Yes, I am counting down the days until we are done with kindergarten!  ha ha  It appears we took way too many days off in the winter, so I am trying to finish up before NEXT WINTER!  ha ha

Today B worked on handwriting (concentrating on lowercase l and m), learned a new nursery rhyme ("See-Saw, Margery Daw"), and did some reading from SOTW.  We also read from "Dance, Sing, Remember", which is a book on Jewish holidays.  There are some activities and recipes in the book that I might have to look twice at.  He is ALWAYS excited to do some hands-on learning!

At Lakeside Learning Garden, I picked up a cheapy manipulative clock and B just loves it!  I didn't even plan on getting it out today, but he picked it up and said, "Can we do this first?"

I told him I hadn't planned on working on that today, but if he wanted to....

"I do!" 

He still doesn't get it....  but he is gaining bits and pieces.  He seems to remember now that the little hand stands for hours, and the big hand stands for minutes.  After that, he gets pretty lost!  ha ha 

After having several days off from school, we definitely managed to 'catch up'.

B learned three new sight words: like, must, be

We read The Three Princes, and re-read The First Sumerian Dictator (from Story of the World).  He colored a blackline map of Akkadia, a picture of Sargon, and also did a Sumerian Inventions word search (which he whined about).

He got Oh, The Places You'll Go for his birthday, so we read that as well.  LOVE IT! 

He also got Duel Masters battle cards, so we attempted to figure out how to play ....  I'm still lost!  B told me to "look online."  Apparently he thinks that is the answer to everything!  ha ha 

We had a mini-Spanish lesson at a Mexican resaurant, too!  ha ha  B (and DH) wants a sombrero! 

My son turned 6 years old today!!!!

While shopping at Border's for a birthday gift for my brother, I stumbled upon a big book on ancient Egypt.  It is rather dull, but has a lot of black and white images in it, and it was on sale for less than four bucks!  WOOHOO!  We aren't studying Egypt any longer, but I am sure the book will come in handy in the future!

What a fun day!  We just did fun Valentine activities.  Here are some pictures of B doing a pattern worksheet.  It was too easy, but he enjoyed doing it.  ha ha

B only has 58 more days of kindergarten!  Where has the time gone? 

Today was short, but fun!  After working on handwriting, and new sight words (have, four, at), we went through the book Critter Contest.  It is from Discovery Toys, and has a cool tape measure attached.  B had a blast measuring the different bugs and the contests they competed in.  Now he is measuring our rabbits!  ha ha

I have been busy all week working on a research paper, so homeschool has been put on the back burner once again.....  Today, though, B learned a new nursery rhyme, practiced his sight word flash cards, and did a skip-counting worksheet.

For fun, we also made valentines!!!!

B's is the one on the right, although we worked together on both of them.

Thursday was our monthly Home School Support Group meeting.  The kids did show and tell before leaving us adults alone to chat.

B chose to talk about The Nutcracker.  I was impressed!!!!!!!!  He did such a professional job!

He started out like this: 

"I'm B.  I got two nutcrackers for Christmas.  I left one at home and I brought one.  Does anyone know what a ballet is?"

(a few nods, then "I've never been to a ballet.")

And then he proceeded to tell all about a ballet and all about The Nutcracker ballet!  It was just too cute!

I just LOVE the start of a new month!

Ah, we got up early and were done with school by noon!  Woohoo!

After reviewing his sight word flash cards (with NO mistakes!), we read "Mozart Finds a Melody" again, then a bit out of the old version of "What Your 1st Grader Needs To Know".  It was a section on Classical Music, which discussed Mozart and had a few pictures of him.  We listened to German Dance No. 3 again (it's only 2 minutes long), and then Divertimento in D:  Menuetto. 

Then to our lesson on BEAVERS!  We read the page from our Animal Encyclopedia and then a couple non-fiction books.  He narrated to me what he remembered, and I wrote it down for my notebook.  We also read "Bravo, Brave Beavers!"  (Not very educational, but a fun story.)  Our school day ended with B making a Beaver face out of circles and squares.  I just HAD to include pictures!! ha ha

I picked up this book at the library and found it very helpful!  "Making the Grade  Everything Your Kindergartner Needs to Know" by Daniel A. Van Beek.

I scanned a few worksheets from it onto the computer.  They were about recognizing patterns (math).  I printed them out, and had B do them.  He had fun, and I was pleased to find a new resource - FREE!

