Optional Daily Activities

Looking for something to do?

These activities were accumulated during remote learning and covid times, but will remain a resource here for ANY time in the school year when you are feeling like you need something extra to do!

Activities are organized under categories we used to break up each of our past remote learning days. Have fun!

MAKER TIME:

• Museum Exhibits from your Couch, PBS
• Draw Every Day: Expressions
• Check out Scratch for new ideas on how to code
• Visit Ms. Fletcher’s Music Blog for ideas about making music!!
• Check out 50 Easy Science Experiments to Do at Home
• Like KEVA and have some blocks at home? Try 5 Engineering KEVA Challenges
• Have pipe cleaners and straws? Make some Pipe Cleaner Ninjas!
• Try these 25 Simple and Fun Non-Screen things to do at home.
• ROCK ART: Find a rock, some Q-Tips, and paint (acrylic is best, but thick paint of any kind works) and make a rock mosaic. Watch this video for great ideas.
• ROCK ART: Find a rock, paint it, and go leave it in a park for it to be discovered by someone. Many people are doing this to bring joy to others from a distance!
• James Brunt is an artist who makes amazing mosaics and visually stunning artwork with everyday objects. What could you create? Watch this video
• Adam Hillman is an artist who makes amazing arrangements according to size, colour, and type. Watch this video.What could you make from objects at home?
• Watch video on Divergent Thinking Challenge. Make a list of what you could make with these items. Build some of them if you have the materials.
• Sign up for Canada’s Learning Code Live Workshops to learn about coding.
• Watch  Quarantined Couple Builds Art Museum for Their Gerbils. Make a miniature art museum for our gerbils to visit.
• Watch aboriginal storytelling. What stories do you already know like these?
• Draw, doodle, sketch, or scribble!
• Fold origami
• Create your own puzzle: Draw or paint a picture. Glue it to cardboard from a box. Print and use an online template to cut out the pieces.)
• Do one of the Exploratorium’s Science Snacks Design Challenges
• Practice calligraphy, learn hand lettering, or try designing your own font
• Get creative with Blender, a free, open-source 3D computer graphics software application to develop animations, visual effects, games, and physics simulations.
• Try  knitting, sewing, crocheting, felting, needlepoint, or embroidery.
• Explore tutorials in Microsoft’s MakeCode Arcade. These step-by-step guides show how to modify and create simple games using drag-and-drop code blocks.
• Make a song or beat using this super-fun visual sequencer.
• Try different photography techniques with a phone camera.
• Do a Gassy Eggs experiment with only raw eggs, heat, ice, and observations!
• Create and decorate a salt dough sculpture
• Make a terrarium mini garden or make a bird feeder
• Help make the world a greener place by making seed balls
• Do Lunch Doodles with the author/illustrator Mo Willems
• Make a marble roller coaster out of found objects in the house
• Make prints using paint and found objects
• Read about and create a 5 Clue Video Challenge for us
• Make a puppet show and present it to your family or us
• Create a website, blog, art journal
• Do SCRATCH or Code.org for coding. Do Tynker coding for free.
• Do a Science-U science activity at home
• Do napkin folding for your home
• Do the Getty Museum Art Challenge — Read about it here.
• Grow some plants from food scraps. See how here. or on this website too!
• Create something from the MAKE Magazine Maker Project Library
• Make instruments from things in your home
• Find, pick and dissect a flower to learn its parts
• Make paper airplanes that fly very far.
• Exploratorium California Science Snacks with home supplies.
• Do edible science projects.
• Do a fun science experiment creation using office supplies.
• Make a homemade weather measurement instrument
• Watch GEERING UP UBC Engineers Science online, streamed 11AM every day.

FITNESS TIME:

• Do some gardening. Check out Plant Something BC for ideas, and to watch the video about the mental and physical health benefits of having plants!
• Read about Ways to Cope with Social Distance from Kids Help Online, including a list of ways to practice self-care and to be good to yourself.
• Do the NY Times How to Meditate Outdoors (without even being outdoors)
• Watch the World’s Most Relaxing Film and take a break!
• Watch Nature Therapy in a relaxing space, and do deep breathing to relax.
• Do a Virtual Forest Walk as studies show seeing nature can create calm!
• Do a 30 Minute Hip Hop Dance Workout
• Do a PE With Joe online — he has new episodes all the time!
• Do the Most Fun Cardio Workout Ever
• Do the Kids Workout for Beginners
• DO Ultimate 20 Minute Full Body Workout for Kids on Youtube
• Use YMCA Health and Fitness Videos for options of different workouts!
• Complete the Name Work Out (To change things up, use a random word generator, pick a random word from a book or the dictionary, or have a parent/sibling give you a word and work out according to the word)
• Create a circuit that incorporates at least five activities, Do each activity 10 times. Repeat circuit at least 3 times. (Don’t forget to warm up before physical activity! This will help you do exercises properly and help prevent injury.)
• Or, if you can’t go out, go walking a mile on YouTube with Alana
• Create your own fitness routine
• Do Just Dance on video games or YouTube
• Look up Fit with Frank videos to do a fitness routine in the home
• Do Pilates for Beginners (was recommended by my daughter’s dance instructor)
• Do the New York City Ballet Warm Up Level 1 if you like dance
• Do Yoga for Kids for beginners, shorter class with basic poses
• Do Yoga for Kids for a bit longer class
• Do the Scientific 7 Minute Workout from the NY Times
• Go for a bike ride outside with someone in your family
• Use the Healthy Living 25 Ways to Get Moving At Home
• Face Time or Zoom with a friend while doing a workout.
• Walking Curriculum: Do something outside if possible, using one of these walking prompts to practice observation, perspective, and critical-thinking.
  • What is looking down on you as you walk?
  • What evidence do you see of weather on your walk (e.g. sun exposed, cracking, moss, ivy creeping, wetness, etc.)
  • What is growing on your walk? How do you know? What are the different ways in which growth appears to you?
  • What do you notice on your walk that is lovely or pleasing?

INDIE READING TIME:

• Canadian writers share their kids books online
• If you are using the public library and have a library card, download the LIBBY app for e-book options
• Contact a friend from class to get a book recommendation from EPIC
• Listen to PODCASTS of your choice as suggested during past weeks!
• Go on to EPIC and read books from the class assignments list.
• As you read, make a list of words you don’t know and look them up later. Write a short story/poem of your own using these new words!
• Read in another language
• Build a fort with a blanket over a table or chairs and do some reading under it
• On Amazon.ca, if you have the Kindle App, there are lots of free books to read
• With a library card, use online resources for Burnaby/Vancouver Public Libraries
• Use Audible for free right now to listen to tons of online audible stories.
• Use the Burnaby School District’s Tumblebooks Account to access books online. Press the ebooks tab at the top. I sent you an Outlook email about how to access.
• Higher Level Reading — Project Gutenberg free ebooks
• Open Library — has non-fiction and fiction options, some great for IP!
• Complete a word search or a crossword puzzle.

SERVICE and CONNECTION TIME!

• Escape Rooms: Here are some escape rooms you could do with friends online.
• Smithsonian Game Center — do one with a friend!
• Random Acts of Kindnesscould be a great way to help improve someone’s day during our isolation at home. Here are 19 Random Acts of Kindness Ideas for Kids, and maybe just find ways to send random positive messages to family, friends, and adults in your lives. We all need some positive words right now!
• Play a pen & paper games with family, dots and boxes, sprouts, 24, battleships, Go-Maku, Boggle, etc.
• Play a card game with family
• Look through old photo albums together and share memories
• Play Charades or use the Heads Up app
• Prepare a mini lesson and teach someone something you’ve recently learned
• Participate in the 7PM NOISE outside, done by the community to say thank you to our first responders and healthcare workers!
• Make a homemade gift for family, and learn how to wrap them using Furoshiki, the art of Japanese gift wrapping
• Prepare a musical performance to share with your family after dinner.
• Organize a family game activity.
• Play a round of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Stretch with a family member
• Create a dinner night, with fancy napkins, table, outfits, menus, decorations, etc. so when you can’t go out, there is something fun to do at home.
• Make a shopping list for the family
• Unload or load the dishwasher
• Sweep or vacuum the house
• Call a grandparent, family member, or friend to help them feel connected!
• Help with the laundry — loading, folding, putting things away
• Dust the house or blinds
• Clean windows, counters, anything that needs it!
• Help with the garbage, recycling, or compost runs
• Wipe doorknobs and high-touch spaces with cleaner
• Take care of a pet
• Watch your younger sibling so your parents can have a break
• Make a dinner for your family so they have a break from it!

