The Pretty Life: ivey league kindergarten: week in review!

We're back at it after a few weeks off for the holidays!

Since Caleb finished the first half of first grade reading right before the break, we decided not to jump into the second half right then. Instead, we reviewed what he had learned, plus read a bunch of Level 1 Readers, both in our collection and from the public library.

We started back this past Tuesday and jumped right in. The second half of the first grade level deals with pretty much the same digraphs and blends we learned in the first half, only now they're on the end of the words. Caleb had a little trouble with this, so we're going through it nice and slowly. To help, as well as to make things more interesting, I printed out a couple of free phonics readers that featured -atch and -itch words, plus printed out a whole set of word builder cards since sometimes Caleb learns better by actually constructing.

We also used his Magna Doodle to write words in the same family. Since we only had to erase the beginning of the word if we were staying in the same family, it helped Caleb see how to read each one (I also let him make nonsense words!).

In Handwriting Without Tears, we continued to work on lowercase letters. The booklet has also started having the student copy words and sentences as well, so this is teaching Caleb about when to capitalize a letter, as well as to put a period at the end.

In math, I was relieved to see that Caleb didn't regress over the break...he still remembered how to add and subtract using a number line, among other things. This week we learned about the quarter. He still struggles with finding the value of groups of coins, but I'm not stressing about this. It's kindergarten math so I'm fine if it takes awhile for him to figure out this skill.

We also started a new devotional for Bible time. It's called Growing With Jesus and each lesson has a verse and a very brief discussion. For a few of them, I found hands-on activities to help drive the point home. On the first day, we learned that God made everyone special, so we did a fun fingerprint activity to show that no one's fingerprints are the same.

Another day talked about how when we become friends with Jesus, He makes us into a new creation, much like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. We colored pictures of butterflies on that day.

On Friday, we learned that we should be thankful even if we don't feel like it. We talked about different emotions, and then filled in blank faces for fun. I printed out fun emotion puzzles for Micah too!

Speaking of Micah, he's been very interested in joining us at the table for school. So I've made a point of setting aside certain toys, puzzles, and books just for school time. I give him one thing at a time, and switch them out once he seems bored. So far it's working pretty well.