Learning From Home – Activities/Suggestions

Below are the suggestions for activities, games, and work choices from our Guides compiled into one place. This list is categorized by program level and will continue to be updated. We hope you find it useful.

Helpful tips

• Maintain consistency in schedule from day to day as best you can (sleeping times, eating times, work time, playing outside time, etc.)
• Establish a work space (desk, table, or even floor space).
• Put one activity away before starting another. Your children do this at school. They can do it at home.
• Get outside everyday!

Toddler

Week 1-Practical Life, By Virginia Rogers, Huckleberry Guide

• Click the link above to learn what Practical Life is, how it benefits your child, and how to implement at home

PRACTICAL LIFE

• • Food Preparation
• • Preparing their own snack: cutting half of an apple (cut horizontally) using an apple slicer, squeezing orange juice, spreading cream cheese or jam on half of a bagel or bread.
• • Slicing vegetables and fruit for snack and dinner.
• • Baking: have ingredients pre-measured and in jars.

CARE OF SELF

• Dressing and Undressing: give your children enough time to practice dressing and undressing by themselves.
• Toileting: It’s important to continue with the toilet learning process.

CARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

• Your child would love to help you dust. Give them a rag and show them how to carefully take each object off a shelf and wipe the dust.
• Clean out the fridge. You can decide what items need to be kept or discarded, removing from one shelf at a time. Give your child a cloth or sponge and some soapy water and let them wipe out the shelves. Many shelves come out so you could do this activity outside for ease of clean up and so your child can reach.
• Sit down and enjoy lunch together. Make it a little more formal, like school. Get out a placemat and napkin, put everything on a plate, engage in lovely conversation and practice table manners. Add a flower to the table.
• Laundry. Your child would love to help load the machine, dump the soap, and push the button. If you have front loading machines they can transfer clothing from a basket, wet or dry. They can help you fold the laundry and then carry items one at a time to where they go. Yes, it may take a lot longer than if you just did it yourself, but they are meaningfully engaged and contributing to the family, which is all your child really wants in the world.
• • Mopping, sweeping, or use of a dustpan and dust brush.
• Watering plants and leaf washing.
• Window washing, dusting, and wood polishing of large furniture in the home.
• Taking care of pets.
• Loading and unloading dishwasher, dishwashing by hand.

ART

• Coloring, painting, collage, playdough, sidewalk chalk.

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES

It is always fun for children to spend time with their parents in nature. So take some time out of your busy schedule to explore outdoors with your child. I guarantee, you’d enjoy the experience as well as your children would.Here are a few ideas for connecting your child with nature:

If you have 15 minutes:

• Watch the clouds and see what animals you can make out of them.
• Hug some trees and try to find one that your arms fit perfectly around.
• Turn over a rock and see what is hiding underneath.

If you have 30 minutes:

• Do a backyard/nature treasure hunt.
  • Try your hand at rock stacking.
  • Grab some leaves or pieces of bark and race them down a creek.
  • If you have an hour:
  • Go for a walk and make note of all the sounds you hear.
  • Find a nature trail and help children make up a game or collect bugs or leaves.
  • Pack some food and have a picnic.
  Language
  • Naming things in both indoor and outdoor environments.
  • Read together: let your child choose the books, talk about how the characters might be feeling and
  wonder together what will happen next. Reading with your child teaches more than literacy and
  language skills. He is learning that you value his interests and choices, and that you love him and
  enjoy being close to him. Studies show that lifelong readers are those who, as children, simply found
  reading a pleasurable experience.
  • Singing songs and do finger- plays
  • Narrate what you do as you go through your daily routines.
  • This helps your child connect words with objects and actions. “I’m washing the dishes. I’m squeezing
  the yellow dish soap into the warm water.”

Children’s House

MONTESSORI AT HOME

Click the link above to find Montessori activities and games that we play in the classroom and bring them to life at home including:

• Language Games – from Carolann Zinda, Butterfly Room Guide
• Memory Games – from Melissa Potter, Maple Room Guide
• Sensorial Game: Finding Circles – from Anna Ardizzone, Sunflower Cottage Guide
• Practical Life – from Virginia Rogers, Huckleberry Cottage Guide

INSIDE ACTIVITIES

• Looking at books
• Building with blocks
• Drawing/painting/making a collage
• Zipping, tying bows, or opening and closing containers (tupperware can work great for this)
• Writing numbers/handwriting/writing a story
• Writing a letter (establish a pen pal with family member or class mate)
• Scavenger hunt

