ivey league kindergarten: week in review

Here's what we did last week!

Caleb has really been into board games lately, so I was excited to find free printable sight word "snakes and ladders" game boards online.  You can type in your own words if you want a custom board, so I filled in a mixture of new and familiar words for us to read as we played.  This was a great way to practice reading without getting Caleb all frustrated!

We continued to review -ch, -tch, and -sh words....

...and also got into -ng words toward the end of the week.  I went ahead and printed out a different snakes and ladders board for us to use next week so we can make sure to practice these new words as well.

In math, Caleb continued to work on addition and subtraction with a number line.  However, when presented with simple addition problems without a number line, Caleb was very good about adding the numbers up in his head!  The math lessons also introduced three-dimensional shapes such as spheres and cones, and we also learned about "quarter after" in telling time.

In Handwriting Without Tears, Caleb worked on lowercase y, j, r, n, m, h, b, and f.

We continued our devotionals each day too.  However, I didn't think far enough ahead to include some kind of activity with any of them.  I might try to do that more often, because if Caleb does some kind of hands-on art activity or game, he's more likely to remember the message that went along with it.

We continued to read Stuart Little aloud as well, and on Friday we took advantage of our library recently extending their hours of operation and checked out some new books!  Caleb declined story time on Tuesday...I'm not sure if he was feeling tired or just isn't interested anymore.  If we do go back, I'm going to try to go in the afternoon in hopes that more kids his age will be there then.

Links:
Free Snakes & Ladders Sight Words Game (SightWords.com)
Free Phonics Readers (The Measured Mom)
Free "TH" Words Sorting Activity (Teachers Pay Teachers)

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.

All in all, I'm pleased about how our first week back went.  On to the next!

Links:
Free Phonics Readers (The Measured Mom)
Free Word Builders Set (The Measured Mom)
Fingerprint Stamp Activity (Making Learning Fun)
Blank Faces Printable (Dabbles and Babbles)
Emotion Puzzles (Z lesa)

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)

ivey league kindergarten: weeks in review

Here's what we did for the past few weeks!

Caleb continues to make great progress in Hooked on Phonics.  He learned pl-, gr-, fr-, br-, cr-, pr-, dr-, qu-, and tr- over the past couple of weeks.  During that time we did plenty of review by reading sentences.  He also earned three more stars on his reading chart!

We finished Otis Spofford by Beverly Cleary.  Caleb enjoyed it but he wasn't into illustrating his book report that day.  His favorite part of the book was where Otis gets into trouble for firing off spitballs, so his punishment is to sit in the back of the classroom by himself and fire spitballs into the trashcan.  So Caleb's drawing is of a giant spitball. :)

In math, we continued to work on adding and telling time.  The workbook also introduced the idea of volume, as well as the half dollar.

We also started Handwriting Without Tears to give Caleb more handwriting practice and to help him learn how to better write his lowercase letters.  The kindergarten workbook starts with uppercase letters, and groups them together according to form and where you put your pencil down to start.  We started with the "frog jump capitals" (F, E, D, and so on), which all start at the upperleft corner of the box and then your pencil "jumps" back up to form the rest of the letter.  We finished up the remainder of the uppercase letters than start in the upperleft corner (such as H, K, L, U, etc.) and will start the curvier letters like C and O next!

Caleb also did some art one day, and we made a "gratitude garland" the day before Thanksgiving!

Links:
I Can Listen to Stories printable (Kinder Craze)
Gratitude Garland printable (Something Simple)

ivey league kindergarten: weeks in review

Here's what happened over the last two weeks!

Big news...Caleb finished Workbook 1 of Horizons Math!  We did 80 math lessons in three months, so not too shabby!

Caleb caught on to skip-counting by 2's pretty quickly, and he continues to improve with telling time and counting coins.  Workbook 2 also has 80 lessons in it, so depending on our pace, Caleb might finish kindergarten earlier than anticipated.

In reading, Caleb learned sw-, st-, fl-, gl-, cl-, and bl-.  He also earned a few more stars on his reading chart by reading HOP stories and books.

We didn't get to much Bible unfortunately...I think I might have to revamp our approach a bit.  We've realized that Caleb knows a lot of Bible stories but doesn't necessarily see them as more than that.  I might try more of a character/virtue approach where we learn about a specific trait (such as bravery, faith, compassion, etc.), and then find people in the Bible that demonstrated that trait, verses that talk about it, and then find ways to apply it in our own lives.

Caleb found lots of leaves outside and asked if we could do rubbings of them, so we did that one day (we had to give them a day to dry out...we've had so much rain lately that the leaves were pretty damp at first!).

We finished The Mouse and the Motorcycle.  Caleb liked it a lot.  He didn't really want to draw a picture of the story but he did a little bit anyway!

For our next read-aloud, Caleb chose Otis Spofford, also by Beverly Cleary.  He really liked the Ramona character in the Henry Huggins books we read, so we might check some more Cleary books out of the library in the future since we don't have much in the way of Ramona.  :)

One morning, Caleb got out some of his old preschool work and reminisced.  :)

And finally, Caleb's first experience with trick-or-treating!  He still loves Spiderman but said he wanted to be the Hulk for Halloween.  He had a blast, but after awhile he said his costume was too hot and he ended up back home in his normal clothes helping me hand out the candy.

One other thing I'm looking into is better handwriting practice.  I let it go for awhile since he was bored with worksheets I got off the internet, but I think if I got Handwriting Without Tears or something like that he would like it more.  I've heard mixed advice about handling handwriting in kindergarten...some moms say to wait, others say they wish they hadn't waited since they're still having to work on handwriting in the later grades.  Caleb can write all his numbers (thanks to math), and pretty much all of his letters, but I'm not sure he knows how to write lowercase (or else, he doesn't bother, since I see him writing mostly in uppercase).  I feel like we need to do a little more than just reading and math so I'll probably add more writing soon.