Part of my role as administrator is to serve as an instructional leader to teachers. Now I have so many teachers to work with, all of you! With that being said, I wanted to share a few more ideas I had. Whether it is a closure, Christmas or summer break, these are things you can do.

Learning Activities at Home:
1. Count the number of shoes each person in the home owns. Using a pencil and paper or Google Sheets, enter the data (name of each person and how many shoes they have) to create a bar graph. This will help students with counting, labeling, and using a graph to determine important information.
a. You can do this with utensils, plates, cups, dishes, etc.
2. To follow up on #1, categorize shoes into types such as dress shoes, tennis shoes,
athletic shoes (i.e. cleats). This will help students with patterning, noticing similarities and differences.
a. Some of you are spring cleaning as a way to burn up some of your energy and
when you are cooped up in the house with cabin fever, you feel the need to clean
and purge. Well, this is a good opportunity for students to help you and
categorize items by color for example or function.
3. Read a book (i.e The Cat in the Hat for younger students or Holes for older students)
asking questions about who the main characters are, what the setting is (when and
where), what the problem was (conflict), what the resolution (solution to the problem
was), what the overall theme was, and what the plot (action) was. Then, watch the movie together. Finally, create a Venn Diagram to discuss and write down what the similarities and differences were. Below, I have provided a couple of books for older students that you could do this with. Library closed, no problem. Not able to download it on your Kindle or iPad, no problem. Do not own the book, no problem. Remember stories.audible.com has hundreds of titles for FREE right now!
a. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas - good one to also discuss irony (if you want a
study guide and or vocabulary for this, I can help you with that).
b. A Wrinkle in Time (I can help with a study guide if you would like).
c. The Call of the Wild
4. Some recommended reading for older students are (I can help with some study guides if you would like)
a. Gathering Blue
b. The Giver
c. The Messenger
d. Wonder
e. The Running Dream
f. Thin Wood Walls
g. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
h. Where the Red Fern Grows
i. My Side of the Mountain
j. The Cay
k. Tuck Everlasting
l. Schooled
m. The Beef Princess of Practical County
n. My Thirteenth Winter
5. Some great non-fiction books for students 1st-5th depending on reading level are the Who Is/Who Was and What Is/What Was series. They include important text features such as headings, captions, and timelines.
6. Graphic novels such as Fahrenheit 451
7. Work on identifying coins and their worth. How many pennies make $1, how many
nickels make $1, how many dimes make $1, how many quarters make $1? Count
money. How many dollar bills does it take to make a $10? Work on counting back
change.
8. TeacherspayTeachers has lots of free resources that you can check out.
9. Predict the weather by making a T-chart with prediction on the left side (i.e. draw a
smiling sunny face) then a line down the middle and on the right side (i.e. draw a picture of what the weather does (i.e. a partly cloudy sun face).
10. Feeding the dog or cat? Use a scoop? Make it math! Count how many pieces of dog or cat food are in the scoop. Does that fill a ¼ of a cup, ½, 1 cup? Keep track of how many pieces each day to see if there is consistency. Add the fractions. Simplify the fractions.