Where do I begin???

I haven't posted in forever! SORRY. We just learned the sign for sorry today and if you could see me I would be doing that.

We had an awesome day of homeschooling today. I love days like this. After story hour at the library we came home to play for a while. Then we got down to work. Oh and it doesn't matter if its a day that I am not working or a day that I do we don't seem to get down to work until at least 1:30 or later. Thankfully it doesn't take to long to school a kindergartner.

Sam has been working on addition. I have tried to get her to realize if you using the counting blocks that if its 6 + 5 you don't need to count out the 6 then the 5 then count them all. You just have to count starting at 6 then continue counting the next 5 blocks. Today I didn't even bother and there she goes she starts to count the first set of blocks stops herself and says WAIT I can just start at 6 then count the next 5. LOL She was sooo thrilled with herself. We are working on addition being memorized but some of it is and the rest will come in time.

So we are half way through the school year. She has learned a lot. We breezed through the Kindergarten work I got for her so we moved onto first grade work. But now that leads me to a problem... what do I buy for next year? First grade or Second? Well I guess I do have time to figure that one out.

Today we did our phonics and she loves to read to me. She is trying harder and harder words. I am so proud of her. She loves doing word searches which reinforces spelling. She has to keep repeating the spelling of the word to search for it.
Then we moved onto Math Like I posted above she did awesome and went right through it. We were on a roll.

next we moved onto learning some sign language. As a baby and toddler we did sign language and would use it to communicate but she had such a large vocabulary she would sign and say the word it was cute. She remembers some of them so we are trying to learn more.

We then moved onto some fun craft time. we use these packing peanut type things I bought at Benny's. They are called enviroblox. We have been reading the little house on the prairie books and she loves them... so we built a log cabin together and she made 2 people to go with it...The cool thing about these blocks is the clean up... we do a lot of crafts and school paper work that all end up in the recycle bin or the trash. I can't save it all right??? Well when we get sick of looking at this or it falls apart we just run it under water and it dissolves! So of course we had to try that out. LOL it really does.

and finally we did some bible learning. I have these cards that teach little facts about the bible.... so we learned today that kids in the bible times didn't learn at school. You guessed it they learned at home by their parents and if you were a boy you then would go on when your older and be taught by a teacher in a public setting but not a school like we have today. That the children learned things like... manors, about God, about God's laws, and music. Then we learned about making bread of that time... So I got out the flour, yeast and some water and we tried making some pita bread. They tasted good BUT well they didn't look like and their texture wasn't anything like it should have been. But it was fun kneading the dough and shaping the breads. Samantha loved them. Maybe next time I will make sure I buy new yeast the expiration date was 6/2010 I didn't know this until I went to through out the package.

Ok pictures to follow this post. I will try my hardest to update this at least weekly. Its a fun record of all we do if I keep it up.

curriculum...

We have been doing school work through out the summer. Trying to finish up the alphabet. She knows all her letters but I wanted to complete the work sheets on them. She loves doing school work but tires quickly doing the work sheets. Good thing I and opting for a more hands on learning. Well more of a mixture of hands on and book work.

And that brings me to curriculum.... I think I finally got it.....

Math we will be going with Singapore Math. I really like the reviews I read on this one and the samples of it. But until the math curriculum comes in we will be using the math work book called... Everything your kindergarten should know. Just to keep her working on Math. She has been so curious about math even asking me about negative numbers.

Reading I am using a program on the internet called Starfall. With Starfall your able to print out worksheets and little books to go along with the computer work. She has already read one phonics minibook after a few lessons on the computer. She seems to do really good with the online phonics then going to the worksheet.

Science I will be using a Singapore science book. And supplementing with some books we have on our body, our heart, the weather and plants and the 5 senses.

History I will be using the book History for little Pilgrims.

Bible we will be using God and Me a devotional for girls. We have really enjoyed the work we have done in it already. Very practical for little girls.

I hope to be able to do many field trips to places like an art museum, the butterfly zoo, the science museum and so much more. I would like to make her learning as enjoyable as I can. She seems to have a love for learning and I want to keep her loving it.

