ivey league kindergarten: week in review!

A little late, but here's what we did last week!

Caleb had a little more trouble with reading at first...I think his main problem is that he sees a word and answers too fast without really looking at it.  Then he gets frustrated that he made a mistake, and sometimes if he upsets himself enough, we're pretty much done with reading for the day.  I tried to find other ways to help him besides just reading out of the workbook.  We used the letters out of an alphabet puzzle to build words, and I also made little flashcards with each word family we've learned so far.

I also wrote down sentences for Caleb to read...this is one of his favorite ways to practice reading, especially if I make some of the sentences silly.

We continued to do a lesson (or sometimes a lesson and a half) of math every day.  This week the book introduced adding numbers by using a number line instead of counting objects that correspond to each number.  It was confusing even for me at first, but once I figured out a way to explain it to Caleb I think he caught on.

Recently I found a nice canister of colored pencils at Walmart (yay back to school clearance!), so right now Caleb is actually really enjoying coloring with them.  He keeps asking for things to color, which is still surprising to me since he used to hate coloring!

We also did a handwriting worksheet for the letter D:

For Bible lessons, we learned about the birth of Isaac, and then about how Rebekah came to be his wife.  I decided to skip the part in between when God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.  Caleb probably already knows a little of this story from his storybook Bible, and maybe from Sunday School too, but he's kind of afraid of God right now.  He's not scared enough to not want to learn more about Him (thankfully), but he gets scared when we pray at bedtime because he says God might show up in his room and He's gigantic!  So we're trying to help Caleb understand that yes, God is mighty and powerful, but He is also gentle and loving and just wants to be Caleb's friend.  So I guess I was thinking if Caleb learned that God asked Abraham to do such a thing, he would miss the whole point of the story and instead just focus on the fact that God wanted him to give up his son.  I bet pretty soon we could go back over it and show Caleb how God provided the sacrifice in the end, that Abraham was faithful even when things didn't make sense, and how beautifully it parallels with the ultimate sacrifice Jesus would make generations later.  Right now, I don't think Caleb will see it that way, but soon!

Micah has done pretty well keeping himself occupied during school time...sometimes he insists on sitting in my lap at the table while Caleb's doing his work, but if Micah gets too distracting I try to set him up nearby with some toys and books.

We continued to read Henry and The Clubhouse and also went to storytime at the library now that they've started it back up.  With fall coming up soon, I'm excited that nicer weather is on its way so we can spend some more time outside!

Links (all free!):
Handwriting Activity Sheets (Playdough to Plato)
Baby Isaac Coloring Page (Inspired Dutch Mom)
Rachel Waters the Camels Coloring Page (BibleWise Kids Korner)

ivey league kindergarten: week in review!

This week we covered a lot of ground in our Hooked on Phonics program....Caleb seems to be mostly over his reading jitters and is a lot more confident!  We moved on to words with the short "U" sound (-un, -ut, -ug, -up, etc.) and added some more "helper words" as well, such as "see," "with," and "says."  He faltered a little bit today when we were reviewing everything; he was the one who had chosen the pace this week ("let's do some more!") but I wanted to make sure it all stuck.  After confusing a few of the word families, Caleb figured it out again.  I've found it helps to start each day reviewing a little bit of what we did before, plus he still likes reading sentences I write on our dry erase board:

I need to write down all the word families and "helper words" Caleb has learned so we can find more ways to fit them in.  One funny "real world" instance of how important the right word is:  we saw a commercial on TV where a wife was asking her husband for a MUG, but he couldn't understand her because she was calling out to him from their tiny kitchen and it was noisy in there.  He entered the kitchen and gave his wife a nice HUG, and then went into the next room again.  Caleb thought it was hilarious, and I think it helped to remind him that those words rhyme because they came from the same word family.

We finished Mr. Popper's Penguins this week too.  Caleb loves the part where Mr. Popper uses the telephone to ask about whether he needs some kind of license for his pet penguin; he ends up being misunderstood by many operators, who get his name wrong repeatedly ("Mr. Popwell?" "Mr. Topper?") and end up transferring him to someone in the automobile license department.  So Caleb drew Mr. Popper with an "exasperated face" and I helped him draw the phone.

We did several math lessons this week too.  Caleb can now write his numbers from 1 to 30, and is getting so much better with adding.

We didn't get to Bible lessons this week (oops), but we did do a little science.  Caleb saw something about the different types of clouds on Curious George, so he asked if we could learn more about it.  I found a neat online video about the four major types of clouds (Caleb has watched it at least five times in the last two days!), and then we made models of the different types using cotton balls and glue.

We also peeked outside that day to see what kind of clouds were in the sky.  They were low and covered a lot of the sky so we decided we were looking at stratus clouds right then.  Cirrus clouds happen on sunny days and are those wispy ones that are way up high, cumulus clouds are the fluffy ones you see all the shapes in, and cumulonimbus clouds are the tall, dark, "angry" clouds that are often accompanied by thunderstorms or tornadoes (Caleb drew those in, as well as the rain under the stratus clouds and the sun near the cirrus clouds).  It was a fun activity and I ended up learning right along with Caleb, since it has been many years since I learned about cloud types and have since forgotten most of it!

