Week 25 Lesson Plan for Homeschooling Preschool

Cognitive activity ideas

Objective: No new cognitive objective. Feel free to review prior objectives or revisit favorite activities.

Literacy

Objectives:

• Identifies uppercase and lowercase Y
  
  
• Tells the main sound of /y/

Parent instructions

Choose one activity a day with the exception of #1 and #3, which should be done a few times a week if possible.

NOTE: Y can be a consonant or a vowel, making the same vowel sounds as the letter I. For our purposes, we will start by teaching just the consonant sound of Y, which it typically makes at the beginning of words.

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—Y. Look at and have them trace with their finger the upper and lowercase examples. Tell your child that Y is a consonant, which is a name for all the letters that are not vowels. Say, “Y says /y/ like yak.” Try to ask your child a few times a week (during bathtime, driving in the car, etc.) to tell you the sound of Y. (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, “Y says /y/ like yak.” Always say it with its example word. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Go on a Y scavenger hunt around your home, neighborhood, or grocery store. Find some yarn, a yard, or some yams. In addition to finding things that begin with the sound of Y, look for written Ys in books, on food labels, or “Yield” signs. This is also a good time to practice adjectives (describing words). Can you find something that is:
  - Yellow
  - Young
  - Yucky
  - or Yummy? (Estimated Time: 10-15 minutes)
  
  
• #3 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. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes throughout the week)
  
  
• Using drinking straws, Q-tips, dried spaghetti noodles, etc. cut into short and longer lengths, help your child build an upper and lowercase Y. Give them three short pieces to construct an uppercase Y and one long and one short piece to construct a lowercase Y. This will help them to “see” the difference between the letters, which are frequently confused, and reinforce how to make them through a hands-on activity. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)

Math

Objectives:

• Continued from Week 24: Knows how to read the hour on an analog clock
  
  
• Is familiar with basic tools for measuring time
  
  
• Counts dimes by 10s to 100

Parent instructions

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

Activities

• Throughout our activities, you have used many tools to measure time with your child such as a digital clock, an analog clock, a calendar, and possibly other tools such as a timer or stopwatch feature on your phone and maybe a day planner or digital calendar. Review the basic names of these tools with your child and talk about when you might use which one. “What could I use to look at what day Christmas is on this year? What would I use to time how long it takes you to run around the playground? What do we use to see what time we need to leave for playgroup?” Talk about different scenarios where you need to measure time and try some of them out. (Estimated Time: 10 minutes)
  
  
• #2 Teach your child how to tell the difference between the minute (long) and hour (short) hand on an analog clock (or clock model). Tell them that when the minute hand points to the 12, the hour hand will point to the hour. Show them several examples: 1:00, 2:00, 3:00. Then, adjust the clock to 4:00 and prompt them to tell you what the hour is. Repeat this several times throughout the week. (Estimated Time: 15 minutes spread throughout the week)
  
  
• Complete a “Tell the Time” worksheet. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Review with your child that a dime is equal to 10 cents or 10 pennies. Have your child count out 10 dimes by 10s (10, 20, 30, etc.) up to 100, placing one on each multiple of 10 on the 100s chart as they count. Then, have them count the dimes by 10s again as they place them on top of a dollar bill. Reiterate that 10 dimes equal 1 dollar, which also equals 100 cents or pennies. (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)

Fine Motor

Activities:

• 1 pincer grasp activity
  
  
• 1 spherical grasp activity
  
  
• 1 bilateral hand coordination activity
  
  
• 1 gross (cylindrical) grasp activity

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) Recognizes when another needs help

Activities

Choose one activity a day (Monday - Thursday)

• Discuss with your child different situations where we might recognize someone else needs help and what we can do about it: for example, offering to help someone who is carrying too many things or asking a child who looks upset if they need help. (Estimated Time: 5-7 minutes)
  
  
• Look for an opportunity to help your child and explain how you recognized that they needed help. “You looked very frustrated trying to complete this puzzle so I thought maybe I could help you.” “It looks like you have a big job on your hands cleaning up all these blocks. Do you need help?” (Estimated Time: 5 minutes)
  
  
• Read books about people helping others. (Estimated Time: 10-15 minutes)

Additional resources

• “Llama Llama Time to Share” by Anna Dewdney