Kindergarten Learning

This post is a part of the Preschool & Kindergarten Corner.

Overall, there was not real ‘theme’ this past week other than working on pieces of our core curriculum. We still read books and had fun – just not based around a specific book theme.  Here’s a little look at what we’re doing together.

Learning with Unifex Cubes

Kaleb is really enjoying the Calendar Notebook printables that I put together for him. He really wanted to do the ‘What adds up to 100?’ problem on one of the pages {because two siblings are doing it also} and that’s given us a great reason to use our unifex cubes each day and practice counting by 10’s.

We pull out 100 unifex cubes that are in sets of 10 and then he puts aside the number for the day of school we are on. For example, if it’s the 12th day of school, he puts aside one set of 10 blocks and then pops 2 off another set. He then gets to count the remaining sets by 10 and add the number of remaining 8 blocks to get 88. The hands-on visual has been helping him better understand the 10’s and 1’s places too – so yay!

We’ve also moved our calendar pocket chart over closer to Kaleb’s desk so that he and I can work on that together each morning as a part of his math time. He loves being able to pick the pattern for the month and have it be ‘his’.

Reading Time

So far we’re just reviewing a few of the lessons from All About Reading Level 1, but Kaleb is wanting to read, read, read!

One thing that I love about the readers from All About Reading is the pictures do not predict the text for the kids. That means certain little boys can’t try to ‘guess’ the text and have to focus on the actual words and really read. Although the pictures do go along with the text and make sense, kids don’t skip over the text. Love that. {and pssst – there is a $50 gift card giveaway to All About Learning Press that ends today!}

Handwriting on the iPad

We’re using Handwriting without Tears this year and I was VERY excited when they released a new Handwriting Without Tears iPad app that is so very much like the chalkboard you use with the program.

Kaleb first writes the letter with chalk, cleans it with a ‘wet’ sponge, and then dries it off to finish it up. Each letter has him go through several times in order to master it. Occasionally he gets frustrated because it REALLY makes sure he does it correct, but that {in my book} is great. He works a day in his workbook and the next day works on the iPad doing a new letter and reviewing one he’s already finished.

Fun & Learning Time

Slowly but surely I’ve been filling up an idea jar with slips of paper that list fun things we have in our schoolroom that Kaleb can do when he is finished with school {or has a break in his day}. I modified how Ami from Walking by the Way put hers together, but the inspiration came from her!  

Wedgits are one of Kaleb’s favorite things to play with {we have the Wedgits Starter Tote and the Teacher’s Activity Guide}. This week I may have fixed the jar and let him play with them a bit more than usual – shhh! He absolutely loves them, so it was all good.

In other subjects, we’re learning poems with First Language Lessons 1 and having fun learning about our bodies with Science K.

That’s a quick look at our week – what have you been up to?

Additional Preschool Links

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Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

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Grapevine Studies ~ effective and easy-to-use Bible curriculum for ages 5 to adult

Red Wagon Tutorials ~ online live feed, online recorded and DVD science classes for grades 7-12