Last day of Kindergarten.

Today was my oldest daughters last day of Kindergarten. Since it fell on a Thursday I had to work, and my husband carried out the day as he usually does. When I got home he left for work and my daughters and I kept it simple and relaxed to start off summer break. We played outside, read together, played with modeling clay, and made decorations to celebrate Kindergarten graduation.

My oldest playing in dirt.

My youngest standing in a hole they both dug.

I’m not someone who tends to gravitate toward messy activities. Playing in dirt, and getting dirty. Since having kids I’ve just accepted it as it is. I have learned to go with it and let my kids enjoy themselves and worry about the mess of it all later. Which isn’t always easy for me, although eventually it just becomes a part of a normal day. The kids running outside and finding a dirty patch to dig in.

A homemade graduation banner.

My daughters decorating the banner together.

My oldest daughter spread out a wrapping paper roll and taped it to our living room wall. In which we all decorated together as a homemade graduation banner.

My daughters taped wrapping paper around the kitchen doorframe for more decorations to celebrate. Once my youngest went to sleep for the night my oldest made more items. She made a special necklace using yarn, and paper. She punched out two holes with a hole puncher on a piece of paper in which she then hooked string through it in order to turn it into a necklace.

My youngest daughter balled up modeling clay.

My oldest daughters modeling clay from today and previous days.

Plastic storage container for art projects.

My oldest daughter has strong emotions and when she gets upset it can become tense in our home. Today she got frustrated. In which I brought out the air drying modeling clay and my daughters began to create. It helps calm her down and gives her a safe place to work out her frustration. We create a lot of art in our house which is great although the downsize is trying to find a place to put it all. In which I began to store some of it in a plastic storage container.

Congratulations to all the kids that got through this year and to all the parents, caregivers, and teachers that stuck through it with them. Through the meltdowns and the craziness of navigating new situations and trying to figure out a different way to go about it all.

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I bought the fox container that came with air dry modeling clay for my daughters. Its cute and perfect size that it doesn’t take up to much space and everything stores inside it perfectly. The above storage tower is the type I use to keep my kids artwork in and well as their toys. We have them throughout our home.

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More apple themed coloring pages and art activities to reinforce what my daughter is working on in Kindergarten.

My oldest daughter started online Kindergarten this week. It helped that we had set a foundation during our homeschool preschool lessons, although it wasn’t always an easy time to get her to follow through with lessons I had planned. Her having a real teacher this year rather than just me I think will help get her to follow through with her lessons because she can’t use the excuse this isn’t even real school, as she often did over the years during our homeschool preschool lessons and play time. This week I’ve been able to explain to her this is what your teacher expects you to do, and the extra stuff we do is all suggested and expected by your teacher in order for you to be promoted to First Grade.

Below are some of the simple things we did throughout the week to reinforce learning in fun ways.

Break time with Play-Doh.

Art time with her little sister.

Body painting to practice writing and drawing.

In addition to the lesson plans provided by my daughter’s teacher I made coloring pages for the week for both my daughters to do together. I kept in line with our personal theme of the month apple trees and used that to reinforce key concepts from her school lessons.

In art my oldest daughter learned about the key elements of art therefore I decided to create an additional art activity to reinforce the concept further. We made apple trees with construction paper together, the night before I made the sample in order to explain and point out the key elements and how they’re used within the apple tree construction paper picture. We used construction paper and glue for extra fine motor and scissor practice.

Reference apple tree art I made to explain the art project to my daughter.

My daughters apple tree art.

Materials we used to make the apple tree art.
–Blue construction paper to glue everything onto. (Blue sky background.)
–Green construction paper for the grass and the tree top. for the grass I drew a curved wavy line in sharpie for my daughter to follow and cut out. I drew a curvy line with a straight line at the bottom for my daughter to cut out the tree top.
–Brown construction paper cut into a rectangle for the trees trunk. I drew an outline of a rectangle in sharpie onto a brown piece of paper.
–Orange and white construction paper. For the sun I drew a circle on white paper, that I glued onto orange paper. On orange paper I drew angled lines around the white circle and then cut it out following the angled lines resulting in the sun.
–Red construction paper for the apples or red dots which ever is preferred.
–Sharpie
–Glue

I made five different coloring pages the idea is to do a different coloring page each day, some days we end up doing two and none the next depending on my kids moods. I use the coloring pages to provide more simple reading into my daughters day outside of her reading lesson time. Coloring pages are a great way to include my youngest daughter although she often just grabs her sisters coloring pictures and makes a mess. At her age it’s just about exposing her to crayons and prewriting skills.

In Autumn Nana Hedgehog likes picking apples coloring page.Download

I see an apple tree and a bee coloring page.Download

Can you color two red apples and three green apples for Nana Hedgehog coloring page.Download

How many apples do you see coloring page. Download

Apples can be red, green, yellow, and pink coloring page.Download

Please remember that all activities on LearningWithNanaHedgehog.com are meant to be done with adult supervision. Also any printable activities on LearningWithNanaHedgehog.com are meant for personal use only.

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Click images below for more apple tree themed fun ideas.