Anansi - Day 1

Reading Core Standard Key Ideas & Details 3
Preparation
Divide paper into three columns, with three sections in each column.
Materials
Anansi Does the Impossible by Verna Aardema
Markers
Teaching
1. Read Anansi Does the Impossible by Verna Aardema.
2. Ask your child what the three things were that the Sky God asked Anansi to bring to him.
3. Write each one at the top of each column.
4. Ask your child "How did Anansi capture the python?"  In the second section of the column draw, or have your child draw how Anansi captured the python.  In the final section of the column write what your child says.
5. Repeat for the fairy and the hornets.

Phonics Core Standard Phonological Awareness 2.a.
Preparation
Write "Snake" at the top of two pages.  Divide the sheet into eight sections writing "__ake" in each section
Cut a piece of paperinto small squares writing each consonant on a square, also add "st," "sh"
Put squares in a baggie
Materials
Baggie with letters
2 sheets of paper with "Snake' written at top and "__ake" in the eight sections
Teaching
This is a game!!
1.  First person pulls a letter from the bag and puts in front of "ake."
2. If this makes a word, they keep the letter in front of "ake."
3. Second person pulls a letter, puts it in front of word.  If it doesn't from a word they put it in the cast off pile (we called it the "eh-eh  pile")
4. The first person to create eight words wins.
5.After you are done creating words, use a marker and write the letters you pulled in front of "___ake" to make the words.
**To watch me teach this go to

Writing Core Standard
Preparation
Pour colored sugar or jell-o in a thin layer on a plate
Materials
jell-o/sugar
Teaching
1. Show your child how to form the letter "A," and "a."
2. Let them write the letters, one at a time, in the sugar.
3.The fun is being able to lick your fingers as you write the letter!

**This sis great for tactile learning!

Math Core Standard - Counting & Cardinality 4.a.
Preparation
Make a mini book writing the numbers 1-20 with one number on each page
Materials
Mini book
Stamps or stickers
Teaching
1. Have your child stamp the number of animals that are written on the page (stamp one bunny for the number one, 2 cats for 2, etc).
2. Do this for each number up to 20.

Art
Preparation
Get a paper plate or large paper bag
markers or crayons
Materials
Get a paper plate or large paper bag
markers or crayons
scissorsTeaching
1. Have your child create an Anansi mask.
**My son really doesn't like art, so his mask was as simple as he could make it. A circle cut out of bag, circles cut out for eyes and he was Anansi.  He thought for sure he was going to scare his older sister when she came home from school.

Three Little Pigs - Day 2

**We're starting with Art because we need the puppets for Reading**

Art

Preparation

Cut 6 elongated ovals out of pink paper

Cut 2 elongated oval out of gray or brown paper

Cut six triangles out of pink paper
Cut two triangles out of gray or brown paper
Put two ovals together, tape around the edges to create a finger puppet.  Repeat with remaining ovals until you have 3 pig finger puppets and 1 wolf finger puppet

Draw elongated ovals

Cut out

Tape two ovals together

Cut out small triangles

Materials
Finger puppets
Markers
Glue
Teaching
1. Have your child glue ears on each puppet.
2. Have your child draw a face on each puppet.  They can also draw other details such as clothes, etc depending on their interest. 

Reading
Reading Core Standard Key Ideas and Details 2
Preparation
Get puppets together
Materials
Three Little Pigs book (James Marshall has a good book)
Puppets
Teaching
1. Read The Three Little Pigs to your child.
2. Have your child retell the story using the puppets to retell the story.

Phonics Core Standard Phonological Awareness 2.e.
Preparation
on separate, small pieces of paper write the following "p," "i," "g," "r," "a," "s" "t," "h"
Materials
Papers with letters
Teaching
1. Place the letters "p" "i" "g" in front of your child.  Have your child sound out the word.
2.Say, "We are going to turn a pig into a hat!"

3. Have child sound our "pig" again.  Say, "Change a letter to make "rig."
4. Change a letter to make "rag."
5. Change a letter to make "sag."
6.  Change a letter to make "sat."
7. Change a letter to make "hat."

Writing Core Standard Text Types and Purposes 1
Preparation
Materials
Markers
Paper
Teaching
1. Have child draw their favorite pig house.
2.Have child write why this is their favorite pig house.

