Kindergarten Wrap-up

Despite the lack of school posts we have been plugging along.  We are mostly finished with the Rainforest portion of Animal Worlds and will be moving onto the Ocean portion.  After that we will have successfully completed AW (minus the polar region)!!  It will feel good to know that we stuck it out and completed a core.....now I know we can do it, it will be so much nicer in the upcoming years.  I think that we (Annabelle and I) have learned so much about each other this year that all our upcoming homeschool years will benefit from it.

We talked a lot about ants the past few weeks.  This wasn't a part of the curriculum, but the animals that they were studying didn't have lapbooks readily available for them.  Ants did and since we have them in our house AND the rainforest portion talks a lot about army ants and leafcutters I thought it would fit right in.  We did a notebook page study I just haven't put it together yet.  Annabelle was truly fascinated with ants....but still doesn't like them. lol   This is her pink ant that she made....it is obviously the queen, can't you tell? :)

We talked about a lot of tropical birds, toucans in particular.  We bought a whole bunch of fruit ( I do realize that raspberries and apples aren't tropical, but those are the only fruits I knew Annabelle would eat) and had a taste test.

Annabelle's reaction to having to taste at least one of every fruit.....not too happy. lol

The boys LOVED it!  They ate the whole tray.  I learned that I do not know how to cut a mango. :)

We finished up our adventure reading for the Rainforest unit.  The book is about finding an undiscovered butterfly so that a wealthy man will buy that portion of the rainforest and save it from being cut down. 

At the end of the book I thought it would be fun if Annabelle got to make her own 'undiscovered' butterfly.  May present to you the Rapunzel butterfly..... :)

We had this little guy come and visit us at our door one day.  We've been talking about dragonflies and butterflies a lot so this was a nice surprise.....it was a cold morning so it hadn't warmed up yet and was easy to catch.

We observed him and then let him go.

We've also been working through our Horizons K math and All About Reading and Spelling Level 1.  It really is assisting her in becoming a stronger reader.....

 .....as well as helping her enjoy reading a little bit more.  Still having her bad attitude show up, but it is becoming less and less a problem......

 ....she can read great, she just has to work at it....and she really dislikes working at something. :)  Daily reading out of the Sonlight I Can Read It readers.

 We have started her 1st grade science, Apologia Astronomy.  I LOVE this curriculum....and she is really liking it too.  They have a lot of hands on activities which she really enjoys.  We are enjoying the note booking portion of it too.

We made a model of Stonehenge and talked about what it may have been used for (telling of the seasons, when to plant, time of day)....

 I think that it turned out decent. lol

 This was our balloon model of the solar system (not really to scale...the sun would be a lot bigger than that).  It will be used for review of the planet names/order of the planets.  She really enjoyed this.

 Happily doing some Bible verse copy work for her notebook.  I was surprised that she liked doing this....normally she doesn't like to write at all.

I would say that what Annabelle is enjoying the most right now is her Bible studies.  We are using Bible Study Guide for All Ages.  I am pleased with it, I really like that it will grow with us.

This great printout of the genealogy of Jacob can be found at a great blog Our Country Road   This has really helped us with learning the names of the sons of Jacob.  She looks forward to singing the song every morning and pointing out the people on the chart.

 Working on the student page.  The Discover the Bible portion is so interactive and asks her tons of questions during the actual story so I know that she is listening and understanding.

 The boys joined us for one of our crafts.  They really wanted to get in on the coat of many colors action. :)

 Asa, Silas, and Annabelle.  Annabelle just wanted to do the coat and color the Joseph during some of our reading.

 We talked about showing favoritism.  I gave Silas a sucker before I read the Bible story and told him how much I loved him and how glad God had given him to me (right in front of Annab and Asa), then proceeded to go to read.  There was an immediate uproar.  We talked about how that made them feel, and what should be done about those feelings.  After we talked I gave them each a sucker and told them the same thing I told Silas.  It especially hit home with Annabelle....it is really cool to see these concepts click with her.

 Our second lesson moved onto Joseph being sold into slavery.  This lesson also dealt with lying (which always needs some reinforcement in our house).

 This was our Joseph in the pit craft.  We've done this before, but it's an easy and fun one to revisit.

 This is just Annabelle who was really excited about the new desk that I found for her at a garage sale for only $2!  She says she is in 'real' school now. lol :)

That is what we've been up to the last few weeks in May.  I can officially say that Annabelle is now in between K and 1st grade.....she will tell you that she is in 1st grade though. lol My postings will probably be a little more sporadic like this during the summer.  We are really only schooling 3 days a week (sometimes 4), and with the weather being so nice it is hard to sit down and blog sometimes. :)  But I will try to post something 1-2 times a week.  I hope that everyone else is having a wonderful warm season so far!  Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner and Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers (for the first time...yea!!!)

