End of School Year Party

 

 If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate No Bake Cookies

 If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff
Blueberry Muffins

 The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Apples, Strawberries, Oranges

 Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
Ham sandwiches

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
Goldfish

 
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Carrots and ranch dip

  Strega Nona: An Original Version of an Old Tale by Tomie DePaolo
Pasta salad

   I thought it would be special to celebrate the end of Jenni's Pre-K year and all the good times we had the past ten months. I also wanted to highlight the end of Pre-Kindergarten since we will be starting Kindergarten so soon. We are following a year-round school calendar rather than the typical 9 month school year so I wanted to make a definite end to Pre-K before she moves up to the next grade.

We decided to have a children's book theme party, taking different food selections from several children's picture books. Since Jenni was so familiar with the books, it made the party that much more special. Hooray for the end of Pre-K!

Homeschool Highlights: Pre-K Wrap Up

We have completed Jenni's Pre-Kindergarten school year! It is truly amazing to see the progress she has made over the 36+ weeks we had school. It has been such a joy and a blessing to see her excited to learn and be with her every step of the way!

 Jenni's first week of Pre-K (August 1, 2011 - Age 4 years)

Jenni's last week of Pre-K (May 25, 2012 - 4 years, 10 months)

Pre-K Highlights

Bible

Memorized weekly scripture

Greater understanding of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Math

Completed Singapore Math workbook

Completed Saxon Math K

Jenni knows all the basic shapes, enjoys reading and creating patterns, and can read numbers 0-100. She can count by 1's, 5's and 10's to 100. She can do simple addition mentally, "harder" addition and subtraction using manipulatives, understands ordinal position (1st-5th), and can use the balance to weigh and compare manipulatives. She has learned the days of the week and the months in the year. She can sort items by shape, size and color. She has a good understanding of many types of graphs, identifying more, less, or equal to, enjoys telling time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour, and has a good understanding of counting money with pennies, dimes and nickels. She enjoys using manipulatives during math (pattern blocks, counting bears, clocks, the balance, linking cubes, etc.), reading math stories and enjoys math games.

Reading, Writing, Spelling

Completed Explode the Code Primer Set A, B and C (Get Ready for THE CODE, Get Set for THE CODE, Go for THE CODE)

Completed Explode the Code Book 1

Jenni knows the letters of the alphabet, is able to say each sound the letter makes and write each letter - capital and lowercase. She can write her name and a few other words/names from memory, and she can write words that she can sound out. Her writing has greatly improved over the year and she is able to write a few sentences at a time. She can read short words with short vowel sounds, some sight words, and some larger words.

Reading

Bob Books, Set 1, read-alouds and other #1 beginner books

Completed Before Five in a Row (B4FIAR)

Five in a Row, Volume 1 (FIAR in progress, will continue this in Kindergarten)

Jenni has always enjoyed the books we "row" a week at a time and all the activities that we do along with the book - all the activities tie so nicely together with the story.

Science

Jenni has enjoyed different hands-on activities from growing vegetables and flowers from seeds to mixing colors.

Geography

Beginning Geography, Grades K-2 workbook (in progress, will continue this in Kindergarten)

We began learning about different cities, states, countries, and continents through various stories we read in B4FIAR and FIAR, as well as working in a Beginning Geography workbook that we will continue in Kindergarten. Jenni knows the city, state and country which we live in. She can recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" (aka America). She also has learned the basics of map skills - directions - left, right, up and down - and is beginning to understand north, south, east and west. She knows a few different names of countries (United States of America, Mexico, China, France, and Russia) and knows a few facts about each.

Art

Jenni loves all different types of art - coloring, drawing, painting, tissue paper art, foam art, etc. She loves to use scissors to cut paper and glues the pieces onto other sheets of paper to create designs. She also likes creating art books and other "pieces of art" for family members.

We are all looking forward to the summer - relaxing, enjoying the outdoors, working on fun crafts and projects, getting ready for the big move late summer once our house is finished being built, and welcoming Baby J into our family! Jenni J is really looking forward to kindergarten and moving up to the next grade! We plan to start kindergarten in June, somewhat following a year-round school calendar. Joshua will "formally" begin preschool when he turns three next January. His preschool year will mainly consist of Letter of the Week - Alphabet Fun activities that I started with Jenni when she was 3. Jenni had a great time learning and experiencing new things that way and we will continue the concept with Joshua but make the activities more "boyish." :) What a huge blessing it is to be able to stay home with my children, teach them and see them grow!

