Guidance: Encourage your child to read by themselves and out loud to you each day. Students should work to read the punctuation, including pauses and changing their voice so it sounds like the characters in the book. Fourth grade students took home three books to read over spring break. Encourage your child to spend some time reading those books or other books during the closure.

Consider engaging your child by asking questions about the book they are reading. Some comprehension questions parents could ask are: How did it make your feel? What do you think the theme (lesson) was? If you could give the main character advice, what would it be? What do you think will happen next? Encourage students to use evidence from the text to back up their ideas.

Another way to make reading fun is by encouraging students to read in person or virtually to a parent, younger sibling, grandparent, aunt, cousin, etc. Students can also create a book recommendation in Google Slides or as a video to share to others and encourage them to read the book.

Parents should look for an email from their teacher with information about free access to EPIC! Books and the username/password information needed for MacinVia Books. Both are resources that provide free access to digital books for students. Below are additional resources that parents can use to support reading at home during this closure.

Guidance: Encourage your child to write independently and with you. Students can write using paper or use digital tools such as Google Docs, Google Slides, or Book Creator, all of which can be access by students logging in using their school issued Google account credentials.

To help maintain frequent writing, students can create a journal that they write in each day. You and your child can write back-and-forth to one another in the journal. You may want to write a letter each day or start each day with a question to your child. Your student can write the answer back to you. To help keep the journal writing engaging, consider asking questions about their day, about a book that they are reading, about some of their favorite/least favorite things, etc. In the resources below you will find a link to writing prompts (Journal Buddies) that can provide some additional ideas for journal writing.

For creative writing, consider creating a document to help students “Roll a Story”. This fun activity allows students to be creative as they list 6 characters, 6 settings, and 6 problems. Students roll a die to create a silly story based on what they rolled. Consider creating your own story for your child to read, as writing alongside your child is a powerful tool!

Below are additional resources that parents can use to support writing at home during this closure.

Guidance: Encourage your child to engage in mathematical thinking each day through real life experiences. This could be as simple as looking up a recipe online or finding a recipe in a book in your house. Have your child engage in math by doubling the recipe or cutting it in half. Ask your child to consider much would be needed to feed ____ people. Another real life math experience might be to have your child help you make a grocery list with prices and calculate the total cost of the grocery bill.

Students can practice their math facts during this closure. Parents and children can use playing cards to practice basic math facts. Consider playing “War”, where two players flip over a card and typically the high card wins. Instead of the winner being the high number shown, the winner could be the first person to correctly multiply the two numbers (one from each card) and state the correct answer. A variation is for each person to flip over two cards and multiply the numbers. The person with the highest product takes the cards. Games like this can help students build speed with their facts. Be creative and encourage students to come up with games of their own!

Additionally, students can use Reflex Math, an online program at home. Information about how to access and login to Reflex math has been emailed to parents from their classroom teacher. Another resources that students can explore is Khan Academy, an online platform that provides instructional videos, practices, and feedback for students on a variety of math topics.

Additional resources to support math at home are linked below.

Guidance: Encourage your child to keep thinking like a scientist. Why do you think there was a rainbow? Can we build a tower out of spaghetti? Can you build a tower with straws and tape to hold a baseball? Can you create a parachute to help an egg stay intact? How high can you stack cheerios? How long can we make a paperchain? What materials absorb water versus repel water? Can you create something to keep ice frozen out of the freezer?

Let your child explore to solve a problem, and then come up with changes to their plan as they run into problems. Consider asking your child: Why did you change your first plan? What did you learn from this? Change the variables in the experiment. Do you think Honeycombs would be easier to stack or harder? Can you make the ice melt faster than normal? Use resources you have in your house like: water, aluminum foil, baking ingredients, food dye, legos, paper, pens, or tape. Anything can become a science experiment!

Consider using Mystery Science to support learning at home. Mystery Science has links to 6 Mini-lessons (15-30 minutes) that are all digital. Additionally, it has links to 5 full lessons (45-90 minutes) that include a hands on activity. Some of the activities can be done digitally and others are hand-on. Choose those that work best for you! Access free lessons (at all grade levels) without setting up an account by visiting the link below.

Parents can also consider creating a free account at Future Engineer to help introduce students to the introductory concepts of coding. This is an engaging way to keep students thinking like scientists and can be a great activity to do with your student.

Guidance: Keep your child active! Physical activity provides many health benefits. In addition, physical activity helps to reduce stress and anxiety in children.

Consider the following ways to add physical activity to your day: Take a walk together as a family each evening or as a midday break. Have your child walk up and down the stairs and count them. Count by 2s, 5s, 10s, or any number. Mix it up by not starting at 0 each time.

Your student can test themselves and monitor their progress by tracking how many sit-ups, push ups, jumping jacks, lunges etc. they can complete in one minute. Encourage your child to track how many laps they walk or run around the block while they are home during the entire school closure.

If it is necessary to remain inside, create a competition such as: How many times can you run/walk up and down the stairs in one minute?

Go Noodle (linked below) is a great resource to trick your kids into a remote gym class at home! Perfect for days indoors with no real physical activity, GoNoodle’s suite of funky games — including Flo Yo’s Bubble Pop and Squatchy Berger’s Rock and Roll — gets kids waving their hands and moving their bodies.

Consider using the resources below as additional options to provide students with movement and exercise at home.

Guidance: While there are some art media and techniques that have been around for hundreds of years, artists are constantly taking art (or non-art) materials and using them to make art in new ways! During this time, you might encourage your fourth grader to make art by innovating with the materials that you have at home. Included below is a list of artists with a description of their art, which you might look at with your student to help them generate ideas about the potential for innovative art-making in your home!

In addition to making art, looking at the art of others is another way to grow as an artist. With your guidance, your student might peruse the #metkids youtube channel as a way to learn more about the art of historical artists. The videos on this channel explore the art and activities that take place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Understanding the context or the history behind art can help us understand why and how people have made art over time!

Guidance: The change to staying at home can be stressful for families. You may notice behavior changes that affect sleeping and eating habits and impulse control. This can all be difficult when the brain is full of worry. During this time, focus on connection and feelings of safety. Your child will benefit from love and support-- there’s not a perfect schedule or perfect parent! Model kindness and patience, and take a break when you need one. Practice mindful activities both together and alone that will help reduce stress- play games together, go on a walk, listen to music, read books, color or draw, and rest when you need to.

Dr. Emily W. King writes, “When you have to pick, because at some point you will, choose connection. Pick playing a game over arguing about an academic assignment. Pick teaching your child to do laundry rather than feeling frustrated that they aren’t helping. Pick laughing, and snuggling, and reminding them that they are safe.” Mental wellness is important for everyone… we are all in this together!

Two resources are provided below. The first resource works similarly to a counseling lesson at school. It starts with a lesson, time for discussion, and ends with some independent practice. Try one activity at the beginning of your day to help build social emotional skills. The CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) website will help provide guidelines for parents related to social emotional learning- with resources for talking to children about the Coronavirus, planning activities at home, and coping with stress and anxiety.

Notice: The purpose of this website is to provide parents and students with optional resources that could be used during the current school closure due to COVID-19. Students are not required to use the resources and information found on this site. Information and resources on this site do not constitue "educational services & opportunities" being provided by the ADM Community School District. Please use the following link for more information about why ADM is not providing distance learning educational services and opportunities: ADM COVID-19 FAQ