Week Seven

School has been a bit slow lately. We have been getting in the basics, but not a lot of the "fluff".

Bible Story: Joseph and His Brothers Genesis 37; Genesis 39-41; and Genesis 50

Bible Memory Verse: Luke 1:37 For nothing is impossible with God.

Nursery Rhyme: We didn't do a nursery rhyme this week because I wasn't fond of the one suggested in the curriculum.

Songs: Be Careful Little Eyes, Jesus Loves Me, and some fire safety songs

Other Preschool Activities this week: We glued pictures of eggs onto the letter Ee. We also talked a lot about emergencies, dialing 911, and fire safety.

Preschool Stories: Joseph and His Brothers by Catherine Storr, What is Square? by Rebecca Dotlich, It's Time to Call 911, and Stop Drop and Roll

In Kindergarten this week:

History: Medieval Lifestyles

Read-Alouds: We continued reading My Father's Dragon. Caleb still likes this book at least well enough to read it, I am still not a fan of the book.

Math: Not really any new skills this week. Continued working on addition. The Math video is still a hit.

Handwriting/Spelling/Phonics: We worked on reading a few more three letter words, writing the letter "q", and /a/ phonics.

Science: We read more about oceans this week. We had a few experiments I had hoped to do but we didn't get to them.

We did have two exciting events this week. On Wednesday the kids did their first show and tell at the library. They were very excited but I didn't think they would really do it when it was there turn, especially Hannah. They didn't even hesitate! They ran right up there and showed off their toys. Caleb took his Larry Mobile and Hannah took a baby doll. It was very cute. The other exciting event was a hot air balloon festival.

Week Six

It was a strange week of school here. I am so thankful that I have started this kindergarten process a year early because this is certainly a year of trial and error. I am continuously playing around with our schedule and content to see what works and what doesn't. I plan to use two years on Kindergarten with Caleb since he is only four right now anyway so it is fun to try different things and just enjoy the process. There were many parts of the curriculum we chose to not do this week because Caleb was not enjoying them, but I plan to add much of it back in this week for a fresh try.

Bible Story: Jacob and Esau Genesis 25:19-34 ad Genesis 27: 1-38

Bible Memory Verse: Luke 1:37 For nothing is impossible with God. They both know it!

Nursery Rhyme: Peas Porridge Hot

Songs: God Made All of Me, The Five Senses

Other Preschool Activities this week: We talked a lot about the five senses this week as well as circles and rectangles. Hannah did LOTS of puzzles this week. She loves puzzles right now.

Preschool Stories: Piglet Tells the Truth by Mary Manz Simms, My Five Senses by Margaret Miller, My Five Senses by Aliki, Rectangles by Jennifer Burke, Twin to Twin by Margaret O'Hair, Round is a Pancake by Joan Sullivan Baranski, A Circle is ROund by Donald Crews, Round, Round, and Round by Tana Hoban, and Circles by Mary Salzmann

In Kindergarten this week:

History: This week's history was focused on missionary stories. We only read one out of four. I am not sure we will continue with this book. I would love for him to learn about missionaries but this book is a bit advanced for him.

Read-Alouds: We began reading My Father's Dragon. Once again, a book I am not too fond of so far.

Math: counting by tens, adding, calendar, ordinal numbers- I also added in his math video this week, MathTacular. I let him watch one segment each day and he really enjoys it. It basically is just a fun way to introduce or review a skill with a short one to 4 minute video clip.

Handwriting/Spelling/Phonics: Caleb was very excited to read a few simples "at" words this week. He also worked on writing the letter "g" and colored a goat.

Science: We read about grasslands and oceans. We did a simple experiment with celery (see picture below). Caleb told me this week that his favorite parts of school are math and science. Oh my! Guess what my two least favorite subjects are...

We did more scissor practice. We had a great time at library story hour and this was the week for our September field trip to Reed Creek Park.

