OLD HOMESCHOOLERS NEVER DIE . . . THEY JUST WRITE CURRICULUM


"Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants."

Deuteronomy 32:2

Courses of Study

To view the Course of Study for each grade level, you can click on the "Course of Study" label
or "Search This Blog" for the specific grade level you wish to see.
To date, I have courses of study completed for kindergarten through fourth grades.

Newsletter Articles

In 2013 the Lord started me producing a newsletter for the homeschool group we are a part of. Every other month I write an article on a topic the Lord has put on my heart. I've decided to add these articles to this blog. I hope you will find encouragement through some of my ramblings. You can click on the label "Newsletter" to find the articles.

Saturday, October 29

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 39

This week we:
  • Memorized Psalm 62:7
  • Reviewed Catechism (3 days)
  • Read stories 239 - 249 in Pictue Story Bible
  • Other books, stories, videos:
    • Silver Dollar from Storytime ... Millers
    • Muffy
    • Mrs. R-P ... Treasure Hunt
    • The Miracle from the Meadow from Missionary Stories ... Millers
    • It Has All Been Planned from Short and Sweet
  • Prayer
  • Song: He Keeps Me Singing

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 39

Practice "Sentence": With the zoos to explore

Small Muscle Development:
  • Made a mosaic
    • I had painted small wooden shapes
    • K. glued them on to an old manila folder to make a design
Story Development:
  • Activity: Mixed Up and Missing, see Writing, Week 26 for instructions
Writing Practice:
  • Activity: A Race of Words, see Writing, Week 16 for instructions

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 39

Genres from our textbook were:
  • true story
  • drama
Activity: Oops, see Reading, Week 37 for instructions

Kindergarten, Math, Week 39

Monday
  • Fractions: One-Half
    • Practiced dividing things in half (tortilla, graham cracker, apple, etc)
    • Practiced writing 1/2
    • Reviewed what the denominator and numerator mean
Tuesday
  • Calculator: plus 1, minus 1
    • Practiced plus with the calculator: 1 + 1 (2) + 1 (3) + 1 (4) etc.
    • Practiced minus with the calculator: 10 - 1 (9) - 1 (8) - 1 (7) - 1 (6) etc.
Wednesday
  • Fractions: One-Third
    • Used manipulatives I had printed for thirds (pizza, pie, chocolate bar).
    • "One Tuesday we had pizza for dinner, and it was just Papa, you, and me, so we divided the pizza in 3 equal pieces. This is called thirds. If we each got 1 piece how much would you get? (one third) This Tuesday night I went to Bible Study, so I told Papa to eat my piece of pizza. How much did Papa get? (two thirds) Do this with all the manipulatives.
    • Made a worksheet with four questions. How many pieces are yellow? etc. so K. could practice writing fractions.
Thursday
  • Game: Fast Track (subtraction), see Math, Week 27 for instructions
Friday
  • Problem Solving: Graphs
    • Made a line graph.
    • I printed a picture of chocolate candy from the internet.
    • K. counted how many pieces there were of white chocolate (made tally marks), milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and chocolate with nuts.
    • Made line graph with the information.

Kindergarten, History, Week 39

  • Read chapter 41 from Child's History
    • People called Huns lived to the northeast
    • Romans and Germanic people considered them to be very fierce
    • The leader of the Huns was Attila
    • Germans beat the Huns in 451 A.D.
    • Vandals from Africa attacked Rome, captured the city and carried away Rome's treasures
    • This is the ending of Ancient History and the beginning of the Middle Ages
  • Craft: Marble Statues from Crafts from the Past: The Romans
    • We filled an exam glove with plaster of paris, let it set on an upside-down bowl, then painted it. It can sit on a desk to hold paper clips, etc.
  • I read The Sword in the Tree by Clyde Robert Bulla
    • This book is a bit beyond the dates of our study, but it is a good story.

