Friday June 19

Well…Schools out for the summer!! I have loved every second on getting to know you all and wish I could have had these last few months with you too. I look forward to seeing you all on Monday and come visit me in the fall 🙂

Love,

Mrs Aiken

Minute to Win it!

DEFY GRAVITY:

Using only one hand, players must keep two balloons from touching the ground for one minute. For a more challenging game, increase the amount to three balloons per player (and use different colored balloons for each player to make it easy to differentiate!). No holding the balloons!  2 players per round of competition worked well to give the players ample space to move their balloons around.

SLAPJACK

This has got to be a favorite from so many childhoods! Kids will love having the chance to slap the cards as they play this fun game!

HOW TO PLAY

Number of Players: 2+

Objective: Get all of the cards from the other players.

Deal: Cards are dealt one at a time, face down and split evenly amongst all the players in the group. Cards remain face down, without players looking at them.

Playing: The first player places their top card face up into the middle of the group pile. Moving clockwise, the next player does the same. Players continue to do this, moving fairly quickly as they play each card.

When a player puts a Jack card face up into the pile, the first person to slap the pile gets to keep the entire deck of cards underneath it. That player will shuffle the pile and add it to their existing cards.

Winner: When a person runs out of cards, they are eliminated from the game. The person who has all the cards at the end of the game wins!

Thursday June 18

Writing: Write about one thing you want to do on summer vacation? Do you want to go somewhere? Do you want to see someone? Do you just want to hang out and be with family?

Minute to Win It!:

MOVIN’ ON UP: 

Each player starts with a stack of 25 red cups with one blue cup at the top of the stack. Start by moving the top blue cup to the bottom of the stack, and continue moving cups from the top to the bottom until the blue cup is back at the bottom of the stack again. You have 1 minute to complete the challenge!!

Math: Matching the same number, planning, number recognition

4. SPOONS

This fun, fast-paced game gets intense quickly! Players will have to keep up as they match four of a kind and pay attention to the pile of spoons in the middle simultaneously! You will also need a few plastic spoons for this fun game.

HOW TO PLAY

Number of Players: 3+

Objective: Don’t be the only person without a spoon when the round ends.

Deal: Each player is dealt four cards face down, one at a time. The rest of the deck is kept face down and put next to the dealer. The spoons are also set up in the middle of the players. Place one fewer spoon than the total number of people playing. (So three spoons for four players).

Playing: Players will look at their cards and keep them hidden from the other players. The dealer starts the game by drawing one card from the deck and discarding a card of his choice, face down to the person on his left.

The player to the dealer’s left will pick up that card and choose to either keep it or pass it to the player on their left, face down. Each time a card is picked up, a new card must be discarded.

The dealer (and all the other players) continue to pick up and discard new cards, keeping the game moving quickly.

When a person gets four of the same card, they can discreetly grab a spoon from the pile in the middle. As soon as a spoon is grabbed from the middle, other players can quickly grab a spoon as well.

The player who doesn’t grab a spoon in time loses the round and gets an “S” assigned to them. The next time they lose a round, they get the letter “P.” This continues until they spell SPOONS.

Winner: The person who spells SPOONS first loses the game. When a player is out of the game, remove one of the spoons from the middle and continue to play with the remaining players. The last player remaining wins!

Wednesday June 17

  • Minute to Win It!: (I used 15 cups)

Minute to Win It!: (I used 15 cups)

STACK ATTACK:

Players must stack up a pile of cups and then place them back into a single stack in under a minute. The original Minute to Win It version of this game calls for 36 cups to be stacked, but we reduced the number of cups for the children. Each child stacked 21 cups, and we discovered that this was the perfect number that resulted in exactly half of the kids being successful. Challenging, but not too challenging! Two players competing in each round works well and allows enough space so that any falling cups won’t accidentally knock over your competitor’s stack, too!

  • Story: Max the Brave
  • Writing: Tell me your favourite part of kindergarten. Did something special happen for you? Did you make a new friend? What was the best part? Playing, recess? math? writing?
  • Math: 

OLD MAID

Kids can develop matching, pairing, and counting skills as they play this easy card game that results in multiple winners and one big loser!

