New Specialist activities are unveiled each week. Check out the latest content!
View the latest Library video from Nancy here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BmUTX0oqKjnwmC3YvQGstxBHnTuNtCKm/view?usp=sharing
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
9-9:15 am: Class Meeting | 9-9:30 am: Learning Circles with your EE teachers! | 9-9:30 am: Learning Circles with your EE teachers! | 9-9:15 am: Class Meeting | 9-9:30 am: Learning Circles with your EE teachers! |
In addition to these group sessions, feel free to schedule a one-on-one meeting with your classroom teacher via the class Calendly link on the EE Weekly Schedule document in the Parent Portal.
Reading | Writing | Math: Time, Calendars, and Schedules | Play Click here to print all pdfs at once | Theme: Octopus |
Read Aloud This week you’ll hear the first three chapters of our next book in the Lighthouse Family series: The Octopus by Cynthia Rylant. You can choose to have a grown-up read aloud to you: Or you can follow this link to listen to your teachers read aloud! | News BREAKING NEWS! This just in… your teachers are eager to hear your weekend updates! What adventures did you embark on around your neighborhood? Did you explore a new place? Learn something new? Talk to any family or friends near or far? Grab a news sheet and tell us about it! Feel free to post on your class’s padlet page! | Days of the Week There are seven days in the week. Do you know the correct order? Watch this video to learn a catchy song about the days of the week. Once you feel like you remember the order of the days of the week, print out this page to play a little memory game to test yourself! | MAKE A SOCKTOPUS! Here are instructions for you to make your own “SOCKTOPUS STUFFIE” at home! You can make one for each family member too. What is your ‘Soctopus’ called? We also want you to meet Sophie, a kid who has her own youtube channel and shares her strategy to make a Socktopus! You can ask your grown up to help if you’d like to use a hot glue gun too. Have fun! Directions: | All About Octopuses Hello, scientists! You are about to embark on a research adventure. You will use your current octopus knowledge and investigate new information about this creature.
Before you start your research, use this recording sheet to write/draw the facts you know about octopuses. When you are done, explore these sources: Lastly, use your recording sheet once more to write/draw your discoveries. |
Reading BINGO “BINGO!!! I got 5 in a row!” Have you ever played Bingo before? In this game, the objective is to get five squares in a row--it can be left to right, up and down, or even diagonal! With this Reading BINGO sheet, work toward completing five reading activities in a row throughout the week to get BINGO. Color or cross out each square as you finish them. You could even challenge a friend, grown-up, or sibling to see who gets BINGO first! Extra Challenge: Once you get BINGO, see if you can fill in all the squares on the sheet for BLACKOUT! How long does it take to fill in all the squares? | WORD Wow, Writers! You have generated so many ideas - from wolves in the desert to tacos on the run, to facts about brushing your teeth, we are so amazed by your imaginations. For Word this week, you might: -Start a brand new story -Continue a story that is in progress -Revise the end of one of your stories -Add three new juicy vocabulary words to one of your stories -Illustrate a story you’ve already written. The possibilities are endless! Just keep on writing and share your work on Padlet (optional)! | Super Schedulers This lesson will be introduced live during the class Learning Circle on Tuesday! Just like cubbies help Labyrinth Kids organize their school supplies, or folders help them keep track of their Booklist, a schedule helps kids keep track of their daily routine. What is the first thing you do in the morning? What are other morning activities you do? What do you do in the afternoon after lunch? Do you schedule any school work? What activities do you do in the evening after dinner? | Octopus’s Garden Do you remember singing and listening to Octopus’s Garden, by the Beatles this fall? It is interesting to listen to the words in the song, and think about what an octopus’s garden might look like. Using your imagination, creativity, and some creation station materials, can you design an octopus’s garden of your own? If you’d like to include some fish to cut out, color, and add to your garden, you can use this template. Here is one method to create a paper octopus. Have fun, gardeners! | Amazing Brains Octopuses have brains just like people do. For people, one important job for their brains is to constantly “talk” with the rest of the body to learn about and interact with the environment. But octopus brains work differently than peoples’ brains. How differently? Well, for starters, they have NINE brains! Watch this video to find out more. After, to test how your human brain and body work together, try out some of these activities (directions on sheet). Reflection questions: Which activities felt hardest? Why do you think that is? How do you think your brain and body work together during each activity? |
