MFW Adventures & K, Week 1

We finished our first week of MFW Adventures and Kindergarten!  You can read about our first day here.  The rest of the week went really good, much less complaining!  Below you can see Joshua very excited to be sitting at the table with us (it only lasted a few minutes though...)

Here's Rebekah working on a sorting activity.  I put together a few "busy boxes" for her to do when I'm busy with Caleb.

For our bible study this week, we talked about how important names are.  I wrote a letter to each of the older kids explaining why we chose their names.  They also wrote their meanings on a picture of themselves, and then made bookmarks (see below).

I was really proud of how diligent Caleb worked on his spelling right from the beginning.  This is a new subject for him this year.  When he took his first test, he still spelled everything phonetically.  I had him write the 4 words on a chalkboard 3 times, and then he did the test again.  The second time he only missed 1, but he knew it was wrong, and was able to fix it after looking at the reading chart from 1st grade.

For math we are using Singapore 1A.  We started at the beginning so it would be easy, and he's done two lessons almost every day.  We've also been going over flashcards for his addition math facts, and I can tell he's getting better.  I add a couple cards each day to the stack (without him realizing it of course).

For art we are using I Can Do All Things.  The first day they thought it was boring because they just practiced lines, but I think they liked drawing Wallie the Worm.  Rebekah's is the second picture.

I am most excited about our history this year.  We are going to be learing US history, I'm sure I will learn as much as the kids.  We started out with some basic map work.

Then we learned about the Vikings, who were actually the first Europeans to come to North America.  Below is Caleb's summary of what we read about Leif Ericsson.

Here are several of the books we looked at this week.  We didn't read them all, but I had them available for the kids to page through and look at the pictures.  We did read Viking Adventure, and even I thought is was very interesting!

Below is our timeline this year.  I decided to tape 6 cardstock sheets together to make an accordion style book for our timeline instead of taping it to the wall.  We have textured walls, and last year all our pieces kept falling off.  I think I'm going to like this way better.

We went to a balloon festival this weekend end too.  See that red balloon?  The pilot's name is Aric.  Guess what his balloon is called?  Aric the Red!  (Eric the Red was a Viking we learned about). 

On our nature walk at our local nature center we saw 3 turkeys and 4 deer!  Here is Caleb's nature journal page.  I required him to write at least 3 words, and that's what I got!

Now for Kindergarten!  Here is Rebekah's creation poster.  She's really had a good time making this, and she likes that Caleb doesn't get to make one!

She's also making a creation book, and loving that too.  She has been reviewing her letters and numbers as well, which is easy for her.  She joins Caleb in most of history, science, bible, and art.

That's our first week!  I'm excited to see what next week will bring as we study Christopher Columbus.