April 20 - 24 COVID - 19 School Closure

Last week was another great week of home school. I will not say it was easy because lets face it, balancing work life and teaching your kids isn't an easy task. I can only imagine it becomes more difficult when you aren't a teacher or is it more difficult for me as I am setting unrealistic expectations on my children as I am a teacher? Who knows? I am getting great work from my sons teacher and am finding ways to distract and keep his younger brother busy during his learning time. It is still a difficult balance as they both need almost 1-1 attention during this hour and a bit of learning and I am essentially tied up during this time. I then find ways to keep them busy in the house, playing in the basement often works so that I can get caught up on any work that I might need to before we move on to another activity for them.

As the hockey academy teacher at our school I have really missed being on the ice and teaching hockey. We Have the Hockey Shot synthetic ice in our basement and have started a skating time every morning for both boys to also burn off a little steam. The weather as of late also hasn't been the best so using this time in the morning helps to get us through to the afternoon when we can then get outside for some fresh air.

If you're finding that your child is getting through their school work too fast from their teacher here are some ideas of things you can do with them or get them to do independently to continue to work on their basic literacy and numeracy skills. These will just be things to help keep them busy a little longer and also help to keep their literacy and numeracy skills sharp. Their teachers might also be using some of these platforms and the data will go directly back to them as well.

Literacy:
EPIC
Read Theory
Reading Eggs

Numeracy:
Prodigy
Khan Academy
Math aids (worksheets)

Our seedlings are all doing really well and we have had to transplant almost all of them into bigger containers so they have room for their roots to grow!

Monday April 20 
Reading: We're going on a Bear Hunt (animated book), Black bears by Tammy Gange (EPIC),
Writing: Sight word bingo
Craft: Bear Headbands
Math: Laundry sort and count. Sort the laundry by colour, now sort the colours by big and small
           pieces of laundry, now count the pieces in the piles.
STEM: Mystery Science

Tuesday April 21
Reading: Franklin Plants a tree, Maple Trees by Rebecca Stromstad Glaser (EPIC)
Writing: Sight word Read it, build it, write it
Craft: Draw a picture of the life cycle of a tree.
Math: Basic math practice either online or paper
STEM: Fireworks in a jar

Wednesday April 22 (Earth Day)
Reading: Betsy's Earth Day Adventure, Sid the Science kid: Earth Day Fun by Jennifer Frantz (EPIC)
Writing: Draw a picture of how you can help keep the earth safe and write what you're doing in your
               picture.
Craft: Create something out of recycled material you can find around the house.
Math: sort and count the garbage that you picked up.
STEM: Pick up garbage around your neighbourhood

Thursday April 23
Reading: Recycling field trip , Recycling Earths Resources by Barbara Webb (EPIC)
Writing: Draw a picture of you recycling things at home. Label your picture so we know what is
              being recycled.
Math: Creating patterns with blocks
STEM: Lemon Volcano

Friday April 24 (PA Day Cancelled and it is a regular School day)
Reading: Grizzly Bear Facts, Grizzly bears book (EPIC)
Writing: Sight word bingo
Math: Hopscotch
STEM: Mystery Science

***None of these links are ads and just useful tools that I have used while homeschooling***