Sonlight Week 36

We did it! We finished the entire curriculum. We read all of the books and we are finished. Wow. What a year! J learned so much. She learned to read and definitely enjoyed the mini readers that came with the program. She learned all of her numbers to 100, skip counting, telling time, adding and subtracting, measurement and much more. In Science, we read and learned about all most everything - space, electricity, animals, you name it, we read about it. She learned about different times and cultures all over the world. Her favorite was learning about the knights and castles. We did many art projects and hands-on learning. She did weaving and sewing. J learned how to tie her shoes. We read so many chapter books. She loved The Boxcar Children and My Father's Dragon. Well, she pretty much loved all of the books that we read.

I can't believe she completed kindergarten. It is on to first grade, hard to imagine. I am so proud of J. She did great this year and I am lucky to be able to teach her. Love ya J! Hope you had a great year of Sonlight. We are off onto another adventure, most likely with Sonlight Core B. Hope you see you next year.

Sonlight Week 35

Wow, it is all most here. We have been working so hard and we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Week 35 brought us....well, a mixture of things such as finishing Wild Places, The Apple and the Arrow, more reading about space. We read ahead on a few things so we can have a super easy last week. We have the last few reading lessons left, a few more pages in Explode the Code, and reading about Newton.

I went to a yard sale this past weekend. They are so rare and even though we are leaving, I couldn't help myself. I scored a game called Make It and Break It Extreme. Was I happy! It is a building game that uses logic skills. You use the blocks to create the pictures on the cards. We played this all week (without the timer).

Reflections on our year:
It has been a good year. I started Sonlight Core A with some worries. I was worried that the books were going to be too difficult for J. Some of the reading material would not be books that I would use for a kindergarten class if I had to pick them myself. This was good as it expanded our reading on multiple levels, J enjoyed every book that we read, some she asked to read again.

The language arts program was a tad to young for J so I supplemented with sight word readers and higher levels of Explode the Code. We finished book 1, 1 1/2, and 2. This program along with Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt was a good fit for J. She still enjoyed to do the little readers that came along with Sonlight as well as the letter pages.

We used Horizons Math and I was also worried about how fast the program worked. I supplemented some but found that I didn't have to do too much. J liked the lessons, working with the number lines for addition and subtraction. So, we will probably continue with this math program. If there was any area that I felt needed review, I would just focus on it.  It is light on the review, so I kept that up myself.

Two things I would change about Sonlight Core A would be the Science program, to some extent, and that I wish it was digital. J enjoyed reading The Children's Encyclopedia and couldn't believe that we read the entire book. But some of the experiments weren't what we expected and I guess I just wish we had more. Some of the items were also hard to find for us so we had to skip them altogether. But I have to remember that J is only in kindergarten so I can't expect too much for that age. As for being digital, I really think that this would be a great benefit to those who live overseas. As much as I cherish reading from an actual book (I will never want to totally replace that), digital only makes sense with suitcase restrictions and such.

Overall, we have loved this year of Sonlight and I hope to continue on our homeschooling adventure with the next core. My only concern being that we will spend the next year home, with access to libraries and I feel we should do some American studies while we have the chance. I haven't quite worked that out in my brain but if you have suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Thanks you for joining in our adventure of Core A. I hope to see you next school year.

Sonlight Week 34

Week 34....and counting. It is going pretty fast for us and we have a million things to do before we leave for 'Merica. We have started to read extra each day in order to have a light last week of school. My DD will be graduating, we have a friend coming to visit,  and there is a formal dance so it promises to be a busy one. So, if we can finish somewhat early, it will be a blessing. This week, we read Cappyboppy by Bill Peet. J enjoyed this book even though I had read it to her last year. We started learning about jungles and continued reading about the planets. J is reviewing her math on the iPad using several Kindergarten math apps and we are still working on our reading program. Here are a few things we did this week.

J working on math review using Teach Me Kindergarten app.

J worked on her reading blends using free worksheets that I found from More Than Math by Mo.

She is solving the cryptogram and reading the mystery message from AB Seymour's TPT shop.

More blends practice. She has grown so much in her reading. I am so proud of her. This is also from the freebie from More Than Math by Mo. We are still working on our countdown to summer and are anxiously awaiting our upcoming trip. Hope you had a great week enjoying the sunny days! See you soon.

Sonlight Week 33

Three more weeks left, is it possible? We started and finished One Grain of Rice by  and Five True Dog Stories. We read about different planets in space and started learning about Rain forests. It has been so nice to work towards the final weeks, I all most feel like it is summer ;)

Since J finished her math workbook, I have had her reviewing different concepts that she needs to work on - money, telling time, etc.... One of her favorite math times is when I allow her to work on the iPad. Here she is working on a kindergarten math program that seems just too easy for her, I think I will upgrade to the first grade one.

J worked on ABC order, just on the first letter of these color words. I can't seem to find the color word worksheet but I did find one for summer - free from More Than Math By Mo TPT store. (Look around, she has a few more ABC order freebies.)

She continues to work on her Explode the Code Book 2. I am hoping to have it finished by the that last week of school.

