This week we picked up school again after a loooonng break and let me just say and I'm positive that I speak for the girls too, it is SO nice to be back. For me, it's nice to have our routine back, but for them, they just thoroughly enjoy school time. I am very blessed to have children who love to learn and who get excited about having school. Each morning they get up and ask "Are we having school today?" and if it's a day that I have to work (which means we don't have school) they are really bummed. Now, I know they're only in Kindergarten and I'm really hoping their love of schooling continues for years and years to come. Even though they are only in Kindergarten, we do have a pretty rigorous school day including Math, Phonics,
Writing, Science, Social Studies and Bible each day. So, here's a quick recap of our week.
Math:
Monday- we reviewed even/odd. We initially learned about even and odd in the beginning of the school year and have done very little review of it (One thing that I do not like about this particular curriculum.) but I was suprised at how much they remembered.
Tuesday- We practiced writing our numbers 10-20, which was also a review for them.
Wednesday- Worked on completing patterns.
Saturday- We began learning to tell time. This was a brand new concept for the girls. They know how to read digital clocks, but have never learned to tell time on an analog clock. It went very, very smoothly. I'm amazed at how quickly they picked it up. They love to draw on the white board, so I let them make their own clocks and they "taught" me how to tell time! It was fun!!
Phonics:
Monday- We had a phonics eval scheduled for today. To say I was nervous about it was an understatement. Remember today was the first day back after a long break and I was scared they weren't going to remember all they had learned. But alas, I should not have been worried. They both aced it! 100% for both of them. Mommy was so proud! Looks like they really ARE learning something :)
Tuesday- Review day- which they were pretty bored with, so we read Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. Well actually, they read the majority of the book to me.
Wednesday- We introduced the letter X and reviewed sentence structure.
Saturday- We talked more about the letter X and I was explaining to them that X was usually found in the middle or end a word, not in the beginning. Well, of course Shaylie goes on to tell me that Xylophone starts with an X..LOL, she's too smart for me! We also did two phonics worksheets today. Both girls love worksheets and they're finally at the point where they can do independent work...and so I love worksheets too :)
Writing-
We introduced letter X and did several practice worksheets on the rest of the alphabet.
Science-
We began our weather unit. I won't go into daily details because each day built on the one before. We began the week learning about temperature. We made a large classroom thermometer out of posterboard and white/red ribbon. After we cut out the thermometer and wrote in our temperatures, we cut two slits in at each end. We attached the white ribbon to the end of the red and then threaded it through the slits, so now we red ribbon represent the alcohol and we can pull the ribbon up or down to change the temperature. It's great practice for learning to read a thermometer. If anyone wants pictures/instructions, let me know. I would be happy to email them to you. We learned about rain and on Wed. sat out a rain guage..and low and behold Thursday-Saturday God sent us some rain to measure. As of 10:00 this morning, we had 3.25 inches of rain. :) While learning about rain, we learned about evaporation and did an experiment. We measured one cup of water and left it sit out in the kitchen for 3 days. After the 3rd day, we remeasured the water and only had 2/3 cup left!! We were all surprised at just how much had evaporated. See- this is another reason I love homeschooling. I learn too!
Social Studies-
We began our unit on North Carolina. We've learned all about the history, location, flag, state bird, state seal, state motto, state flower, state tree and started talking about the NC zoo. We plan to take a trip to the zoo in March. The state motto of NC is "Esse quam videri" which means "To be rather than to seem". I love that!! Do you know what the state motto of your state is??
Bible-
As I've said before the Bible curriculum we're using right now focuses a lot on character development and uses scripture to back it up. Each lesson starts with a story, then asks two questions, and ends with a prayer. We really enjoy it and it sparks some great conversation. This week we've covered: love, contentment, confidence, and appreciation. Today's lesson started a conversation on unanswered prayers. And we really had an awesome discussion. It started with Nevaeh saying "God hears all of our prayers, right?" And I said "yes, each and every one". And she says "well then why doesn't he always give us what we ask for?" And I asked her what did she ask God for that she didn't get. And she says "well the other night I prayed that we would be able to get ice cream and we still couldn't get it". (back story: the girls weren't allowed to get ice cream this particular night because they had not been listening very well all day and that was their punishment) So I had to explain to her that God knows what is best for us and while he hears ALL of our prayers, sometimes we still don't get what we want, because God knows what we NEED, better than we know what we want. And that God wants and expects us to obey our parents. GREAT learning experience and she asked such a mature question! :) My baby is growing up.
We had a full week! But the absolute highlight of our week was a day trip to Greenville on Thursday to have dinner with new friends! We met up with the
Saufley's and the
Bost's and everyone had such a GREAT time. There were 6 adults and 8 kids and as Laura posted on Facebook, the good news is McAlister's is still standing! Seriously though, I'm so glad God has brought these wonderful people into our lives. I'm sure that was the first of many many great times to come.
Shaylie and Nevaeh with their new friend Madalyn!
