P is for Penguin

Memory Work:
I show love to everyone, especially my family.

Bible Verses:
Romans 12:10
Philippians 2:3-4

I am already a week behind on blogging, but I had to share our penguin craft because it turned out super duper cute.

1.  Start with a lunch-sized paper sack.  Fill the bag with old newspaper (I filled mine with plastic Wal-Mart bags).  Fold the corners of the sack together and staple closed.

2.  Paint the bag black.  Or, if you prefer not to make a huge mess, you can start with a black sack.

3.  Using white construction paper, cut out eyes and an oval stomach.  Using orange construction paper, cut out the beak and feet.  Using black construction paper cut out face, tail and wings.

4.  Glue the stomach on first.  Then glue the face on over the staples.  Glue feet, beak, and wings on last.

This was super fun and your little ones and can join in too!

We also watched March of the Penguins.  It is really good and even though it is a documentary, Liberty really enjoyed it.  We also watched Surfs Up for fun :).

H is for Horse

Memory Work:

"I obey right away"

Bible Verses

Colossians 3:20

Luke 2:51

James 1:22

I hope I'm not the only homeschool mom who has had a difficult time getting back into the swing of things after the holidays!  The first week back was great, the second...um, not so much, and now I finally feel like we are back on track.  It doesn't help that the weather has been horrible and public schools have been cancelled several times over the past couple of weeks.  However, during our Horse unit, we did have a break in the weather and we headed out to the zoo to check out the Zebras.  Our zoo has two types of zebras.  This is the more common Zebra.  you can tell because its stripes are wider on its bottom.  We also learned the answer to the age-old question "Is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes?"  They are white with black stripes!

I really wanted to take Liberty to some stables to see how horses are cared for and some of the jobs horses perform; however, the weather didn't cooperate.  I was also disappointed that I couldn't find a decent lapbook on horses.  I started to put one of my own together, but didn't manage to get it finished.  I think I will keep working on it and share it later!

We watched two movies about horses:  Spirit: The Stallion of the Cimmaron and Black Beauty.  I have to admit I liked Spirit better :).  Black Beauty was unbeliveably sad.  Since I didn't read the book as a child, I was completely unaware that it was such a sad story.  Liberty liked it though.  I did like how it depicted horses in many different roles.

Liberty also created this wonderful little model of a horse.  She used homemade soft clay, which made it a little more tricky.  We will definitely use modeling clay for such detailed endeavors in the future.  She is such a perfectionist.  It is very difficult to for me to keep her motivated and working if everything doesn't turn out exactly perfect the first time.  I try to encourage her and tell her that no artist creates a perfect sculpture or drawing the very first time--they continue to work and work until its what they envisioned.  This doesn't always work, but this time she did manage to finish her little horse.  I think it turned out great!

I is for Insect

Memory Work

"I am a wise child, so I work hard."

Bible Verses

Proverbs 6:6-9

Proverbs 10:4-5

Colossians 3:23-24

So, we are back up and running after the holidays.  I have to admit that I really enjoyed lounging around and not doing lesson plans!  We started back up with a unit on insects.  I wish that this unit could have been done in the spring.  It would have made studing bugs so much easier.  Despite not being able to get outside much, we managed to study ants by creating out own Ant Hill.  This has been so much fun and I think I have enjoyed it as much as Liberty.  We bought and Ant Hill and ordered the ants.  They came in the mail and we put them in our Ant Hill.  I was a little skeptical at first because half the ants were dead when they arrived and the rest looked like they might not make it through the night.  While the first 24 hours were slow, our ants were soon busy busy busy building their tunnels.  We loved coming in from running errands or waking up in morning to see how much they had gotten done while we were away.  They are such hard workers and if you watch closely you can see that each one has a specific job.  Some of our ants dug tunnels, others gathered the sand from the digging and formed piles, some buried the dead ants, and others tended to the food we put in there.  It was fascinating to watch.  We are just sad that they don't live very long.   If you are studying insects and Ant Hill is a must!