J is working on writing sentences with words form her reading program. Each day, I give her a word that we have been working on and ask her to write an original sentence for that word. Hope you are enjoying the summer weather. I know I would be happier if my klima was working. But I am reminded that there are only a few more weeks left. See you next week.

Sonlight Week 32

Wow, we just finished our 32nd week of Sonlight and we are working through our countdown to summer. We read about the Space Station this week along with finishing up the reading on mountains. We picked up the Five True Dog Stories chapter book, one that we started long ago. J has been waiting for that one because she just loves animal stories. We are still working our way through The House at Pooh Corner. J finished her math textbook! She was wondering if she was getting a new textbook for next week. I am planning on reviewing concepts for the rest of the school year and possibly let her do "math" on the iPad. Here are a few of the activities we did this week.

J worked on her reading skills. She colored by word with this free printable from. She read the word then colored it the correct color.

She wrote several sentences this week after her reading lessons. I tried to encourage her to work with certain words for extra practice. She came up with several good sentences and worked on writing them correctly.

While clearing out my papers, I found this old sheet that I had printed for Dr. Seuss. It involves rhyming words. J cut out the words, read them, and glued them under the correct rhyming word. 

We read, read, and read. I have a basket full of easy readers, sight word readers, and Bob books. We work through all the books by reading at least 4 of them per day. Then she replaces them in the basket but turns them around, so she won't choose them again. That way, we can work through the entire basket without repeating a book. The basket is added to weekly with new books depending on what concepts we are working on.

It seems that the better the weather, the less pictures I take of our school day. We are enjoying our days of warmer weather by playing outside on our balcony and in our local park. Hope your week went well, see you next Friday.

Sonlight Week 31

This week was cut short by an impromptu trip to see some friends who are in the country. We worked hard to finish our week in three days. (This was J's decision as she didn't want to take any school stuff with her on this trip.)

We worked through the language sheets. Because they are easy, I just let her work through them with her fingers.

J finished her handwriting book. She wanted to finish this week and she did.

We read about space this week for Science. She learned about space travel and how space suits keep the astronaut safe. We are still reading The House at Pooh Corner and we just started Wild Places. Only a few more weeks left, I can't imagine! Hope you had a great week. See you later.

Sonlight Week 30

This week has brought us warmer weather, yay! We read about toilets, boats, and cameras. We are still working with blends in reading and have only about two more weeks of our math book left (hard to believe). Here are a few of the activities we accomplished this week (I am a little light on pics).

While I was cleaning and packing most of our books away, I found two bible story books. Each story includes a page of stickers to add while you are reading. We worked through this book all week. J loved adding the stickers and she even read the entire story herself.

We are finishing up our handwriting programs as well. J probably only has a few more pages left. You kinda feel a small sense of accomplishment when you begin to notice things wrapping up and finishing.

J is working on math while Kaleb is never too far behind. He is super concentrated on his activity that I gave him. Now why, do you ask, are there few pictures this week? I couldn't help it...the weather, the sunshine....

Our days looked like this ..... water toys, buckets, and sand out on the balcony. I love this picture!

Our days were spent finishing up school and playing outside. It was great but sorry for the lack of pictures. I love it when our days end this this:) See you next week.

Sonlight Week 29

Wow, look at that! Only 7 more weeks to go. I can't believe it. I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for our 'Merica trip and to get the apartment ready. I also have my DD who will graduate and we will have a visitor for her graduation - a family friend. So, it is going to be busy but that's good. I like busy so I don't have to watch the calendar slowly slip by. This week brought us the beginning of The House at Pooh Corner. She has been waiting for that chapter book for awhile. We also read about some big machines such as airplanes, trains, and construction machines.

We are always working on sight words. J is working a a sight word book from Scholastic Books.

As a typical kindergartener, J sometimes mixes up b and d. I found this free graphing exercise from Sprinkles to Kindergarten. Make the b/d cube, roll it, and write the letter that ends up. I had her tell me what letter it was while she was writing it. We practiced this all week.

Y was our mystery letter of the week. J is learning how to draw a yak.

J is working on writing her y's.

It was also time to start learning the poem, Trees by Joyce Kilmer. J worked on the first page of the printable book that I created for it. You can find it here. I created two books for the poem. The first one is for the child to trace the verses and the second is just for illustrating. We read the first page every day and J drew a tree.

Well, one more week down. I can't believe first grade is all most done. Hope you had a week full of sunshine, see you later!

Sonlight Week 28

This week has brought us winter-like weather, coughs, runny noses, and colds. Where is my Spring weather? The last few weeks I have sorted through the kids winter clothes and added their spring/summer clothes to the drawers. Now, we are back to winter jackets and long sleeves. Bummer.

I have noticed a change with J in her reading. She asks to read everything now. No longer is she happy to sit back and let me read. She wants to read herself! This is an amazing change. Here, she is reading her Bible story. Even though there are words that she doesn't know, she tries to sound them out. I am so proud of her!

J is still working on subtraction using a ten frame. I like the visual it provides while working on her math problems.

