Spring Cleaning

D and B have been helping mommy spring clean this year, with the help of a little "cleaning kit" I put together for them with items from the dollar store. Yes, it ends up making MORE of a mess for me, but it keeps them occupied for quite a long chunk of time and they have FUN.... so it's all worth it. They proudly show me everything they've wiped, washed, scrubbed, rubbed and dusted when the task at hand has been completed. Ok, now if I could only get them to learn how to do the laundry :)

POETRY (Kindergarten)

The goal of D's poetry lessons will be to learn/memorize six new poems every quarter (9 weeks), copying the poems into a Poetry Journal as part of his copywork for the year, illustrating his work, and reciting each memorized poem either to me or to our family/friends. Knowing D and his refusal to 'perform' for people on demand, I have a feeling it'll consist mainly of him and I reciting the poems together, alone. With any luck, I'll be able to at least use my digital camera to record his recitations. He gets a kick out of watching himself on video, so that *may* work.

I selected poems that I felt he'd connect with, were short in length (most no longer than one stanza), and loosely based on the science topic(s) we'll be studying for that particular week.

Quarter One (Weeks 1-9):
Rain (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Seasons/Weather
March Winds (Mother Goose)~ Seasons/Weather
Time To Rise (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Animals
Little Bo Peep (Mother Goose)~Animals
Forehead, Eyes, Cheeks, Nose, Mouth and Chin
(Mother Goose)~My Body
Wavy Hair (Shel Silverstein)~My Body

Quarter Two (Weeks 10-18):
Singing Time (Rose Fyleman)~Five Senses
My Nose (Dorothy Aldis)~Five Senses
Whole Duty of Children (Robert Louis Stenvenson)~Health/Wellness
Early to Bed (Mother Goose)~Health/Wellness
First Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)~Matter
An Icycle (Mother Goose)~Matter

Quarter Three (Weeks 19-27):
I'm Glad (Robert Louis Stevenson)~The Universe
Star Light, Star Bright (Anonymous)~The Universe
Second Fig (Edna St. Vincent Millay)~Rocks, Soil, Water
If I Had a Brontosaurus (Shel Silverstein)~Rocks, Soil, Water
Tree House (Shel Silverstein)~Plants
Roses Are Red (Mother Goose)~Plants

Quarter Four (Weeks 28-36):
Bees (Mother Goose)~Bugs
Ladybug, Ladybug (Mother Goose)~Bugs
At the Seaside (Robert Louis Stevenson)~Habitats
An Old Silent Pond (Basho)~Habitats
The Little Turtle (Vachel Lindsay)~Nature Study
The Little Turtle (Vachel Lindsay)~Nature Study

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

One World, One Family

The theme for D's Kindergarten year will be "One World, One Family". After weeks of preparation I have finally completed the 'spine' for his curriculum which we will focus everything around. Using the book Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love (Nancy A. Chicola and Eleanor B. English), I created 3-week mini units for each of the countries/realms we will be studying:

Week 1-3: East Asian Realm (China, Japan, Korea)
Week 4-6: Australian Realm (Australia)
Week 7-9: South Asian Realm (India, Pakistan, Nepal)
Week 10-12: Southeast Asian Realm (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines)
Week 13-15: European Realm (France, Italy, England)
Week 16-18: Subsaharan African Realm (Nigeria, Tanzania, Namibia)
Week 19-21: Middle American Realm (Mexico, Puerto Rico)
Week 22-24: Pacific Realm (Hawaii)
Week 25-27: South American Realm (Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru)
Week 28-30: Russian Realm (Russian Core)
Week 31-33: North African/Southwest Asian Realm (Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Mali)
Week 34-36: North American Realm (Canada, Alaska, America)
Summer Study: New Hampshire

Each week we'll have one book that we'll read, map, and do a craft or activity. In addition to this reading, I'll have a collection of related books to read aloud throughout the week to supplement the ideas, themes and geography of the main reading:

Week 1 (China):
Huan Ching and the Golden Fish (Michael Reeser)

Read story. Find China on the globe. Using a wall map, trace China onto a sheet of paper. Color it in and print the name of the country. Activity: Using poster board, colorful tissue paper and ribbons, make a 'Flying Fish' as shown in Discovering World Geography with Books Kids Love.