This was our verse for the week:

Links: (all FREE!)
I Can Listen to Stories Printable (via KinderCraze)
Cloud Types Video (via PBS Learning Media)
Cottonball Clouds Inspiration (via Pinterest; picture only)

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)

ivey league kindergarten: week in review

Today we finished up our third week of kindergarten.  :)

This week we tried a different approach to reading.  We still did a few pages in Hooked on Phonics (we learned -ip words), but Caleb seemed to get stuck once we got to the fourth little book that came with the set.  He was very overwhelmed that the sentences said things like "Pig can hit" and kept saying he couldn't do it.  Plus I noticed he often confused lowercase b and d (a common problem for his age, I've read).  So we switched gears and did a couple of activities to help him learn the difference between those pesky look-alike letters.

We also utilized the letter word-play flashcards that came with our HOP set to build words.  Sometimes I'd asked him to build a certain word (like "cat"), and then ask him what letter he should switch out to make another one (like "can" or "rat").  So this way we could work on both beginning and ending word sounds.  Caleb seemed to really like this activity so I'm going to find other hands-on kind of stuff for us to do.

Today (Friday) I really wanted Caleb to give that little book a try, but he shut down as soon as I pulled it out.  I was conflicted...I didn't want to force him (and possibly make him hate reading), but I also didn't want to give him such an easy way out.  The kid needs to learn that you don't quit just because things get challenging!  So I took out our whiteboard and started writing words.  Caleb would read them and then we'd do the thing where I ask him how to change one word to make it say something else.  He did pretty well, and he also wanted to show me he could write some of the words too.

He's Cyclops from the X-Men today.  I told him he could wear the shades as long as he did his work!

Then I started writing short, simple sentences similar to the ones in the book he was so afraid of, only I made them kind of goofy to see if Caleb was really comprehending what he read.

He thought these were hilarious.  He'd say, "Mommy, you're not a cat!  I'm not a man!"  Then I went for broke.  One by one, I'd write a sentence from that little book, making sure Caleb could tell what I was doing.  The only different thing was that for some of the words, I'd underline the word endings to help him remember what word family they'd belong to.

And the kid did amazing.  He got stuck on "did" because he tends to mix up b and d, but he read most of the words himself.  I think this helped him see that his anxiety was over the book....he had his mind made up that it was hard to read and that he couldn't do it.  So I guess our focus this week was to show Caleb that he can read better than he thinks he does.  We also read a few of his own books, and when we'd come across a word that Caleb has learned in the past few weeks, I'd stop reading and make him read it.  Luckily the books we chose were ones we haven't read in a long time (or else he'd probably just know the words by memory!).

Caleb made sure we did math every day.  That's one subject he doesn't find too daunting at all.  His numbers are getting better too.  This week the workbook delved into addition and counting by 10s, as well as some calendar work.

We finished reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle this week as well.  Caleb really liked it, and we decided to make an upside-down house as a fun project (the title character lives in one and he found the idea of it pretty amusing!).  I found the furniture and other features in an Ikea catalog, so I must say Caleb's house is pretty trendy.

For Bible time, we learned about the Tower of Babel and then God's promise to Abram.  Caleb built his own Tower of Babel out of mega-blocks (and like always, knocked it over before we took a picture), and we did a simple art project for Abram that focuses on the verse where God promises him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

Our C verse for this week was Psalm 56:22.  Caleb's having a bit more trouble memorizing this one so we'll most likely carry it over into next week too.

Links (all free!):
Letter Discrimination Coloring and Graphing Activities (Teachers Pay Teachers)
Abram Coloring Page (Coloring Pages 7)

ivey league kindergarten: week in review

We have a second week of kindergarten under our belts!

On Monday we finished up Henry Huggins so I had Caleb complete a "book report."  He drew a picture of his favorite part of the book, where Henry tries to type a letter from his mother on the typewriter (spoiler alert....Henry is a terrible typist).

Caleb selected Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle as our next read-aloud so we've been enjoying that this week.

We continued to do at least one Horizons Math lesson a day.  He's getting so much better at writing his numbers, and he follows the directions pretty well when I read them for him.

We've also continued with Hooked on Phonics.  This week we read some -ag words and then moved on to -id, -ig, and -it words.  It was more difficult to find printable worksheets and word slides for some of these, so I ended up making my own.

The lessons also started delving into what they call "helper words," which are common words like "and," "the," and "is."

For Bible, we read about Cain and Abel as well as Noah's Ark.  I found worksheets online that Caleb responded well to (though we skipped the question about how long it took Noah to build the ark.  Scripture doesn't give a specific amount of years; God talked about "120 years" but most scholars agree that that number refers to the lifespan of man after the flood).

We also made homemade animal crackers to go along with the Ark story.  The recipe I found online is closer to a shortbread recipe than a crunchy cookie one, but the cookies held their shape really well and tasted good.

Our verse for this week was Ephesians 4:32.

We also did a fun "color words" activity to help Caleb know color names by sight. (I colored the boy, Caleb colored the rest!)

And finally, during some down time and rainy weather, I was able to introduce Caleb to "Reading Rainbow" on Netflix.  I can tell there's some newer episodes mixed in with the older ones I remember from my own childhood, but so far Caleb has loved all of them.

This week I tried something new...rather than write a to-do list for every day, I wrote a "did-it" list instead.  Whenever we were done with kindergarten for the day, I would simply write down what we did for each area of study.  Doing so helped me feel more productive!  :)

Links: (links with an asterisk are FREE!)
*I Can Listen to Stories Printable (KinderCraze) 
*Word Family Sliders (Make Take Teach via Teachers Pay Teachers)
*Cain and Abel/Noah's Ark Worksheets (Bible Fun for Kids)
*Animal Cracker Recipe (French Press)
*Color Words Printable (Teachers Pay Teachers)