Ending our first unit

What a great first three weeks. Today we're wrapping up our Armor of God unit. Micah Skyped this morning with Aunt Rhonda & Cousin Christopher (home sick) and gave them a 'show & tell' of his castle and read 'I Am King'. He played one of his favorite Math games online (where the knight saves the princess when he answers correctly). He and Lilly decorated crowns for a craft project and Micah whipped me in a game of 'war' (card game). We finished our book 'Kings and Queens of the Bible' (our biography selection for this unit) and we thanked God for our protective armor that He provides everyday. We ask for His help to remind us to put it on and wear it everyday.

Tonight the kids will wear their crowns and be 'dubbed' Prince Micah and Princess Lilly. For that is how God sees them. They'll wear their crowns as we celebrate with our final day of walking around the wall of Jericho. We will not walk quietly this time and we will not stop at just one round. We intend to sing praises and rejoice as we march around our kitchen table seven times!

My kids love snacks!

Most of you know we have snacks wherever we go. About 10am Lilly is coming over signing for 'bear' (Teddy Grahams), 'fish' (Goldfish), 'pancake' (frozen mini pancakes) or something. During snacks on Friday we had crackers. Lilly's were Gerber Toddler crackers BUT they also had letters of the alphabet on them. Micah had the Scrabble version of Cheez-Its. It was great ... we read a book called ABC where they select a random group of letters, make their sounds, and then move them around (which also moves the sounds around). Then they create a word. We got out our Boggle cubes, made some words with those and our crackers - before WE ATE THEM.

Also Friday (nighttime with dad)we pulled out our Racko game. This time Micah was able to play the correct way, with all 10 cards, and without assistance. Cool. Here's the round where he won!

Listening Station

We've listened to and read along with several short stories and chapter books on audio CD in the car during the past year. Last week I set up Micah's listening station just to the left of his desk. He enjoys the time relaxing with a book and it provides Lilly and I some one-on-one time to play. Notice in the picture where she prefers to be. :) Sometimes he just listens, sometimes he has a book to read along with. This will be a very cool place!!

(This particular book was Verdi - by the creator of Stellaluna, a favorite book of his.)

Handwriting / Vocabulary

One of my personal favorite things during the past week was giving Micah the responsibility of completing some activities/lessons on his own. On Monday we went over some vocabulary words in his writing tablet and he was to write each word once by Tuesday at 4pm (WordGirl time). It was done - and very nicely. We talked about the letters, spacing, etc. and selected some stickers to put on the page.

On Wednesday I did the same thing. There were a few more words but he had until Friday at 4pm. He handled the responsibility wonderfully. It was nice for me because I didn't need to do any reminding. He knew that he was in charge of managing his time.
It was fun seeing the times he selected to work, how long he spent on it, and what he did as "breaks" in between writing.

Show & Tell

On Tuesday we spent the morning at Aunt Alice & Uncle Charlie's house. We took Micah's 'clay castle' that he's been working on (some good independent time while I'm putting Lilly down for nap) he did a tremendous job "showing and telling". We also did some swimming in the backyard and visited over lunch.

Eastside Explorers Camping Weekend

We all had a great time camping at Kaibab Campgrounds. We split a site with our friends the Gravels and pitched our tents. There were a total of 14 families, out of the 85 registered in this particular co-op, who ventured out on this weekend get-away. We had a couple of afternoon thundershowers, lasting maybe 30 minutes each day. The Gravels brought their kayak and we took several rides out on the lake. The kids enjoyed digging in the mud, skipping rocks, taking hikes, finding critters, fishing, and just hanging out getting to know each other. It was neat having kids just come up to our campfire, introduce themselves and begin playing with us. A few minutes later their parents would stroll over and we'd spend some time talking.

Meeting new friends / classmates

Tomorrow we will be meeting some of Micah's new "classmates" and "friends". We joined the Eastside Explorers Co-Op. One of Micah's best friends, Ryan, is also in this group. They provide many activities and events to get together and learn, have fun, explore, socialize, etc. Tomorrow 14 families from the group will be heading north to go camping (The Gravel family will be going too!).

Since Lilly's first camping experience (2 weekends ago) went so well we went out last night to REI and bought her a sleeping bag of her own!!!

Oh, I know this is Micah's site, but I couldn't resist.

Stop me!