The kids have been asking for puppets. I found 6 great puppets at Dollar General for $1 each. They only know we have 2 right now (yes, I got to shop alone). It will be fun to pull out the other 4 at another time. Hannah LOVED the pig and took it everywhere with her this week. Caleb's puppet was a tiger.

Hannah worked on shapes, colors, animal sounds and sequencing with this Jump and Jam Jungle game.

She worked on numbers and matching with this Maisy's counting game.

This is a picture of Caleb and Hannah playing a counting game that was demonstrated on Caleb's math video this day. I flipped over a number card and they raced to see who could count out that many chips first. Then to challenge Caleb a bit I let Hannah flip cards while I raced with Caleb. He really did beat me a few times.

The theme for this month's preschool nature walk at Reed Creek Park was plants. Here Hannah was searching for flowers and seeds to put in her cup.

These plants were growing up through the boardwalk.

Playing a game. Identifying if the picture is a plant you would eat or not.

Caleb uses letter magnets to work on "at" words. I thought he would love this, but it was only fun for a few minutes. I think he just wasn't in the mood for school at all this week. He's been a bit off all the way around lately.

There is that tongue again! No resistance to coloring this week...WOW!

Stringing beads

Math work

We put celery in blue water to observe how the water travels up to the top of the leaves. Caleb still won't let me pour the water out. He wants to see if the celery will drink all the water. Over half of the water we started with is gone so far.

Week 5

We spent two weeks completing week five due to a trip to KY Labor Day weekend. It has really been pretty minimal lately due to travel and various other interruptions, but we have still been getting in a few lessons.

Bible Story: God's Promise to Abraham and Sarah Genesis 15:1-6

Bible Memory Verse: Luke 1:37 For nothing is impossible with God. We really haven't worked on this as much as usual, so neither of them know it yet, but we will continue with it this week.

Nursery Rhyme: Hey Diddle Diddle

Songs: Father Abraham

Preschool Stories: The Way I Feel by Janan Cain and On Monday When it Rained by Cherryl Kachenmeister. They loved these books. They were great for talking about feelings.

Looking forward to getting back to a full schedule of Pre-K this week!

In Kindergarten this week:

History: This week was all about the Vikings. Caleb relates everything about vikings to his Veggie Tales movie Lyle and the Kindly Viking so that was kinda fun for him.

Math: This week we worked on counting by tens then reviewed previous skills.

Handwriting/Language Arts: Caleb practiced writing his phone number and the letter d. He didn't want to do the activity where he has to find five pictures that start with a certain letter. In following our new low stress plan, I didn't insist he do it since he knows his letters and phonics so well anyway.

This weeks writing assignment was to tell me how to do something step by step. He told me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I encourage him to be very descriptive. For example if he told me to get some jelly I asked him, "what kind of jelly." He is still enjoying htese writing assignments.

Science: Another fun science week. We talked about mountains and deserts. The kids made homemade bread and we used half of the dough to make a cactus. They had a great time playing with the dough! And we had yummy (non-cactus) homemade rolls for dinner. Daddy had a pretty good time playing with the cactus as well.

We did more scissor practice, and studied another picture in an art book.

We stopped in NC on the way back from KY to see my grandparents. Can you believe I didn't even take 1 picture in KY!?

Making bread for our cactus activity.

Milling wheat for our homemade bread.

Yes, this is a cactus... can't you tell?

There's that tongue again!

Daddy always makes life more fun!

Feeding the goats at Old MacDonald's Fish Camp

With Daddy at Old MacDonald's Fish Camp... Feeding the animals was lots of fun but the food was not good at all and rather expensive. We've been once before but somehow I forgot why I hadn't wanted to go back. Maybe now that I have documented it I will remember not to go back! Wish we had used that money to go to the rodeo instead!

Helping Daddy wash the car... it was VERY dirty after our trip to KY and Ron's visit to 201 Speedway. He can't visit KY without breathing in some speedway dirt!