Kindergarten, Science, Week 39

Still more from The How and Why Book of Weather.
  • What comes out of the sky
    • When the drops of water in a cloud become too heavy to float in the air, the fall to the earth. This is rain
    • Snow is water vapor which condenses directly into ice crystals because the air high in the sky has cooled very quickly.
    • Sleet is formed when rain freezes as it falls to earth.
    • Hail is rain that the wind blows up in the sky where the air is colder. They freeze and start to fall again. Over and over they start to fall and are blown back up by the wind. Each time they start to fall a new layer of water condenses on them. Each time they are blown back up the new layer turns to ice. When the pieces of hail become too heavy for the wind to blow back up, they fall to earth. If you cut a hailstone in half, you may be able to see the layers.
  • Fireworks in the sky
    • "As water droplets are rubbed and pulled about, they are charged with electricity. Suddenly the electric charge in one part of a cloud is attracted to a charge in another part of the same cloud or in another cloud. As it shoots through the air, it causes the air to glow for an instant and we see a lightening flash." quoted from book
    • Experiment: Try it with balloons in a dark room. Rub both balloons on your clothes or a piece of furniture, then bring them together so they almost touch. You should see a flash of light. (We could not get our balloons to work. They got very "static-y" and stuck to us, but we could not get them to "make lightening".)
    • When the air is heated by the the electric charge, it expands rapidly, setting a giant air wave in motion. This is the thunder we hear. Sound takes about five seconds to travel one mile, so by counting you can tell about how far away the lightening strike was.
  • The storm with an eye
    • We read The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane by Joanna Cole. It has a lot of information in it, so depending on your child, don't read everything on each page.
  • Rainbows
  • Types of clouds
    • Cumulus: puffy white clouds shaped like a dome on top and flat on the bottom
    • Cirrus: high in the sky, feathery wisps of curly ice crystals
    • Stratus: layers of cloud, spread flat across the sky
    • Nimbus: dark gray rain clouds
    • We "googled" cloud images and tried to identify some of the types of clouds.
  • Experiment
    • To show that hot air expands and cold air contracts

    • Put a balloon over the mouth of a bottle, set it in a pan of water and turn on the heat. (A smaller balloon or larger bottle would have been better.)


      As the air in the bottle heats up, it expands and the balloon starts to fill with air.


      This is as big as the balloon got, that's why I think a larger bottle, or smaller balloon would have been better.


      After the bottle cooled off, I stuck it in the freezer. The cold air in the bottle contracted and sucked the balloon partly into the bottle.

Saturday, October 22

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 38

This week we:
  • Memorized Psalm 62:6
  • Introduced Catechism #27: What was Adam's part in the covenant in order to stay in the Garden of Eden? Adam was required to obey God perfectly. Genesis 2:15-17
  • Reviewed Catechism (2 days)
  • Read stories 228 - 238 in Picture Story Bible
  • Other books, stories, videos:
    • Mrs. R-P and the Chocolate Cherry Treat
    • Muffy
    • You are Special
    • Jim Elliot and the Auca Indians from Missionary Stories . . . Millers
  • Prayer
  • Song: He Keeps Me Singing 

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 38

Practice "Sentence": For a little girl of five

Small Muscle Development:
  • Cut on straight, wavy, and jagged lines
  • Cut out star, circle, square, and triangle
Story Development:
  • Activity: Write It For Me, see Writing, Week 10 for instructions
Writing Practice:
  • Activity: That's Good, That's Bad, see Writing, Week 22 for instructions

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 38

Genres from our textbook were:
  • missionary story
  • poem
  • fiction
  • informational article
A couple times this week instead of asking questions, I just had K. tell me the story in her own words.

