in our backyard and on our daily walks) and graphing how many of each animal we found. We watched for ducks, cardinals, sparrows, robins, rabbits and squirrels and after printing out pictures of each animal my daughter helped me create a chart that we hung on the wall. We enjoyed looking out the window to see if another duck took a swim in the pond or if we could spot a robin on our daily walks around the neighborhood. My daughter loved adding tally marks on our graph and sharing the final count with her teacher. The activity was such a hit we are going to do it again next week!

Spreading SONshine Project– Yesterday was virtual sunglasses day at school and it reminded me to spread SONshine. So spread some SONshine this weekend by calling a friend or family member you haven’t talked to in awhile, mailing a letter or sending a text of encouragement to someone or posting an encouraging bible verse on social media. #spreadingSONshine project