Week Two

Yep, less than a month into the school year and I'm already behind.  Oops!

One of the things Big K's kindergarten teacher complained about what that he didn't have great comprehension skills, so we have been working hard on both reading and listening comprehension this week.  We have been studying the author Kevin Henkes, and we ended up taking an in-depth look at his book Bailey Goes Camping.   We read the book each day and filled out a chart describing the beginning, middle, and end of the story (you can find that printable as well as other great comprehension sheets here: http://campkindergarden.blogspot.com/2011/07/giveaway-reminder-and-2-freebies.html ).  We also did several extension activities to go along with the book.  One of our favorites was putting up our camping tent in the backyard and playing in it!  We even did some reading in the tent.  It was such a hit, that Big K and Little E decided they wanted to have a camp-out that night, so we brought the tent and put it in the living room and Big K slept in it!

We have also been incorporating a lot of music into our comprehension work.  I made a playlist on Spotify with several listening songs, and Big K and Little E are loving them!  They have to listen to the words and do what it tells them.  It's great because #1 they are working on listening skills and #2 it gets them up and moving and wears off some of that extra energy!  You can find our playlist here: Listening Songs.

We had two special outings this week as well.  On Thursday, "regular" school started in our district so we celebrated being homeschoolers by visiting one of our favorite local parks.  It was a nice, hot summer day so the sprinklers were a great touch!  Big K is starting a year-long project visiting and reviewing kid friendly places in our area, so this was our first stop.  More information about that project coming soon!





On Friday we went to a special program at our local library.  Illustrator Steve Harpster was there teaching kids how to draw animals and monsters using numbers and letters.  Big K thought it was cool creating baby hedgehogs and scary monsters using numbers and letters to start.  He struggles with his fine motor skills sometimes, so being able to produce recognizable pictures was a big deal for him!  We even checked out a few of his How To Draw books so we could go home and draw some more!  (We really like this book: http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Monsters-Letters-Steve-Harpster/dp/0615413374/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=undefined&sr=8-2&keywords=steve+harpster)

Overall the week went well.  Big K was a little upset Thursday seeing his school friends get on the bus without him, and I think homeschooling will be an adjustment for all of us.  But we are looking forward to all the things this year will bring!