Unit 7 in My Father's World Kindergarten-U for Us!

I can't believe I haven't mentioned these awesome YouTube videos before. For years I've used them in my classroom teaching Kindergarten.

Nellie and Ned have a video to go along with each letter of the alphabet. Here's the link for the letter U video.

Sesame Street Podcast also has a video for each letter. We watched the letter U video this week.

Little E learned the letter U this week. She had fun with cuisenaire rods. 

At our co-op class the little girls made animals with shapes. I love how their pictures show developmental progress. Little K just glued random shapes to her paper. Little E made a simple shape animal (it's a bird by the way), and T made a more complex animal (and filled out the rest of the sheet).

This week seemed light and easy. Next week is D for Dinosaur which I'm very excited about! 

Unit 6 in MFW Kindergarten-T for Turtle!

This week in My Father's World Kindergarten reading begins! How exciting! The curriculum definitely kicked up a notch this week.

As always, I found many free printables to go along with the T for Turtle unit:

This ABC Turtle game is adorable and fun to play!

These turtle size sequencing cards from A Moment in Our World would also be good for younger siblings tagging along.

These number turtles are perfect for practicing counting.

This T is for Turtle worksheet would also be good for tag along siblings to begin to recognize the letter T. Little K did one too but insisted that all of the turtles needed to be colored :) Here is Little E showing hers off. She also counted how many turtles were colored in when she was done.

This turtle number matching worksheet is a great addition for this week.

Here are the books we read this week. The Bible focus this week was on persevering. 

Last week I mentioned the girls tie-dyed shirts. This week they wore them to the co-op. They made sun paintings and made bracelets from special UV beads that turn different colors when in the sun. The girls were amazed at these bracelets!  These would have been a perfect activities for the sun unit a few weeks ago.

Next week: U for Us!

Week 5-Scratch That!

We took this week pretty easy. We got the basics done, but not much else. This week I spent a lot of time in prayer and research regarding curriculum. I've read many times that the first few years of homeschooling you really figure yourself, your kids, and your curriculum out. I'm definitely no exception. Bottom line is, some things weren't working for us, and so they had to change. I decided to change MK over to Switched on Schoolhouse. I think (hope) I will love it. I really felt like Easy Peasy was not a great fit for MK. It was difficult for me to monitor her work, and ensure that she was really learning. With SOS I can see all her assignments, when they were completed, and the grade she got on them. It is automatically graded 90% of the time with the exception of essay questions. MK really prefers to work indepently on the computer, and it works well for her to do so. I searched and prayed all week for a curriculum that would fit both her needs and mine and THINK I've finally found it. We'll see. I'm hopeful.

I really wanted geography and cultures to work this year with H and T. I started off with My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures, and then switched to Easy Peasy Geography and Cultures. After 5 weeks I finally admitted that this is just not working for us. I needed to do something else. My main focus with H and T this year is actually the Three R's, but I don't want to throw history out completely. However, it needs to meet certain criteria. It needs to require minimal, if any, research from me (so I can use my time for the core subjects). It needs to be able to be used with both girls, in different grade levels, and it needs to have worksheets/activities already planned out. So, after debating all week on what to do, I finally decided to just go with The Story of the World Volume 3. I chose volume 3 because it's recommend for grades 3-6 (perfect, right?) and because to be perfectly honest, I've never really liked Ancient History, so my first year homeschooling I would prefer to avoid it (Volume 3 is early modern history). We'll get to Ancient History later when I've got this whole homeschooling thing down. Since SOTW is read like a book, we can all sit on the couch to enjoy it, and on the busier weeks we can skip activities from the accompanying activity book if needed. What I'm saying is, there's no pressure to do it all. I needed the pressure off for history, because reading, writing, and arithmetic are my focus with these girls this year. Those come first. History is an added bonus right now.

Now, on the bright side, I am super-de-duper loving Pathway Publishers reading for T. Her reading is improving greatly. It's absolutely the perfect program for her/us. Finding this program didn't come easily though. I first bought Abeka, sold that, and bought Rod and Staff. We got the R&S over summer and T absolutely hated it. So, I went down a grade level in R&S thinking that might help. It didn't. We had been reading one of Pathway Publishers books over summer for review/practice, and I thought (lightbulb moment) why not just go with the entire Pathway Publishers program since she seems to be doing so well with it (ding-ding-ding)!

