2013-2014 Curriculum

Oh, my goodness I can’t believe I just typed that title!  Eeek!  This is it.  Our first official year of homeschooling!  Although, we’ve been doing “school” for a while now, the fact that we are diving into full time studies is a bit overwhelming.  Is this the case for any of you other mama’s starting Kindergarten? 

With all the curriculum choices out there, I decided to go with one that was all inclusive.  However, choices were slim since my son is advance in reading.  A variety of programs didn’t give me the option to get the higher level readers. So, this year we decided to try Sonlight Core A.  We actually purchased it last year and did some of it last fall.  There are parts I like and parts I don’t, so we’ll see what happens.

Kindergarten

Bible: Sonlight & Awanas

History: Sonlight Core A Intro to the World: Cultures

Reading/Writing: Sonlight Language Arts 1 & All About Reading Level 1

Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears

Math: Saxon 1

Science: Sonlight Science A: Biology, Botany, and Physics

Extra: We’ll be using How to Teach Art for some intro to art lessons.  Plus, he will be participating in soccer.

Other: Our family will be participating in a Co-op this year.  The boy is very excited about it, mainly because he’ll get to take karate.  Of course we will also be taking some time to venture out for some fun family field trips.

So that’s it in a nutshell.  I’ll definitely be taking it one day at time. 

Do you have any tips for this newbie?

Please be aware that affiliate links are present.  If you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…thanks!

A Monstrous Way to Learn

This week my son has been jumping at the bit to do extra school activities.  It all started with this movie, which in turn led to non-stop chatter about writing a sequel to it.  From there it was pretty easy to determine I needed to create some fun monster activities.

This monstrous theme was a huge hit.  Here’s a few pics.

	Tracing Monster University Names Getting my son to do any writing activities usually requires “pulling teeth.”  However, he was begging for me to print this sheet off for him.  (From K Extension Pack)
	Monster Skip Counting Puzzles I printed this activity 4 pages to a sheet to save some paper.  I cut the puzzles apart and he glued them all to the same piece of construction paper. He used the skip counting mats (not shown here) to make sure he was gluing down the right strip. This activity worked on skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. (K Extension Pack)
	Monster Graphing I think he did this activity at least 3 times in the same day.  We just put our sheet in the Crayola Dry-Erase Activity.  He rolled the die down the stairs for a little more exercise. *wink*  (K Extension Pack)
	Monster Pre-Writing As I mentioned before, my boy hates writing practice, but he was all over this activity.  He even added some kids behind the doors for the monsters to scare. (From Preschool Pack)
	Labeling Parts of a Monster This was another activity that we pulled out of the preschool pack.  He actually cut out all the words by himself!  He is getting so much better at cutting.  All our practice is paying off!

We have a few more we haven’t gotten to yet, including some from Disney’s Family Pack.  If you want to grab this fun kindergartner monster theme pack and/or a tot or preschooler pack head to 2 Teaching Mommies.


I’m linking up to Preschool Corner.

There are affiliate links, so if you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…thanks!

Schooling Through the Summer

Last Fall I started doing Kindergarten with Lil’Man 2 days a week. He was 4.5. My goal was to provide a bit of a challenge for him, while giving myself some grace.   I was 6 months pregnant at the time and didn’t know how everything would go if I waited to start after Lil’Bro arrived.  This gave me 2 years to finish Kindergarten and learn to adjust to having a little babe running around, while homeschooling.

Unfortunately, things changed a little more than expected when Lil’Bro arrived.  Needless to say, school was put on hold.  I decided last month to jump back in, but with a limited focus.  We are only doing bible, math, handwriting and scissors skills.  We are also reading lots of books for our library Summer reading program and if the boy requests, some theme activity packs.

For math we are using Saxon K, which is a pretty easy for Lil’Man.  I wish I would have seen this placement test prior to purchasing it.  Saxon 1 would have been a better fit, but he still enjoys doing the activities.

Here’s a look at what we did this week in math.

	Saxon K Les 39: Identify/Count Pennies One area in math that is new to him is coins.  This week we learned all about pennies.  He knew its name, but didn’t know its value.  However, the other coins were a little more difficult for him.  I plan to make a Coin Observation printable to help him retain the info a little bit better.
	Saxon K Les 40: Naming Attributes This activity had Lil’Man laying the pieces out into a matrix based on attributes. When he finished I pointed and said this is a matrix. In which he quickly asked “What’s a matrix?” “This.” Yeah, didn’t work the second time either. I searched the term to find an easy way to explain it to him. Does anyone else find it hard to simplify things?
	Saxon K Les 41: Making a Pictograph Lil’Man has been working with graphs for quite a while.  We had to call our cousins and Meme to get a few more eye colors for our graph.  I think that was his favorite part.  Instead of creating the graph out of construction paper I went ahead and created a printable.  It took a lot less prep time.

Overall, our summer set up is pretty laid back and we can get it done before Lil’Bro wakes up from his morning nap.  Hopefully, it will stay that way.

There are affiliate links, so if you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…thanks!

Valentine’s Day Learning

We’ve had a fun week celebrating Valentine’s Day.  To kick the week off we were invited to a God is Love party.  The boy had a lot of fun learning all about how much God loves him.  Then he got to create a Valentine just for God. 

The rest of the week we continue our Valentine themed fun. 

