Kindergarten
I feel like I've been getting a lot of questions lately about where Monkey and Bug go to school or, if the person knows we homeschool, what curriculum we're doing. I never really have a good answer for the latter. My answer, "Well, I have a phonics book we're doing, and a playgroup we're in, but mostly I just let them do their own thing, . . ." Isn't exactly an accurate description of how much I think they're learning and always leaves me feeling just a bit guilty that I don't have more intentional activities with them. So, this week I decided to look up the education standards for kindergarten--just to see what I really needed to teach them in the future--and, boy, do I feel validated! They are well into the kindergarten material for math and language arts, and they've all but completed the science standards (I still need to go through the standards for social studies, fine arts, and health & PE).

In light of these findings, I've started a new method of record keeping (don't worry the blog will continue). I now have a binder, divided by subject. Each section includes the list of standards, a list of resources they girls have been using to complete the standards, and whatever else I feel I need to keep in there (the language arts section, for example, includes several suggested reading lists for kindergartners I've run across). I love this blog as a creative outlet for me that lets family keep tabs on us, and as a weekly rundown of their activities and progress. The binder gives me a bigger picture of what they've learned, what we need to work on, and how we're going about it. Also, I can now tell people, "Well, we follow the [ABC] standards using the resources that work best for my kids for different subjects." So, here's what they've been up to this week:


Library Day
Still no storytime (but it starts up again next week!). We sat on cushions in the kids' section and read lots of books, and the entourage chose to bring these home:
Oregon's Journey
Truman's Aunt Farm
A Ball for Daisy
My Little Car / Mi Carrito
Brave Charlotte and the Wolves
Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit
Four Seasons Make a Year

"This month is confused!"
Said Bug this week when the weather went from almost 80 degrees one day to 30 degrees two days later! Perhaps compounding the confusion for the girls is that we've been talking about the passage of time alot--using clocks, their calendar, and books about seasons. They know from books and the calendar that January is winter, not spring, but they spent an afternoon this week looking for all the signs of spring in our yard--flowers on the shrubs, new grass and weeds in the backyard, etc. They asked when we're going to go to the beach. Then, two days later they ask if it's going to snow. It's one of those weeks when I'm actually glad I'm not one of those moms who's organized enough to have all the summer clothes put away.


Pet Rocks
The girls discovered a bag of polished stones in the craft drawer this week and created a whole menagerie of pet rocks. They also discovered that they were using washable markers, so they could change how their pets looked, and this project kept them occupied for quite a while. Not to mention how much fun they've had counting and sorting them, putting them to bed, etc.

Reading
Last week's practice in sounding out particularly helped Bug this week. She's been much more confident in tackling new words and reads a new sentence or two almost everyday. She's also added the sounds n and f. Monkey continues to need more reinforcement of the sounding out concept, but she succeeded several times this week in sounding out words all by herself and even read another sentence or two.

Math
This week I restarted being more intentional about practicing counting with the girls. Goose has almost conquered reciting 1-10 (she still forgets about the number 6), but it's mostly Bug who's been practicing with her. Monkey and Bug are confident up to 15, and we're working on sorting out the last few teens. I've also started teaching them to count by tens. They understand that the numbers go 1-9 then start over, but they can never remember what number prefix comes next. Using an abacus, a menagerie of pet rocks, dried beans, and toothpicks we also verified that they are capable of adding and subtracting using manipulatives (keeping all our numbers smaller than 15, of course), and can even solve problems like: Given a set of rocks, how many more do they need to make 10?

When they were done counting, they got got out the playdough.
The addition of toothpicks and beans made for some neat creations!

States of Matter
I'm not sure what initiated it, but Monkey and Bug have been very focused on sorting out solids, liquids, and gases. They've been going through the house finding samples of each, but my original definitions fell short, since Bug was quite convinced that a blanket was a liquid. We cleared things up by first reading from a lesson about liquids on Chem4Kids.com, watching a kids' music video of They Might Be Giants singing "Solid, Liquid, Gas," and finally applying the definition first hand by pouring water into a container and then attempting to pour a blanket and seeing a that while the water filled up every space, the blanket did not. Next we followed water through all three states: we filled a small container with water and put it in the freezer; we checked on it periodically until it turned into ice; then popped it out into a saucepan, melted it to liquid again, and boiled it away to steam. Then Bug proposed her own experiment to figure out how many glasses of water it would take to fill the container. She kept track of her results by writing tally marks on a piece of paper.

Opposites
All three girls have been obsessed with opposites this week. For Goose this means enacting them: up/down, in/out, on/off, etc. with potentially annoying results like when she decides to illustrate on/off with the reading light I'm attempting use. (In that case, she learned that being considerate of others takes priority over practicing fascinating new concepts.) For Monkey and Bug, the obsession means coming up with endless lists of opposite and trying to sort out that things like light and dark are considered opposites, while table and chair are not.