COVID-19 Lesson Plans: Day 1

I have a 3rd-grader and a 4th -grader at home, so I'll be posting our daily lesson plans and schedule, in case anyone would like to borrow them!

7-8:30am: Up, make breakfast, clean up breakfast dishes, get dressed, brush teeth and hair, free play.

8:30-9am: Penmanship practice. My 3rd-grader is learning cursive, so I made her a worksheet with examples of cursive capital letters A through G to carefully copy. My 4th grader has terrible printing, so I had him practice some of the letters he most struggles with: r, m, n, b, and d. After individual letter practice, I had each of them copy a few sentences from one of their favorite books and we went over any problems (letters that floated in midair, uneven letter size, not enough space between words or letters, etc.)

9-9:45am: Scavenger hunt walk. I gave each of them a clipboard with the following list of things to look for: a robin with something in its mouth, someone walking a dog, a wreath on a door, a bicycle, green shoots, fuzzy buds, a flower blossom, a hawk, a kid playing outside, someone pushing a stroller, Easter decorations, St. Patrick's Day decorations, a rabbit (real or otherwise), and a lost glove or mitten. We saw everything on our list except a hawk and someone pushing a stroller!

9:45-10am: Math worksheets. My 3rd-grader worked on an adding fractions worksheet and a subtracting fractions worksheet, and my 4th-grader worked on an ordering fractions worksheet and a converting decimals to fractions worksheet.

10-10:20am: Snack break! My 4th-grader continued working on showing his work while my 3rd-grader made tea and toasted peanut butter sandwiches for us to share.

10:20-10:45:  Current events. The Time Magazine for Kids website has some great articles on COVID-19 and what we need to do as a society and as individuals to protect ourselves and break the cycle of transmission (specifically, this article and this one). We discussed how our family could change our behavior to keep ourselves safe.

10:45-noon: Creative time. I gave them the options of drawing, practicing their instruments, building with Legos, or baking with me. They opted for baking, with drawing and Legos during rising and baking time. We made this recipe for white bread, but first we watched Alton Brown's video about yeast.

Noon-1pm: Lunch break and free time! Access to Chromebooks permitted - and very much appreciated by both scholars.

1-1:30pm: Reading time. Each child gets to choose their own book and read quietly to themselves.

1:30-2pm: ELA. Both kids are working through the Khan Academy "Reading: Literature" practice pages. They both tend to read and comprehend above their grade level, so they're starting with the Grade 4 and Grade 5 pages. 

2-2:20pm: Music. My 3rd-grader continued working on Khan reading while my 4th-grader practiced trombone.

2:20-3pm: Art and music. My 4th-grader is working on making sculptures from recycled materials in his art class at school, so we decided to continue that lesson. Crumpled paper, tin foil, old gift wrap, twist ties, tape, empty bottles, cardboard boxes, and bits of fabric were all fair game. My 3rd-grader took a break to practice her cello, then started collecting materials for her art project. We'll continue to work on our art later in the week.

3-3:30pm: Cincinnati Zoo Facebook Live stream! Today's featured animal was Fiona the hippo. The Zoo is offering a Facebook Live program every weekday at 3pm. After the Live event, we took a quiz about hippos. We didn't get all the questions right, but we did pretty well!

3:30-4:30pm: I sent the kids outside to play in the yard while I make some plans for tomorrow's lesson. Phew, we survived the first day!