Kindergarten Day 1

Today we had a wonderfully successful day 1! BabyGirl has been looking forward to our official 'beginning', so it was met with great enthusiasm! We started off with our science since that seems to be our favorite of all. We began our senses unit. Our kindergarten science book is well written so that BabyGirl can read it herself, and is paired with very colorful real life pictures. Each week our lesson will be followed by an activity or experiment. This is my favorite part about it since to me you can't really learn science from sitting and looking at a book! Today BabyGirl drew pictures of a nose, eyes, ears, hand, mouth on index cards. Then she followed me around the house as I showed her items. She was to pick out which sense she would use for that item. She loved it and had so much fun! We also read The Magic School Bus Explores the Senses. I have several other books requested from the library that cover this as well. Throughout the week we will demonstrate how our lives would be different if certain senses were taken away from us.

Then we focused on phonics. We introduced a new friend for V, and did the activities to go along with it. We pulled out our next new reader, and BabyGirl did an excellent job reading and answering all the comprehension questions correctly. We will be starting the long vowel sounds soon. I want to finish this program completely before I begin the 1st grade curriculum. For part of our writing BabyGirl decided to draw a picture and write a sentence about it by herself. She does this regularly, making my house FULL of art work! Today she drew a picture of a school with windows. Below it she wrote "The scl is a plas wer u lrn." It was so cute! She even remembered the period.

For math we did our lesson 1-1. It was not too challenging for her, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. The pictures were vivid and engaging. I'm going to work on our kindergarten curriculum we chose this year I THINK. I'm still deciding on it. A lot of it she already knows, but still loves working the problems. I do already have the 1st grade curriculum as well, just in case. My only thought is that I don't want to push her too early to do things that she isn't ready for. The whole reason for homeschooling is to fuel the fire which is curiosity, not push it out! So, we'll kind of take it as it comes and enjoy life, not forgetting to be children and play our hearts out!!!!

We went over the signs for A, B, C, D, E and F today. She really enjoys learning and doing sign language. It just comes naturally to her. For now, she's suddenly decided she can see no point in learning Spanish. She has absolutely no desire to. So, we will continue the sign language and see if maybe in the future she's more interested in another language as well. Until then, our plans go on hold for that. We have plenty of signs to learn anyway.... :)

Lastly, we decided to do an experiment from our Magic School Bus Human Body science kit. Today we began learning about the respiratory system. The question was "What would happen if there were a hole in the diaphragm?" We constructed a model of the lungs and diaphragm which was TOTALLY AWESOME!!! I can't even tell you how cool it was for both of us!! It really works, and when you contract the diaphragm the lungs fill with air!! If your child has any interest in this we urge you to purchase it!!! Everything about this kit is amazing. It comes with a workbook full of experiments, all the stuff needed (except a few things from home), and a DVD of all the human body episodes. Even better, you can sometimes get it on sale from Scholastic for as little as 10 bucks! After we finish the human body, I plan to purchase one of the others they have. We are totally hooked!!!

So, after some playing on Jump Start World Kindergarten we end this first day. We've had a great time learning and playing together. It's such a blessing to me to be able to spend this time with my daughter. I can't even imagine not seeing this little mind blossom into great things!!

Tonight we start dance, and then another new day tomorrow...until next time... :)