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES

• Introduce Left and Right to your child, they might not get it at first, but they will enjoy this game. Take a walk around your neighborhood, but stop at every intersection and ask your child which way. They can point, but help them say “right!” “left!” or “straight ahead!” and follow along with their command. Letting your child dictate where you’re heading might lead to some exciting new paths around your neighborhood. Take a long enough walk that they start to call out the directions on their own.
• Bouncing and catching a ball / exercise (they might ask for some music so they can dance)
• Taking a nature walk
• Weed the garden
• Plant a garden
• Scavenger hunt

PRACTICAL LIFE

• Cleaning /organizing room
• Sweeping the floor
• Folding and putting away laundry
• Emptying the dishwasher (especially the silverware)
• Watering plants
• Gently taking items off a shelf to clean the shelf and then put the items back (your child knows this is “super-cleaning” and chances are they’d love to use a sponge or damp cloth to get all the dust!)
• Sorting/breaking down recycling
• Wiping baseboards with a damp cloth
• Cooking together

Practical Life
• Ages 3 to 4:
• Meal or Snack Preparation: slicing vegetables, fruit, cheese, etc.
• Baking: measuring and mixing ingredients.
• Kitchen Care: loading and unloading the dishwasher,washing dishes by hand, sweeping floors.
• Pet Care: walking, playing with, and grooming.
• Dusting: the leafs of plants with a soft cloth or furniture around the house.
• Nature walks in the yard or about the neighborhood with a list of things to find.
• Walking on the Line: make a masking tape line throughout the house and walk carefully on
the line.
• Art: coloring, painting, collage, sidewalk chalk.
• Cutting and gluing – for example find and cut all of the plants in a magazine; glue into a
collage.
• Sewing shapes/pictures onto napkins, hand/kitchen towels, etc.
• Ages 5 to 6 — Any of the above plus:
• Cutting (advance searches: mammals, birds,amphibians, etc.)
• Baking: reading, measuring and mixing simple recipes.
• Handwork: crocheting, finger knitting, or sewing words, initials, or pictures on napkins, hand
towels, etc.
• Origami
Sensorial
• Ages 3 to 4:
• Exploring the home for 2 dimensional shapes (rectangles, squares, circles, etc.).
• Exploring the home for 3 dimensional shapes (spheres, cylinders, cones, cubes, prisms).
• Explore the home for textures that are rough or smooth.
• Exploring sound by tapping on different objects (pot, glass, wooden cutting board, etc) with
different objects as well (tap with a metal spoon, then a wooden spoon).
• Ages 5 to 6:
• Exploring spices and attempting to recognize them by scent.
• Comparing the various shapes of leaves found amongst the house plants.
• Drawing a picture that includes certain shapes i,e, 1 circle and 3 rectangles, or 1 square and 4
triangles).
Language
• Ages 3 to 4:
• Sound Games/I-spy: Something that begins with the sound /s/.
• Question Game: Have a conversation using who/what/when/where/why questions.
• Singing new songs (different languages).
• Tracing shapes, letters in flour (pour flour in a cookie sheet)

• Ages 5 to 6:
• Write a letter to a friend or family member to mail.
• Assist in writing list of things to do for a day or a week.
• Write a story or a play and read aloud or act out when finished.
Mathematics
• Ages 3 to 4:
• Scavenger hunt/counting objects collected.
• Counting objects (beans, pennies, etc.).

• Counting and math is part of our everyday life. Make it fun and exciting! You can count all the plants in your home, bowls, forks, shoes! Anything. When having a snack count it out, divide equally, share, break it in half. You could bake something, have your child help with the measuring. Bring all the green legos and all the red legos out, count each and then see what they make together!

• Sorting laundry.
• Sorting silverware.
• Ages 5 to 6:
• Hopscotch math—all operations can be done, just make your hopscotch go higher than 10.

Math facts with dice

Lower Elementary

Here is a general schedule of a day at school in the lower elementary:

• 8:30-11:30 Work time
• 11:30-11:40 Clean up
• 11:40-12 Read aloud
• 12:00-12:30 Lunch
• 12:15 (some children are more efficient in eating and cleaning up)-12:30 outside
• 1:15-1:30 Independent reading
• 1:30-2:30 Work time
•  2:30-2:45 Jobs
• 2:45-3 Read aloud

Here are some ideas to get you started for work times:

READING/WRITING

• Write a story
• Handwriting Ideas -Find a passage in a book and write it in your most beautiful cursive.
• Be the student and have your child teach you cursive.
• Print out a sheet of capital letter practice.
• Write a play and perform it.
• Randomly choose some letters. Try to make as many words using those letters as possible.
• Write poetry such as an acrostic using your name and the names of people in your family.
• Write a letter to your teacher about what you did today.
• Write a letter to a relative and mail it. Include artwork.
• Read for 20-30 minutes a day.
• Write the world’s longest list of animals.

