Kindergarten Activities

Well, folks, I do believe I'm getting the hang of this!  We seem to be settling into our routine.  This week went very well, with a lot fewer bumps in the road.  The novelty of school seems to wearing off a bit for Colban, which is actually a relief.  He is now pretty content to complete the work I have planned for him, though I'm making sure I have plenty of extra activities prepped in case he requests some.  I didn't take many pictures this week, but here a couple of the highlights:

Colban loves bingo markers!  The activity pictured is a sheet from 

Highlight-A-Letter! {Letter Identification},

a great 54-page freebie from Babbling Abby.

That's a proud little nugget right there!

Colby is holding his Name in a Ten Frame project, a really fun freebie

from Sam Nowak.  Highly recommended!

Here's a closer look:

Here's Colby with his watermelon math sentence activity!

We kept it simple, but you can use more colors for the "seeds" to make it more challenging.

Get a copy of this Watermelon Math Freebie from First Grade Blue Skies.

As you can see, we had a blast this week!

For more kindergarten ideas, check out my Pinterest board, Homeschool: PreK & Kindergarten.

Babbling Abby's TpT Store

Babbling Abby's blog

Sam Nowak's TpT Store

Sam Nowak's blog

First Grade Blue Skies TpT Store

First Grade Blue Skies blog

More of Colby's First Week

The key to doing pretty much anything with my younger son without sacrificing my sanity is to try to keep it interesting.  While Hunter is agreeable and mild, Colby has a naturally rebellious spirit.  He rarely sees the value in doing something just because an authority figure told him to, and will accept just about any punishment as the price of doing business.  Luckily, he enjoys school, so I just have to keep the engaging activities coming!  Here's a peek at some of what we did last week:

We read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr.

Then Colby practiced his counting and number recognition with this adorable matching game, featuring characters from the book:

(He is always missing a sock!)

Then he practiced letter recognition and color words with this activity:

There is a color word spelling card for each animal in the story, and corresponding letter tiles that make it easy for little guys to find the ones they need. 

After lunch, I pulled out the M&M activity for a little more counting and color sorting.  How cool is this?!

After the student sorts all the M&M's, there is a recording sheet to write down how many of each color they ended up with.  Sorry about the blurry pic:

The next day, we did some more color word practice with these great clip cards:

Then he practiced writing the words on the recording sheet:

You can see the helpful reference chart in the background :-)

All of these fantastic activities, plus six more not shown, are from the Brown Bear Math and Literacy Activities pack from KinderKids.  Here's the part that will really blow your mind: the whole 108-page pack is only $1.00!!  In fact, all of the great resource packs in the KinderKids shop are only $1.00.  There's just no beating that!  Check out the KinderKids TpT store!

Here's the cute and quirky alligator Colby made for Letter 'A':

I just love how he came out!  Colby was adamant that his alligator does NOT have matching eyeballs :-)

This project is based on an idea from CrystalandComp.com.  Check out their post here!

Other alphabet resources we used this week include:

Alphabet Sorting 3-in-1 Bundle

Full Letter Identification Printables (free download!)

K4 Letter Hunt Worksheets (free download!)

For over a hundred more ideas and free downloads, check out my Alphabet Activities and Printables pinterest board.

When we were done with our "Brown Bear" activities, we read "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie", by Laura Numeroff.

Colby practiced counting out cookies to hungry little mice with this super cute activity:

This activity is from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Math and Literacy Centers.  We'll be doing more with this packet this coming week!

Colban also continued to work in his math book: 

Overall, it was an extremely productive first week!  

Printable activities in this blog post are from the following TpT stores:

KinderKids

Kindergarten Lifestyle

and blogs:

Over the Big Moon

Confessions of a Homeschooler

More of Hunter's First Week

Phew!  The first week is behind us!  I definitely have some adjustments to make, but when is homeschooling not a work in progress?

Here's a glimpse at what my older son has been up to this week:

Hunter is reading on an end-of-third-grade level, but he could use some extra work on sight words.  This is a page from Lori Rosenberg's Second and Third Grade Sight Word Packets.  Each 10-word list has six different activity pages.  

