Wintertime... and a little change in curriculum

Wait, did someone forget to tell the weather man it's winter? So January turned out to be very mild. We had more than several days outside playing in the nice weather, not much rain or snow for that matter... much to my husband and Mac's dismay who love to ski. We were able to do a ton of crafts this month and even an extra unit on penguins.

For curriculum, I did a little reassessment.

Mac had finished the kindergarten Handwriting without Tears and we are starting the Draw, Write, Now Book 1. Mac loves learning how to draw different farm animals and I like starting the sentence structure for the handwriting part. I do use the printables from 1+1+1=1.com website to give her extra practice. I also have an extra handwriting time once or twice a week based on the theme. So for January write and draw about a wintertime activity that you like, what did you learn about penguins.

Our bible time was good with the We Choose Virtues, but I felt I wanted to go in a little bit different direction. We are reading the devotional from the Truth for Kids website and it's been great so far. http://www.truthforkids.com/kids-devotions-online/#.UtYTv2RDsVo. Mac still has her Awana homework where she learns her verses every week.

Mac is flying through math this year so I have ordered Horizons Math Grade 1 books 1 and 2 which we will probably start in the next month or two.

Onto January:

Songs this month were from http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/Bear_Songs.pdf. Mac has moved a little bit away from caring to do songs where as at the beginning of the year we had to sing the songs for the month daily.

Crafts: the first is a basic snowman out of construction paper and cotton balls from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2009/12/cotton-ball-snowman-craft.html

Next we collected toilet paper rolls and made a snow village from the Crafty Crow website. http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2013/12/christmas-village-made-from-recycling.html

Then we made some snowflakes to decorate the walls.

And our final snowman craft was the snow globe snowman from No Time for Flashcards. http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2008/12/let-it-snow.html

And of course a craft turned to snack time... snowmen out of marshmellows, chocolate chips and pretzel sticks:

Our other craft that inspired a penguin unit took a week itself between each drying stage. Mac loved it!
http://www.thatartistwoman.org/2009/01/penguin-printmaking.html

The books we read this month were:
Hello, Snow! by Vestergaard
The Missing Mitten Mystery by Kellogg
Stella, Queen of the Snow by Gay
The Snow Globe Family by O'Connor (Mac loved!)
There was an Old Lady who Swallowed some Snow by Colandro
Tracks in the Snow by Yee
The Mitten by Brett (Mac really liked)
Pearl's New Skates by Keller
The Biggest Snowman Ever

And then our penguin books:
Little Penguin by London (little old)
Lost and Found by Jeffers
Playful Little Penguins by Mitton
Tacky the Penguin by Lester (Mac loved)

December 2013

Definitely the busiest time of year. My sister left for Africa... again. Homeschooling kind of went out the window. We did the basics but anything extra was not happening.

Books we read:
The Legend of the Christmas Tree
Little Drummer Boy by Rodanas
Legend of the Candy Cane
Disney's the Small One by Alex Walsh
Splendiferous Christmas by Jane O'Connor