Kindergarten Wrap-up

The last couple of weeks we've been slowly completing Annabelle's Kindergarten year and easing into her 'in between'/1st grade year curriculum. That is the reason for the small amount of pictures....not much going on to take pictures of. We are finishing up our rainforest studies in the next week or so. We're having a pretty good time with it. Next weeks post should have some more interesting pictures in it....maybe....no promises. lol

We've been learning all about primates the last couple of weeks.  These are the cute little crafts that she made.....

It is a chimpanzee and a gorilla....

This is her rendition of a gorilla.  You can't see it in this picture, but he has an angry face.

These are her two little monkeys.  The girl monkey is wearing a bow in her hair and carrying a purse.  The boy is apparently a pan handler.

Finishing up her Saxon Math K.....and pretty excited about it too.

Working on story problems....just the basics of them anyway....she doesn't really know how to add and subtract yet.  We will get there soon!

Reading practice.  She's enjoying reading out of books.

That was the highlights of our week last week.  We did start our Bible curriculum....but I'll probably do big posts on those when we finish the person/topic we are studying.....I'm not sure yet, I'll have to see how it goes.  We're also starting Astronomy this week!!  Pretty excited about that.  I wanted to start it while it is warm out so we can go do the observations and not freeze. :)  Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Kindergarten Happenings: Rainforest Beginnings

We've had a lot of fun the last couple weeks diving into the rainforest environment. We also learned a whole lot about frogs. I was pretty surprised at how much Annabelle already knew about them. We had fun using the new markers from the Easter baskets to color with this week. All the notebook elements can be found at Homeschool Share.

Working on her frog tongue for the notebook.....and being silly. :)
We had a good time with the lily pads. She picked one, I would read the question (ex. What are baby frogs called?), and she would give me the answer. Then I would cut out the answer and she would paste it in under the answer flap. She did really great and only missed 2!
We worked on a frog craft for a couple of days. Here she is learning how to accordion fold. She picked it up no problem.
I think that he turned out pretty cute. :)
At the end of this week we made a toad house in our yard. We're hoping that a toad will come and live in it. I told Annabelle that it might not happen though because we have a nice creek across the street where they are more likely to live....we may have to set one up and Grandpa and Grandma's house (or cottage!). Don't ask me what she is wearing.....I couldn't tell you....lol
Finished toad house. I think that it looks pretty comfy (if you're a toad).
So much fun! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to Homeschool Creations.

Kindergarten Wrap-up

In the last couple weeks we finished our desert. This was the best unit so far (even though we did LOVE the Savannah). I think it was a culmination of Annabelle just getting older and me being able to let go of doing it all. I focused on things that I thought we would really enjoy and did those....and guess what.....we really enjoyed them! (Imagine that...lol)

We did plant cactus seeds, but they were destroyed by another person living in this house (whether maliciously or not we never determined lol). We went to the store and to our surprise the cacti were in bloom. Of course we bought this one with the pretty pink flower.
Annabelle observed and drew a picture of her cactus....
....she named the cactus Pink Sparkles....the cactus is obviously a girl. :)
We made a model of Pink Sparkles out of play dough and toothpicks. Annabelle wanted to put on the pink beads to resemble flowers.
....she is definitely pink...and sparkly. (That Annabelle cracks me up!).
We also learned about snakes. We chose to make our paper chain snake the poisonous Coral Snake. 'Red on black venom lack.....Red on yellow kills a fellow.' She then proceeded to chase her brothers around the rest of the afternoon trying to poison them. She even put it across the doorway to her room and threatened that if they tried to come in her poisonous snake would bite them. However, Silas the snake slayer ripped it to shreds later that evening.
Annabelle also made an armadillo.....
Zak thought it was a hippo.....it does greatly resemble a hippo....however, the corrugated, cardboard clearly makes it look like an armadillo.
Our notebook animal for the past couple weeks was the camel/camel family. We had a lot of fun learning about camels.
Finished animal notebook. I asked Annabelle what her favorite thing about a camel was....she said, "Riding it." (We've never ridden a camel...lol).


I take so many math pictures! Annabelle really enjoys math. She is usually most cooperative during this time.

We do an estimation jar every day where she estimates how many objects are in the jar. After that she sorts the item into piles of 10 to figure out how much she has. Then she finds that number on a 100s chart (that is a new addition...she's just starting to get the hang of it).
I also have her fill in missing numbers 1-20 every day (soon 1-30...and eventually work our way up to 1-100).
Math this week was SO much fun. She learned her very first card game. WAR. We had a lot of fun playing. It is a great way to begin to understand values and greater than/less than. She gets a goofy grin and says, "Yes." every time she wins a card. She does try to say it quietly so she doesn't make the 'loser' feel too bad. :) Fortunately, she is not super competitive so she doesn't get a bad attitude when she loses.
So fun!
I'm really geeked about our next unit. We are moving onto the rainforests.....so many cool animals in the rainforest to discover. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner