ivey league kindergarten: week in review

Big news...as of today, Caleb is officially halfway done with first grade reading!  Hooked on Phonics splits first grade into two levels, and today he finished the first one.  I've figured out that even though he always wants to start with math and go from there, we usually need to change the order of subjects so he doesn't feel tired by the time we get to reading or handwriting.

This week we learned the helper words "have," "her," and "so," and also built words with the letter flashcards (this time I covered up the words they wanted Caleb to build so he would be forced to sound them out and find the corresponding letters).  He earned the last two stars on his reading chart for the orange level as well!

Things got crazy in math this week....we learned about "half-past" the hour as well as subtraction!  They also introduced the dollar bill and coin for money.  Caleb needed extra practice with adding coins together (something I think is pretty difficult for kindergarten math, so I try not to let him stress out about not getting it right away), so one day we got out our money set and made up different combinations.

In Handwriting Without Tears, Caleb worked on C, O, Q, and G, and then started on the remainder of the capital letters (S, A, I, T, and J).  S has been the most difficult letter for him but he was already improving by the end of the page!  Caleb is a lot like me....he might get it into his head that something is too hard and he's not good at it, but you just have to make him practice and then he sees he's actually pretty capable.  :)

Finally, we started a "Names of Jesus" advent series as a countdown to Christmas.  Each day we learn a different name for Jesus, read a verse about it, and then briefly discuss what that means to us.  We started on December 1st and after we learn each name, he puts an ornament on his advent calendar.  So far we've learned that Jesus is our "Advocate," "The Alpha and Omega," "The Ancient of Days," and "The Author of Life."  We use the NIrV translation since that's what Caleb's own Bible is, so sometimes the exact name doesn't appear in the given verse (but whatever is there actually helps explain the name better, like "the One who gives life" instead of "The Author of Life").

Links:
Names of Jesus List (Worthy of the Prize)
Scripture Match-Up for Names of Jesus List (Cap Creations)