Book of the Week - Kindergarten

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I will use my last dollar to buy a book. I love books, especially books for children. Literature is one of my loves. It is one of the reasons I chose Sonlight for J's curriculum. It is literature based. In addition to keeping up with J's lessons for kindergarten, I plan on focusing on a book a week. For each week,  I will share some of the activities that I planned/found based on the book. The activities I share will be a variety for both tots and older kids.

Our first book of the week is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? by Bill Martin and Eric Carle. This book is already well loved by my tot. He is constantly bringing me the book, grunting for me to read it. I chose this book to focus on first because I have already made a tot bag with activities for Kaleb and it is the perfect book to teach J her color/sight words. Here are some of the things we did.

We watched a video on You Tube on how to spell red. This was great. The tune was catchy and it offered visual clues and even had a time when you could sing it without the words. J loved this and it definitely helped her to remember how to spell red.

I was surfing on Pinterest and found these great color worksheets from Michelle Griffo. They are 10 free pages of writing color word practice. First, you write the word, then color, find them, and then cut and paste the word together. These are great.

We did a color experiment that I found at PreKinders. It even has a downloadable recording sheet to write what happened. First, we placed 3 different colored Skittles in a bowl. Then, J poured water over them completely. We discussed what might happen and I wrote down what she said. Then we waited.

It didn't take long, the colors started to bleed into the water and then the "S" removed itself from the candy. I took a picture but you really can't see the "S" floating around in the picture but it was fascinating to watch.

Then J recorded what happened on her worksheet. This was a super easy experiment to play with colors!

As J learns her color words, she is stamping them on this Brown Bear color sheet that I found here. I bought these alphabet stampers in America this summer and I absolutely love them. They come in a plastic carrying case and the letters are marked on the case, so you know where to put them back. I only bought the lowercase letters since we are going to work on sight words and such with them.

J painted some paper brown so she can make her own Brown Bear. She used several different objects to make different effects on the paper. She used a fork, sponge, large paintbrush, and a pipe cleaner to paint her brown fur. The templates for this art project can be found at first-grade-garden.blogspot, scroll down. This blog has some great ideas!

Here is her finished bear, pretty cute, huh? That's it for the book activities for Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Stay tuned for our next book of the week for more educationally fun activities.

Book of the Week - Tot

Our first book of the week is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? by Bill Martin and Eric Carle. This book is already well loved by my tot. He is constantly bringing me the book, grunting for me to read it. I chose this book to focus on first because I have already made a tot bag with activities for Kaleb and it is the perfect book to teach J her color/sight words. Here are some of the things we did.

I have six bins that I have begun to fill with activities for Kaleb each week. These bins are in our school room and I use them to keep Kaleb occupied while I am teaching J. These are our Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? tot bins for the week. (Don't worry, those scissors only cut paper)

I gave Kaleb the bin with the finger puppets that I made for the tot bag. He loved these. He took some time to place them on his finger and then we practiced the animal sounds.

I read the book (again) and left the ending page where all of the animals are located open. I showed him how to match the puppet to the animal.

We practiced the color matching clothespin wheel. I did not push actually matching the colors but we worked on opening and closing the clothespins. This will be an activity we will revisit.

I gave him the bin with the two-part magnetic puzzles. He liked these. I tried to show him how to put the animals together but he just wanted to do it his way. He placed all of the magnets on the board. This kept him occupied so I could teach math to J.

Kaleb tried out his new scissors with the Brown Bear cutting sheets that I included in his tot bag. It may be a long time before he masters this but he had fun trying.

For an art project, and since J was going to paint, I let Kaleb paint with some brown paint and a brush. I first had to clean off the table entirely and cover it with large pieces of craft paper. He loved painting and got upset when I removed him in order to clean up. Well, I can say he loved his Brown Bear, Brown Bear activities for the week. Stay tuned for our next book of the week.

Tot Tuesday

J loves her brother but there are times when she desires to play with her toys without his interaction. She will build herself a barricade of chairs so she can play on the dining room table without having him destroy what she is doing. She is finding that it doesn't always work. Kaleb is learning to climb, learning her defense strategies....so he waits until it is time to strike....

During quiet time, she feel asleep (she rarely does this) and had the unlucky chance of not waking up first! Kaleb woke up and immediately went over to her toys.

He didn't break anything, he just played quietly with her animals. So I let him play on until she woke up and figured out what he was doing. He actually plays quite nicely when he is alone.  Sometimes, though, she will actually play with him.

Here they are playing "bear" with her animals from Brave. They played good together for awhile, roaring like bears and laughing.

It always does my heart good when they can get along. I love moments like these. I hope you are able to enjoy moments like this one.

Sonlight - 1st week

I can begin to tell you how much I prepared for this school year. I struggled with using Sonlight, not because I didn't love it but because I was afraid of it being too hard for a kindergartener. I love the books that Sonlight chooses but worried over whether J could relate to the chapter books that Core A included. Well, we started our first week, even though we were fighting through jet lag and mini-colds.

I wanted a picture to remember her first day, even though she has been in "school" for the last few years. This is her first official school year and her grade would be more like k/1st. J drew herself in the corner.

The first letter that Sonlight works with is the letter F. J practiced her handwriting on a dry erase board that I found in 'Merica.

We played a Twister type game while reviewing the contents of the world. We will play this all week to learn the names. Here, she is putting her head on North America. (I added that one for laughs)

For Bible, we discussed creation. We learned what creativity and orderliness meant. J is coloring her bible workbook page for creativity.

We reviewed patterns using our foam blocks for Math. We have also started a calendar book to practice the months, days of the week, and the date.

J working on her handwriting, the letter F.

We read about first civilizations and created a cave drawing of animals. I was unable to find chalk pastels here to create a true replica of a cave drawing. But we did use our chalk from our chalk board.

J created a letter F page complete with stickers and pictures from magazines. Sonlight works through one letter a week which is basically review for her. She is familiar with her letters and sounds.

Last year, I found 2 metal carts with 3 drawers each. I am using these carts for a workbox type system. I place each subject in a drawer along with all of the supplies needed to complete the day. The last drawer is the fun drawer. This drawer houses fun stuff for the day. I put games, art projects, paint, play dough, just about anything fun. Today's fun item was a game based on The Hungry Caterpillar that I found this summer.

After reading about early peoples, J sewed her own dress for a doll/dog. I cut the pattern from pink felt and she sewed it with purple yarn. This project took 2 days.

Our first Science experiment was discovering if the bottle was as empty as it looked. We learned about some properties of air. Well, it was a busy week, and I am thankful it went so well. I have been stressing over this for awhile. Hope your first week of school went smooth and looking forward to many more weeks.

Tot Tuesday

Kaleb is all most two years old. Now, I don't recommend officially starting school for a tot his age. I do however have some things planned out for the year so he doesn't feel left out. September's theme is animals and I have plans to incorporate some of the tot bags that I created as well as create new ones. This is what he did this Tuesday.

I gave Kaleb some sponges, actually he found them in our water toys bucket. I asked him to clean the glass door. He didn't care that they weren't wet, he just scrubbed away.

I changed his sensory bin for the month. He had been scooping noodles into cups and such but I thought he needed a change. Thanks to my mom for the idea....

I shredded some paper for his sensory bin. He was a little hesitant at first, since he was expecting noodles when I brought the container down. We don't own a shredder, so I had to do all of this by hand.

He scooped and poured then threw and threw....

got some stuck on his foot...

and left me with a mess to clean. Not too bad, we will be bringing this bin out all month. What fun! My tot was busy today.

Our New School Year

We have been home schooling in our family for years. We have done "school" since J was able to talk. We did what some call tot school, activities that aided coordination and thinking skills. We learned our letters and numbers. We did a year of Winter's Promise pre-k, BFIAR, and FIAR (Before Five in a Row and Five in a Row). This is year where we have a more structured curriculum. We are doing Sonlight Core K. It is Sonlight's core for Kindergarten. Here is the break down of what J will be learning this year.

J - Kindergarten

Sonlight Core K - tons of books and resources, it is the backbone of our school day

Bible: Positive Action Learning About God

Math: Horizons K books 1 and 2

Language Arts: Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt

Handwriting Without Tears K

Scholastic Sight Word Readers

Bob Books, set 1 and 2

Explode the Code books 1,2, and 3

Literature units prepared by me

Science: Sonlight

Social Studies: Sonlight

Art:

projects from Handle on the Arts - Introductions to World Cultures (a book that incorporates various projects into Core A)

Various Art projects incorporated by me, found on the Internet

Music: piano instruction at my husband's school

P.E.: playgroup, running around after her baby brother

Life Skills: tying shoes, helping Keke with dishes, set the table at night, making her bed, cleaning her toys, quiet time (love this!), being responsible

I look at this list and it looks like a lot of work. Hopefully it will be challenging enough to keep her attention but not be overwhelming to the point of frustration. I am nervous to a point because of the level of books in the Sonlight Core K program. We are starting off with chapter books but J has always loved reading. So we will see how this goes. I will keep everything open and if it isn't working for us, I will adjust accordingly. Hope your new school year has started well.

We're Back

We finally made it back and are working on getting ready for the new school year. I have many things planned and am excited to be able to share them. Here are a few things we did while in America...

We were able to take advantage of the huge yard and driveway at my parents' house. The kids were able to ride their bikes and cars all around. This was great considering all we have here is a balcony.

Kaleb was able to eat some fresh tomatoes from my father's garden. He would steal one from the colander and eat it like an apple.

We were able to spend some time with our big brother. We drove him back to college so he could work and spent some great time with friends in Florida.

J took swimming lessons and ballet this summer (thanks mom!) keeping her very busy.

We were able to spend some time down at the beach with my family. We all had a great time and the kids loved the water. It was a busy but relaxing summer. We enjoyed every minute of it, thanks to my family and friends. After a day and half of travel, we finally made it back home. It has been a struggle to get over jet lag. Kaleb has been struggling, he has spent that lest two night awake until 4 in the morning.

The only way to get him to sleep has been to open our couch and lay down with him, exhausted. We are supposed to start school on Monday but it he isn't sleeping on our time yet, I may have to postpone it. Staying up with him is hurting my recovery as well.

So I look forward to a new school year with new ideas and lessons. I plan on having more tot bags to share in the future. May your school year start off without a hitch.