Liberty is rapidly learning how to read.  We are still in the "sounding things out" phase, but she is gradually adding more and more words that she recognizes by sight.  I must admit that the process of teaching Liberty to read can be very frustrating and challenging.  I have to constantly remind myself not to push too hard.  I definitely don't want her to hate reading, especially when I love it so much.

One of our projects this week was to paint a rock to look like a ladybug.  It turned out so cute and Liberty loved it.  This a great project for your little ones too!

Well, that is all we managed to get done our first week back from vacation.  Maybe this week will be more productive.

G is for Goat

Jesus died for my sins

Wow!  I am a terrible blogger.  It has been several weeks since my last post.  I'm not going to bother catching up on what we have covered the last couple of weeks, I am just going to start back up with this weeks unit wrapup.

This week we studied the letter G, Goats, and farms.  We talked about how pople used to offer animal sacrafices to the Lord for their sins.  We then talked about how Jesus came to die for our sins and now we no longer have to sacrafice animals.  I thought it was a completely fitting lesson coming into the Christmas holiday.  I'm not sure Liberty is grasping the whole concept of sin and Jesus' sacrafice, but I know she is storing these things in her heart.

We did a few fun goat and farm crafts this week.  I must admit that most of these ideas were not mine.  I found a couple of really good websites with fun farm activities.  No need to recreate what someone else has already done so well :).

One of the crafts was an animal mother and their babies book.  Liberty learned what each baby animal was called and then practiced drawing each animal.  It was really fun.  I hate to admit that I didn't know some of the baby animal names and had to look them up!  We also made a goat out of a template and toilet paper roll.  This is super easy and if you have little ones they can participate too.  Both of these websites also have tons of other farm activities for PreK and K. 

I have been really bad about getting to the library that past couple of weeks as well.  I am blaming it on the holidays, although I'm not sure that is a good excuse. Thank God for the internet!  However, we did manage to read two books.  Check them out.


Liberty is also starting to read sentences with short vowel words.  It is so exciting.  She is getting better at recognizing some of the words without having to sound them out!

I hope once we are through the Christmas season, I can get back on track and get more organized!

U is for Us

God made us Wonderful!

This unit Liberty focused on the letter U.  Each week we are giving special attention to one letter while continuing to work on other reading a writing skills.  This unit took us a little longer than normal because we went to a little vacation in the middle (just one of the more brilliant things about homeschool--we can come and go as we please!)

Liberty is really getting good at reading and spelling three letter, short vowel words.  I have to admit I was blown away by how quickly she is picking it up.  I can ask her to spell just about any three letter, short vowel word and she can do it no problem.  For some reason, it is easier for her to spell words I say then for her to read them herself when they are already written down.  I know it will click soon.  During this unit I decided to make Liberty some short vowel cards she could practice with.  Each card has a picture and Liberty matches the correct word with the picture.  She loves doing these more interactive activities.

Our science topic this week was "Us."  We did a basic overview of our bodies and then focused on the five senses.  I love to do lapbooks whenever we can.  It's a great way to introduce new material and I really feel like Liberty gets more out of it because she is actually creating something in the process.  I couldn't find a lapbook I liked, so for this unit I created my own.  For my first lapbook, I thought it turned out good. 

My favorite part was adding the smells.  Liberty also thought this was really fun.  I wish I could think of a way to make the smells last longer, unfortunately they fade.  Does anyone remember the scratch and sniff stickers that were so popular in the late 80s.  I had a ton when I was a kid.  I thought about using something like that, but I didn't have the slightest idea where to find them.

We read several different books for this unit.  My favorite was "The Listening Walk" by Paul Showers.  It is so good.  After reading it, Liberty wanted to go on a listening walk.  The only problem was, she wanted to do more talking than listening :).

T is for Turtle

I don't quit; I persevere.

