Last Updated on January 21, 2021 by Brie
There are so many things I could say about returning from a homeschool winter break. Our winter break was only a week and a half long, and it was packed with learning experiences. From my own personal experience, as well as what I have seen with this first semester of our kindergarten program, any kind of semi-lengthy gap in learning leads to a use it or loose it affect.
The Use it or Loose it Affect:
From my time through college and even through k-12 I had a very difficult time coming back from breaks. The larger the break, the worse the outcome. In college I only had one or two summers I wasn’t taking courses, but there were still month long winter breaks. Things slip and fade away. There would be times I would go an entire year without taking certain subjects. By the time I would return to them it was like learning a foreign language for a few weeks until I “relearned” the background information again. That’s why in school, after breaks, many of our teachers did reviews sometimes for weeks just to pull everyone up to the same speed.
I’ve seen this same effect with my daughter this year. There is always a slight blurp coming back after a weekend, where we spend Monday reviewing and she catches up very fast. A three day weekend takes a bit longer but still ok. Thanks giving break took a little bit longer to catch up with no doubt. So for the Winter break we didn’t make it as long as the recommended winter break through abeka. We only took a week and a half. Instead of the full two weeks. During that time we did many educational, yet FUN activities.
Educational Activities for School Breaks:
For the younger kids PBS kids offers a ton of educational shows to keep kids minds going. Here are a few that we really love:
- Ruff Ruffman Show: Kids Science Experiments
- Super Why: How to Read + Reading Words
- Scribble and Ink: Mini Drawing Tutorials
- WordWorld: A show with lots of fun easy spelling words
We also have found some really great shows on YouTube that have apps for your phone! If you check out the Alphablocks channel (here) you can find different levels of videos for kids to learn to read. This one was fun and very educational with letter blending.
We read books ever evening and did story times over zoom as well. To keep up on the phonics and reading even more.
While my daughter is really good with numbers we used an abucus and played throughout the day with it counting to 100 and by 10’s. We also periodically did some adding. Above all though, be prepared for the set back that a break will bring. Don’t get discouraged. Be prepared for a very relaxed first day or week of school as you transition back in.
Webkinz world Classic is another great educational tool you can use for kids to keep them up on learning. They have lots of great games to teach them responsibility with money, how to work a computer in a safe and educational environment, and they even have learning academy’s for the “pets” to teach different skills like memory games, fine motor skills on the computer, etc. There is a questions area that keeps the kids mind sharp and has them play a game show style questions too! Math, science, english, arts, etc. All kinds of great content.
Our first day after break:
Our first day after break went very well. We took quite a few breaks in between the subjects but overall things went great. We had a special lunch of pancakes to celebrate our return to school and kept everything very relaxed just easing into the day. We started out the day with some of the Super Why PBS kids learning games which are great for kindergarten vocabulary as they teach word and letter recognition in a fun way. Another fun thing I did for the first day of school was completely redoing our school store! Even though we have school at home we still have a fun prize school store and I give out tickets each day for classes and good behavior. It has some fun prizes in it for this semester worth different ticket values. With our program I give out about 6 to 8 tickets a day now.
The First Week back from a break.
Our first week back we did some fun lessons filled with lots of crafts! Along with working back into all of our subjects we got to do a lesson about buttons and how to fasten them. I took one of my shirts and my daughter followed along with the Abeka video and she buttoned and unbuttoned it. They sang a little song as well. The video was less than 10 minutes long if you want some perspective into this lesson.
Another lesson we got to do is adding to our piggy bank craft. Toward the beginning of the semester we did a craft where we cut out a piggy bank and some pennies. NOW for this new semester we got to add dimes and a dollar to it! Lots of super fun easy crafts to get to do over this first week of school is a great way to work back into the semester. You can find our first time doing the activity here.
With the Abeka program they have a little video where they assign “homework” in seat work which my daughter has gotten into pretty big. It amuses her to get her little assignments. She typically wouldn’t be a big fan of some of these worksheets BUT with this homework’s system she likes to do some of them. I think her writing has improved over this first week back because of it.
Along with our reading group, which my daughter has been enjoying this semester. The abeka has short videos, less than 5 minutes long that are reading groups for the kids. The kids get to read a few lines from their books with their team which really helps. The team is based on their level of reading, so you get to pick which level to put them in. and they are graded in grading cycles based on this level that they are put in. This has been a fun little adventure this week as well. THEN, we have been getting back into our counting heavily too and our number identification in counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 2’s. 2’s are our latest thing to begin working on this past semester. We have sheets from Abeka as well as ones we made ourselves that we work with pointing to numbers for number identification and counting. Here is an example of it.
We have also been playing some of the Ruff Ruffman games on PBS kids for our STEM and engineering this week. These games deal with different design aspects making the kids think about what would happen if they build certain things. For example, in the power painters game the kids learn about levers and gears and how to line them up/make hamsters move along them to make other shapes. In the Dress That Rhino game the kids preform experiments to see how different materials react in different settings and then pick the proper material for the circumstance they are given. These are extremely educational, but very fun for kids as well! You can check it out here! Or get the app.
Abacus Toy:
Another great tool we have been using this semester is the Melissa and Doug Abacus toy! We have been doing lots of counting with this fun toy through the week. We have been adding and using it to count up to different numbers, as well. It has been a colorful addition to our routine! You can grab an abacus of your own from amazon here!
Flash Cards:
Another great toy that we have been using is the windowed flash cards! My daughter loves using these and the repetition improves her ability to remember the math problems. When she is going through the cards I typically have her read the math statement as well as the answer before opening the window so that it solidifies it better in her mind.
Thanks for stopping by to check out how this new semester of life is going for us in 2021! It is the second semester of Kindergarten and I am so Excited to be back int he swing of things!
Brie
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