MATH

• -Multiplication with graph paper
• -Print out practice math from Mathfactcafe.com, including distance and time, math facts, and Word problems.
• -Make a bar graph (items in house (chairs, tables, lights) or types of food in kitchen (canned, boxed, bagged, etc)
• -Time one another running a certain distance or some other activity 5-10 times and find the average
• -Count all the money in your change jar.
• -Practice telling time and duration of time.

PRACTICAL LIFE

• Cooking/baking
• Washing dishes
• Caring for pet
• Caring for plants
• Gardening/weeding, planting a garden
• Organize books or cookbooks buy color, size or author’s last name.
• Ask for a lesson on doing laundry.

ART

• Make a mandala of items from nature in your backyard – many start from the middle and work outward in layers of circles.

GAMES

• Start a puzzle
• Make a board game

HELPFUL LINKS

• Math Fact Cafe

• Sophie’s Masterpiece
• Strega Nona

• Science Experiments
• Many aquariums are offering webcams:
  Georgia Aquarium – https://www.georgiaaquarium.org/webcam/jelly-webcam/
  Monterrey Bay Aquarium – https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv-nsvs6k6AIVAcpkCh19KguuEAAYASAAEgJ9jfD_BwE

Upper Elementary

• Remember to set up your dedicated work space and try to stick to a schedule. And take breaks for snack and to get some fresh air!
• If screen time is part of your daily routine, do not allow it during the scheduled work time.
• Socialization. I cannot stress this enough; your children need to be able to talk to each other. Set aside time for phone calls, facetimes, emails, even handwritten letters. They need this!

MATH

• Did you know that the packages your foods come in are loaded with opportunities for math? Grab something out of the pantry – a can of beans, a box of cereal, or some dry pasta. Find the box labeled “Nutritional Facts” on it. This tells you what is in your food, and how much of it. It will also tell you the serving size, and what percentage of your daily intake of that category one serving represents. For example, take a look at the Nutrition Facts for this bag of tortilla chips:
  At the top, you’ll see it says the average serving is 13 chips, and there are approximately 15 servings in a bag. There are 150 calories per serving. Eating one serving means you will consume 13% of the daily total of saturated fat that is recommended.Using that information, answer these questions:Approximately how many chips are in the bag?
  How many calories would you consume if you are 9 servings? What about 15 servings?
  What percentage of your daily saturated fat allowance would you consume if you ate the entire bag of chips?
  Look at the other facts, and make up some math problems of your own, similar to the ones I gave you.
  Warning: DO NOT try to eat an entire bag of tortilla chips in one day! You will feel gross. I have done it and I promise, you will regret it.
• Find the perimeter of your bedroom (remember, perimeter means “measure around”; also, think about where you go when I ask you to sit on the perimeter of the rug!). If you don’t have a ruler, use something else, like a fork, pencil, or something else long and straight.
• Collect data from around your home, organize it, and present it
• Make your own math flashcards, for any operation.

LANGUAGE/READING/WRITING

• Read a book, and when you come across a word whose definition you don’t know, look it up in a dictionary. Do this 10 times! Record each word, part of speech, and definition in a notebook or on paper, to make your own mini dictionary.
• Book report, focusing on character traits and motivation, setting, plot events
• Journal! Just like we do at school, record your day.
• Take 15 minutes to look out a window. Time yourself. Notice everything you can – houses, trees, the sky. You’ll be amazed at the details you can find if you’re patient. Record your observations.
• Wordly Wise packets (mostly just the 5th years have these, but it’s a great series of exercises revolving around vocabulary building and reading comprehension. There are books for every grade level. Here is link to downloadable chapters for the 4th grade book.)
• Memorize your lines for Romeo & Juliet
• Read aloud everyday

PRACTICAL LIFE

• Offer to make a meal for the family. Lunch would be a good one!
• Baking and cooking projects. This is work! Double or halve recipes to bring some math into it. Of course, cleaning is part of the work too :).

CREATIVE

• Build something, like a model of an important landmark or building. Try to only use 1-2 materials for maximum difficulty (e.g. newspaper, straws, toothpicks, etc.)
• Create a board game with challenging general-knowledge questions as a theme.