Activity: Oops, see Reading, Week 37 for instructions

Kindergarten, Math, Week 38

Monday
  • Fractions: Halves of a set
    • We went into the kitchen and I pulled out sets of things: forks, recipe books, bowls, spices, etc.
    • K. divided each set in half
Tuesday
  • Calculator: Make numbers
    • I said or wrote a number and K. punched it into the calculator
    • Then she punched in numbers and read them to me
Wednesday
  • Fractions: One-Half
    • I had printed some manipulatives: a pizza, a pie, a chocolate candy bar (I put some figured contact paper that I had on the back side to make them durable)
    • I showed these and we talked about one-half
    • I had made a worksheet showing how to write 1/2. Explaining the denominator tells how many equal parts are in the whole and the numerator tells how many parts we are talking about. I had made four circles on the paper and divided them in half, coloring each side a different color. Then asked, "How many parts (of this circle) are yellow?" This gave K. the opportunity to write the fraction 1/2.
Thursday
  • Game: Triangles, see Math, Week 31 for instructions
Friday
  • Problem Solving
    • Activity: Number Stories, see Math, Week 26 for instructions

Kindergarten, History, Week 38

  • Read chapter 40 from Child's History
    • Rome's turn to be conquered
    • Germanic people
    • The names of the days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday come from Germanic gods' names.
    • Angles and Saxons settled in Britain
    • "Angle-land" eventually turned into "England"
    • Vandals went in to Gaul and down into North Africa
    • Franks settled in Gaul, name changed to France
    • Goths crossed into Italy
  • Started Temples and Shrines Gift Box Craft from Crafts From the Past: The Romans
    • This is a more difficult craft and I'm assembling it and K. will get to paint it.
  • Sun-Day, Moon-Day: How the Week was Made by Cherry Gilchrist and Amanda Hall
    • Read "Wednesday" as it is the only day that has a Norse/Germanic story

United States Geography

We started a U.S. Geography class with the Support Group Co-op we have joined, so I'll add that information each week. This is a two year course, covering 1 state a week, ending with 15 weeks of California History. The goal of the class is for the children to be able to:
  1. name the state by looking at the shape
  2. be able to put the shape in the right place on a map
  3. be able to tell two things about the state
------------------------------------------------------------------
Maine
  • Has more than 60 lighthouses
  • Supplies half the lobster eaten in the United States
  • Known as the Pine Tree State
Massachusetts
  • The Pilgrims landed there
  • Benjamin Franklin was born there
New Hampshire
  • Granite / Old Man of the Mountain
  • Shipyard
    • the shipyard at Portsmouth built the Raleigh, one of the first 13 frigates the Continental Congress had built
    • today it is a Naval shipyard and repairs submarines
Vermont
  • Maple Syrup
  • Green Mountains
  • Morgan Horse
Connecticut
  • Charter Oak
  • Gave us Lollipops
  • Woods and Forests cover more than 60% of the state
Rhode Island
  • Only land given by Indians to a white man
  • Smallest state
  • Makers of fine jewelry
  • No part of the state is more than 30 miles from the ocean
New York
  • The Erie Canal
  • The Statue of Liberty
  • Niagara Falls

