Free Time with Colored Pencils

Colored pencils are probably the most exciting thing about starting kindergarten in G's world. He asks to use them almost every day. Today he drew a picture of himself in a hot air balloon with Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Erik looking on. As he explained his drawing to me, he pointed out that he had used the cross-hatching technique to make the hot air balloon basket look like a real basket (you can see it best on the right side of the basket). We had talked about cross-hatching last week while we were reading A Pair of Red Clogs, and I was impressed that he remembered that.

Funtastic Frogs

We did Funtastic Frogs for math today, which we haven't done in months. G did really well with it. I think having the manipulatives to work with helps a lot. That's one of the big reasons I'm planning to use Math-U-See when we start up with a hardcore math curriculum. :-)

Fair Day!

After a little bit of school in the morning, we decided to drop everything and go to the fair! The weather was beautiful, it wasn't crowded, and we had a great time! G went on several rides (the kiddy ones), we tried new foods (Piroshky, Caramel Apple and Scones), and saw farm animals up close. G even got to spin wool into yarn! What a wonderful opportunity for him to learn how sheep contribute to mommy's stockpile of knitting yarn. :-)

Handwriting

G wrote a letter to his pen pal today for handwriting. He is so excited about his new colored pencils!

Kung Fu

Today was G's 4th Kung Fu class, and he's finally coming out of his shell. He listened really well to his teacher, tried really hard, and did a great job! He's really catching up to the other kids. We are so proud of him!

Homeschool Group

We had a "Not-Back-to-School" potluck at the park today with our homeschool group. This was our 3rd meeting with them and they are such a great group! I think we're going to have lots of fun times with them! As we discussed homeschooling, parenting, and just LIFE, I realized that I had found what I was looking for: homeschool families we can relate to.

Week 1: A Pair of Red Clogs

This week we read A Pair of Red Clogs for our Five in a Row book, so we took the opportunity to learn a bit about Japan. We did lots of fun activities to go along with the book:
1. We found Japan on the world map
2. We colored the Japanese flag and added it to our flags of the world banner
3. We read about Japanese culture
4. We learned to count to 10 in Japanese
5. We read Haiku poetry
6. We did some origami
7. We read about sumo wrestling and had our own sumo wrestling match
8. We ate at a Japanese steak house and visited with Japanese people and saw real kimonos
9. We visited Uncle Loren who showed us his bonsai trees
10. We listened to Japanese music

Here is a photo of what G and Grandma made during origami time:

For Bible time this week, we read the story of creation and our memory verse was Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

In science, we did a couple of nature walks in different areas and found plant life like blackberry vines, huckleberry bushes and ivy. We also saw animal life such as birds, a snake, grasshoppers, squirrels and rabbits. A walk by a local lake turned up lots of empty snail shells.

We also worked with phonics, history, Spanish, math, and handwriting, and we had a fun day at the park with our homeschool group too! We had a fun first week of kindergarten!!