GENIUS HOUR TIME:

• Virtual Museum Visit: Check out this list of places for virtual museum visits!
• Want to become an expert web researcher? Watch this video lesson about Using Advanced Search Features from Easy Bib.
• Go to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds Parents and Their Young Course.  Advanced version — here is the slideshow for grades 6-8.
• Watch YouTube Channel Global Weirding about variety of climate change topics.
• Watch PBS Digital Studios episodes on variety of science topics.
• Here are 10 Things to do With NASA at home related to space.
• Learn Bird Sounds and Calls from around the world.
• Read New Migration Science on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds website, along with many other articles about birds seen during the spring.
• Watch NEST CAMS — shows nests of birds from around the world and at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Explore their resources about birds.
• Listen to an episode of the PODCAST  Book Club for Kids, Tumble: Science Podcast for Kids, But Why?, NPR Wow in the World, Smash Boom Best, Forever Ago (a history show which explores origins), Radio Lab for Kids!, or Everyday Einstein Quick and Dirty Tips for Science Topics
• Learn about Animation Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy
• Play Chess online with Masters
• Watch any of the Numberphile math videos on higher math topics
• Learn how to Beat Box, creating new sounds with your lips
• Questions about how viruses work? Explore the Exploratorium site on viruses
• Watch live jellyfish, whales, penguins, and more on Georgia Aquarium’s webcams. (or animals at San Diego Zoo, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, the Houston Zoo, or Zoo Atlanta). Pick an animal, research it, create a fact sheet about it, or make a project like a mini habitat.
• Travel the globe to renowned museums. Choose a favorite painting/sculpture and create a copycat piece of art. Research an artist/piece of art, write about it.
• Use Google Earth to travel to a different city & country. Explore Street View. Plan a trip to a new destination. What would you do, see, eat? Make a travel brochure for the destination. Write a postcard telling something about the place.

UNIT/LITERACY/NUMERACY TIME:

• Math: Exploding Dots Program
• ELEMENTS in YOUR BODY:Use math to find out how much of the elements from the Periodic Table are in your own body! You will need to find out your current weight, and use these documents. Body Elements 1, and Body Elements 2.
• LEARN EXCEL!  To help with making budgets, learn how to use Microsoft EXCEL. Here are tutorials on all the features. Or, a basic lesson on how to make a simple chart. Here is another one on basic math in Excel. And, finally, one more that has a basic introductory tutorial.
• Check out Science Snacks on the San Francisco Exploratorium’s website.
• Do a MATH WALK Challenge.
• Play Math PRODIGY using our class account. FINISH IXL assignments first.
• Do Real World Figuring at Yummy Math — my favourite is the Peeps activity.
• Work on old math contests (Gauss, Pascal, Kangaroo, CPECCA, etc.)
• Re-live the Apollo 13 mission in real time on this interactive website.
• Speaking of Peeps, if you have any of those marshmallow treats, here’s a fun experiment about peeps and the speed of light — -please ask parents for help.
• Do some math puzzles and games at Pickle Math
• Try math puzzles at Mathigon
• Look at Oxford Grammar’s 16 Tenses of English. Write a funny example for each verb tense and label the one you are using. Watch the TED-Ed talk on tenses, which is a bit more complex, but funnier.
• Watch UBC Geering Up Videos Doing Science on a LIVE STREAM every day at 11:00 AM. You can also see previous videos if you miss one.
• Use the grade 4/5 Resources on the Burnaby School District’s Continuing Learning Website for literacy, numeracy, or ADST
• Play or create math games using cards.
• Play math games or do literacy activities with dice.
• Write something using a picture prompt on The Learning Network, NY Times
• Make a 15 second Word of the Day Video and share it (NY Times)
• Do a Math Activity on YouCubed Home Activities, Stanford University
• Do the Weekly Waterloo Math Challenges by Grade then check answers later
• We talked about blood types in our first unit — try out this module to learn about blood typing and how they match up patients. Fun game!
• Practice your online research speed skills. Do the Google a Day challenge.
• Learn Math Card Tricks with Professor Liljedahl at SFU
• Do the Missing Square Problem on YouTube
• WIRED Math Lessons from University of Waterloo for Grades 7-10
• Learn about the Math Behind Your GPS
• Use general math and literacy learning RESOURCES from Burnaby Schools.