This has been my favorite unit to date.  For this unit, Liberty focused on the letter T and learned all about Turtles.  As an introduction to turtles we read the book All about Turtles by Jim Arnosky.  Then, Liberty and I put together a lapbook with tons of fun turtle facts.

Lapbooking is one of my favorite ways to introduce new information.  It gives Liberty a creative way to organize all the facts about our current unit in one place.  Plus, it can be used over and over again.  This lapbook is from Homeschool Share.  Check it out here.

Liberty's verse this week was about perseverance.  There are just some verses that she latches on to better than others and this was one of them.  Earlier this week Liberty bought a new dress and needed new shoes to match.  We shopped all day and couldn't find the perfect shoes.  At the last store I told her we would just have to try again another day.  She said, "Mom, I'm not going to give up.  I'm going to persevere!"  It was so cute.  It took me a while to convince her that I was exhuasted and we would have to "persevere" another day!

Paper plate turtle

The best part of this unit was that Liberty started reading three letter words.  We are combining short vowel sounds with the consanants we have already learned.  I am so excited about Liberty learning to read!  It is definitely one of the things I have looked forward to the most.  We also did a vowel lapbook for this unit.

N is for Nest

"God takes good care of me"

This unit Liberty studied the letter N.  She learned about several different types of animal homes and then we focused on Nest.  In the same way a baby bird's parents care for it while it is in the nest, God also cares for us.  We attempted to make a bird nest out of spaghetti noodles and chocolate, but it was a complete disaster!  I'm sure it would have worked fine if I had been prepared and had all the ingredients.  Rule #1--always be prepared!  Nevertheless, Liberty had fun making her own nest along with several other nest projects.

Bird nest in a tree

This week we read several books about bird nests and various other animal homes.  My favorite was "A house for hermit crab" by Eric Carle.

After reading this book, Liberty made a book of her own called "A house for..."  She thought of several different animal homes and illustrated them in this book.

She has been working so hard on her handwriting.  Even though the curriculum only has her practice once a week, I make her do at least one handwriting page a day.  She has improved SO much in just a few weeks.  This is her letter N for this week.  It's her newest letter, so she has some improving to do, however, the difference between today and Monday is significant.

I get her handwriting pages from http://www.handwritingworksheets.com/.  It's a great place to make your own handwriting worksheets.

Check out the carousel at the bottom of the page to view all the books we have read!

Slowly but surely

I can already tell I am going to have a hard time keeping up with this blog!  Liberty is continuing to love "doing school" and is really learning a lot.  Even though I raced through the first 3 weeks of lessons to move on to something more challenging, it is still a little slow for Liberty.  I am trying very hard to be patient and remember that it's not a race.  Even though Liberty knows a lot of the material we are covering now, it is still extremely valuable.

I am especially enjoying the Bible lessons.  Each week Liberty has "words to remember."  They are basically simplified Bible verses.  She is so great a remembering and understanding what these verses mean.  My absolute favorite has been this week as we have learned about the fruit of the Spirit.  She latched right on to the one about self-control.  Liberty has a problem, like a lot of young children, with self-control.  Primarily this occurs in the form of tantrums or yelling at us when she doesn't get her way.  She is now working on controlling her emotions and outbursts :).

She seems to be struggling the most with handwriting.  This is my fault, I'm sure, since I encouraged her to write at such a young age.  She has been able to write all her upper case letters for quite sometime and most of her lower case letters.  The problem is that she has her own way of forming the letters which isn't always the correct way.  She is having relearn how to correctly form the letters, which sometimes frustrates her.  I also think her handwriting is terrible, but I know it will improve with more practice.  At this point I am just trying to make sure she is not being overly sloppy!

Her favorite part of her lessons usually include any of the activities that require her to make something.  She especially loves to make books.  She recently made a book called "A Tree is Nice."  I was so impressed with her illustrations.  After she was finished with all the drawings, she told me what to write next to each picture.  It is so cute.

I am really looking forward to the day she can read.  Scott and I love reading and I hope that she will too!

S is for Sun

"Jesus is the light of the world." 