Summer time fun.....

Wow is the summer really flying by. We have fun this summer along with finishing up the alphabet. It was more a review since she knows all her letters how to write them and their sounds. But I wanted to finish up the worksheets we had before moving on.

This summer has been filled with lots of fun. We had a few play dates with our Mops group. We also went to the beach a few times. Then off to New Hampshire to go camping and see the sites. We went to Loon Mountain, Storyland, Mini golf and Water country. Samantha loved it all. I was amazed at her going in the caves at Loon Mountain. She had so much fun exploring them.

We went to the Ocean Explorium in New Bedford. She touched and held a starfish. Then fed the sea horses. I can't wait to go back when we are working more on the ocean and its creatures

We also have been doing a book reading contest at the mall. So for that we have been going to the library to get books to read. She is loving all the reading we have been doing.

Oh she actually read a book. One of her phonics readers. She needed a little assistance to read some sight words but was able to sound out the rest of the words herself.

We went to a roller skating party. Samantha has never roller skated before. She loved it. Said it was easier then ice skating once she got use to it.

We also went to the replacement for Fall River Celebrates America. The city ran out of funds to put it on. This was much better. It was a family fun fair. Not sure what they called it. But it was all kind of free things for kids to do. She made some paintings and went in the bouncy house. Watched the dance show. Played in the sandbox looking for the treasures they had buried there. Went into the fire departments trailer home to teach about fire safety.... made me realize how relaxed I have been on teacher her that.. Yes we talk about fire safety but since moving in here we never made and escape plan. That is something we will be doing this week.

Sorry :)

Sorry for the lack of posts in May. Its been a busy month but not much to write about. Samantha has continued to work on her letters. She can write them all. We have been also working on numbers. She can do addition and its amazing at how her mind works. She is doing real good with math she can even do the simple math in her head. Summer will be here before we know it and our plan is to finish up with the alphabet and then move on to more kindergarten work. We have completed on workbook with kindergarten work. I also plan on teacher her time and money.

Last week we went to story hour and she got her first library card! She was so excited and has showed everyone that she has it.

Tomorrow she will be in the Memorial day parade. I can't wait she is going to look so adorable.

Sun Flowers....

We planted sunflower seeds on Wednesday and today we saw the first signs of the plant in one of the cups. We planted 7 seeds. Hopefully they all will grow. One seed was realy tiny so we are waiting to see if that one does grow too.

I think I made up my mind.... maybe.....

Fall Curriculum.... the catalogs are all coming in now. I have gone online and ordered a catalog from all the companies that I thought I might like to use. I do think I have it narrowed down. I am leaning towards My Fathers World with some supplementing in history. There is this adorable history book for kindergartners. Its showing them history through a child's eyes about her age. I am excited about starting the new year... yet I am not wanting the summer to be over quickly as we have many fun things planned and its not even the end of spring yet!
My fathers world is a more hands on approach to learning. If I buy the deluxe program it comes with a caterpillar habitat to watch then grow into butterflies. An ant home. And lots more fun hands on learning.

Samantha was looking at the catalogs with me and she seems excited about the things she saw in My Fathers World.

One concern I have is we have been doing kindergarten work and a lot of the curriculum I have looked at will be a lot of reviewing for the first half of the year for her. I know review work isn't bad but when we have been doing this work now for 1 1/2 years it might be too much review for her. I think with My Fathers World the work will be exciting and fun enough that even though its review she wont get bored with it.

So Mommy how do snails have babies???

That was the question she asked me last night. I was stumped I had no idea how they had babies. Well the answer to that question is they lay eggs. But one kind of snail does give live birth. LOL While outside at my sisters house Samantha and Julie were playing in the hard and found about 20 snails. Snails of all sizes. She loved the tiny baby snails. Samantha wanted to take a few of them home. Maybe one day soon we will end up with some snails but for now NO. She wants to know about about snails. So this week we might end up learning some interesting facts about them. Did you know some snails can reproduce by themselves but others have to have a mate? That might be a little to much information for a 5 year old though. LOL Well off to learn more about slimy snails!