Haha!! Today we went to the library. I kept stumbling on more good books to go with this unit of study. Stop ... that's my curse. I could go on and on, think of more and more, find more and more. I just have to say "stop. I don't have to teach everything now. Don't over-do it. Enjoy what pieces you have and then s-t-o-p."

When I got back to the stroller, where we store our books, there was a huge pile of books already on the floor. Cracks me up!! Micah has a blast picking out his own books, but the awesome thing is 5 of the books are for him and the other 15 are "for Lilly". Even better, the "books for Lilly" are books about counting, colors, easy-readers ... that are all kindergarten curriculum items. Therefore, when we are reading to Lilly (and he's confidently reading some of them) he's also reviewing kindergarten standards. Perfect.

Here he is reading to Lilly and her friend Kaitlyn (who we babysat Monday morning).

Getting Involved

Nana & Papa Joe called today. They had been to the library, viewed our blog, and checked out one of the books in our list. This evening Micah got his copy and they all read together over the phone. Micah read them his book 'I Am King'. It was extremely cool for me to see! There was so much excitement, joy and confidence expressed in his face.

Catapult Craze!

A huge highlight this week was when Matt brought home a catapult. It was awesome to pull it all together one evening as a family! We shot that thing for a good half hour testing out different positions. The next day we experimented with different objects ... a finger puppet, bouncy balls, jax (we said they were caltrops).

Breakfast at Einsteins

Hooray!! I've always loved my Einstein breakfasts with the kids. Tuesday we went for the first time since Micah started kindergarten. We pulled out of the subdivision and Micah said "look mom, one school bus is getting ready to drop off some kids and the other one is going to get more." Then he said "We're going to Einsteins!" When we got to the counter to order I decided to ask him some math questions to review from last week and quizzed him on the cookies. As we were eating he glanced at the tv monitor and said "Mom, there's our letters from school." They had a trivia question and the choices were: A, B, C, and D.
As we were finishing our breakfast Micah asked where we were going next. Generally, we run an errand (typically the grocery) after Einsteins. I said "I don't have anywhere in mind." He asked if we could stop at the Reach 11 playground on the way home. We did and played for over an hour. It was a blast!! In the meantime, sporatic things from what we are learning popped up. My favorite ... Micah was singing "Scooby Dooby Doo I see you, the way you shake and shiver" while he was climbing. Moments later we were laughing so hard because we started changing the letters to "shake" and "shiver". Micah said "What if duck delivered the wrong letters and instead of 'sh' he brought 'l'. It would be "lake" and "liver"!!" We had 'bake' and 'biver', and so on. The joy of continuing to learn anywhere!

One of many moments

Last night I was browsing through a couple of our books to use words for our next grouping of letters E (short), F, G, and H. I also used our Ephesians 6:10-18 verses. A few I selected were: belt, enemy, faith, fight, God, guard, good, helmet, help. (I like it when they even use 2 of our letters or review previous letters.) Anyway, as I continued reading I saw in vs. 18 - ...asking for God's help. Wow, that used a,f,g,h and e. Cool!

Stay with me here. Today we read our verses and spent some extra time on those vs. 18 words. How do we ask? Through prayer. I asked Micah to pick two pieces of God's Armor for us to focus on today. He chose 'belt of truth' and 'shield of faith'. I kid you not ... "belt" and "faith". Those were in my list of words for today. Later we went to the white board and wrote our list of words. Yes, he said "hey, we just did those." To top it off, when he randomly chose his devotion story it was the olive oil story from 2 Kings. The concept: 'A man of God goes to God for help.'

I loved how it all tied together!! God will do that many many more times down the road.

Armor Of God - Ephesians 6:10-18

Our first unit of study is "The Armor of God". Micah has had a huge interest in forts, castles, swords, etc. so I'm pulling that together with how he can be a prince everyday and dress in God's protective armor not just for the big battles that come along in life, but also just as a daily defense to the little struggles that occur from frustrations, fears, being tired, or feeling temptations.

Our First Day

Up until the night before we started we didn't know when we were going to start "learning with a new and specific purpose". While camping on his official birthday Micah said "Mom, I'm 6 now, when are we going to start school?" I was comfortable at that point and so it didn't really matter. We knew when the surrounding schools were starting (some that day - 6th; some the 10th; some the 17th), we knew when his cousins were starting, we knew that sometimes schools didn't start until after Labor Day (which is still in most of the books we read). So, it didn't matter.
On Sunday evening, August 9th, we just said "Let's start tomorrow." And we did!
Monday August 10, 2009 was Micah's first day of kindergarten.

