Suggestions and Resources for Elementary Enrichment
Suggestions and Resources for Elementary Enrichment
Make a plan: Ask your child to think about what they want to learn and how to demonstrate their learning (show what they know). Take a look at the ideas below. Your child can certainly think of many more.
Procedure for children:
- Choose something you are interested in.
- Make a plan. How will you go about it? How will you represent it? A drawing? A photo? A paragraph? A sculpture?
- Do it.
- Share your results with an audience (someone in your home, a distant relative via Facetime, Zoom, Google, Skype, etc.)
- Think about what you learned and how you learned it. Would you do something differently next time?
The Arts:
Paint, sculpt, write a song, make a drawing, some jewelry, create a piece of clothing with recycled materials, visit an online museum (perhaps The Met in NYC, or the Louvre in Paris) and pick your favorite artist and learn more about them…
Wellness:
Movement – get moving with Go noodle, a bike ride, yoga, animal charades…
Go on some Virtual Field Trips
Build social and emotional learning skills
Mathematics:
Look for shapes around the house, do a jigsaw puzzle, experiment with angles, play board or card games, make board or card games, cook or bake using a recipe, explore more games and challenges on one of these Weston Math sites: Majestic Mathematics for K-3, Mrs. M.’s Math Medley for Grade 4, and Noble Numbers for Grade 5, try ST Math for amazing research based visual mathematics….
Engineering:
Start the 30-day Lego Challenge, build a model bridge with toothpicks, design a room, house, playground, trampoline or water park, build a house of cards or cups, a fort, a treehouse, a machine to make your life easier, a recycle bin mobile, a block structure…
Technology:
Try out an Hour of Code activity on coding.org, create a circuit, a presentation, a slideshow, a short film, a song on garageband, a digital photobook…
Science:
Explore nature in your neighborhood with Mass Audubon, investigate seasonal change and be a citizen scientist with sites like Journey North, eBird or iNaturalist, do family night sky watching, check out live daily programs at the New England Aquarium (either on their Facebook page or on their YouTube page and Zoo New England’s Zoo to You programs, do research in your neighborhood, design and conduct an experiment, grow something, watch a space station exploration NASA…
Social Studies:
create a timeline, conduct an interview with an older family member, make a display of an event that interests you. Make a map of your bedroom, your house, your neighborhood. Explore Google Earth and Google Expeditions, take a virtual visit to the US National Parks…
Literacy – reading, writing, speaking and listening:
Write a book review, a puppet show, a book recommendation, a cartoon or graphic novel, a letter to an author, a poem, a blog, a recipe, a speech to convince your parent or guardian about something, have a debate where you choose sides of an issue (ex: should students wear uniforms to school?), have conversations (ex: ask your children how they feel and talk about how you feel), script your thinking aloud for your children (ex.: “I’m going to take a rest for a few minutes because it’s important to rest my brain. Rest actually helps my brain to grow bigger” or “Wow, I just had a hard work meeting. One of my colleagues said something that made me upset, so I took ten deep breaths to calm myself down before I responded.”)…
Your Brilliant Ideas….
