Week 21 Lesson Plan for Homeschooling Preschool

Cognitive activity ideas

Objective: (Learn) Acquires new skills

This objective may seem odd at first. Isn’t the point of this entire course for your child to acquire new skills? Well, yes, it is. This week’s objective is for you, mom, to take stock of how your child is doing on this foundational cognitive skill.

Make a list of all of the new things your child is doing that they were not doing three months ago. Include things that they are making progress with—no matter how small—but have not yet mastered. Include physical and intellectual skills. Your list might include things like:

• Brushes own teeth with minimal help
• Correctly identifies 10 upper and lowercase letters
• Knows how to play Go-Fish
• Enjoys reading time
• Climbs to the top of the rope ladder at the park

Now, congratulate yourself and your child!

Review your list for patterns and note areas where you would like to spend additional time. For example, your child may be extremely adept at gaining gross motor skills (riding bikes, throwing balls, climbing, etc.) but have made less progress with fine motor skills (coloring neatly, opening and closing their lunchbox, buttoning their coat, etc.) Use this week’s objective as a guide for how to balance your future efforts.

Literacy

Objectives:

• Identifies uppercase and lowercase U
  
  
• Tells the main sound of /u/
  
  
• Retells stories in own words

Parent instructions

Choose one activity a day with the exception of #1 and #2, which should be done a few times a week if possible.

NOTE: This week you are learning the last vowel—U. (Except for those tricky Ys and Ws which can sometimes act like vowels, but that is for down the road a bit.) You have been explaining to your child that you are learning the short sound of the vowels. At this point, you can also tell them the long sounds, which are, quite simply, the names of the letters. You hear the long sounds of the vowels in the words ape, even, ice, open, and use. Feel free to practice both the short and long sounds of the vowels if you want to. This is totally optional.

Activities

• #1 Say the ABCs using your chart from beginning to end once a day, pointing to each letter as you say it. After going through all the letters, ask your child to find this week’s letter—U. Look at and have them trace with their finger the upper and lowercase examples. Tell your child that U is a vowel, which is a special type of letter that can make lots of sounds. Explain that you will be learning its short sound. Say, “U says /uh/ like umbrella.” Try to ask your child a few times a week (during bathtime, driving in the car, etc.) to tell you the short sound of U. (Don’t forget to include some previously learned letters, especially those vowels!) If they need help or say it incorrectly, model the correct way by repeating, “U says /uh/ like umbrella.” Always say it with its example word. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• #2 Continue going through your letter flashcards 2–3 times a week. By this point, it usually takes less time since your child has fewer cards to practice. Revisit cards your child has mastered only occasionally. Make sure you are mixing up the order of the cards. Pay special attention to the vowels. Now, you have covered all of them! (Estimated Time: 5 minutes throughout the week)
  
  
• Complete a “Find the Letter” worksheet to locate all the upper and lowercase Us. Use a marker, highlighter, or dauber to mark all the letters they find. Alternatively, you can substitute a tracing or writing activity for the letter U, since it is a good letter to practice early writing skills. This could be done with paper and pencil or crayons, or have your child write the letter in sand or shaving cream with their finger. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Narration or telling something in your own words is a highly underrated learning activity. Children who practice narration work on memory, vocabulary, cognition, sequence, and much more. Narration is a pre-writing skill that prepares children for capturing the main ideas of a story or event, summarizing information, putting the information in proper order, and communicating in their own unique voice. When your child tells you about something exciting that happened in their day, they are narrating. After you read stories with your child ask them questions to elicit their narration. You will need to begin with many specific questions, but, eventually, after much practice, you will be able to say, “Tell me what this story was about,” and receive a detailed narration. Try some of these questions to start:
  
  - What happened first / next / last?
  - What color was . . .
  - What did _______ look like?
  - Who / what is this story about?
  - What was the problem in the story? How was it solved?
  - Tell me one thing you remember from the story. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)

Math

Objectives:

• Continued from Week 19: Count by 5s to 100
  
  
• Combines and separates different shapes to create a picture or design
  
  
• Is familiar with standard units of measurement and their names
  
  
• Is familiar with standard measurement tools
  
  
• Continued from Week 19: Knows months of the year

Parent instructions

Choose one activity a day with the exception of #1 and #4, which should be done a few times a week if possible.

