Reading: We're reviewing McRuffy K readers. He picked out Fuzz The Yak to read this week, one of his favorites. It was good to review the old days when all vowels were short and easy.
Handwriting: We're putting some extra time into practicing writing letters in more detail with a fun workbook called Handwriting Help For Kids. Although he knows how to write all the letters, he still makes some mistakes mixing up straight and angled lines. This book has a fun story for each letter how to write it. The letters are grouped by similarities, so we call them by their families. This week we practiced capital letters. We started with the 'Down and Bump' Family, which is D, B, P, and R. The R story was the favorite; 'draw down, hop to the top, small bump, kick out your leg!'. This book is helping make it easy and fun to remember how to write letters properly. I plan on starting with this book next time! We also tried out wide rule lined paper instead of kindergarten paper, and that seems to be much easier for him to write letters smaller.
Math: We did lessons 141-148. Since reading was just review this week, we did more than one math lesson per day. We practiced vertical addition and subtraction, representing numbers with shapes, skip counting, similarities and differences in attributes, and reviewed reading and writing time to the hour and the commutative property of addition with shapes ( 1+2=*+1, *=2). We learned about dividing in half in two equal parts.
We'll be starting 1st grade reading and math in April. I'm previewing everything right now and it looks like a very fun and action packed year of learning. Most kids his age would be starting 1st grade this fall or next fall depending on readiness, since he has a late birthday. So we are going ahead of the game! Thank you to everyone who is supporting us!
Hi Christina,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to check out a program called "Handwriting without Tears" as a back-up or supplement to the one you're using. It's one my daughter uses with the children she works with (she's an occupational therapist), and it works really well.
I love reading your blog, and have forwarded it to my daugther, Laura, who teaches high school. She has many friends who are home-schooling their kids, and has forwarded it to them as well. You have lots of "secret admirers".
Lynda