I've also been around the block with reading curriculum for H. I originally bought Bob Jones Reading 6. I scratched that and got Rod and Staff's A Time to Plant. We used that for a few weeks and we were both extremely bored. My friend told me about Circle C Adventures. It's a series about a 12 year old girl who loves horses and is figuring out her place in the world. The author has free lesson plans and worksheets on her website. We both absolutely love the first book in the series, The Long Ride Home. H actually said said this week that she couldn't wait to find out what happens next. That, my friends, shows me that this series is the right choice for her.

So, onto a new week. I'm loving this homeschooling thing. I know with full certainty that this is exactly where my children and I are supposed to be. I thank God every day.

Oh, we need some pictures, don't we? I don't have too many, but we did go on a field trip to the ice skating rink. 

And check out this awesome art!

See ya next week!

Unit 5 in My Father's World Kindergarten-N for Nest!

Little E is progressing so well through the MFW Kindergarten curriculum. I am so happy that I decided to go with it. This week focused on N for Nest! This weeks math introduced nickels. I expected it to be difficult for Little E to understand that 1 nickel equals 5 cents, just like 5 pennies equals 5 cents, but she caught on so quickly and easily. She loved tracing real money too.

If you haven't already noticed, I really love finding fun things to print out and laminate on TPT. My $20 laminator from Wal-Mart has been one of my best investments. I've had it for a few years now and use it weekly. I found some fun things this week.

This egg and nest number matching game is super cute!

I also found this egg and nest counting sheet. It was a great addition to math this week.

This emergent reader is perfect for little learners! I don't have a picture of this one, but it was Little E's favorite activity of the week. She absolutely loved having her own little book that she could "read" (memorize). She carried it around for 2 days.

This file folder game (though I didn't make it in a file folder) is perfect for learning colors. This would work great for younger tag-along siblings (it was way too easy for Little E but she still had fun with it).

This nest cut and paste activity goes perfectly with this unit!

 Check out these cute nests to use for sorting activities.

I found Abeka 2 year old preschool curriculum at a thrift store this week and will be using it with Little K (when she wants to do school). Have I ever mentioned that I just love thrift stores?

We have officially completed 5 weeks of school! I can't believe it!

Unit 4 of MFW Kindergarten-A for Apple!

In my opinion, MFW Kindergarten is a little light on the math. So, I've been trying to add in hands-on activities that Little E will enjoy that go along with the unit. This week I found a cute apple seed number matching game on TPT.

Little E loved these apple print counting clip cards. I found it helpful to point to the apples and have Little E count them as I pointed and then have her clip the clothespin on the correct number. She absolutely loved using the clothespins. This one was definitely a hit.

I found this cute apple poem finger paint craft that both Little E and Little K were able to do. Little K loves being included.

Both little girls also enjoyed this apple pre-writing worksheet.

For the counting activity that MFW suggests we used these cute apple flashcards.

I've got to admit that we don't do all of the activities in the MFW teacher manual. We do all the phonics and math activities but not all of their extra activities. I go through them and chose the ones I like and find other things I like online. Little E enjoys all the cutting she gets to do.

At our homeschool class this week we made ice cream! The little girls had a blast making (and of course eating) it!

Our week NOT using My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures

 Yes, you read that right! We are no longer using My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. Now, let me say that there is NOTHING wrong with this program. It is a very solid program. However, at the end of the day (well 3 weeks) I had to go with what is going to work for my family during this season. You can read more about what we are now doing here. We are still doing geography and cultures, just a little differently.

So, we have jumped right in and stamped our passports for the United Kingdom this week! As always, I've found some great resources on TPT, including this research project on England and this England PowerPoint presentation.

The girls did a country fact sheet on England, mapped the UK, read about the culture using all the wonderful links on Easy Peasy's website, and got a general overview of the continent of Europe. I picked up a few different atlas' at Goodwill, and I am SO glad I did because each girl can use their own. Plus, different ones have information that other ones don't, so having a few makes it pretty well rounded. Buy all the atlas'!

 Easy Peasy has Around the World in 80 Days scheduled into their daily lessons. We read the first two chapters and got over it very quickly. I couldn't get into it, and neither could the girls, so we scratched that off the list. We are also not doing the online games that Easy Peasy has linked. However, the links to many different websites for each country is great! So we are "loosely" following Easy Peasy, but as always, I do my own thing as well. It must be the teacher in me.

They also created this awesome art at their art class. 

 It was a short week due to the holiday (only 3 days of actual school plus our co-op day), but we somehow managed to get everything squeezed in. Next week we are off to Greece and Norway!