ivey league kindergarten: week(s) in review!

We had a mini-vacation over the past two weeks, partly due to tummy troubles that were ailing Caleb, and then because we had family visiting out of town.  So the first week, we did kindergarten on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then the following week we did kindergarten on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  Caleb did well returning to school stuff after the break; he retained most of what he had learned and seemed excited to get back into it.

We continued to work through Hooked on Phonics.  Caleb learned a few more "helper words" such as "what" and "with," and we also started on words with the short "o" sound (-ox, -ot, -og).  I realized that our secondhand kindergarten kit is missing the "Volume 2" audio CD, but we've done fine without it so far.  I basically read the first couple of words for Caleb like the voice on the CD would, and then he reads on his own.  We've also found that making silly sentences is a fun way to mix up the words he's learned!

Caleb is also doing very well in math.  Since the workbook has started to introduce pennies and dimes, we got out a magnetic money set for further practice.

We've also gotten back into handwriting practice now that Caleb's pencil grasp has improved.  I found some fun printables online and we're just going through it one letter at a time.

For our read-aloud, we're working our way through Mr. Popper's Penguins.  We read it earlier this year but Caleb is a big fan so we decided we'd read it again.

We only got to one Bible story during the last couple of weeks.  Caleb learned a very censored version of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (basically he knows that the people who lived there were very mean and didn't want to change their ways) and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt.  I found a fun art printable online; Caleb cut out the verse and the picture, then he used a glue stick to spread a thin layer of glue onto the picture of Lot's wife.  Then he sprinkled salt all over the glue.  Even though it's dry, I don't think it's the kind of art project you can hang up because it may still shed some salt!  Either way it was fun.

And since we were working with salt, Caleb asked if he could mix baking soda and vinegar together, so we dyed some little dishes of vinegar, got out his pipette, and he went at it for at least forty-five minutes!

Caleb was having trouble memorizing his C verse; I think since it had some unfamiliar words in it like "cast" and "sustain" he just couldn't remember it well, even after I explained what the words meant.  So I switched it out for a simpler verse:

He did much better at this one, though he probably wondered if I had ulterior motives for choosing it!  :)

Links (all free!):
Handwriting Activity Sheets (Playdough to Plato)
Lot's Wife/Pillar of Salt Craft (Sunday School Crafts)