We read  "The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash", by Trinka Hakes Noble.  I still love this book just as much as I did when I was a kid!  To review story elements and summarizing, we did several of the activities from this unit by Hollis Hemmings.  The school bus activity in the picture was my favorite.

Underneath each animal flap, Hunter has written about that animal's problems in the story.  So cute!  He also completed this cause-and-effect foldable:

Here's the cut-and-paste activity on the inside:

In all, we did four activities from this unit, and it was a really fun way to review!  There are many, many more activities in the unit that we didn't use, but I plan to do the whole thing with my younger son when he's ready.  Check it out: Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash Activities and Printables.

For math, we've been using this workbook and supplementing with other books and activities when necessary:

Right now we've taken a break from the workbook and are working our way through Multiplication Mastery: a Program for Basic Multiplication Facts.  Hunter has memorized his times tables, but I wanted to make sure that he really understands the math so that he can build on it. I've been really, really happy with Multiplication Mastery; I'd recommend it to anyone introducing or reviewing basic multiplication.  

To review the four types of sentences and the appropriate punctuation, we used A Perfect Fit: Sorting Sentences with Cinderella.  Activities that allow Hunter to physically sort, match, or sequence are usually much more effective than a worksheet, and this resource was perfect for him.  After sorting the sentences, he picked one from each category to write on the recording sheet with the proper punctuation, and then illustrated them.  Can you make out his fairy godmother in the picture?  So adorable!

We also did this punctuation activity from Cleaning Up Writing, an excellent resource for teaching editing skills:

This packet is a combination of cool worksheets and hands-on activities, divided up by month.  In only one week I've already used three pages, and I know it will be a staple in Hunter's curriculum all year long.

More of what Hunter is working on to be posted soon, plus a separate post for Colby's kindergarten work!  Stay tuned!

Printable activities featured in this blog post were purchased from the following TpT stores:

Creekside Teacher Tales

Hollis Hemmings

Shelley Gray

Lori Rosenberg - Teaching With Love and Laughter

Sailing Through 1st Grade

The First Day!

Well, the first day is officially behind us!  Overall it went very well, though some of the worries I've had all summer turned out to be legitimate.  Colban finished half the work I'd planned for the whole week before lunchtime, and spent the afternoon making messes, noise, and demanding to know when Hunter would be done so he'd have someone to play with.  Hunter's auditory processing problems make it next to impossible for him to filter out background noise, so he had a tough time focusing under these conditions.  I alternated between redirecting Colban to a quiet activity in another room and getting Hunter refocused on his work, only to turn around and find Colby had already gotten bored and returned to make mischief!  We got all of our scheduled work done, but it was still a lot more stressful than it should have been.  Mommy has a headache!

Here are a few of the pics I took of our first day's work:

This is the first page of Hunter's Interactive Geography Notebook.  This is just the example page I made in a spiral notebook; Hunter was self-conscious about his work and didn't want it photographed.  I thought he did a great job!  Hunter's interactive notebooks (for science and geography) are bigger and much nicer than my example books.  We used these, but a composition notebook or even a spiral will work. 

This is a really fun "silent e" sort that I chose for an easy review activity.  It's one of many AWESOME activities included in Puppy Love Common Core Literacy Centers and Printables.  This packet has been worth every dime I spent on it and then some!  (I do occasionally re-size pdf's before printing to save ink; some of these pieces may be smaller than originally intended!)

This is a page from our handwriting practice packet.  (Oh man, that handwriting.  It is an enormous frustration for both of us.)  Check out "Writing Through the Verses" here.  

Colby did several pages of kinder math in this workbook.  I've used the Math Made Easy series with Hunter for three years now, and we love it.  The progress charts (gold star stickers included!) are one of the best things; for each page completed, the child gets to add a star to the chart.  Colban added THREE today!  Whoop whoop!

This great little counting puzzle is from the very cool, very FREE Batman-themed preschool pack from 1+1+1=1.  Colby was thrilled with it.

This is just a small fraction of what we accomplished today.  I'll try to cover what we're doing in math, science, history, reading, and grammar later in the week!  I didn't get pics of any of Colban's alphabet activities, either, but the ones we used today and many more (all free downloads) can be found on my Alphabet Pinterest board.

