Well, this post has taken some time to write up as Autumn has been so full on and I’ve had so many headaches over the last couple of weeks! As well as that, I just haven’t had any blogging mojo. As such, I took an extended break from all things blogging over the Easter weekend. I hope you’ve had a good Easter and are well? Over the last fortnight I’ve been trying to keep my anxious mind quiet with practical things. Gardening. Tidying. Sorting. I digress…
I can’t lie, after a week of lockdown, we really didn’t manage to keep our second week of homeschool as structured as the first! But, you know what? I’m cool with it. I’m finding that as well as keeping structure in some respects, we also need to go with the flow. This is a weird experience for all of us. Autumn has still been enjoying Apple Class, though, and is eager to start most mornings! Here’s what we did over the second week of nursery homeschool (timings are approximate):
Monday 30th March
9.00 – Discussed the weather outside, the day and the date. We put the magnets on our date and weather board and sang a days of the week song
9.15 – We looked at the shapes on a pizza worksheet from Twinkl. Autumn assigned each shape a colour and coloured them in accordingly!
9.30 – As it was such a success last week, we tuned into The Ballet Coach’s Facebook live for half an hour of ballet dancing. Autumn clearly wasn’t in the mood this time as she sat it out and wanted to move onto the next thing.
10.00 – We focused on cutting skills. We used the farmyard themed worksheets from Twinkl’s nursery closure home learning resource pack. Autumn worked really hard on her cutting skills. Although she’s not able to cut out the shapes yet, she’s getting increasingly better with scissors!
10.15 – Free play
10.30 – Snack time (fruit and milk)
10.45 – We made a banana cake. Autumn loved putting the ingredients in the bowl and mixing them together.
11.15 – We did some colour sorting – much to my benefit! We sorted out the contents of the washing basket into colour piles. Autumn then helped me to put some of it into the washing machine. She also helped me to put in the detergent and fabric conditioner.
11.45 – On the instruction of Autumn’s nursery teacher, we went on a circle hunt! We found lots of objects from around the home that were circular or had circles on them.
Tuesday 31st March
9.00 – Discussed the weather outside, the day and the date. We put the magnets on our date and weather board and sang a days of the week song
9.15 – We went for a walk around the houses where we live, spotting rainbows in windows!
10.00 – When we got home, we settled down and watched some Number Blocks on iPlayer.
10.15 – Free play/reading time
10.30 – Snack time (fruit and milk)
10.45 – I decided it might be nice to have another rainbow in the window, so I printed Autumn a Paw Patrol one from Chase the Rainbow Resources. We talked about each colour in the rainbow and she did a really good job of colouring it!
11.00 – We played with slime and discussed how it felt. We also tried to make shapes with it! I was going to make some slime, but realised the night before that one of the ingredients I needed for it had gone out of date and I’d thrown it out a couple of weeks prior to lockdown. Luckily, my husband had accidentally bought her some slime, (don’t ask), so we used that instead!
11.15 – We discussed how we were feeling. Autumn said she was happy because she was at Mummy’s nursery! We used some pictures to discuss a variety of different emotions and when we might feel those emotions.
11.30 – We discussed what emotions we might feel when we need to calm ourselves down. Then we tried out counting to ten, keeping our hands and feet to ourselves and other methods of self-calming.
Wednesday 1st April
9.00 – Discussed the weather outside, the day and the date. We put the magnets on our date and weather board and sang a days of the week song
9.15 – We did a teddy bear number challenge (another fantastic Twinkl resource I think we’ll be using again a lot). Laying out a large timeline on the floor, Autumn moved the teddy along the numbers as we counted. I challenged her to count backwards. I then asked her to pop the teddy bear on different numbers and we looked at which numbers were either side of him.
9.30 – We watched and danced along to The Ballet Coach live again
10.00 – We discussed animals that people have as pets. We then watched an episode of My Pet and Me on iPlayer. I found one about cats on her request.
10.15 – Free play
10.30 – Snack time (fruit and milk)
10.45 – We talk about all the things we need and do to take care of our kitten, Maisie. Autumn correctly listed off food, water, bowls, toys and a litter tray. I then asked her to colour in a picture of a cat that looks like her (from Twinkl’s pet colouring sheets) and draw some of the things she needs next to it. Autumn decided to draw a fish toy and a food bowl next to her.
11.00 – In keeping with the pet theme, we decorated a rock to look like a pet
11.15 – Garden play time
Thursday 2nd April
9.00 – Discussed the weather outside, the day and the date. We put the magnets on our date and weather board and sang a days of the week song
9.15 – We went for a walk in yet another direction, once again spotting rainbows in people’s windows
10.00 – We sang nursery rhymes, following Autumn’s lead of what songs she wanted us to sing
10.15 – Free play
10.30 – Snack time (fruit and milk)
11.00 – We followed an activity from Twinkl to make a beautiful daffodil! Autumn really enjoyed sticking the card together and painting it
She also decided to add some orange detailing to the petals with her fingers!
11.30 – We discussed the letter ‘i’ and circled words that started with ‘i’ on a phonics worksheet from Twinkl. We sounded each word out and Autumn did a great job! We then sang about Inky the mouse.
11.35 – We made the letter ‘i’ with Play Doh
11.40 – We did some chalk drawing in the garden
Friday 3rd April
9.00 – Discussed the weather outside, the day and the date. We put the magnets on our date and weather board and sang a days of the week song
9.15 – We watched Number Blocks
9.30 – We watched and danced with The Ballet Coach Live. Autumn is getting a bit bored with this now and doesn’t cooperate for long before asking to move onto the next activity, so I’ll need to change things up a bit for exercise. Maybe we’ll try Joe Wicks.
10.00 – We looked at and circled dangers in the kitchen, using a worksheet from Twinkl. Autumn identified a lot of dangerous things. We discussed why sometimes Mummy and Daddy ask her to leave the kitchen. She understood that it’s for her safety so that she doesn’t get hurt.
10.15 – Free play/reading time
10.30 – Snack time (fruit and milk)
10.45 – We looked at how the caterpillars were growing (they were getting very big!) She then did a mini beast colour by number sheet from Twinkl
11.00 – We talked about our family and Autumn drew some pictures of them
11.15 – We did an around the house scavenger hunt
11.30 – I asked Autumn to draw her most favourite thing she’d done in apple class this week
11.35 – We did a Cosmic Kids yoga session
We are now having a two week break for the Easter holidays! I’d like to try and be organised and get a couple of weeks planned in advance, but the way things are going it probably won’t happen.