Kindergarten Week 3
Sep. 12th, 2010 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
entirelysonjaMonday this week was Labor Day, so we all spent the day together and didn't do any formal school. In the afternoon, we headed down to the new National Harbor area to check out the "Launch Zone" of the yet-to-be-built National Children's Museum. They were having a special insect event, which honestly wasn't that exciting, but Erika did enjoy coloring a butterfly mask.
The rest of the week was primarily occupied with our new Kindergarten co-op. We had agreed to meet every day for a week to help the kids get to know each other, so we met starting at 10:00 at a playground Tuesday - Thursday, and then on Friday joined a larger homeschool group for a not-back-to-school event. The kids did a lot of free play, and each day we also had a parent leading some kind of activity. The Friday not-back-to-school event was in a somewhat inconvenient location, but the kids had a great time building dams in the stream and picnicking.
Checklist update
This week I took a different approach to the checklist -- I reduced the number of mandatory items to the absolute bare minimum in each area, and then wrote a target number at the bottom of the list. The idea being that we had to check every mandatory box, but beyond that, it was up to her what to do. Since we were meeting with the co-op group all week, I also cut the target number approximately in half from what it had been the previous week.
This approach went well, and I’ll be interested to see how it pans out during a full week.
Other stuff
We began our study of Australia and New Zealand this week by reading about Australian kids in the books, Children Just Like Me and A School Like Mine. We also watched parts of a couple of relevant videos, Australia the Beautiful and Blue Planet: Coral Seas. I read out loud from a general book about Australia, and Erika marked some political and physical features on a map.
We also did a bunch of science stuff, including an exploration of the space occupied by air, an examination of the properties of various rocks and minerals, and a visit to the zoo. On our zoo visit, we looked at the teeth of carnivores and discussed the genetic diversity of cheetahs.
We didn’t do so much in other areas this week, though Erika did write a long letter to her new pen pal.
The rest of the week was primarily occupied with our new Kindergarten co-op. We had agreed to meet every day for a week to help the kids get to know each other, so we met starting at 10:00 at a playground Tuesday - Thursday, and then on Friday joined a larger homeschool group for a not-back-to-school event. The kids did a lot of free play, and each day we also had a parent leading some kind of activity. The Friday not-back-to-school event was in a somewhat inconvenient location, but the kids had a great time building dams in the stream and picnicking.
Checklist update
This week I took a different approach to the checklist -- I reduced the number of mandatory items to the absolute bare minimum in each area, and then wrote a target number at the bottom of the list. The idea being that we had to check every mandatory box, but beyond that, it was up to her what to do. Since we were meeting with the co-op group all week, I also cut the target number approximately in half from what it had been the previous week.
This approach went well, and I’ll be interested to see how it pans out during a full week.
Other stuff
We began our study of Australia and New Zealand this week by reading about Australian kids in the books, Children Just Like Me and A School Like Mine. We also watched parts of a couple of relevant videos, Australia the Beautiful and Blue Planet: Coral Seas. I read out loud from a general book about Australia, and Erika marked some political and physical features on a map.
We also did a bunch of science stuff, including an exploration of the space occupied by air, an examination of the properties of various rocks and minerals, and a visit to the zoo. On our zoo visit, we looked at the teeth of carnivores and discussed the genetic diversity of cheetahs.
We didn’t do so much in other areas this week, though Erika did write a long letter to her new pen pal.