3 Games for Spelling and Vocabulary

Word Time

When we bought the Perplexus ball I talked about yesterday, we also got Bananagrams since we had a coupon. I wasn't sure about doing it with Little Guy, but figured why not. We played the Banana Smoothie variation (where you start out with all your tiles and just build words) and he picked up on it very well. He mentioned that it would be a great game for school...great idea honey, I never considered that (he he he).

He really likes the word cat, he used it 3 times. I should mention that I did not help him with any of the spelling.

Kindergarten Curriculum

I realize that many of you are just glad that your kids are back in school after Christmas break, but at our house the conversation has been all about next year's curriculum. I have spent a considerable amount of time researching Jayne's curriculum for next year since the school year started. Last night we made our final decisions. It was hard because there were many that I wanted to try and a few that would have involved me making the curriculum for the subject. So what did we choose?

We are using the SunLight core for history, geography, and bible. It also has a reading program that is several readers and we will have a blast reading them together, but for his official learning to read program we are going to go more hands on with...

All About Reading Level 1! I am very excited about the program and especially that it is hands on and will be a fun way for Jayne to learn to read.

All About Spelling is also very hands on. Jayne will be working on Level 1 here too.

He will be learning biology, botany, and physics with SonLight science. Plus we will be adding in some fun with Magic School Bus science projects on our 5th days. To clarify here, we do a 4 day school week. We have 2 days to spend with Adam and Saturdays we catch up on any chores that may have been missed during the week. So 5th day activities will be fun family activities and field trips.

We chose Horizons math from SonLight because if we chose to go all SonLight in the years to come, that is the one that is included in the set. I am not sure if we will like this one, but it is worth trying and we can always pick something new for 1st grade if we don't like it.

Handwriting Without Tears was chosen for the same reason as math, but this one does look like a great program and I look forward to trying it out.

We are also planning on doing Little Passports to supplement his Geography lessons and have a little fun. We will doing Nickelodeon Fit for PE in the winter, spending lots of time walking in the summer (because we always do), and may put him in dance class. He loves to dance and it is something he wants to try, so why not.