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

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.

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!