Sunday, November 18, 2012

Sonlight K - Week 10

This week was pretty fun but we had to work some this weekend because a lot of things came up this week (doctor and dentist appointments, surprise trip to Disneyland, fun time with Grandma).  Here are the highlights from our week:

Language:
Munchkin worked on sentence length.  
Here he changed a short sentence (Sam ran.) into a longer sentence (Sam ran fast at the race!)
We discussed how adding descriptive terms to sentences help the reader envision the story better.  After lengthening some sentences and shortening others, Munchkin decided that when he grows up he wants to be a Dad, Author, Illustrator, Knight.  Very cute!

I also gave him a group of words and asked him to sort them into like categories. I thought I might need to help him through this one but he did it all by himself.  I was very impressed!

left to right: body parts, food, animals, men, etc.

History:
We discussed the first explorers and I Munchkin worked on this worksheet while I read.


Munchkin loved this and asked if he could have more of these!





We also discussed how explorers navigated using homemade compasses.  In order to see what it was like, we made our own homemade compass.
we confirmed our experiment by comparing our findings to my husband's phone


Meanwhile, I took this picture of what Ditto worked on one day while Munchkin and I were having school.  I thought it was so cool that he was making such a cute effort to write letters.
Because of this, and after discussing it with a very eager Ditto, I've decided to start Letter of the Week (based on books) activities this Monday.  We're all excited!

Math:
We continued to work on our double facts as well as adding one number facts and adding zero number facts.  Munchkin understands all of these concepts perfectly.

On Friday, he tried to figure out how many different ways he could make the same shape with a different pattern?  This was just the perfect amount of challenge. 

Art:
We finally finished up our Preview Lesson of Meet the Masters.  Dad worked with Munchkin on making his portfolio.   
not part of the preview- a quick lesson on color mixing

On the front is a palette with all of the artists we will be studying this year (including Munchkin's name) and he decided he wanted to paint this picture on the back (a knight on a horse with a knife and a castle in the distance)
Science:
This week we learned about "living things" and cells...
To help cement the information in Munchkin's brain, we made edible cells...
animal cell
plant cell
And watched Magic School Bus Goes Cellular. Not the best video but the boys enjoyed it.

Another day we discussed the "animal world".  I decided to take a different route with this and first discuss vertebrate vs. invertebrate.  We did the activity below to make sure he understood the difference...
Then we watched this video...twice. Great video!

Friday, November 9, 2012

Sonlight K - Week 9

This week we started having chores for both of the boys.  Munchkin has had a chore for a while now (clearing the silverware out of the dishwasher) but this weekend, it was decided that Ditto would also begin to help around the house.

So now, Ditto clears the silverware...
and Munchkin wipes off the guest bathroom counter daily and sweeps the front walkway regularly.  Since we have been discussing "service" this week in our family scripture study, this was a great way to put it into action - serving our families.

Math
Among other things, we used linking cubes to measure the length and width of our office desk...
 Munchkin enjoyed this so much that he wanted to measure our kitchen table...
 We ran out of linking cubes (we only have 100)...
...but we just determined that our table was more than 100 linking cubes long and 56 linking cubes wide.

Although I feel pretty confident in Munchkin having learned his double facts (1+1, 2+2, etc.) I wanted to do one more "fun" activity to cement his understanding and confirm my confidence.  So, this week I read Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hong.  The boys LOVED this book! They requested I re-read it multiple times (at lunch, before naps, at dinner). To make it an active reading, I had Ditto count the pictures and I had Munchkin figure out the doubles.  We also read Double the Ducks by Stuart J. Murphy. I had the boys do the same thing (Ditto - count, Munchkin - double) and then Munchkin completed a few pages from this Double the Ducks Activity Pack.
We also continued working on graphing and graphed a handful of a pattern blocks a few times...


Science
We have been discussing a great deal about our planet this week. To enhance the reading assigned by Sonlight, we read some very enjoyable books.

On Monday, after reading about the destruction of the rainforest, we read The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry. After reading about pollution we read The Berenstain Bears Don't Pollute Anymore. And after we read about the extinction of animals, we read The Hunter and the Animals by Tomie dePaola.  Munchkin really enjoyed each of these books and even though it was a lot of reading it provided a great opportunity for further discussion and understanding of each of these subjects. 

On Tuesday, after reading about global warming (Sonlight assignment), we made these fun earth crafts.
the original idea came from To The Lesson


Munchkin's
Ditto's
They really enjoyed these and worked on them for a very long time.  

On Wednesday, we read about ways we can help our planet and afterward we made a bird-feeder.  

Language
This week, I decided to start Munchkin on writing in a journal. I want him to develop a real love for writing and even though he practices his handwriting daily, I feel free-writing in a journal will allow him to practice without even knowing it.
 After his reading work, we worked on defining the word cab...
...this process really cemented the meaning in his mind (we have read more stories with this word in it as the week went on and he still remembers).

Spelling.
Munchkin has been doing extremely well in spelling. He hasn't misspelled any words yet (granted he is still spelling phonetically spelled words and sometimes writes his letters incorrectly) but this week he advanced to my dictating phrases to him and him spelling them...
...he did well (this provides a great opportunity to work on handwriting and word spacing).

That sums it up for our week!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Sonlight K - Week 8

Among other things, this week we worked on lots of math.

Math
Each day, Saxon Math 1 asks the child to count from 1 to 100. That would be too easy and too boring for Munchkin, so to "spice" things up, I have him use his Montessori Hundreds Board. He has the entire week to work on it and I already noticed that through this process he is beginning to understand number patterns.
He began learning his +1 addition facts. We used our hundred chart and ghost counters to understand the +1 concept...
...and also number cards to understand the +1 concept
Since it is the month of October and the week of Halloween, we used our felt pumpkin and ghost erasers to act out addition stories.
Changing the manipulatives we use definitely keeps his interest.
He continued to work on the double facts. To make things fun (and not just review flashcards) we played this Slides and Ladders game...
 He absolutely loved this game!
After playing this a few times, over multiple days, he got better and better...
The first worksheet he completed, he scored 5 out of 25, next worksheet - 15 out of 25.  (At the time I am posting this - 11/09/12 - he now regularly scores 25 out of 25 on his double facts.)

Art
We also started an Art curriculum as part of Munchkin's kindergarten curriculum.  We are using program called Meet the Masters
This is just the introductory lesson. He was fascinated and is very excited for his dad to complete the lesson by doing the hands-on portion next week. 

Great week!