Great Kindergarten Resource!

I am researching curriculum options for my to-be homeschool Kindergarten student. One thing I know we will be doing for certain is Five In A Row. Both of my children do almost all of their learning through reading and being read - to. So, this literature based curriculum is right up my son's alley, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if my soon to be nine year old gets a lot out of it, too. So far, the expenditure for this has been $35! (Well, I confess I did have a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble for several of the story books.)

Something my son has been doing in his preschool this year is writing his letters and numbers. I want this to continue, because he needs work in that area. He reads very confidently and can do simple addition and subtraction, so we don't need to focus a lot on those things just yet. His teachers send home pages to write letters, etc... and I decided I would visit the website they come from. It is a site where you need to register, but everything is FREE. So, head on over to Learning Page! There are printables for all of the letters and numbers, and even cute units on money, time, math, oceans, space, etc... I think we will get quite a few things from this resource next school year.

I am also stocking up on art supplies for next year: lots of googly eyes, feathers, foam squares, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, stamp pads, paints. Wow - I just love the Dollar Tree! They even had Planet Earth animal coloring books for $1. My son loves to color, so these will be great.

My plan for Kindergarten is pretty simple. I want to read read read. I want my son to read read read. I also would like to expose him to as much of God's creation as I possibly can and talk about it all along the way. Add in getting better at writing his numbers and letters and I think we're about set! :-)

Library Loot

We go to the library once every week or so. Last week when we made our visit, I will admit we were in a bit of a hurry. So, my daughter hurried to see if the LAST Harry Potter book was in. Hooray! She is already half-way through after just a few days. My son went to every shelf pulling out "reader books" and I went behind him putting some away and stashing many others into our bag. I also take some time each week and pick out beautiful picture books that I think both my 8 and 5 year old would enjoy. One that caught my eye this week was "Basho and The Fox", by Tim Myers.

I love it when we get home and read through most of the books in our bag! "Basho and the Fox" was really neat, though. It is a book that teaches children about Haiku, and about one of its greatest masters, Basho, who lived in Japan in the 1600s. The book was not only illustrated beautifully, but the story just had a way of drawing my children in - and leaving them trying to make their own Haiku afterwards. (For my daughter this was fairly easy, but my son doesn't quite understand the concept of syllables yet, so it was a little harder!). While this didn't really fit in with any of our specific curriculum for the week, it certainly was a welcome addition. We sat at the lunch table, eating our peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and talking about haiku. I really LOVE homeschooling!

In doing a little bit of research for this post I found a lesson online to go along with the book. I may diverge a little this week and try it out - or we may just read the book a few more times and leave it at that. Whatever the case, I love my public library and the treasures it holds!

Mothers

I am so blessed to have an amazing mother - one who has always been my best friend, encourager and supporter. I hope that my children will say the same thing about me one day. The sermon this morning was about loving your children "just because they showed up". Wow. That will stick with me for a while. Some days (especially since we have started homeschooling) I tend to get frustrated and short with my kids. I am ashamed to say I have even had days when I think how much I could get done if I didn't have to worry about these kids.

God has given me two precious gifts - my daughter and son. They look to me for everything now. That is an awesome responsibility, but one I am happy to have. I hope that through our homeschooling journey we will grow closer and this closeness will pass from generation to generation. That's how it has been in my family, and in my husband's family, too.

Happy Mother's Day!