These were Liberty's "words to remember" last week.  When I asked her what these words meant she answered, "You are walking in darkness.  Jesus comes and He asks "Do you want to be in darkness or in light? If you want to walk in the light, then follow me."  I thought this was a great 5-year-old interpretation of the verse.

We learned about the sun and how its light, heat, and energy make it possible for life on Earth and we compared the sun's attributes to Jesus' life-giving light.  It was very difficult to teach lessons about the sun and complete our science projects when it has rained for 3 weeks!  We did have a little sunshine on Sunday, so we seized the opportunity to make a sun dial.   Liberty letter for the week was S.  She has been writing her letters for about a year, so this week we really focused on good handwriting.  For some reason the letter S is difficult for her, so she practiced writing it everyday.

S mosaic

Sun Painting

We are still in the process of learning how to structure our learning time.  Liberty's concentration and attention span varies daily, but I have learned that she is able to tolerate about 60-90 minutes of instruction at a time.  This should be perfect since out curriculum is designed specially for that amount of time.  However, the first few lessons have been way too easy and I have had to make some adjustments to ensure we are getting the most out of our time together.  She is doing great.  Adjusting to specific instruction has been her biggest problem.  She wants to do things her own way instead of the right way.  In some cases this isn't a problem.  As long as the end result is the same it really doesn't matter.  However, in other situations it is important that she learn the correct procedure or correct order of things.  This is where we sometimes run into problems.  She is getting better though and beginning to realize that our school time is a structured learning time, not just play time.

The Creation - Our first week of Kindergarten

Liberty and I had an amazing week as we started our journey together as teacher and student.  The first 10 days of our curriculum is designed to introduce all the letters of the alphabet and the numbers 1-7.  Since Liberty already knows all her letters and numbers, we have been able ease into our new schedule and only spend about an hour a day on her lessons.  This week we will kick it up a little and finish the intro unit and head on to our first real lesson.

The theme for this intoductory unit is "The Creation."  Each day we have read from the book of Genesis and studied how God created the world.  Part of the lesson included learning the first two verses to the hymn "This is my Father's World."  Admittedly, I don't recall ever having heard this hymn despite being in church most of my life.  Not to mention, I can't really sing at all.  So, instead of butchering what I was sure was a beautiful hymn, I headed to YouTube to find a decent version of the song.  There were some amazing videos to choose from.  The one Liberty and I have been listening too is embedded on the left.  Check it out if you get a chance.  It is SO good.

I wanted the first day of school to be really special for Liberty.  Scott and I decided to buy her a new pencil box filled with school supplies and give it to her on the first day.  One of Liberty's love languages is definitely getting gifts.  This gave us an opportunity to bless her and give her some special things that are reserved just for school time.  Her favorite item was a new pair of orange Fiskars with flames on the handles.

Liberty's new pencil box

Our school day starts at 11:30 a.m.  after we eat lunch.  We start off each day by putting the date on the calendar.  Liberty loves doing this.

After the calendar we go right into our lessons, which last week consisted of coloring numbers for each day of the creation and making a creation story book.  We will complete both of those projects this week and I will post pictures.

I knew adjusting my mindset for my Kindergarten expectations would be a little challenging in the first couple of weeks.  Even though we have been planning to homeschool for years, I have never actually done it.  The only way I know how to do school is sitting in a classroom with a teacher lecturing at the front, so I wasn't sure what it would look like when I sat down at the kitchen table with Liberty on our first day.  The first few days I felt a little worried that we had spent less than an hour a day on our lessons and that most of that time was spent coloring!  Then, by the end of the week I realized that no child in the public education system was learning about his/her Creator during the first week of school.  None of them learned the words to an amazing old hymn. And, none of them got to spend 8+ extra hours a day with their mommies and siblings.  We didn't spend a lot of time on traditional school activities and I didn't stand over Liberty and lecture, but by all our standards this was a great first week of Kindergarten!

Liberty's first day of school outfit