Kindergarten, Science, Week 38

Continuing with The How and Why Book of Weather
  • Hot air rises
    • Experiment: Remove the shade from a table lamp that has an incandescent light bulb. Turn the bulb on and let it sit for about ten minutes. Then stick your finger in corn starch (so that just a little is on your finger) and flick it at the light bulb. The light bulb heats up the air around it, causing the air to rise. The powder from the corn starch allows you to see the air rising.
  • Why hot air rises
    • When air heats up the molecules move faster, bumping into each other more, so they move farther apart.
    • Because the molecules are farther apart, the air is lighter, so it rises.
    • Experiment: Blow up a balloon and tie it. Measure around the largest part of the balloon. Set the balloon in the sun for about ten minutes. Measure the balloon again. The balloon should be bigger.
      • We tried this first with white and pink balloons because they were the easiest at hand. When they did not get larger, I searched for a balloon that was a dark color. It worked! So this experiment can also show that light colors reflect heat and dark colors absorb heat.
  • The earth does not heat evenly
    • Experiment: Put a bowl of dirt and a bowl of water in the sun for about thirty minutes. Take the temperature of the surface of the dirt and the surface of the water. If you don't have a thermometer to use, your child should be able to tell the difference just by feeling them.
    • Water does not heat as quickly as land
  • Why breezes blow
    • As the land heats up, the air above it heats up and rises. The cooler air over the water rushes in to take its place. This is called an onshore breeze.
    • At night, when the sun goes down, the land cools off faster than the water. This is because only the surface of the land has been heated, but the sun's rays go deep into water and heat it to a depth of several feet.
    • Now the water is warmer than the land. The air above it rises and the cooler air from over the land rushes in to take its place. This is called an offshore breeze.
  • Water you can't see
    • When a puddle dries up, the water molecules have jumped up into the air. We say the water has evaporated. Water carried by the air is called water vapor.
    • Heat causes water to evaporate.
    • Experiment: Take two saucers and put a teaspoon of water on each. Place one in the sun and one in shade. The water in the sun should evaporate faster.
    • Wind helps speed evaporation.
    • Experiment: Wet a paper towel. Tear it in half. Place one half where the air is still. Put the other half in a breeze (you can use a fan). Which dries faster?
    • More water will evaporate from a large surface than a small one.
    • Experiment: Put a spoonful of water on a saucer and then fill the spoon again and leave that water in the spoon. The water on the saucer should dry up faster.
  • The water cycle
    • Experiment: Take a glass and set it over some grass or small plants. They should be in the sun. A watery film begins to form on the inside of the glass. (I was surprised at how quickly it happened.) Molecules of water from the grass/plant and soil have evaporated and become water vapor. When some of them hit the cooler glass they form fine drops of water.
    • The first step in the water cycle is evaporation. Water from the grass and soil evaporated inside the glass.
    • The second step is condensation. We can see this as clouds or fog. The water vapor in the glass condensed on the inside of the glass.
    • The third step is precipitation. When water returns to earth as rain or snow. If you leave your glass over the grass for a longer period of time, larger drops of water should form and fall back to the ground.
  • What is a cloud?
    • When air becomes cooler, water vapor condenses around particles of dust (etc.) floating in the air. Millions and millions of droplets are formed high in the sky and they cluster together in groups. These are the clouds we see.
    • Sometimes clouds look bright and puffy because the sun is shining through them.
    • Sometimes the sky looks like one big gray cloud because there are so many layers of clouds that they block out the sun's rays.
    • Sometimes the clouds form very high in the sky where it is much colder, and the droplets freeze. These clouds look like wispy ribbons.
    • When water droplets form at ground level, it is called fog.
  • Dew and frost
    • At night, when the land cools off, some of the water vapor in the warm air condenses on the cooler plants, rocks, soil, playground equipment. This is called dew.
    • On very cold nights the water vapor condenses directly into ice crystals and form a white film over the ground and house roofs. This is called frost.

Monday, October 17

Even Safer than a Harvest Festival

We don't observe halloween or participate in our church's Harvest Festival. At our house October 31 is Book Report Day. At the beginning of October K. picks her favorite book (that we have read as a family this year) and we start preparing costumes, food ideas, decorations, etc. from the book.

This year K. chose Charlotte's Web. She dressed up like Fern and Papa was Mr. Zuckerman. Since I brought the bucket of slop to the table, I was Lurvy. I requested the movie Charlotte's Web (1973 movie) from the library for us to watch. Here are pictures:

 Here is Charlotte's Web. I made the web of white yarn, cut the letters out of white paper and glued glitter on it (to look like morning dew). The orange in the middle is the spider.

 Here is our sheep,

 and the goose,

 and Templeton.

 Here you can see the fence we made.

 Charlotte was made out of a gallon milk carton. We stuffed red tissue paper inside to give him a pink look. His ears, eyes, and nose were cut out of construction paper. His legs were cut from an egg carton.

 Here is our table, set for dinner.