Wow! This looks like a lot of math objectives this week, but—don’t worry—it’s not that bad. At this point in the game, you are practicing information that has already been covered or combining skill sets to level up your child’s math experience.

Activities

• #1 Practice counting by 5s using your 100s chart. Tell your child that this is counting every 5th number or by groups of 5. First, model counting to 100 by 5s for them, pointing to each number on the 100s chart as you go. Show them how every number ends with a 5 or a 0. Then, count again, inviting your child to count with you. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Break out the pattern blocks or tangrams. Provide your child with an example picture and challenge them to create it with their shapes. Take it further by simply telling them an object to model: a house, a bridge, a dog. Make it a game by taking turns and letting your child challenge you! (Estimated Time: 10 minutes)
  
  
• This week, explore some standard units of measurement with your child and the tools we use to measure them. Try whatever you have on hand at home. Here are some common household ones:
  - Bathroom scale - pounds (weight)
  - Kitchen scale - ounces or grams (weight)
  - Measuring cup - cups or ounces (volume)
  - Measuring spoons - teaspoon and tablespoon (volume)
  - Milk jug - gallon or half-gallon (volume)
  - Ruler, yardstick, and or tape measure - inches and feet (length or height)
  
  Show your child how to use each one and let them try it out. Measure the length and height of a table or how heavy every toy dinosaur is. Try to choose at least one example for measuring weight, volume, and length. The goal is to incorporate as much vocabulary as possible for the names of the tools, what they measure (weight, volume, or length), and the units they measure in (pounds, inches, etc.). (Estimated Time: 15 minutes)
  
  
• #4 Continue to practice the months of the year in order. Say the names of the months a few times during the week, and invite your child to say each one after you. (Estimated Time: 15 minutes spread throughout the week)

Fine Motor

Activities:

• 1 pincer grasp activity
  
  
• 1 finger isolation activity
  
  
• 1 precision activity
  
  
• 1 wrist extension and stability

Parent instructions

Choose one fine motor objective each day and then select an activity that practices that objective from the list in Appendix A. Feel free to choose more than one activity or work on more than one objective a day if you like! Just remember that little hands tire easily and short, regular practice sessions are better than long, sustained ones. (Estimated Time: 5-10 minutes)

Download the Appendix A that lists all the fine-motor activities.

Social-Emotional

Objectives:

• (Relationship skills) With support, considers prevention strategies for interpersonal conflicts
  
  
• (Self-awareness) Shows confidence in own ability to accomplish tasks and satisfaction in completion

Activities

Choose one activity a day (Monday - Thursday)

• Discuss with your child the importance of thinking before you speak. Use the examples in the resource poster provided to discuss how someone may feel if each phrase was said to them. Give your child a few scenarios (meeting a new child in their class, playing with others on the playground) and ask them to think of something kind they could say. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Discuss with your child how different people may have different perspectives on the same thing. Read the parable of The Blind Man and The Elephant and use it in your discussion. (Estimated Time: 10 minutes)
  
  
• Using an affirmations book for kids or by simply looking online, read several affirmations to your child and discuss what they mean. If you have a family message board, chalkboard, or something similar at home, let your child choose an affirmation to display there. A piece of paper with the phrase colorfully written and stuck on the fridge works just as well, too! Consider making it a weekly habit to choose a new affirmation with your child and then look for ways to live it throughout the week. (Estimated Time: 5-10 minutes)
  
  
• Begin to instill goal-setting in your child by, first, talking to them about what goals are and sharing some simple short-term goals you have for yourself. Pick things that you are sure to accomplish since we are trying to build success here—something like “My goal is to put away all the laundry today” (not that this is easy) or “I have a goal to work out for 30 minutes today.” When you achieve your goal, be sure to share the sense of accomplishment you have with your child. Ask them if they have any goals for their day. Keep it short-term at this age. Expect it to be something like building a block fort for their dinosaurs. That’s great! When they have achieved this, congratulate them on accomplishing their goal! (Estimated Time: 10 minutes)

Additional resources

• “I am, I can—365 Affirmations for Kids” by Wynne Kinder
  
  
• “I Like Me” by Nancy Carlson
  
  
• "The blind men and the elephant"