Part of Alan's weekday morning work each day is going to include a quote, and we will analyze it together. I tried to pick some inspiring quotes that will make him think a little bit. I then asked him the questions:
1. What does the quote mean?
2. Do you agree with the quote?
3. Can you think of a real life example?
4. Do you know the author? (this is mostly just for my own amusement)
Alan is a very literal thinker, so quotes like this can be tough for him. He was able to analyze it in terms of weather very well. But as soon as I told him to think of the rain as a "bad day" and the rainbow as a "good day", it took a little bit more abstract thinking on his part understand the deeper meaning of the quote. We discussed how if there were no bad days or things that make us sad or upset, then good days wouldn't seem as good to us because that's all we would know.
I also saw something a long while back where young children (I think it was a class of first graders) finished famous quotes, and the results were hilarious, so I am having Alan complete a quote each day, again, mostly just for my own amusement, but also to get him to think a little bit, as well. I told him that with these, there are NO wrong answers, and he replied, "Well, if there are no wrong answers, then I can even say a bad word and I would be correct, because you said nothing can be wrong." The snark of a pre-teen is real, y'all. But he DIDN'T say a bad word today, so here is the result:
It's always darkest before..."midnight"
Nora started her morning work by "signing in", which is what it is called when she traces her name in the morning at school, since the parents are ACTUALLY signing their kids in to class at this time. I made her a tracing plate like her one at school:
We also had our morning outside time this morning before the real academic work began, and Nora used 4 senses (because taste would not be a good idea here) to describe things outside today: Nora SAW the grass, TOUCHED her gloves (her hands were inside them), HEARD the birds, and SMELLED her brother. (LOL)
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THEN we came inside out of the COLD (30 degrees outside this morning) and after a quick snack, Alan got started on his work. Today, we focused on MATH and MUSIC.
In math, Alan completed a probability statistics worksheet that was from his school. He also worked on estimation with time. He verbally answered questions about if certain listed activities (reading a book, cooking a pizza, making toast, etc) took SECONDS, MINUTES, or HOURS to complete. He also answered questions about whether activities took MORE than one minute or LESS than one minute to complete.
For Nora's math, she identified and counted the numbers 1-10. We did an activity where I put the numbers on the floor in a random order, and she had to identify the number I called out and jump to it:
For music, Nora and Alan listened to different classic pieces of music and identified different instruments and sounds using the book, "Can You Hear It?"
Finally, Nora had dance instruction through a video my former dance teacher made for pre K students. She LOVED this (note that she had to put on a dance costume first in order to participate), and was so inspired when the dance class was done, that she has been watching the Nutcracker since we concluded.
We are excited for a live stream that is happening in less than an hour here now from the facebook page McHarper Manor, which is doing daily live videos at 1:00 pm with art instruction, so I told the kids their "special" is art today. I can't wait to see what they create.
Stay healthy, happy and safe!
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