A close-up of a pig trough.

The bucket of slop. Dinner was really quite good. It was mashed potatoes (I scrubbed the potatoes, then peeled them, so I could include the peeled skins in the food.) rice, taco flavored ground meat, peas and carrots, and cheese. We had more slop for dessert. Vanilla ice cream with chocolate bar, broken graham crackers, peanuts, chopped Oreo cookies, and raisins stirred in and re-frozen.

Columbus Day

I made K. a coloring book for Columbus Day. First, I found the complete poem In 1492 at a website called Teaching Heart. Then I found coloring pages that went with the poem, and ended up with a nice seven page coloring book.

Here are some books I like for Columbus Day:
  • Christopher Columbus by Ann McGovern, copyright 1962
  • Ship Boy with Columbus by Enid La Monte Meadowcroft, copyright 1942
  • The Voyages of Christopher Columbus by Armstrong Sperry, Landmark book, copyright 1950
  • Christopher Columbus by Bennie Rhodes, The Sowers Series, copyright 1976

Saturday, October 15

Kindergarten, Bible, Week 37

This week we:
  • Memorized Psalm 62:5
  • Reviewed Catechism (3 days)
  • Read stories 217 - 227 in Picture Story Bible
  • Other books, videos, stories:
    • The Princess and the Kiss
    • Mrs. R.P. and the Treasure Hunt
    • Muffy
    • The Shotgun that Wouldn't Fire from Missionary Stories ... Millers
  • Prayer
  • Song: He Keeps Me Singing

Kindergarten, Writing, Week 37

Practice "Sentence": What a quaint world it is
  • During this five weeks of school we are copying a poem, one line each week.
Small Muscle Development:
  • Three Color Road Race, see Writing, Week 10 for instructions
Story Development:
  • How Many Words?, see Writing, Week 27 for instructions
Writing Practice:
  • Monster Cafe, see Writing, Week 26 for instructions

Kindergarten, Reading, Week 37

Genres from our textbook were:
  • fiction
  • historical fiction
Activity: Oops from Games for Reading -- this activity gives your child practice in phonics
  • Cut squares (mine are 2" x 2") and write a letter on each square
    • In the book are five lists going from easy to difficult
    • Each list has 19 - 25 letters for groups of letters
  • Put the squares in a pile.
  • Your child picks up the top square and says the SOUND that letter makes -- NOT the name of the letter.
  • If your child does it correctly, he goes on to the next letter.
  • If he does not give the correct sound, you write "O" on a paper, and he goes on to the next letter.
  • For each mistake you write the next letter of the word "OOPS". If the whole word gets written before he completes the stack of letters, he loses the game.
  • Of course, you'll want to practice the ones he made mistakes on, but probably not during the game.

Kindergarten, Math, Week 37

Monday
  • Fractions: Equal Parts
    • Used stuffed animals and a set of 24 pieces of pasta
    • I put out 2 animals and had K. divide the pasta equally, then count and see how many each animal had.
    • Then I put out 3 animals and had K. divide the pasta equally, and count how many were in each set.
    • Then I put out 4 animals, etc.
    • Then I put out 6 animals, etc.
    • We learned that the more you have to divide something in, the smaller each set is.
    • A good book for this concept is The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins



Tuesday
  • Calculator: What digital numbers look like
    • I made a paper calculator and a strip of paper with the markings of calculator numbers
    • Then I wrote a number and K. used a marker to trace how that number would look on a calculator.
    • She got frustrated about half way through, so we took a break and read for a bit.
Wednesday
  • Fractions: Halves of a Set
    • We went into K.'s room and I put out sets of blocks, animals, etc.
    • K. separated them into equal halves
    • We learned that when you make a half there are two parts and each is equal
Thursday
  • Game: Races, see Math, Weeks 25, 26, and 27 for instructions (addition)
Friday
  • Problem Solving: Graphs
    • I printed a picture of candies from the internet.
    • K. counted how many there were of each color and made a bar graph.

