Spring Trees and School Thoughts

Lincoln, Ivan, and Adelia's spring trees

It's taken us long enough, but I think we're finally starting to get back into the swing of school since our move. The other day we did these cute hand print art spring trees, using our hands for the tree and a cotton ball for the blossoms. I don't think hand print art will ever get old for me. :)

I'm slowly but surely getting our school room all set up. I bought some cute alphabet letter cards to hang up across the top of one wall so that Lincoln could see each letter, and how it fits onto the line compared to the other letters. He's been asking me a lot lately if the letters he wants to write start on the top line or the dashed line, and which letters get to hang underneath the bottom line. Lincoln seems to be a visual learner, so I'm hoping the letter cards will be helpful to him. Just for fun, I bought a few other things to hang on the school room walls. Lincoln has been asking Aaron and I a lot about money lately, and if he has enough money in his money jar for certain things (usually eating out). So I bought a poster with all the different pieces of money on it, and it shows things like this is a penny, it takes 5 pennies to make a nickel, and 2 nickels to make a dime, and so on. We haven't done money in our math studies yet, and probably won't hit it very hard just yet, but the poster is a good conversation piece, and Lincoln likes it.

Another thing Linc has been WAY into is counting to 100. (Which really, I figure he has to have that skill before talking about money will make any sense, so we're headed in the right direction.) Almost every car ride we take, Linc attempts to count to 100. I encourage this whenever possible. He does really well. He can get all the way to 100 with a little help. What he needs help on is what comes after the next 9 number. Our conversations go something like this, Linc: "41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 45, 47, 48, 49...what comes after 49?" Me: "50" Linc: "51, 52, 53, 54...." So I also bought a numbers 1-100 poster for the school room. I think it will help him visualize what it is he's trying to do, and to be able to SEE what comes after what. And the poster will be really helpful when we get to the skip counting stage.

I also bought maps. A world map (smaller area than the one we had before) and a US map. We won't be doing any major geography for a long while, but the kids have fun looking at the maps. Their favorite thing to do is point to a place and say, "This is where I'm going on my mission." And then I tell them where they pointed to, if anyone they know had ever been there, and anything I know about it, and then we look at how far away it is from where we live. It's a fun game.

This week I finally implemented morning devotional before we start the school day. And it's going great. I love it. It really makes such a difference in the rest of the day. I have a magnetic board with a picture frame around it that I wasn't using for anything, so I turned it into our devotional keep track of thing. For the month of May our devotional will go as follows:

Song: When I am Baptized

Prayer:

Scripture: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).

Article of Faith: 1 We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

Pledge of Allegiance:  

My friend Wynter gave me the idea to have devotional coincide with the things that kids are learning in Primary for a specific month. The song and scripture are from the sharing time manual for the month of May. The kids will take turns leading the music, saying the prayer, and "reading" the scripture. We will all say the Article of Faith and the Pledge of Allegiance out loud together. We'll do these same things all month, then it June we'll rotate out with the new stuff in the sharing time manual, and move on to the next Article of Faith. If I get really on top of it, I might just make FHE each week go along with this theme as well...but we've got to take it one step at a time, right? 

Lincoln and I finished lesson 50 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons yesterday. We're half way done! Hooray! It's been going really well. The pace is perfect for Linc. And I can see that he's learning and that it's appropriately challenging for him. This morning we finished Explode the Code workbook 1. Lincoln is excited to move on to workbook 2 and so am I. This program has also been a really good fit for us. It's slower paced then TYCTR but I feel like it offers good review, and a good reading comprehension aspect as well as some (but not too much) practice writing words. 

I finally ordered a copy of Family Math for Younger Children used online. I've checked it out a bunch of times from the library, and decided that I would probably be better off just getting my own copy. So I'm excited for that. I also ordered some AIMS booklets that have math and science activities for Kindergarteners, that seem to be mostly active, on your feet, not sitting at a desk, type activities. I'm excited to see them also, the samples looked great, and they came highly recommended by my sis-in-law. I bought Getting Into Geometry and Sensational Springtime. And lastly for now, I bought the Math U See Primer. I've been debating in my mind for a long time which math program to try with Lincoln when we start Kindergarten in the fall. And Math U See just won't get out of my head when I'm looking through other options, so that's what we're going with. I'm excited about it. It looks like it's going to be a good program for Lincoln. When I watch the demos online, I really feel like this program is going to be a good fit. And if not, hey, we'll go with something else next time. Live and learn, right? That's the joy of homeschooling. :) 

Anyways, there are a few more thoughts in my head about our fall curriculum, but my kids are waking up from naps now, and I have to stop. Until next time...