HOW TO PLAY

Number of Players: 2+

Objective: Don’t be stuck with the old maid (the Queen) at the end!

Deal: Remove one of the Queen cards from the deck and deal all of the remaining cards evenly to the players face down. Since there are 51 cards, the number of cards received may be slightly uneven.

Playing: Each player looks through their cards and pairs up any matches. Put these face down in front of you. After all the pairs are matched up, player two draws a card from player one’s hand face down. If player two made a match, place those cards face down. Continue playing, moving clockwise (player three then chooses from player’s two hand).

When a player has paired up all the cards from his hand and is out of cards, he is out of the game and safe from becoming the Old Maid.

Winner: The person with the last card (the Queen) is the Old Maid and the loser of the game!

Tuesday June 16

Sorry! Thought this was already up!!

  • Story: I Lost My Tooth (part 2)
  • Writing: Write a letter to a friend in the class. What would you do if you had a playdate? Draw a picture of what you would do and write a sentence or two to match it!
  • Minute to Win it!:

SUCK IT UP:

You will need: 1 straw, 2 plates, 25 skittles or chocolate M&M’s or smarties

Players place a straw in their mouth and use suction to transfer a pile of 25 M&M’s from one plate to another in under one minute. Only one hand may be used to hold the straw. Everyone gets to eat their candy when the round is finished! This game also works well with 3 players competing in each round. How fast can you do it? Can you do it faster than me? Can you do it in under a minute?

  • Math: Snap! This was one of my favourite games to play as a child. We laughed a lot playing this game 🙂

HOW TO PLAY

Number of Players: 2+

Objective: To win all of the cards.

Deal: The cards are dealt one at a time face down to each player until all the cards have been dealt.

Playing: The first player flips over their top card, making a new pile of cards face up. Going clockwise, the next player does the same thing until all players have done so.

When a card is turned over that matches a card already face up on another player’s pile, the first person to notice the matched cards yells out “Snap” and wins both piles of cards. Add these cards to the bottom of your face-down pile.

If two players yell “Snap” at the same time, the two piles are combined and placed in the center face up. These cards are now the Snap Pot. If at any time, a player sees a card that matches the card on the top of the Snap Pot pile, they call out “Snap Pot” and win all of those cards.

If a player runs out of cards in their face-down pile, the cards in the face-up pile are turned over and the player continues.

Winner: The winner is the person who has all of the cards at the end.

Monday June 15

Minute to Win it!:

Today’s challenge is to stack 15-20 pennies (dimes or nickels) with one hand in under a minute. Can you do it? Challenge your family to a race, who can do it the fastest? Feel free to send me a video of your challenge 🙂

  • Story: I Lost My Tooth by Mo Willems
  • Writing: Write about your weekend! What did you do? Did you do anything exciting? Make sure your picture matches your words. I want to challenge you to write 2 sentences! Practice using punctuation 🙂
  • Math: Crazy Eights

HOW TO PLAY

Number of Players: 2 to 5

Objective: Be the first player to get rid of all your cards!

Deal: Each player gets five cards, one card at a time. The remaining cards are placed in the center with the top card flipped over face up to create a new pile.

Playing: Grab the cards that were dealt to you and keep them hidden from the other players. Working clockwise, players will take turns to either play the same number or same suit on top of the card that is in the face-up pile.

An eight card is considered wild and can be played on top of any card. The person who plays the eight selects any suit and the next player has to play a card of the selected suit.

If at any time, a player cannot play a card of the same number or suit, they can draw up to three cards from the face down deck in the middle (if you’d like, you can opt for unlimited card draws!).

Winner: The first person to get rid of all their cards is the winner!

Friday June 12

Fundations: Letter Review: Sh, th, ch, wh, ck

Tapping:

Butterfly Release

I can’t remember if I posted this video or not? I got a phone call in the middle of videoing it…Oops! So it cuts off abruptly. One of the butterflies (Alexa called it wingless), had a defect in one of it’s wings and it only grew half a wing. It was still able to fly and made it’s way off with the others!

Thursday June 11

  1. Fundations: Letter Review: Sh, th, wh, ch, ck

Wednesday June 10

Tuesday: 

  1. Fundations:
  2. Letter Review: sh, th, ch, wh, ck
  3. Trick Words: one, do