Tuesday

This is a material for which making a bunch in advance, to be left out and completed at a child's will, is a good idea.

What you need:

• A container for holding postcards or greeting cards from past celebrations, all with holes punched around the edges. The holes can be punched by your child, first, for an added element of interest and independence. Be creative- use a panel from a cereal box or the back of a spent notebook.

• A length of yarn with tape wrapped around its tip and its end attached to a corner of the card

Most likely, the child will not sew perfectly along the edge when they start this work, practice makes perfect! We can encourage the child and simply say, “up from the bottom, down from the top” for a few of the stitches and then allow them to practice on their own.

We are still studying the continent of Europe. Some of the more well-known animals in Europe are:

Rabbit, Badger, Mink, Polecat, Wolverine, Arctic Fox

Encourage your child to look at the photographs of the animals to learn what they look like and discuss their features.

If you have an available printer, print out the attached scavenger hunt and have your child cut out the photos.

If you do not have a printer, have the child, a sibling or perhaps an artistic parent sketch the shape of the animals in the photos.

Once the images are ready and cut, have your child hide them around a room, a section of your home or an entire floor of the house. For a challenge, have someone else hide the images, using Washi or painter's tape to affix to surfaces without damage.

Give your child the name of an animal and have them go fetch its image.

If they are a child who traces, have them trace the name.

If they are a child who is writing, have them write its name.

Simply remembering the name of the animal you gave and keeping that image in their mind while they search the house is quite the task.

Working on one skill at a time is the perfect way to make this activity last a whole day or week.

This material can be printed in the future for repeat explorations or for reference to recreate and hide again!

In our classrooms, we have the benefit of such beautiful materials to use with our hands to absorb concepts of mathematics. One such foundational work in our classroom is our Short Bead Stair.

The Short Bead Stair helps a child to absorb the concept of one-to-one correspondence and experiencing quantities. The attached file can be used by your child to copy and make their own bead stair to cut out or to print, if you are able. Once the bead bars are cut, have your child count: "one", "one-two", "one-two-three", etc. Using a toothpick to "jump" over each bead is suggested, as it narrows focus and concentration and allows for self-checking instead of rote recitation of the amounts. This is a material that your child can use for days and weeks, as they combine quantities and begin adding, or as they label quantities around their environment.