Language Arts: I was really excited when I came across Mama Jenn’s Little Letter Collection. I used her idea and the boy’s words to create a Valentine’s letter for the boy’s Daddy.  He had a great time tracing the letters and then decorating it.  He couldn’t wait to give it to his Daddy when he got home that day. If you don’t have the time or the resources to create your own, don’t fret.  Mama Jenn offers free generic ones you can download.

 

Math: We did quite a few math activities. Most of them were taken from the Sweetheart Valentine unit from 2 Teaching Mommies and were old hat for the boy.  However, I was really excited about introducing him to the Valentine's 100 Chart Art from Lil’ Country Kindergarten.  I wasn’t surprised that he wanted to quit before he was done, but I made him complete the red.  He finished the picture off the next day.  Once he started to figure out the image, it definitely was a little more exciting for him.  I plan to include this type of activity again.

     

Science: Of course we couldn’t have a Valentine’s Day theme without including one of the boy’s favorite activities, candy observations.  Below he’s tasting a sweetheart to find out if it’s sweet, sour or salty. 

 

  

So, that was just a little glimpse into our week.  How did your week go?

 

We’re linking up to: Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up.

Weekly Wrap Up

I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing about our school time this year.  I’m just terrible at taking pictures while we are doing it.  But I managed to take a few pictures this week during our reading time and thought I would share.

Language Arts

The boy and I have been working on his reading.  Currently we are using Hooked on Phonics because we picked it up real cheap a couple of years ago because it was out dated. It was like $30 for 3 kits (K, 1st, and 2nd).  My husband said we had to use it before I can buy any new reading curriculum. (I’ve got my eye on All About Reading.) 

Anyway, getting off track a bit.  So, in the picture above the boy is circling words that rhyme with mat.  However, since I know that I want to sell this kit when we’re done with it, I just slipped a sheet cover over the worksheet page and gave him a dry eraser pen. It works like a charm!

 

 

We’ve also used our Education Cubes and inserts to practice reading words.  (I recently won a membership through a giveaway!!)  We used some of the ‘a’ word family cards and the letter cards.  The boy would roll the two dice and read the word.  Then we would talk about if it was a real word or nonsense word.

 

On this particular day, we were stuck indoors due to storms.  So, to get the boy moving I decided to have him roll the dice down the stairs, go down read the word and then come back up.  It was a great way for him to use up some energy. (You can visit the Show & Tell to get and share more Education Cube ideas!)

So, that was just a little taste of our week.  How did your week go?

 

We’re linking up to: Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up.

Sale Today Only: TRUTH in the TINSEL

I have some exciting news for you!!  Truth in the Tinsel is running a "12 Days TIL Christmas" sale for 20% off the book PLUS a free 12 day alternate schedule featuring the best 12 crafts!!! (A link will be included in the download.) It will be 24 hours only with code 12DAYS.

So, its not too late! For those of you who didn’t have time to get everything ready or you just weren’t able to start on Dec 1st (like me), now is the time to jump in! Get your Truth in the Tinsel today! 

Need More?

• Check out my review post.
• Get a free day just by spreading the word.

Don’t Miss Out:

• BUY IT!  20% off regularly price of $4.99 with the code 12DAYS! Today only! (12/12/11)
• PARTICIPATE.  Join other families as they go through the book by sharing your experiences on the Truth in the Tinsel Facebook page.

 

Disclosure:  I am an affiliate, so if you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…so thank you!

Zoo Fun

This week we had a lot of fun with our zoo unit.  The boy loves animals.  So, he was very excited to see the new activities for this week. 

 

Language Arts: Lil’man worked on beginning writing skills by tracing dotted lines.  I love how hard he is concentrating!

He also worked on finding and matching the letters that spelled different zoo animals. 

 

Math Concepts:  He was so excited to do another roll and graph.  It was the first thing he wanted to do out of everything we did this week. 

Other Activities: The boy got a new Tot Pack this week too.  Here are a couple shots of him doing the Size Sequencing activity and the Zoo Animal Colors book.

 

Since we were learning all about the zoo, we made sure to take a trip to the local zoo.   It was a great day!  The animals were quite friendly and were much closer to the gates then normal!  The Bongo below was so close you could actually touch him. 

 

My Favorite: Lil’man was blessed with a hat this week.  And this is how he decided to wear it. 

As he was checking out himself in the mirror, he said “Look at my cool hat.”  Special thanks to friends for giving it to him.  He absolutely loves it!

 

Finally, here are some of the books that we've been reading:

Make sure and visit Amber at The Belly of The Whale to see more activities in action from our unit. Also, don’t forget, you can download all the Zoo printables (not all seen here) for FREE at 2 Teaching Mommies.

I hope you’re able to come back next week and check out what we did! 

 

We’re linking up to: Preschool Corner, 1+1+1=1, and Weekly Wrap-Up.

Dr. Seuss

We had a change of plans this week, so we didn’t get much Tot School done.  However, I wanted to share what we started working on, just in case you need some ideas for celebrating Read Across America and Dr. Seuss’ b-day next week.  And while you're here make sure to check out our Dr. Seuss Finger Painting Hat Craft.

(Click the image above to find the printables.)

Hopefully, I’ll have some fun pictures for you next Friday from our Wacky and Crazy week. 

We’re linking up to: Preschool Corner, 1+1+1=1, and Weekly Wrap-Up.