Kindergarten Fun

Many people who don't homeschool their children have been asking me- "Exactly WHAT does your little guy do all day for Kindergarten?" Well, after I thought about it a bit, I decided to write a little post regarding this subject.

I do Kindergarten with him before moving on to my girls' school work because he really needs that one on one attention from me. We start out with "calendar time". He counts all the numbers on the calendar and then tells me what the date is today, as well as what color the number should be, based on the pattern already in place. We discuss what day of the week it was yesterday, what day it is today, what day it will be tomorrow, etc... We sing the "Days of the Week" song and "What's the Weather?" song. He gives me a weather report every morning.

Then we move onto his Starfall work. Starfall is a complete Kindergarten curriculum- very thorough and I really love how many different activities they provide for you and your child each day! My little guy has been using his Starfall Writing Journal for most of his writing topics, but every so often, I like to do it a bit differently. The picture above is of a little story he wrote in his journal, which I copied onto chart paper. I then prompted him to do another drawing and then tell me more!

He was able to add two more sentences at the bottom of the chart. I am very encouraged by his writing and have seen progress as the year moves forward!

After writing, I usually give him a little break and he goes off to play one of his Kindergarten computer games such as Reader Rabbit or Starfall.

One of the best things I have incorporated into his day is his "Reading Club". I picked up this cute little bin at Target and made a little tag for the outside which says "Little guy's Reading Club Books". I select specific books each day for his basket- books that he can read all on his own, books that are very familiar to him but that he can't read alone yet, and books for him to just look at and try to find words he knows. In his reading club bin, there is also a timer and a "phonics phone". When it is time for his "Reading Club", he goes and gets his bin and sets the timer. He then sits alone and reads! At the beginning of the year, it was hard for him to sit for 5 minutes and read to himself. Now, he is up to 15 minutes! I am very happy with his reading progress and he seems to enjoy this time. He gets a sticker for each book and then when he reads a specific amount of books, he gets to go to the store and pick something small out.

My little guy has fun with Tub Time Tuesday each week. He enjoys all the different sensory tubs and especially loves the water or dirt play ones!

Well, this is just a small peek into my little guy's day. I will post more regarding his Kindergarten activities another time. In closing, I thought I would share something funny I overheard him talking about with one of his sisters. One of his sisters said to him that she wished she could climb to the top of a mountain, but that we don't have any mountains near us. He paused for a minute, and then said "well there's a HUGE mountain in mommy and daddy's room!" This is what he was referring to:

Yes folks, he was referring to my lovely mountain of laundry that just never seems to disappear! Aren't little ones just precious???

Starfall Fun, Science Experiment, and Self-Control

This week, my little guy has enjoyed some hands-on activities. Starfall comes with so many fantastic picture cards and so I thought I would make a game for him. I made several word cards to go with the pictures and then I placed the word cards in our large pocket chart, which by the way, he LOVES using. I then gave him one picture card at a time and he had to place the picture next to the correct word. I was amazed at how well he was able to sound out the words by himself. He didn't miss any of them!

Another fun activity involving his Starfall word cards involved using play-doh, which is another favorite in our house. I placed several cards on the table and he had to roll out the play-doh and shape it into the correct letters. I must say, he did very well. I only had to help him with the "h".

Meanwhile, my little girl was busy conducting an experiment involving this lovely plant and some petroleum jelly. We wanted to see what would happen to the leaves of the plant when petroleum jelly was placed on the top of one leaf and on the bottom of another leaf. In her hypothesis, she stated she thought that both leaves would turn brown and fall off.

After several days, we looked at the plant and discovered that the leaf with the petroleum jelly on top did not change. However, the leaf with the petroleum jelly on the bottom ended up looking like this:

As you can see, it turned completely brown and died. We found out the reason for this is because plants breathe through tiny holes underneath their leaves. The petroleum jelly covered the holes and did not allow air to get through.

Last but certainly not least, I thought I would share what we've been working on lately for our Bible study. This year, I decided it would be nice to do a thorough lesson on the fruits of the spirit. I was able to find several activities online as well as some fantastic resource books. My favorite by far is the one shown above. It is so full of wonderful activities! This week, we are completing our study and since the lessons are on self-control, I thought I would have my children do a little experiment to see just how self-controlled they really are!

Each of them found a bag of these adorable heart-shaped strawberry scented marshmallows in their workboxes.  After they copied their Bible verse (1 Peter 5:8) and practiced the hand motions for all the other fruit of the spirit qualities, we discussed what it meant to be self-controlled. I then had them open their bags and smell the treats. By now, they REALLY wanted to eat them!

They were then instructed to close the bags and place them where they could see them. I decided ahead of time they would be able to enjoy the marshmallows after lunch time, several hours later. The entire time they were doing other school work, those cute little treats were there tempting them. I am proud to say though that each one of them demonstrated self-control and after lunch, they were finally able to eat them!