After a page of Explode the Code, we read "Bach's Big Adventure" and listened to Air for the G String.  We talked about how soothing and relaxing the music was. 

January has been our month for music!  Yesterday B watched a video of a puppet show version of Peter and the Wolf.  Afterwards, we checked out this website:  http://www.philtulga.com/Peter.html  There we listened to each character's "theme" and were able to see the type of instrument used for each one.

Today we read the book Mozart Finds a Melody by Stephen Costanza, and then listened to German Dance No. 3 (by Mozart). 

He is also doing well with his Doltch sight words.  I am adding 3-5 new words each week.  Right now the only one he is having trouble with is "where". 

We even grappled with some Explode the Code (Book 2) today.  We haven't touched it in several weeks, but he did well!  We are on Lesson 6 - with beginning consonant blends:  st, sw, tw.

I knew that my knowledge of platypuses was limited, but I truly learned a lot today! 

Obviously a platypus is a monotreme (mammal that lays eggs).  They feed their babies milk.  Again, obviously.  However, the females do not have nipples!  They have patches of skin that "ooze" milk.  The babies lap up the milk from the mother's fur! 

And the male platypuses have poisonous spurs on their hind feet.  All news to me! 

B really liked the books we read.  One was an easy-reader, so we read it together which is a great way to 'kill two birds with one stone'!!!!!  (Reading practice, and science all in one!)

Here is a picture of the underwater diorama we made:

This week in science:  The platypus.

Just the basics:  going to read a few books, make a diorama, nothing special.  I'll try to post a pic when he is done.

My son is not the brightest child....  I have been trying to find FUN ways to teach him BORING things.

Skip-counting is my current obsession.  We practiced counting by 2s this week by tossing a beany toy back and forth as we counted.  He had a blast, but didn't quite grasp the concept as much as I had hoped. 

In an effort to further his understanding, I am up at nearly midnight, cutting out construction paper circles and triangles.  These will be balloons and party hats for him to "sell".  The idea is that each "grocery bag" (also construction paper) can hold exactly 10 items.  No more, no less.  But delivering items in sets of 10s (with any left-overs delivered as individual units), hopefully he will grasp counting by 10s. 

Either way, at least he'll have fun. 

http://www.websudoku.com/

Sudoku is this "new craze"!  It is similar to doing a crossword puzzle, only with numbers.  My husband and I are in love with these games!!!  Great for working your mind!  Have your older kids give them a try!!!!  (Let me know what you think!)

UGH!  I had planned to read my son all of The Chronicles of Narnia books when he got a little bit older, as these were favorites of mine and my husband's growing up.  We even have two of the Focus on the Family CD dramatizations that B just loves to listen to on long car rides.

However, with all the publicity this new movie version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is getting....I felt I couldn't hold him away from them any longer. 

We just started reading The Magician's Nephew, which is actually one he has listened to on CD already.  I promised him that after we read this one and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe we will see the movie.  I just hope his biological father doesn't take him to see it in the theaters before then. 

Did I say UGH yet??? UGH!!!

We did our Reindeer unit today!!  B loved it!

My final exams are this week....and as I have been studying Plato, Aristotle, and Pirsig.....homeschooling has been stuck on the back-burner.

However, I have been PLANNING for next week's homeschool activities.  Our animal that we will study for science is the Reindeer/Caribou.  I have several books waiting for me at the library, and all the ingredients to make Reindeer cookies, and even a craft project planned.

I'm sure he will have a blast doing it.  But I have just been too busy to get started.

I had completely forgot to tell you all about our Nutcracker experience!!!

I don't know a lot about music, but I want my son's education to be well-rounded...so I happened upon a music video at the library that used traditional and jazz versions of music from The Nutcracker.  We watched the video, and also checked out a computer game about The Nutcracker music.  The game was a little over B's head, but DH liked it!  ha ha  We read the story of The Nutcracker, also. 

We got lucky, and the local ballet group was doing The Nutcracker, and we bought tickets to that as well.  We saw the performance last weekend, and really enjoyed it. It was all three of our first ballet...so we didn't 100% know what to expect.  But the music was great (recorded, no orchestra), and the costumes were beautiful!  We all had a good time.  It was "educational" but fun. I don't think B even realized all the Nutcracker things were considered "school work"!  ha ha