Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Selected Beginning Curriculum

Phonics and Reading Curriculum
Math Curriculum


Yesterday, we purchased our curriculum for the beginning of kindergarten. I looked at several choices from Lifepac, Saxon Math, Our Father's World, Horizons and Son Light. These are the conclusions I came to based on Micah's needs. (Your child will have different needs)

Lifepac and Saxon: moderately expensive with limited hands on lessons
Son Light: great reviews, very expensive with all materials included
Our Father's World: Themed curriculum, hands-on, reasonably priced, geared toward kinders that need to learn letters, numbers, colors... (Micah was past this point or I would have enjoyed this)
Horizons: moderately expensive, but can purchase the work books separately :)

I finally decided on the Horizons workbooks separately ($16.00 at Mardel) and Math K5 worktext by BJU press ($19.99 at Mardel) because I could always add the hands-on activity with the work page. We didn't really want to pay $400+ for Son Light. We may choose this option when we get into the higher grades, but for now I don't need the books and materials because I already have most of them.

Please note that these two curriculum books that I purchased are only the workbooks because it is cheaper. I'm adding the hands-on activities and manipulatives to go with them. For example, today we are doing comparing weight. Micah and I will go get on our digital scale and compare our weights. We will also use the balance scale I already have and put items of differing weight in to watch the scale and see which item "weighs more". It isn't hard think up some "activity" to go along with your work page.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Dollar Store Fall Bulletin Board

A new season is coming up. A great way to introduce a new season is through a festive bulletin board to lovingly display your child's work. The Dollar Tree has fall bulletin board decorations. This cost $3. The banner, boarder and cut outs are sold for a dollar a piece. The extra cut outs that come in the packages can me used for art projects later when your child is doing fall art work. :)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Cypress Home School Association-Preschool Too!

http://cypresshomeschool.org/

We went to the Cypress Home School Association Open House last night. It was awesome!! Membership is $30 dollars for the year which is very cheap in my opinion. They have a free co-op that we signed up for on Mondays. Micah will be taking Science, Galloping the Globe and Performing Arts from 9-12 every Monday with other children. They had many other different kinds of classes to choose from but they fill up quick. They also do 2 field trips a month to really interesting places. There were tons of booths of various different groups that offer activities for homeschool children: Spanish, Piano, Karate, Gymnastics, Etiquette, PE and Girl Scouts. There were also booths about their Preschool program and festivals/events. Check it out!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

School Bus Art

http://www.frontiernet.net/~goofis1/Images/School/SchoolBus4.jpg

Today Micah made a yellow school bus and we talked about different kinds of transportation people use to get around. I used the picture above and cut out the bus and windows. Then I let Micah trace around the bus and windows on yellow construction paper. He then cut out the bus (I helped with the windows). Good fine motor work with cutting and tracing. Later he colored the wheels with a black marker and we glued cut sandwich baggie plastic for the window glass. I let him sound out bus to write on it.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Science-Peep and the Big Wide World

I used Peep to help teach science to my kindergartners and they loved it. Micah loves watching them too. Peep and his friends are always learning about some kind of science or math skill. The shows are specifically written with this purpose in mind. In the video section, they have rotating videos streaming for free with corresponding activities related to the videos in the activity section. Tomorrow we are going to learn about measuring time. We will watch "Finding Time" in the video section, do the recommended activity and then play the free online measurement game at the bottom! Free science/ math curriculum :)

http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/activities/measuretime.html

Blank Weather Graph

We graph the weather everyday. This is one of the quickest ways you can teach your child about graphing and comparing amounts. Think words like most, least and same.

http://www.teachervision.fen.com/tv/printables/orange/ss-102.pdf

Back to School Page

Today Micah water colored a school picture since we are talking about going to school this week.

http://www.coloring-pages-kids.com/coloring-pages/educational-coloring-pages/school-coloring-pages/school-coloring-pages-images/school-coloring-page-18.gif