J finished Explode the Code 1 1/2 and began the Explode the Code 2. This book starts with blends which is perfect since that is what we are practicing in reading.

J is still practicing her sight words. Here she is working on rainbow word writing.

J writing her own "guess my animal" clues. She wrote three sentences about an animal and I had to guess what it was. She is using her word wall for help with spelling.

J brought out her handwriting book and worked on a couple of pages. I hope to have this book done by the end of the school year.

We played sight word Candy Land game. I found the free Candy Land game cards from Ironic Adventures. She has several different sets that you can print such as letters, addition, and subtraction. This is a great way to use an existing game for review. I love it.

Kaleb went to town with the salt tray. He basically dumped and poured the salt using his measuring cups and such. This gave J a chance to vacuum, a good life skill. She wanted to help so I let her clean it up. She did a good job. We had a good week, it would have been better if it wasn't so cold and rainy. See you next week.

Sonlight Week 27

We are slowly recovering from our work-cation and trying desperately to avoid Spring Fever. We spent the week weeding through toys and clothes to get ready for our trip to 'Merica. J has been getting somewhat upset with my Spring cleaning, afraid that I am getting rid of all her toys. This week, we continued our work on blends and added -u words to our reading. We finished our Nursery Rhyme book early and have added in a book of Prayers. J is begging for me to read the next book of Oz but I am dragging my feet on that. Here are a few activities that we did this week.

J worked on addition and subtraction problems using this free printable from Love2Teach  KG. She worked through the problems using the ten frame and some counters.

She practiced her skip counting with this Spring printable from Love2Teach KG.

J unscrambled the sentence about Spring and then illustrated it. (Can you sense a theme here - spring, spring, spring...I am thinking of spring...) This printable came from Lori Rosenberg's TPT store.

The letter of the week was W. J practiced writing her W's and learned to draw a whale.

J stil is practicing her sight words. She is using the rainbow word technique. I have her trace the word in different colors and say it.

J worked on her first crossword puzzle using short vowels. It was simple but she liked it. This printable came from Faith Rucker but after a search of her store, I can not find the freebie - sorry:(

This week, we read about several different beliefs and J colored a peacock for the Hindu festival of Diwali. The coloring sheet came from Activity Village.

We read about musical instruments so what better time to break out the instruments! They played several songs for me and then we sorted our instruments by type.

Kaleb joined in the fun and the instruments were a big hit. We had a good week and now, we are onto the next and final nine weeks of our school year. Wow, nine weeks, how is that even possible? Hope your week went well. See you soon.

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I was recently flipping through the Sonlight manual and I noticed that, starting in week 29, J was to begin memorizing the poem Trees by Joyce Kilmer. It is funny that J will be memorizing this poem since it is also a poem that my mother recalls from childhood. I wanted to create something that would aid in her memorization. I thought that creating a mini poetry book which would be illustrated by J would be fitting for this project. It wouldn't be too time consuming since they are only expected to memorize two lines a week.

The first option for the illustrated poetry book is just for the child to draw the pictures.

Download Trees Poetry Book HERE.

The second option for the poetry book is for the child to illustrate and trace the words to the poem. Because I am using a small book format, tracing the words may be difficult for your student. If so, use the format above for less frustration.

Download Trees Handwriting Poetry Book HERE.

You can use this mini poetry book in many ways. Use a page each week to aid in the memorization of the poem. Use the pages to practice handwriting. Use the book after the child has memorized the poem for a review. My hope is that this will aid in your child's learning of the poem Trees and, perhaps, have a keepsake of the school year. 

If you have any questions or notice any mistakes, please let me know so I may correct them. Enjoy your week.

Sonlight Week 26

It is amazing how going on vacation can totally mess up your schedule!  We recently returned from our Spring Break work-cation....on Monday, no less! Returning on Monday really messed with our whole week. I felt like I spent most of it trying to keep up. If losing an hour on Sunday (we finally changed our clocks) wasn't bad enough, I had tons of laundry to do and struggled all week to find the time to go to the grocery store. We hit the ground running but it was hard, so pictures are limited. We homeschooled whenever we could, where ever we could but we finished. I love the flexibility of teaching at home but I will be glad to truly be back on schedule next week.

A couple of weeks ago, J finished her Bible workbook. So she is working on some pages that I found.

J is working on take-away. My older daughter taught her how to use her fingers to complete the problems. I am not sure if I will encourage that or not.

Our mystery letter of the week was V. J is learning to draw vultures. She drew a whole vulture family.

 J started U word families this week in her reading lessons. She is working on the -un word family house.

She worked on a U family word sort as well. She read the words and glued them under the correct column.

And of course, we read, read, read. We finished The Wonderful Wizard of Oz this week. J loved it. I found that I had the rest of the Oz books on my Kindle and J has asked me to read them to her.

Lastly, I caught Kaleb "reading" our Dr. Seuss books. Since Seuss' birthday, I have kept our Seuss books in a bin. He took some time just looking through the books, talking about the pictures. Sorry that the post is so light this week. I hope to be back in the swing of things next week. Hope you had an awesome week - 10 more weeks to go ;)