Math Core Standard - Counting & Cardinality: Count to tell the number of objects 4.a.,b.,5Compare Numbers 6
Preparation
Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper
Materials
Paper

Small items (chocolate chips, we used puffed corn)

Teaching

1. Have your child take two handfuls of the treat and place each handful on one side of the sheet of paper.

2. Have your child count and write the number of items on each side of the paper.

3. Ask, "Which side has more?" Which side has less?"

4. Do this a few times with your child to practice counting and comparing numbers.

Exploration

Preparation

Materials

Craft Sticks

Glue

Teaching

1. Build a stick house together with your child. Talk with them about how to make walls and a roof.

2. Use the glue and craft sticks to build the house.

Frogs - Day 3

Reading Core Standard - Reading Standards for Informational Text1
Preparation
This will be asking and answering questions about the text. 
Materials.
book - I used Gail Gibbons Frogs again
Teaching
1. Read book Frogs by Gail Gibbons.  Ask your child questions about the book.  Ask if they have questions.

Phonics Core Standard - Phonological Awareness 2.b.
Preparation
Write the following words on a piece of paper:
hibernation, camouflage, webbed, amphibians, vegetarian, algae, frog, tadpole, egg, gills, tail, legs, insects, water
Divide a piece of paper into five sections and number 1-5
Materials
word strips
divided paper
glue stick
Teaching
1. Sound out each word for your child.  Count together the number of syllables in each word. 
2. Have child glue the word under the number corresponding to the amount of syllables in the word.
3. Go through each word again.
4.Sound out the single syllable words together

Writing Core Standard Text Types and Purposes 2
Preparation
Create a mini Book.  Write "Frogs can" on Title page and each page in the book (your choice if you want one idea per two page spread, or 2 ideas per two sheet spread)
Materials
Mini book
Markers

Teaching
1. Ask your child some things that frogs can do that they learned from teh book.
2.Write, or have your child write, what frogs can do.  For example: "Frogs can jump."  The child will write "jump."

3.Have child illustrate the book.

4.Have child read the book to you.

Math Core Standard - Geometry - Identify and Describe Shapes 2
Preparation
Prepare a piece of paper with a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and hexagon for you and ond one for your child
Materials
Shape Paper
Crayon
Teaching
1. Go on a shape scavenger hunt.  Walk your house, and/or neighborhood to find real-life shapes.
2.When you or your child finds a shape, they color it in on the paper.
3 The first person to find all shapes on their sheet is the winner.
Shapes We Found:

Art
Preparation
Find the page in Gail Gibbon's Frogs that shows a frog's body parts.
Materials
Picture
Playdough
Teaching
1. Have your child create a frog with the playdough, making sure they show all the parts of the frog (eyes, mouth, front and back legs, ridges on back).
2. The easiest way to do this is to make each part seperately (body with ridges, add head, add eyes, add front legs, add back legs, add tongue).

My Frog

William's Frog

**You can also make the frog life cycle, creating a frog egg, tadpole, and morphing it into the frog**

Materials

Christmas Day Two - The Night Before Christmas

Reading
Preparation
Get book The Night Before Christmas
Materials
Book
Teaching
1.Read book to child.
2.Read book again, only this time, have your child act out the poem as you read it.

Phonics
Preparation

Write the poem, The Night Before Christmas." If you don't want to write it out, email me amyiswrite@gmail.com and I will send you a word doc of the one I wrote out, so you can skip this long step in prep
write the rhyming words on pieces of paper, and cut them into individual words

Poem
Marker
Paper divided into two sections, "twins" and "jail"
rhyming words
glue stick
Teaching
1. Read poem to your child and circle the rhyming words in the poem (you can circle, or your child can circle, your choice).
2. You don't need to do the entire poem, gauge your child's interest.  My son lasted about 1/2 way before he was done circling.  That's fine.  Stop before it becomes a chore.
3. Show the rhyming words to your child.  Line them up, one above the other so that the rimes align.
4. Ask, "Are these rhymes spelled the same, or are they different?"
5. If they are the same, your child glues them under "twins."  If they are different your child glues them in "jail."

Writing
Preparation
Using large dotted line paper, write a capital "N" on the first line and a lower case "n" on the second line.  On other lines write the following rimes: ab, ag, ap, est, et, ib, ip, od, ot, ub, un, ut
Materials
paper
pen
markers, etc
Teaching
1. Teach your child proper formation of the letter "N" both upper-and lower case.
2. Have your child add the letter 'N" to each rime to create a new word, word the word with your child.
3. On a separate piece of paper write, "If I met Santa I would"
4.  Have your child tell you what they would do if they met Santa.  finish the sentence, writing what your child told you.
5.  Have your child illustrate the sentence.


