Homeschool PreK Week 16

What a fun week focusing on artic animals! I learned a bunch, like how narwhals have a tusk (not a horn) and it is flexible and full of nerve-endings so they don't use them to fight. Plus wolverines DGAF and will literally battle any animal that gets up in it's business (but I left out teaching the meaning of that particular acronym to Rust - we just said "wolverines are crazy; they are not scared of anything!").

I am really lucky to have Rust as a student. He is curious, excited to learn, and proud of what he understands. He is also so patient with me and the babies (Reddy, Liv, and Wells) as we weave learning into being at home all together. I heard another homeschool mom say something like "What if homeschool was less of school and more of home" and I smiled because yes to that. We play and do chores and read books and go outside and laugh and snuggle - and all of that is learning too. Learning how to be a person and isn't that what being a five year old is really all about? 

Unit: Winter
Lesson: Artic Animals

Books we read:
Polar Paws (a book gifted to us from our Aunt Dar & Uncle Mike after their trip to Alaska! thank you!!)
Penguins Can Go! and The Icy, Cold Artic - both books from the Science Guided Readers collection

Videos: 
Narwhal Nat Geo
Tusk Power clip from Wild Kratts
Wolverine Nat Geo
Wolverine vs Wolf
Training time with our Walrus - Indianapolis Zoo

Language Arts:
Mini book creation: I see Artic Animals
Recognizing/Counting how many words are in each sentence
Pointing to words and 'reading' in mini book & Penguins Can Go!

Math:
Patterns of Artic Animals
Graphing artic animals in an image
Graphing artic animals after rolling dice

Science: 
Recognizing artic animal footprints

STEAM: 
ice cube fishing using twine and salt

Handwriting: 
4 pages of handwriting/tracing

Visual differentiation:
Filling in the gaps drawing image of a walrus (was really a challenge for Rust - we will keep working on this one!) 

Fine Motor: 
Dauber paint: a seal

Art:
Polar Bear Name Footprint Art
Drawing Snowflakes (learning how to draw an asterisk)