Our First Week

It feels right! We all learned a lot. After breakfast, etc., our start to the day is calendar, place value (Math, using base ten blocks), devotion, prayer and read (our scripture and then books).

We read a lot! The reading/phonics is falling into place. I'm going back to the basics (just to make sure there aren't any holes). We reviewed the letters A (short),B,C, & D - what they look like, what they sound like, & how to write them (capital and lower case). He looked at me like I was crazy - but that's kindergarten curriculum. So, I told him "There will be different levels of things we do. Some will be super easy, some you'll know and be very confident, some a little unsure, and some things will be challenging." We pulled words and letters out of books, but our favorite was when we used our "theme" words to review our letters. ARMOR, BATTLE, CATAPULT, DRAGON, CASTLE, ...

Math is similar with starting simple, but then we expand it as fit for the moment. We've been able to fit in several games (war - card game; using greater than, equal to, and less than), Paint by Number (set from Nana & Papa Joe for his birthday), Qwirkle (game from Kauffmans - color & shape attributes/characteristics; using thinking skills to gain more points) - he enjoys keeping score & writing the numbers.

Our science experiments were

• measuring ingredients for & making homemade playdough (then we made things with Lilly the next day)
• inventing a basic catapult (plastic spoon & marshmallow) and adjusting our position to hit our target

Our highlight was the field trip to the Arizona Science Center for their LEGO CASTLE exhibit. It was marvelous!!! We went with one of Micah's best buddies and we all had a blast! See pictures at: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AatWrFi5ctW1u

I could go on and on and on. It feels so natural!
Lilly joined us for some things and played on her own some during some. She & I have some one-on-one time during Micah's independent work and/or stations that don't involve us or Lilly shouldn't do. :)

Theme-Related Books:

Fun Books:

• Neil's Castle


• The Popcorn Dragon


• Princess Pigsty


• That Pesky Dragon


• The Paper Princess


• The Castle That Jack Built


• The Witch Who Wanted to be a Princess


• The Princess Knight


• Sir Fartsalot Hunts the Booger (chapter book; humorous; friendship and respect)

Educational Books:

• How To Catapult A Castle (Fact Finders) EXCELLENT!


• Castle


• Castles & Forts


• Arms & Armor


• Simple Machines (Science Experiments)


• Levers (Science Experiments)

Fiction/Biography Books:

• The Bible


• Kings and Queens of the Bible (split into biography chapters)

Specific Character Books:

• The Squire and the Scroll (A tale of the rewards of a pure heart)


• I'd Be Your Hero (A royal tale of Godly character)


• I'd Be Your Princess (girl's version - since Lilly is listening too and Micah will be looking for a wife someday)

Book/s Micah Can Read With Confidence:

• I Am King

Fun "themed" websites:

Math:
http://www.fun4thebrain.com/addition/knightPrincessAdd.html
http://www.smartygames.com/ Click on Math. It's game 1 of 7. Click image to begin.

How to build a catapult:
http://www.knightforhire.com/catapult.htm

How to draw a castle:
http://www.how-to-draw-funny-cartoons.com/cartoon-casle.html
http://www.hot-to-draw-cartoons-online.com/cartoon-castle.html

What can you ask Micah?

Listed are our highlighted books and some websites. View/read them and then talk about them with Micah on the phone or Skype. Select one from the library to read along with Micah.

Micah's favorite show continues to be WordGirl. He likes words, he likes learning new words and their meanings. So, here are some new vocabulary words from our first week. Ask him what they are.

• catapult
• moat
• caltrop
• portcullis

You can also ask what each piece of God's Armor represents. What are some of the methods used to keep enemies out of the castles? Why don't you want to swim across a moat? What's the difference between being scorched by a dragon and being singed by a dragon (The Popcorn Dragon & That Pesky Dragon comparisons).

My lesson

Wednesday afternoon I tried to "focus" on details. Lilly wasn't napping, I was tired. I knew better. I even have it written down that if Lilly doesn't nap we re-arrange the afternoon. We are not at a place to try that just yet. We need to stay light and easy and fun!We talked about it, learned from it, and are ready to move on.