Supplemental Readings :
Ming Lo Moves the Mountain (Arnold Lobel); Count Your Way Through China (James Haskins and Dennis Hockerman); The Five Chinese Brothers (Claire Huchet Bishop and Kurt Wiese); Tikki Tikki Tembo (Arlene Mosel and Blair Lent); Lon Po Po (Ed Young); The Story About Ping (Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese); Liang and His Magic Brush (Xing Han)

In addition, I aligned our science studies (which also have units scheduled in 3-week blocks) with the geography blocks to the best of my ability so that our science readings and experiments will fit into the social studies themes we are working on at any given time. It's not a perfect combination, but in general it does match up and it'll give us a focus as opposed to feeling scattered. I'm trying to avoid the "Let's do reading, ok now let's do science, ok now social studies" and am striving to make it as cohesive as possible.

Waxing Poetic

B loves to be outside. He's my nature boy. Every morning when I open his shades he asks to go out to play. "Not now, B. It's only 7am" I reply. His first word was "water". He cries whenever it's time to go back inside. D, on the other hand, has a less obvious love of the outdoors. His body often becomes overly sensitive to all the sensory stimulation the out-of-doors provides. It's too cold, too windy, too wet, too muddy, his hat doesn't fit right, he's got the wrong shoes on, his gloves are too big, too small, too tight. While his body is screaming with sensory overload, his sweet little heart longs to be surrounded by nature. He jumps out of bed each morning and stares out his window for awhile, commenting on how blue the sky is or how it looks like a storm is headed our way. He's the first one to suggest going for a walk in the woods, or up the hill to see the horses. He collects rocks and twigs along the way and saves them for weeks after, each treasure latching on to a piece of his soul. He sits quietly on the porch to watch the leaves fall from the trees, and takes notice of the birds and squirrels who visit our birdhouse every morning. He befriends caterpillars and toads, and uses the word "beautiful" to describe the day.

He's got a poetic nature, one that doesn't always rhyme and is sometimes difficult to decipher, but also one that leaves a lasting imprint on anyone who takes the time to understand each carefully chosen word.

Wordless Wednesday

Constructive Boredom

D looked forward to Friday all week, waiting for a playdate with his good friend J. It has been awhile since they've been able to play together and he simply could not wait. By late Thursday night I knew it wasn't going to happen. I was coming down with a horrible cold, and knew by morning I'd feel even worse. Needless to say, he wasn't at all happy with me when I broke the news to him. Instead, we all had a "pajama day" and passed the hours with painting, drawing, stories, and (too many) videos. It's days like this that D seems to be at his most creative. Boredom-bred creativity. His big experiment of the day was to make a handful of boats and surf boards made out of anything he could find~ empty grape juice bottles, popsicle sticks, craft sticks, all with sails made out of either feathers or paper and straws. He was so excited to see if they'd float, so we filled the tub with some water and crossed our fingers as he prepped them all to "set sail". All but one succeeded in floating across the water, and D was ecstatic.

Boredom has also been a blessing for me as well. We're going to use our living room as the "learning room" for homeschooling, and I have been trying to come up with a plan to make the room more user-friendly. It's a room with an odd layout, and we've had trouble making it feel warm and cozy up until now. On a particularly cold, snowy day a few weeks ago, I suddenly found my mind filling with ideas, almost quicker than I could process it all. By the time DH got home from work that night, the room had been completely reorganized. It now has a more useful "flow" to it, and I believe it will serve us well once we begin school this fall. I'll try to remember to post some pictures. I'd really love love love to give the walls some fresh paint, but I'm not sure we're up to adding any more house projects to our already growing "to-do" list. We'll see. I think it would be worth the hassle and would make such a huge difference in giving the room a completed look.