Kindergarten, History, Week 37

  • Looked at pages 88 and 89 of Ancient World
  • Made Roman Coins from Crafts from the Past: The Romans by Gillian Chapman
    • Roll out a piece of modeling clay until it is smooth and flat, but it needs to be thick.
    • Cut a strip of manila folder or card stock, about 1 inch wide; form it into a circle the size you want the coin(s) to be and staple it.
    • Push the circle into the clay, keeping the circular shape.
    • You can draw patterns or designs in the clay.
    • For younger children, I found it better to take a small toy and press it part way into the clay, and then remove it, leaving the shape in the clay.
    • Mix up plaster of paris. If found that two 6 oz yogurt containers of dry plaster and 1 container of cold water makes enough plaster for 7 coins of 2-inch diameter and 3/4-inch thick.
    • Pour the plaster into your molds.
    • Let them dry.
    • Remove from molds.
    • Paint your coins.
  • Read Barbarians! by Steven Kroll
    • The Goths
    • The Huns

Kindergarten, Science, Week 37

  • Read about Day 7 of Creation from The Creation
    • Discussed that God rested from His work of creation, but He is still working in our world and lives.
    • One way God is working in our world is the weather
  • Started reading The How and Why Book of Weather by George Bonsall copyright 1960
    • Sun + Air + Water = Weather
    • Air takes us space
      • Experiment of upside down glass into bowl of water; no water goes into glass because it is full of air
    • Air is real
      • Blow up a balloon; you can feel the air when you press on it
    • Air is heavy; the pressure in our bodies is equal to the air pressing down on us, so we don't feel the weight of the air
      • Hold a paper napkin with two hands; your child can easily poke a hole through it with 1 finger
      • Hold another paper napkin; have your child push with a finger from each hand at the same spot from each side of the napkin (one finger on each side of the napkin). No hole is made because the pressure on both sides of the napkin is the same.
    • Air presses down
      • At sea level the molecules of air are squished closer together than high in the sky
        • If you had a stack of pancakes 3 feet high, the pancakes at the bottom get squished by the pancakes above them. If you took two inches of pancakes from the bottom of the stack you would get more pancakes than if you took two inches from the top.
    • The sun heats up the earth during the day; the earth cools off at night
    • Winter
      • Days are shorter than nights (earth has longer time to cool)
      • Sun shines on earth at a slant (sun's rays are spread over a larger area and don't give as much heat as when the sun shines straight down as in the summer)
    • Spring
      • Days are becoming longer/Nights are becoming shorter
    • Summer
      • Longest days/shortest nights
      • Direct rays of the sun strike the earth, bringing more heat
    • Autumn
      • Days are becoming shorter/Nights are becoming longer

Saturday, October 8

More Magic School Bus Videos

Here is a list of the Magic School Bus videos that go with the study of the human body:
  • Flexes Its Muscles -- how muscles and joints work
  • Inside Ralphie -- how the body fights disease
  • For Lunch -- digestive system

Kindergarten, Book Study, Week 36

This book study we used A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond copyright 1958. There are activities in Games with Books, but we were just reading and exploring things that were interesting to us. We are only half way through the book, but here is what we have done so far:
  • Figured out how the ship would get from Peru to England
  • Talked about the fact that people in England use different words for things
  • What is marmalade?
  • What is an inventor? (Charles Macintosh invented the raincoat/mackintosh)
  • Vocabulary
    • stowaway
    • emigrate
    • keen
    • lift (elevator)
    • mackintosh
You can make a notebook of the things you do, but K. isn't excited about doing that, so we just talk about these things for many days to reinforce them.

Saturday, October 1

Kindergarten, Bible, Weeks 34 and 35

Last Saturday we went apple picking as a family and this week has been really hectic and I didn't get time to post our Week 34 activities, so I'm combining Weeks 34 and 35.