Jenni's Kindergarten Curriculum 2012-2013

Saxon Math 1 (math book, workbooks 1 and 2, and daily meeting book)

All About Reading, Level 1

Explode the Code Book 2 (ETC Book 3 in the spring)

Beginning Geography, Grades K-2 (Evan-Moor)

Daily Science, Grade 1 (Evan-Moor)
Five in a Row Volume 1 (FIAR Volume 2 in the spring)

Week 36 of Pre-K

Bible Verse: Other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop. They grew up, increased in size, and produced 30, 60, or 100 times what was sown (Mark 4:8).

First Sound Identification

 Jenni clipped a clothespin to the correct beginning letter sound.

First Letter

 

 Jenni determined the missing letter and wrote it in the space.

Picture to Word Matching

 Jenni matched each picture to its name.

Growth of a Bulb Sequencing

 Jenni placed the cards in order to show how a flower grows from a bulb.

Rhyming Words

 Jenni matched the rhyming words: seeds/weeds; soil/boil; pots/dots; hose/nose; rake/cake; rain/cane.

Subtraction

Subtraction printable found here

 Addition

 Addition printables found here

Measurement

 Jenni cut each strip of construction paper into two parts (that were not equal), compared the length of the pieces and glued them onto the appropriate side of the chart.

Telling Time

 Jenni reviewed time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour. My favorite is when she reads the clocks in our house telling me that it's past Joshua's nap time or bed time. Funny because they typically go to sleep at the same time.

Counting Money

 Jenni reviewed pennies, dimes and nickels. She also practiced "buying" grocery items with dimes to $1.00 and nickels to $0.25.

My sweet eager learner during her last week of Pre-K :)

Week 35 of Pre-K

Bible Verse: So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it... And there was evening, and there was morning - the fifth day (Genesis 1:21, 23)

The Story About Ping (Five in a Row)
Social Studies: Geography - China

 Coloring the flag of China
 

Coloring a picture of a little boy watching boats sail on the Yangtze River

 The Story About Ping takes place along the banks of China's Yangtze river. Longer than any other river in the world except the Nile and the Amazon, the Yangtze is nearly four thousand miles long.

Writing

Jenni determined the first sound in each word and then wrote the letter.

Printable found here

Rhyming Word Match

Printable found here

Art: Duck Paper Plate Craft

 Tutorial found here

Math: Counting Skills

Jenni counted Ping's family including his mother, father, two sisters, three brothers, eleven aunts, seven uncles and forty-two cousins, making sure to not leave out Ping.

 Jenni did a few different addition problems using her counting bears as ducks. She counted how many ducks were in Ping's family, how many of his family were marching up over the bridge (mother, father and aunts), and how many of his family were left in the water (uncles and cousins).

Math: Tangrams

 Duck

 Boat

Swan

I found the tangram templates here but the templates were not sized properly so Jenni put the tangrams together on the table (rather than on top of the outline).

Science: Animal Kingdom

 In The Story About Ping Jenni was introduced to the animal kingdom by learning about ducks.

Duck Classification printable found here

Science: Buoyancy

Jenni making her predictions of which items she thought would sink or float

In the story, a little boy was swimming with a barrel attached to his back. Both the wood and the air inside the barrel helped the boy float, much like a life jacket helps Jenni in the pool. Jenni learned that both air and wood are lighter and less dense than water. We found a few things that could sink or float in a tub of water. Jenni enjoyed making predictions and then testing to see if she was right.

Printable found here

Food: Lemonade and Brownies

We drank lemonade for the yellow colored river and made brownies and worms for the mud on the banks and the worms in the mud. We had to get creative. :)

Other Math Activities

 Dominoes - identifying and matching equivalent sets, identifying doubles

 Copying geoboard designs

 Hundreds chart - counting by 1's and 10's to 100

Measuring length using nonstandard units

Using the balance to compare weight

 Ordinal position - 1st - 5th

 Counting by 5's to 50

 Jenni writing the date