Booklist Just like at school, it’s time for Booklist! Start by picking a “just right” book you have at home or on RAZ Kids. You can practice reading to grown-ups, stuffies, siblings, or even friends on a video call! Special Note: The month of June is Audiobook Appreciation Month. Audiobooks are books that are read aloud and recorded for people to listen to. To take part in appreciating all the audiobooks out there, take a listen to a few of our favorites! The Crab that Played with the Sea If you want, you too can create an audiobook! Just pick a book on RAZ-Kids and share a recording of that book with your teachers. Here is a picture showing where to go to record your audiobook. (Note to Grown-ups: Check out this list of resources to find additional free, family-friendly audiobooks.) | Story Starters This lesson will be introduced live during the class Learning Circle on Wednesday! Do you remember our Literature Book called Inky’s Amazing Escape? Click here for the full story. You can also check out the video recording of the book in the Theme column to the far right! This week, we will use the beginning of Inky’s Amazing Escape to inspire us to write a new middle and end to the story. During the Learning Circle, each class will brainstorm many different possibilities for continuing this story. Then you will practice on your own! We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Click here for a story planning sheet. If you liked this story starter activity and want more to practice with them, you’ll find a list here. | June Calendar To celebrate the month and the wonderful holidays of June, let’s make a calendar! Do you or anyone you know have a June birthday? Do you celebrate any June holidays in your family? What is it? How do you celebrate? Choose a calendar that looks like the right fit for you and have fun! Print and cut out this yesterday, today, tomorrow card for your calendar to track your days! | Octopus Dancing Octopus dancing can be quite a blast! With so many tentacles to twirl and twist around, they can get very creative with their moves. Have you ever tried dancing like an octopus? In an area with space to move around, follow along with Oliver the Octopus in this octopus dance! Once you’ve been inspired by some of the moves you may have noticed, try creating your own octopus dance at home. If you’d like an extra challenge, try thinking of 8 moves you could incorporate into your dance! | Inky’s Amazing Escape Read Aloud Do you remember our Literature Book called Inky’s Amazing Escape? Join Laura on the beach as she reads this exciting story to the octopuses of Puget Sound! Watch the video here. P.S. Did you know that Puget Sound is home to the LARGEST species of octopus in the world?! This species is called The Giant Pacific Octopus. The largest Giant Pacific Octopus on record has an arm span of 32 feet. That’s about the same length as a school bus! Can you imagine an octopus that big? |
Reading Non-Fiction When you read about something true, you are reading non-fiction. It’s not-fake! Here is an article about octopuses. UCDS families, you can head to the library page in the Parent Portal and search for more octopus information in World Book online. -What surprised you? -Did you learn any new words? Here are some options to extend your reading: -Choose a vocabulary word to copy and illustrate and post on Padlet. -Create a fact book about octopuses. -Share your new knowledge virtually with a friend or relative. | Wacky Writing What has 8 arms, 9 brains, 3 hearts, and goes to school at UCDS? For this writing assignment you do! We want you to imagine you’re part Octopus! What would you look like? How would your life change? What new skills would you have? What would you wear? What would you do with 8 arms? Use this sheet to write your own wacky tale! If you want to do a traditional WORD project, go for it! | How Fast Was That? Some things are slow, some medium and some are fast! Oftentimes you can tell just by watching but another way is by timing them over a distance that doesn’t change. You might need some specialized tools for this experiment. Ask your grownups for a way to time something in seconds, like a kitchen timer, a stopwatch or the timer on a phone or tablet. Bonus: Create animal signs with your own drawings of a turtle, giraffe, and cheetah to help your participants know how fast they are moving! | Creative Camouflage! Did you know that an Octopus has the ability to blend in (camouflage) with its environment? Find a place in your home that you would like to blend into. What could you wear that might match with the environment? Take a photo of your creative camouflage and upload it to your Padlet page! Here are some awesome examples of octopus camouflage. Can you spot all four octopuses on this sheet?
