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Kindergarten Week 9
Nov. 2nd, 2010 10:01 pmWe got back in the swing of things last week after our vacation week. Erika did have a little trouble getting back to her usual level of work on Monday, but we had a super-long school day on Thursday which more or less compensated.
English
Things were a little more varied in English this week than they have been the last couple of weeks. Erika started working on a letter to her pen pal, team read the book, "Amelia Bedelia, Bookworm," and got into a Brain Quest "Reading Basics" Grade 1 deck loaned to us by a friend. She read four of the little stories, and then I read the questions to her. I was impressed that she got all of the questions right, even when she'd needed help with some of the words in the story.
Math
This week Erika tried going back to Miquon math one day, with odd results. The Miquon math page she picked was on mixed addition and subtraction, and we haven't been doing subtraction lately in our Math Mammoth work. She picked up the Cuisenaire rods to use with the subtraction problems, and at the beginning of the page, she was using them correctly. By the end of the page, she was using the Cuisenaire rods for subtraction problems as though they were addition problems, and had no idea what she was doing wrong. It seemed to me, from listening to her talk about it and watching what she was doing, that at the beginning of the page she was thinking about the math and modeling the math with the Cuisenaire rods, while at the end of the page, she had stopped thinking about the math and was just using the Cuisenaire rods in a rote way. I don't think the problem is that she was tired; I think she gets easily distracted by the physical act of moving things around, and loses track of the purpose of moving the objects around.
Other than that minor aside, math went well. Erika is continuing to work on the last pages of the Math Mammoth Addition 1 book, and on the early pages of the Place Value 1 book.
Social Studies
We didn't do much with Social Studies this week. Erika continued to study the locations and flags of several countries in her Anki work; we also read some more about New Zealand and did our weekly temperature graphing exercise.
Science
In science this week, we did an experiment from Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, illustrating that air has weight. It involves making a balance and hanging empty balloons from each end, then blowing up one of the balloons. ( pictures )
I did some reading about animals of New Zealand, and we watched some nature videos during our snack breaks -- episode 3 of the Life series, and we started Arctic Adventures.
Art
For art this week, Erika cut fruit and vegetable shapes out of construction paper and glued them to a background sheet to make a face inspired by Arcimboldo. ( Art pictures )
Music
At our co-op this week, the kids learned about different kinds of music, got to try a few different musical instruments, danced to various music, etc.
That was it for music -- John and Erika didn't get around to doing a piano lesson together.
Physical Education
The usual here -- swimming, soccer, playgrounds.
Health
Again, nothing new to report. Since Erika has pretty much mastered the basic safety information she'd been working on, I think it's time to move into some new areas with Health.
German
Erika continued to make good progress in her Einsterns Schwester workbook. Her homework for the Saturday School involved writing actual sentences to tell a story, and she did a very good job of listening for the sounds and writing them down. She had fun at school again this week; they seem to be studying hedgehogs.
English
Things were a little more varied in English this week than they have been the last couple of weeks. Erika started working on a letter to her pen pal, team read the book, "Amelia Bedelia, Bookworm," and got into a Brain Quest "Reading Basics" Grade 1 deck loaned to us by a friend. She read four of the little stories, and then I read the questions to her. I was impressed that she got all of the questions right, even when she'd needed help with some of the words in the story.
Math
This week Erika tried going back to Miquon math one day, with odd results. The Miquon math page she picked was on mixed addition and subtraction, and we haven't been doing subtraction lately in our Math Mammoth work. She picked up the Cuisenaire rods to use with the subtraction problems, and at the beginning of the page, she was using them correctly. By the end of the page, she was using the Cuisenaire rods for subtraction problems as though they were addition problems, and had no idea what she was doing wrong. It seemed to me, from listening to her talk about it and watching what she was doing, that at the beginning of the page she was thinking about the math and modeling the math with the Cuisenaire rods, while at the end of the page, she had stopped thinking about the math and was just using the Cuisenaire rods in a rote way. I don't think the problem is that she was tired; I think she gets easily distracted by the physical act of moving things around, and loses track of the purpose of moving the objects around.
Other than that minor aside, math went well. Erika is continuing to work on the last pages of the Math Mammoth Addition 1 book, and on the early pages of the Place Value 1 book.
Social Studies
We didn't do much with Social Studies this week. Erika continued to study the locations and flags of several countries in her Anki work; we also read some more about New Zealand and did our weekly temperature graphing exercise.
Science
In science this week, we did an experiment from Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, illustrating that air has weight. It involves making a balance and hanging empty balloons from each end, then blowing up one of the balloons. ( pictures )
I did some reading about animals of New Zealand, and we watched some nature videos during our snack breaks -- episode 3 of the Life series, and we started Arctic Adventures.
Art
For art this week, Erika cut fruit and vegetable shapes out of construction paper and glued them to a background sheet to make a face inspired by Arcimboldo. ( Art pictures )
Music
At our co-op this week, the kids learned about different kinds of music, got to try a few different musical instruments, danced to various music, etc.
That was it for music -- John and Erika didn't get around to doing a piano lesson together.
Physical Education
The usual here -- swimming, soccer, playgrounds.
Health
Again, nothing new to report. Since Erika has pretty much mastered the basic safety information she'd been working on, I think it's time to move into some new areas with Health.
German
Erika continued to make good progress in her Einsterns Schwester workbook. Her homework for the Saturday School involved writing actual sentences to tell a story, and she did a very good job of listening for the sounds and writing them down. She had fun at school again this week; they seem to be studying hedgehogs.