K is for Kangaroo

This is my very first Weekly Homeschool Highlights post and I am super excited about it. It is hosted by Mishmash Maggie, who is also a homeschooler using My Father’s World. I have wanted to post more about what KJ is doing and learning, but for some crazy reason, I felt like I need a blog carnival/meme to do it {silly, I know}, but that explains why I was so excited when I found out about Weekly Homeschool Highlights. I have Preschool Corner for the big boys and Tot School for the little boys…and now Weekly Highlights for KJ! Yay!!!

Well, I feel like I don’t have alot to write for my very first post because I have been in and out of surgery and it seems like we have been working on the same stuff for a long…very long time!!!But, I am finally on the road to recovery and we were able to make some progress! So, here goes…

My Father’s World Kindergarten
(K is for Kangaroo)
It seems like it took awhile, but have finished up Lesson 17: Kangaroo. We made the Kangaroo pencil cupholder which I think is super cute! (Click here for instructions on how we made it…along with printables.) I am so happy with how it turned out! She keeps it on her desk filled with her colored pencils.

We also discussed facts about kangaroos, including how far they can jump in one hop….which is up to 42 feet! We pulled out some rulers and measured out 42 feet. Then the kids all attempted to jump as far as a kangaroo! (It was quite cute to see their attempts!) We also pulled out our globe. KJ was able to point out where kangaroos live. In fact, she acknowledged that “they live really far down from us and that we wouldn’t be seeing any kangaroos around here!” After we discussed oceans, continents, etc, she stated, “Australia is not so far, if we take a boat that is!”

As with most of KJ’s lessons, I create lapbooks to collect her work. You can see what we did below. In all honesty, this lapbook is pretty skimpy, but what we did add to it is listed below. (Most of our other lapbooks from the previous lessons are quite full. I think I will plan to feature some of KJ’s old MFW Kindergarten lapbooks next year when the boys start kindergarten…since, for now, I do not have intentions of making lapbooks for them.)

FYI, you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

Here are the links to the printables that we used for the lapbook:

Kangaroo photo

Kangaroo Fact pouch

Leaps and Bounds flap

Kangaroo on right side We don’t usually do the whole badge thing, but KJ does write out the “words to remember” and she colors a picture of what she is learning in the lesson. Stapled behind the “words to remember” on the right side are the worksheets that she did during the week.

Singapore Math Essentials
Since I am a former high school math teacher, I love math and just couldn’t help myself with adding math supplements to MFW! I was a nerd when it came to math. I loved doing geometry proofs and figuring out work problems. In fact, I was much better at the harder math than some of the easier stuff. Anyhow, enough about me…KJ is working through her unit on weight and measurements. She just got glasses a few months ago. Doesn’t she look so studious!!! Here she is using our bucket balance to compare the weight of cuisenaire rods and various items from around the house.

Cursive First
KJ is LOVING that she can write in cursive now! We finished up all of the lowercase cursive letters and we are learning the capital cursive letters as need. the first capital she learned was K so that she could write her name is cursive. She is so proud of herself! She has even taken it upon herself to try to teach her brothers some cursive. It is so cute to hear her dictating, “short uphill stroke…” We will continue to learn the capitals as needed and we are learning our respective multi-letter phonograms from SWR in cursive as well!

Spell to Write and Read (SWR)
We do not use the reading program that comes with MFW. Although it seems to be wonderful, we have chosen to use SWR instead. You can read more about our curriculum choices here.

I have introduced all of the single letter phonograms and we have finished up list A words and KJ has written them in her primary learning log. I am so proud of her! Take a look at her first dictated spelling list along with two of her original sentences using the list of words!

We had not covered the cursive letter x and that letter y when I dictated these to her for her learning log. (That is why six and my are written in manuscript rather than cursive.) KJ also wrote the list of words on index cards (from dictation) for extra practice. She has had a few quizzes and her very first test! She got 17 out of 20 words correct and her only mistakes were minor cursive mistakes…all the words were spelled correctly!!

We continued to practice our single letter phonograms. We also added er, th, oo, sh, ee to the mix. I have quizzed these a few times as well and she has done great. It is so cute because the big boys love to participate when we practice our phonograms. KJ is trying to teach them to her brothers as well! Much to my surprise, the big boys are actually picking up on alot of the sounds just by “overhearing” what KJ is doing, plus her own efforts to teach them! {smile}

So, those are our weekly homeschool highlights. I guess we got more accomplised than I thought!?!?! {smile} If you are interested in seeing what my preschoolers (aka the big boys) have been learning, click here. If you are interested in seeing what my tots (aka the little boys) have been learning, click here.

Be sure to check out more Weekly Homeschool Highlights at Mishmash Maggie. If you are also a MFW user, please consider linking up to the blogroll by clicking the image below!