Penguins!

We were doing so well zipping right through Katie's Kindergarten lessons (2 full units/lessons per week)...until... PENGUINS!!!  The girls LOVES her penguins!  I saw it coming and planned for it.  I found materials to use for a lapbook, all about... you guessed it... Penguins!  Big Sis wants to do one too, so I have material at her level too.  Why not?  They both love to create and lapbooking has proven itself over and over in our family.  I think my kids have learned more from constructing their lapbooks over the years (and similar projects) than from anything else.  So we've taken a little detour from our studies in Europe (ECC) but we'll get back on track soon.  And it just happens to be Penguin Days at our local zoo, so we will be taking a field trip there soon (this week, if it stops raining!).  There is a penguin parade outside two times every day and activities on weekends through February.  We are really looking forward to going!

Flash Card & Story Organization

In an attempt to keep all of our Kindergarten flash cards and stories organized, I'm using this 3x5 index card file box I found at Staples for $1.49. I'll make all the cards 3x5 so they fit perfectly and once the stories are cut & stapled, they fit well also. I plan to put clear contact paper on both sides of the flash cards for durability. I set up a template on the computer that will fit 4 3x5 cards on each page. So I'll print each page (with words), trim only the outer edges, cover both sides with contact paper, and then cut apart each card. Yes, I know it sounds like a lot of work. But, this can be done while I'm watching TV at night and I enjoy doing these things, so it's not a big deal for me. If I had neater handwriting, I would just print the words on blank index cards and be done. I'm more gifted at typing! One of these days, I'll post my templates to share. Maybe I can save someone else the time making them.

Flash Cards for MFW Kindergarten (Part 2)

Funny how things have a way of working themselves out. Had I read ahead in our curriculum, there would not have been a need for my last post and wondering about making flash cards.  Here's the deal.

Today, Katie read her first short story - from the Kindergarten curriculum. How exciting!!! The part I wish I had read ahead is the suggestion in the TM to make flash cards (Ha!) ahead of time with all the words appearing in the story so that your child becomes familiar with them before she starts to read. Well there you go!  If any of you were wondering the same thing, there's your answer. The stories begin in WEEK 15, so prepare yourself. Please don't follow in my footsteps that lead down the road of uncertainty and poor planning!  Read ahead and make the flash cards 2-3 (or more) weeks ahead so that your child can start practicing.  Thankfully, Katie did fine.  I'm so proud of her!  However, I am working on making flash cards for all future stories so that we'll have them ready.  I'm thinking about turning them into ring cards or getting an index card binder for them so that we can easily transport them for use in the car or wherever we might have an opportunity to pull them out.  And I'm trying to decide if I should color-code the cards for each story to help me keep them organized better.

Flash Cards for MFW Kindergarten

Has anyone ever come across (or made) flash cards for the short vowel words in the lessons?  I'm wondering if flash cards would help my daughter to grasp reading.  I've heard & read two schools of thought about reading.  One belief is that it is wise to have the child phonetically say words she doesn't know while reading.  The other belief is that it's best to just tell the child the word with which they are struggling.  Being that my daughter is not reading even simple stories yet, neither of these beliefs apply just yet.  However, when she struggles with sounding out the short vowel words, she becomes frustrated after getting it wrong after a few tries.  So, I'm thinking of combining the two schools of thought on reading by asking her to sound out each letter and try to blend them together.  If, after that, she is still struggling, I'll tell her the word slowly while showing her the letter of each sound that is in the word.  The last thing I want is for her to despise reading.  She wants to learn right now and I don't want to spoil that.

Does anyone have any thoughts you might share?

Things Made from a Cow

Ok, so I'm not always a rule follower!  Instead of making a chart as suggested by MFW-K, we made a small poster with glued-on images found on the internet.  The cow was a coloring page that Katie colored, cut out and glued to the green cardstock.  The other images (milk, cheese, butter, leather, yogurt, ice cream) were printed in color and she cut them out and glued them around the cow.  It's very colorful and was fun to do.

Later on (in her free time), Katie was making her own drawing of things made from cows.  How cute is that?  She really enjoyed this activity.

From Cows to Cream...to Butter!

We shook heavy whipping cream into butter and spread it on crackers for a nice little snack. Yum! We've done this before but it's been quite a while. It's a very easy experiment and lots of fun!

MFW Kindergarten Phonics

We are using this curriculum with our youngest daughter (age 6).  We waited until the end of our last school year to start her in K because she wasn't quite ready until then.  We are starting week 12 this week and we're working on phonics.  My question is, should I make flash cards/ring cards with the words she's learning on the workbook pages each week?  Some of them are names, are the rest of them site words? 

She really wants to learn how to read, but can't learn it all at once!  She gets frustrated with phonics at times, so I don't want to push to the point where she'll hate to read.  I have a big book of Dick and Jane stories.  Any thoughts on using this with our curriculum?

When we read, I move my finger along the words and sometimes she tries to say some of the words and other times she asks me to stop doing that so that she can just look at the pictures.  Does anyone have any insight to offer?  At this point, should I be teaching her site words or wait until we get to first grade?  Should I just stick with the curriculum or add the to it???

I-i-insect Badge

Katie's current letter is I/i so she made an insect badge - a ladybug, to be specific.  I was excited to use some of my stamping/scrapbooking supplies that are collecting dust right now from lack of use!  Anyway, she used a large circle punch to punch out a black circle.  Then used a slightly smaller circle punch to punch out a red circle, which I helped her cut in half.  She glued the two red circle halves onto the black circle to look like opened wings.  Then, she punched small black circles to place on the ladybug.  She drew eyes (which even have eyelashes!) and I helped her cut out antennas and then she glued the whole thing onto "grass" (a green piece of cardstock).  I wrote the lesson phrase on the green paper.  It turned out so cute!

Some of What We've Done So Far...

I haven't been great about posting pictures...or taking pictures for that matter! I'm trying to improve. I like to keep a picture record of what we do. Especially since many of our art projects end up destroyed. It saves so much space to have a photo of some of them rather than keeping them all!

Hard at work...

Park Day:

Matthew bookmark from Week 3:

Indian Sand Painting from Week 3:

D-D-Dinosaur

Lesson 8 in MFW K was on the letter Dd. To make the alphabet letter matching game a little more fun, we shaped it into a dinosaur. Ok, ok, so in the picture, it looks more like a dog, but I assure you that each time we laid the cards out, the figure got better! Katie got a big kick out of it, giggling as usual!


She also sculpted these lovely clay dinosaurs. They are now extinct...hee hee. The wooden dino holding the card up is a wooden puzzle that came from Michael's Craft Store.