  • Memorized Psalm 23
    • verse 5 (week 34)
    • verse 6 (week 35)
  • Introduced Catechism
    • #25 on Tuesday (week 34): In what condition did God make Adam and Eve? God made them innocent and happy. Read Genesis 1:27 - 31
    • #26 on Tuesday (week 35): What is a covenant? A covenant is an agreement between two or more persons. Read Genesis 9:11-17, Psalm 105:8-11
  • Picture Story Bible
    • Stories 195 - 205 (week 34)
    • Stories 206 - 216 (week 35)
  • Other books, stories, videos:
    • Muffy
    • Just In Case You Ever Wonder
    • Too Busy Fishing from Missionary . . . Millers
    • Sylvester
    • My Heart Christ's Home
    • Mamma Lillian from Missionary . . . Millers
    • Red Rubber Boots from Other Lands
    • The Princess and the Kiss
  • Prayer
  • Song: Standing On The Promises

Kindergarten, Writing, Weeks 34 & 35

Practice sentences:
  • I buzzed Mommy at noon.
  • See my coat at the coast.
Small Muscle Development:
  • Dot-to-Dot
    • I have a book of dot-to-dots, but you can find them on-line, also.
  • Biscuit Letters, see Writing, Week 11 for instructions
Story Development:
  • Write it for Me, see Writing, Week 10 for instructions
  • "She's So Mean" - from Games for Writing -- this activity will help your child learn to develop interesting characters
    • Start your "story" by writing (or you can just talk it): I know the _____ ____ in the world. He is so _____ he . . . (finish the sentence)
    • Then your child adds a sentence, trying to outdo you.
    • Here's our story (please keep in mind this was our first try!):
      • I know the dirtiest dog in the world. He is so dirty he leaves hills where he sits. He is so dirty he shakes the mud off! Splat! He is so dirty he walks in a cloud of dust. He is so dirty he gets clean in the bath.
    • There is a list of suggested titles in the book.
Writing Practice:
  • Silence is Golden, see Writing, Week 29 for instructions
  • Monster Cafe, see Writing, Week 26 for instructions
    • This time we did a menu for a troll

Kindergarten, Reading, Weeks 34 & 35

Genres from our textbook were:
  • Biblical Fiction
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
Activities were:
  • Alphabet Words - from Games for Reading
    • The goal of this activity is to think up one word for each letter of the alphabet.
    • The following day we were going apple picking -- which meant a long drive -- so our list was things to look for on the way.
    • For some letters we pulled out the picture dictionary in order to find good words.
  • Mazes - from Games for Reading -- this is a terrific eye exercise
    • Instead of copying a maze from the book, I found one on-line and printed it.

Kindergarten, Math, Weeks 34 & 35

Week 34

Monday
  • Game: Four Numbers
    • I wrote 4 numbers (10, 6, 9, 5) on a piece of paper and we took turns writing down all the addition and subtraction equations we have learned for each number
    • Because the only subtraction equation that equals 10 is 10 - 0, we got creative: 10 + 10 - 10 = 10
    • We ended up not just sticking with the equations we have learned, making this a good "thinking" game. 3 + 3 + 3 = 9, 1 + 1+ 3 = 5, etc.
Tuesday
  • Comparison
    • I gave each of us a piece of paper that I had folded into 16 squares (then unfolded).
    • Secretly, we each wrote a number in 1 square.
    • We revealed our numbers and K. had to tell which was larger.
    • We actually had fun playing this. Some numbers were up in the thousands, and we talked about place value.
Wednesday and Friday, Weeks 34 and 35
  • Game: Triangles, see Math, Week 31 for instructions
Thursday
  • Game: Number Stories see Math, Week 26 for instructions
Week 35

Monday
  • Game: Fast Track - Subtraction see Math, Week 27 for instructions
Tuesday
  • Money see Math, Week 32, Friday for instructions
Thursday
  • Game: Races see Math, Weeks 25, 26, and 27 for instructions (addition)

Kindergarten, History, Weeks 34 & 35

  • K. really enjoys looking at the book Pompeii by Richard Platt and "acting out" the scenes shown, so we did that on many different days.
  • Read chapter 39 from Child's History
    • Christians were persecuted
    • Because of a dream emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion
  • Worked on our time line

Kindergarten, Science, Weeks 34 & 35

And then God made man . . .

