Week 2 seemed to fly by with my mom here. Jeannine and I spent a lot of time on professional development (PD) trying to figure out some teletherapy options for our private therapy clients. I was amazed by the companies who were providing free PD for SLPs to learn about this important topic. If you are an SLP and are reading this and want to learn about teletherapy check out: www.bethebrightest.com and www.speechtherapyPD.com
We continued to follow our “Mommy School” schedule:
Weather journal
Word work (sight words, blends, digraphs for Griffin and letter recognition for Maddie)
Reading (decodable readers and/or Reading A-Z)
Writing (journal entries from Griffin’s teacher)
Snack
Math (greater than/less than, addition and subtraction practice for Griffin and number recognition/dot math for Maddie)
“Stations” or Outside Time
We also did some board games and card playing. Some of our favorites include: Pete the Cat Wheels on the Bus Game, Count Your Chickens, and Go Fish.
With the nice weather this week we were able to take long afternoon walks and leave chalk messages for friends. We even stopped for a take-out ice cream treat. My kiddos received Kiwi and Koala Crates for Christmas from their grandparents and this month one of the boxes was a “Nature” box. It was a perfect box for this week. One of the activities was a nature hunt where we had to find a variety of items outside…we successfully completed the hunt and the kids loved it!
Next week is spring break for our school district. We are not taking a break from “Mommy School” but it probably will look a little different this week. Our caterpillars arrived last Thursday and they are growing like crazy! So far the kids are super excited about this project. On Teachers Pay Teachers I found free butterfly journals so we can continue writing (Griffin) and/or drawing (Maddie) about the changes we see. There are also several resources on Scholastic’s learn at home website that I plan on showing Griffin and Maddie too.
Other theme units I want to do with my kiddos include:
Too Many Carrots
You can watch/listen to the book for free on YouTube.
I’ve found a crazy carrot craft for free on TPT as well as a free book companion on TPT.
We are also planning on completing a carrot craft from Pinterest –there are so many different ideas if you do a quick search!
We can extend our learning and watch the scholastic videos on rabbits and read the rabbit books.
Turkey’s Eggcellent Easter
If you don’t have the book search YouTube for a free read aloud!
I LOVE the Turkey series written by Wendi Silvano. I have her Turkey Trouble (Thanksgiving) and her Turkey Clause (Christmas) books. I love using them in therapy because of the repetitive nature of the stories (Turkey is always dressing up like someone or something new!)
I have purchased additional materials for this book for therapy sessions so I’ll be using them with my own kiddos.
Will also be doing a follow up craft…again Pinterest has a ton of ideas!
I hope everyone is hanging in there. I found that this weekend the weight of this quarantine situation has started to hit. As we approach week 3 (what we were hoping to be the final week) I’m realizing that it is very unlikely this is our last week of quarantine and that this new reality will likely last for many more weeks. I’m trying not to stress about this but it is hard to deal with the unknown…I like predictability. I like routine. So, I’m trying to create that for everyone in our home. I’m also trying to focus on the positive…
I (most likely) get to spend the last 10 weeks of being a family of 4 with my family of 4.
Our neglected puppy dog, Patterson, is getting extra company and long walks on a regular basis.
I have technology and resources at home to teach my children and see some of my clients.
My mom and I got a ton of cleaning and organizing done in preparation for Baby #3.
We have a fridge and freezer full of food.
We are healthy.
My husband has a job that continues to provide for us.
I live in a supportive community with great schools that continue to provide learning opportunities for my kids.
The extra time off gave us the chance to teach Maddie how to ride a 2 wheeler this week! (She’s rocking it, by the way!)
Hang in there everyone…I hope you all have a wonderful start to week 3!