Math
Preparation
Draw a stocking on a piece of paper with sharp corners.  Placing another piece of paper behind your paper with the stocking.  Cut out stocking, so you have two exact copies. Cut the second stocking into about 5-7 shapes of triangles, rectangles, and squares.
Materials
Stocking
Pieces
glue stick.
Teaching
1. Tell your child that this is an empty stocking that Santa needs to fill.
2.Show the shapes to your child, have your child name the shapes.
3.Tell your child the shapes are presents for the stocking, and they need to help Santa fit all the presents into the stocking.
4. Have child rearrange shapes in stocking until they all fit, then have child glue pieces into the stocking.


Exploration
Preparation
For Christmas, all our Explorations are about doing kids things for other people.  Find a way to give gifts of kindness and services with your child.  Our church was buying presents for a homeless shelter so we signed up and I let my son help pick out a gift for the shelter.

Art
Preparation
Draw a picture, or print out a simple picture of Santa.
Materials
Santa picture
Crayons or markers
Cotton balls
Glue
Teaching
1. Have child color Santa's face and hat
2.Have child glue cotton balls on to beard and hat rim.

Christmas Day One - Nativity

Reading
Preparation
Choose a simple children's book, or a few, that are about the First Christmas.  See my list of Christmas books for my favorites.  You can also read from the Bible Luke chapter 2 verses 1-20. and Matthew chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. Here is a link to the King James Version online for Luke (shepherds) and Matthew (wisemen).  Draw or print out small pictures of the naativity. Tape these to popsicle sticks to form puppets.
Materials
Bble, and/or natvity books
Nativity pictures (mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, wise men, shepherds, angel, king herod)
Markers, etc.
Popsicle sticks
Teaching
1. Read the stories.  I like to read and explain the Bible verses, and then read the Nativity books and explain as we go, how they relate to the Bible story.
2.  Child can color pictures.
3. Have your child retell the story of Jesus' birth using the puppets.  You can help encourage by holding up a puppet, asking (or telling if they forgot) who it is, and how they belong in the story.
4. Have your child put on the puppet show for relatives at Christmas, siblings, etc.

Phonics
Preparation
Write the word "Christmas" then cut into individual letters.
Materials
Letters, cut up
Teaching
1. Tell your child that all these letters together make a word that is special at this time of year.
Say the following:
1. Make the word "as."
2.  Add a letter and make the word "has."
3. Change the last letter to make the word "hat."
4.  CHange the first letter to make the word "cat."
5. CHange the first letter to make the =word "rat."

6.  Change the first letter to make the word "sat."
7. Change the first letter to make the word "mat."
8. Change the last letter to make "mas," the end of our special word.
9.  The rest of the letters make the word that Christmas is all about. (slowly spell out "Christ" and sound it out for your child).
10.  This is the word "Christ" because our special word (put "Christ" and "mas" together) form the word CHristmas, and CHristmas is all about that Jesus Chrust was born!

Writing
Preparation
Using large dotted line paper, write a capital "C" on first line, lower case "c" on second line
write the following rimes on the lines below: ab, an, ap, at, op, ot, up
Materials
Teaching

1.Teach your child proper formation of the letter "C" both upper and lower case.
2. Have your child practice writing the letter C in front of each rime, creating a new word.
3.  On a separate paper write "If I was at the First Christmas"
4.  Have your child complete the sentence verbally, while you write down what they say.
5.  Have child illustrate the sentence.


Math
Preparation
Draw or print 20-30 sheep.
Materials
Sheep
Die (one dice)
Teaching
1. Put sheep in a pile.
2. First person rolls, die, and takes that amount of sheep.
3.Second person rolls die and takes the amount of sheep shoen on die.
4. Players continue playing until sheep are gone.
5. Players count their sheep to see who has the biggest flock, and wins. You can watch a video of my kids playing it here.

Exploration
Preparation
Our entire Christmas exploration will be about serving others.  Find ways to help your child serve others.  We made treats for our cousins, one in the military, one on a mission, and sent them to them for Christmas. You can make a treat and send or give it to someone.


Art
Preparation
Prep Materials
Materials
Paper
Markers, crayons, etc
Teaching
1. Have your child draw a picture of baby Jesus.