I used the book You're Tall in the Morning But Shorter at Night by Melvin and Gilda Berger.
  • We read about cells
    • Groups of cells make tissues; groups of tissues make organs, groups of organs make organ systems
    • We found pictures of organs and organ systems, printed them and glued them on our new mural. (skeleton, muscles, heart, eye, lungs, skin, etc.)
  •  We read about the skeleton
    • Without bones we would be like a blob of jelly
      • I put a big scoop of grape jelly on a plate and we tried to make it "stand up"
      • Then we stuck toothpicks in the jelly and were able to make it "stand up" better
      • If I had thought about this ahead of time, I would have stirred up some jello. Maybe not as stiff as jigglers, but stiffer than regular jello. It probably would have worked better, but K. got the idea.
    • K. dictated what we learned about the skeleton to me and we glued it by the skeleton.
  • We read about muscles
    • K. wrote what we learned and glued it next to the picture of muscles
    • Some muscles move our bones, other muscles help us eat, digest food, move our blood, and breathe.
  • We read about digestion
    • We read that our small intestine is 22 feet long
      • I happen to have nine 12" rulers; we started at the bathtub and K. put the rulers end to end (9 feet), then I held the last one in place and K. moved the other rulers (17 feet), then I held the last one and she moved five rulers (22 feet).
      • Then I gave her a ball of yarn and she unrolled it from the last ruler to the bathtub and cut it.
      • We balled the yarn up and glued it on the mural.
    • We found a picture of the digestion system (stomach to large intestines) for the mural.
    • K. dictated the digestion process to me and we glued that up also.

  •  We read about circulation
    • We listened to our hearts
    • We played "The Blood Game"
      • I asked K. which room in our house would be like the heart. We decided on the bathroom, because it is the smalled room.
      • I told her that her bedroom was the lungs because there are two twin beds, just like she has two lungs.
      • We were the blood.
      • We went in the heart (bathroom) and "swoosh" were pumped into the lungs (bedroom) to get oxygen and then we ran back to the heart (bathroom) and then were pumped "swoosh" to _________, (This is the fun part because she got to pick different parts of the body -- eye, toes, fingers, stomach, etc. and run to some other part of the house.) Then veins take the blood back to the heart (bathroom) and "swoosh" pumped to the lungs (bedroom) and back to the heart (bathroom) and "swoosh" out to another part of the body. Repeat until child is tired.
      • K. really enjoyed this game and we have played it on many other days.
  • We read about respiration
    • We watched our chests rise and fall as we breathed.
    • I had K. get one of her blouses; I got two balloons.
    • I put the balloons inside the blouse and blew them up.
    • The book didn't mention the diaphragm, but another day K. had the hiccups and we talked about it.
  • We read about the nervous system
  • We read about our five senses
    • Books:
      • My Five Senses by Aliki
      • I Can Tell by Touching by Carolyn Otto
      • You See With Your Eyes by Melvin and Gilda Berger
      • You Smell With Your Nose by Melvin and Gilda Berger
      • You Taste With Your Tongue by Melvin and Gilda Berger
      • You Hear With Your Ears by Melvin and Gilda Berger
    • I traced K.'s hands, and drew a tongue, ear, nose, and eyes on our mural
    • We looked through magazines for things we could touch, taste, hear, smell, and see (and cut them out)
    • K. glued the pictures by the drawings of that sense.
On the last day we cut out pictures of animals and people and glued them on our "6".


Here is what the whole thing looks like now. We just have the "7" to do. I can't believe we are almost finished with our first "official" year of schooling!