| Super Squeezers! Last week, we learned all about different coins, including pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Did you know, a 600-pound octopus can squeeze its body through a passageway the width of a quarter? You can watch here! Can you squeeze through spaces that small? Ask your grown ups to borrow a quarter, and measure spaces in your house—under doorways, between furniture, etc. Then, see if you can fit through! What spaces in your house could an octopus squeeze? |
Compare and Contrast This lesson will be introduced live during the class Learning Circle on Friday! Fun fact: Did you know that Cynthia Rylant, author of The Lighthouse Series, has a birthday on June 6th? Here’s another fun fact: Cynthia Rylant has written 174 books! For today’s live Learning Circle lesson, your teachers will read one of Cynthia Rylant’s books aloud. Use this Venn Diagram (blank) to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between this book and one from The Lighthouse Series. Here are several links to different books by Cynthia Rylant read aloud if you’d like to try doing another Venn Diagram (lined) on your own: When I Was Young in the Mountains | Amazing Adjectives
big, small, tall, short, tasty, round, square, pink, sharp, pointy, loud, soft, hard, smelly, square, brave, young, old Remember when you described a Dolphin using Adjectives? Let’s take a deep dive into Adjectives this week! We know more about a person, place or thing when we use adjectives to describe them in our stories! Can you come up with your own list of adjectives? Here’s an example. Option: We all love Mad Libs! Read your list of adjectives to a grown-up, friend or sibling and have them fill in this octopus facts Option: Try your hand at an adjective matching game! | Months of the Year Watch this video to learn the Months of the Year Song. Next, create your own Months of the Year Wheel. Use it to help you practice the order of the months, think about the four different seasons, and note special events in your life. Check out this demonstration video. Bonus: Watch this video about the history of the calendar most commonly used. Also, check out these calendars from a variety of cultures.
Double Bonus: A video to learn how astronomical seasons are based on the position of Earth in relation to the sun, (whereas the meteorological seasons follow the calendar year--like on the Months of the Year wheel--and are based on the annual temperature cycle.) | The Octopuses need HELP! One cool fact about Octopuses is their ability to solve mazes! The Giant Pacific Octopus has 9 brains and 3 hearts to help it! WHAT?! Today, we have some octopuses who have made some tricky mazes for you to solve! Learn a fun fact about them as you solve these mazes Have fun! | Make your Own Octopus Ink Octopuses and other cephalopods have the ability to squirt ink from special glands so they can confuse and distract predators. Octopus ink is mostly made of melanin, the same substance that gives our skin, hair, and eyes their color. Today let’s make our own pretend octopus ink that can be used to write messages and pictures. Make your choice of colorful ink using vegetable juice, or invisible ink using baking soda. Make special messages for your family and friends! |
EE Resource Pick of the Week
You can find the comprehensive list here. We’re going to pick one each week to highlight.
TED-Ed is a resource designed to spark the thinking and curiosity of students and teachers around the world. This site offers video lessons, and student and educator talks, which explores a wide variety of topics, like arts, sciences, cultures, and academics. One series of lessons, Earth School, dives deep into many of the facets of life on earth from both a scientific and societal standpoint, exploring topics such as composting, biodiversity, and citizen science. Your children can also use TED-Ed do things like practice skip counting, or work on their phonics and letter sounds at home, with fun and interactive video lessons and songs. As you explore the variety of content on TED-Ed and consider your child’s interests and curiosities, you can filter videos by subject matter, and school level. |