This was a fun and tasty activity and it really showed them how it is difficult sometimes to have self-control, especially when something (or someone!) is tempting you.

Stone Soup and Words From a Five Year Old

I thought it would be a fun activity to make some "stone soup" during National Soup Month. My 9 year old has been busy doing all sorts of soup-related activities this month and so we went ahead and read the book Stone Soup and started making a lapbook. There was a lot of chopping involved in creating our own stone soup and she was so excited to be helping! I am thankful I have children who really enjoy cooking. But, on to more interesting things...

When my little guy began homeschooling this year, he started out pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing. That excitement wore off after a few days and so I will have to say that sometimes, he is less than thrilled about certain things I need for him to do. As I have mentioned before, we are doing Starfall Kindergarten and I absolutely LOVE it! There is quite a bit of writing however which he is not fond of, even though when he is alone, he will write all sorts of lists, etc... Much of it is random strings of letters and as I praise him for his hard work, I secretly wonder if he is "where he should be" for his age. Yes, I know- its that teacher mentality that I just can't seem to get out of my head. Anyways,  this week as we were working on his word-building activities with the magnet letters, I got up and went out of the school room for a moment. When I came back, this is what my little guy had written for me:

For those who can't quite read it ( or can't believe what you are seeing!), yes that says "I hav a fat bumm" Now of course I was thinking about the fact that if he were in school, this would have been a BIG no-no. But, he's not in school and so we laughed and laughed until we cried and I thought to myself  yes, he is EXACTLY where he should be...

God's Eyes, 3 Letter Words, and Too Much Sugar!

Every year, my kids get a TON of candy. When I say a ton, that is no exaggeration.  Each of their buckets was completely overflowing with chocolate, gum, Skittles, M & M's and just about every other type of candy you could imagine. So, always looking for a teaching opportunity, I decided to have my children do some math and science activities with their load, secretly praying it would all somehow disappear before they ate too much. First, I had them sort all the candy by brand. Then, they sorted the candy by type- chocolate, chewy, gum, hard candy, etc... The fun part came next. We did lots of experiments using various candies-melting time, water/oil experiments, etc...   They really enjoyed this activity and little by little, the giant sugar mountain started to disappear.  I don't even think they really cared about eating the candy as much as they were curious to see how long it would take a chocolate bar to explode in the microwave. Fun times...

We've been learning about Mexico as part of our Galloping the Globe studies and the kids had fun making Ojos de Dios (God's Eyes) this week. Much more about Mexico will be seen here, as we chose Mexico as our Christmas Around The World country.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I will say it again- I just LOVE Starfall Kindergarten. It is so thorough and full of all sorts of colorful, high quality manipulatives and products. My little guy has been working hard at sounding out words and so I decided to make 3 different colored circles and laminated them. Then, I wrote the words "beginning" "middle" and "ending" and placed one above each circle. I say a word out loud and give him a handful of magnetic letters. His job is to break up the word into separate sounds and then find the correct letters and place them in the appropriate spot. For example, I say the word "bed" and he repeats it and then says what each letter sounds like b-e-d. Then, he finds the letters in his pile and sets them in the correct order.  He really enjoys this activity and I am amazed at how well he is learning to distinguish beginning/ending sounds as well as vowels.

A Busy Week!

We finally had our first week of "fall-like" weather and you know what??? It feels GREAT! I absolutely love the cool, windy breezes and the crisp smell in the air. It's the perfect time of year for us to spend lots of time outside and so our first adventure this week was to the alpaca farm to learn all about these cuddly, cute animals from Peru.

We also engaged in some science experiments, including one where my daughter learned about air pressure and how birds fly.

My little guy loved reading "Caps For Sale" with me and even got out his own set of caps to "sell" to us. He wrote in his Starfall Journal about his favorite cap.

My kids were also able to finish their hot air balloons as part of our Galloping The Globe geography studies. I was quite impressed with their creativity and love how each one of their balloons is different.

What was my favorite homeschooling moment this week? It would definitely have to be the times I caught my older girls helping their little brother and showing love and kindness towards him. It sure does make me smile...

Starfall Has Arrived!!!

I was very happy when the UPS truck showed up today with our Starfall materials! Starfall is the Kindergarten reading program I am using for my youngest child this year. I can't say enough about this program. It is a complete reading curriculum and includes science, social studies, and other subjects as well. The materials are colorful and engaging. When you order the Homeschool Program, it comes with everything you need and includes very detailed lesson plans as well as a year subscription to http://www.more.starfall.com/ where your child can play extra games and you can print out puzzles and worksheets. They also provide free support if you have any questions regarding lesson plans or materials. My little guy will be so excited when Backpack Bear shows up on the first day of school!