Ready to do it all over again tomorrow!  Hopefully I can start working out some of the kinks!

TpT products featured in this blog post are from the following shops:

Kristen Smith

Reagan Tunstall

Discover Your Child's Learning Style

One of the best things about homeschooling is the ability to tailor your child's education to suit his or her own needs and personality.  Right-brained children in particular seem to benefit from the greater flexibility a homeschool education can offer.  Pinpointing exactly what your child's needs are and how best to teach them isn't always easy, though; something as simple as the wrong lighting or a cluttered work space can affect a student.  If the child's learning style differs greatly from that of the parent, it can be especially difficult to figure out what you need to do to be as effective a teacher as possible.  Luckily there are some great resources to help us out!  Here are a couple of great books to check out if you'd like to know more about your child's individual learning style:



The Big What Now Book of Learning Styles: A Fresh and Demystifying Approach by Carol Barnier is a great book that offers lots of ideas for educating the "non-traditional learner".  The book is relevant and useful for parents and teachers of kids K-12.



In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child's Multiple Intelligences by Thomas Armstrong is an easy-to-read, extremely helpful book for parents who want to understand a child's unique gifts.  The book explains eight different types of intelligence, and how to determine which of them are strongest in your child.  This is a fascinating read that has helped many, many homeschooling families.  (Though it's written for parents, I think it would be very helpful for classroom teachers as well.)

I read both of these books last year and immediately started modifying our curriculum and making adjustments.  It's no coincidence that Hunter, always a struggling reader, has made so much progress so quickly that he now reads at grade level (an enormous gain)!  We're moving forward with the understanding that Hunter is, like many boys, primarily a visual and kinesthetic learner.  I'm very excited to see small changes in my teaching make such a huge difference in the results.  I wish I'd read these books sooner!

Bloglovin

Forced to say goodbye to Google Reader, I've started using Bloglovin.com to keep track of the gazillion blogs I read.  So far, I've been pretty happy with it!  It allows me to categorize and organize the blogs that I follow, which is important to me.  I'm only following teacher and homeschool blogs at the moment - maybe someday I'll have time to add my favorite cooking and farm blogs as well!  If you'd like to follow this blog on Bloglovin, just click the link:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Planning and Prep!

It's that time again!

A new school year is about to begin, and I'm smack-dab in the middle of my annual nervous breakdown.  I never feel prepared enough, or organized enough.  Of course, things always seem to work out just fine, but I've learned from experience that lots of pre-planning spares me headaches later on.  (Links to all sorts of great, free planning pages and organizing ideas can be found on my "Organized Homeschooler" Pinterest board.  How did I manage before Pinterest?!)

We didn't get as much done over the summer as we normally would have; reading was the only subject that we continued nonstop.  In addition to swimming lessons, karate, and ju jitsu, the boys both took classes offered by our school district. The past couple months have been very busy! This means we aren't exactly where I'd planned to be by this time, but the boys had a fantastic summer and it's well worth it to be a little "behind".

I'm still in the process of purchasing materials for the year, but here are a few things I've picked up so far:

Writing through the verses- helping students with handwriting skills!

Hunter really needs to work on his handwriting.  I've tried to avoid copywork as much as possible because of the bore factor, but he really needs the extra practice. This packet combines handwriting practice with Bible memory work.  It's so cute, and I got it on TeachersPayTeachers.com for only $3.50! 

Aesop's Fables, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

I love this version of Aesop's Fables; it's going to be the main text for our fables study later in the year.  Most of the others we'll probably get from the library.

Alnico Science Magnets Kit; no. DO-731009

One thing we'll be learning about this year is magnets!  There are two horseshoe magnets, a bar magnet, a tube of iron filings, and a tube of small steel pieces in this kit.  Along with some random household items for experimentation, this should be pretty much all we need in terms of hardware!  

I have exactly one week to get stuff done before we leave for our family vacation.  (If you could see how much I still have left to do . . . did I mention the nervous breakdown?) I'll try to keep you updated as my plans come together and our school year kicks off!