We've had a few busy weeks in our home! We've had Laural's birthday party, Easter, and a whole bunch of other stuff that has been keeping us on the go but in between it all, we've managed to get some school time in. Because of my own insecurities, I decided to change the path we've been on with Laural's kindergarten and try something different. Up until recently, I've been doing my own home grown version of a curriculum, putting together things that I thought fit the requirements. But then, I began to worry. What if the way I'm doing things is making her fall way behind what other kids her age are doing? What if the way I'm teaching her to read and write are setting up bad habits that will be tough to break later? What if our math program isn't up to par? So, because of all my worries and wondering and not really having anything to compare our curriculum to, I caved and bought the Heart of Dakota Kindergarten curriculum. After looking through the book, I realized that I really had to reason to be concerned. We are pretty much way ahead of kindergarten reading, math and science. But that's ok. I thought about it and decided that we are going to continue with Heart of Dakota but on a little faster pace for the things that we are already ahead on - kind of like a review - and take a little extra time on the things that we haven't spent as much time on. I like that it's a little more organized than what we've been doing (I'm not much of an organizer) and it will give a good base for her for certain 1st grade components.
So today, Laural and I continued with Heart of Dakota and I decided that it was time to start Micah on something a little more structured. So we started on Letter of the Week by Confessions of a Homeschooler. I love this curriculum! I started Laural (at age 2) on the Brightly Beaming Letter of the Week and while I really liked that one, I like this one even more. I might try to figure a way of combining the two. I wasn't sure how Micah would do with sit down learning, but he did an awesome job today! We started with a couple of the more hands on and fun things to do (I kind of ignored the suggested order of things so I could get a feel for how Micah would handle it). I think we will remain unstructured for a week or two to let him get accustomed to the idea of sitting and working on school work before I start structuring his school time. I started him with the A magnet sheet.
I gave him pom pom magnets and the A/Apple sheet on a cookie sheet and he put the magnets on the tree and the A.
Next, we tried the poke page. Basically, I gave him a giant pushpin and put the paper on a piece of styrofoam and let him trace the letter Aa by poking homes in the paper!. I admit, I was a little nervous about letting my 3 year old handle a giant pushpin, but I explained to him that the end was sharp and not to touch it and he listened. What really amazed me was the awesome a job he did! He completely traced both A & a with only a few breaks to put a hole in other places on the page. I think I've been underestimating my boy!
We also glued apples to an apple tree, traced Aa with a pencil (he did a great job with this one too) and tried our hand at finishing patterns (not such a great job with this one). I also let Laural do the apple cut & paste and a cutting practice page since she doesn't handle the scissors so well yet. I'm really hoping the weather warms up soon so we can take some of our lessons outside! I miss the outdoors but with all the rain and wind, it's far from enjoyable outside yet. I also want to get some of my plants outside. My peas have gone crazy! I need to get them into one of the garden beds soon.
Steve starts vacation tomorrow and we've decided to just hang out around the house for the week and maybe get a yard sale organized for the end of the week - if the weather cooperates. I have so much stuff I need to get rid of - including piles of Beanie Babies! Yes, I fell into the craze long ago and we have loads of them sitting around in bags, needing a good home. Unfortunately, I don't think they retained any value so several have already become Laural's pets. LOL Oh well. I had fun chasing them all down years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment