Pay attention, my child, to what I say. Listen Carefully. –Proverbs 4:20
What a great memory verse to start the school year! Bebop picked this one up quickly and even used it as our morning prayer one day.
I made up 4 worksheets for Bebop related to the memory verse and was very pleased he is able to do them by himself. The set includes a poster page for our calendar wall, cut and paste puzzle, cut and tape strip and a tracing page. His favorite was taping the verse together, then measuring things in the room (the bookshelf is bigger, but Magoo is smaller).
I separated the pages in the Developing the Early Learner workbook and placed them in page protectors. The first time I helped Bebop read the instructions and complete the page. He wanted to do each page several times through out the week. I plan to put all the worksheets from the previous week in Bebop’s 3 ring binder so he can do them again if he wants. (He often works in his binder while Magoo is doing tot school lessons. The notebook also contains previous tracing pages and extra handwriting worksheets.)
I did not do very many additional activities this week as I wanted to get a feel for how the Sonlight schedule would fit into our daily routine. We did a few of the assignments recommended in the instructor’s guide on our white board easel (from IKEA). Bebop loved it and told me he felt like he was going to real school now. In this picture we’re listing what’s the same and what’s different about a rabbit and a tiger.
Sonlight curriculum is heavy on reading, which is one of the main reasons I chose to use it. We read from at least 3 different books every day. As I’m the one doing the reading, I don’t have any pictures. Bebop enjoyed the Mother Goose nursery rhymes the most and memorized Jack and Jill. (He only said pan instead of pail on this particular take. After this one, he came down with a huge case of the giggles and there was no hope if getting a good video.)
I have found the read alouds, particularly from Uncle Wiggily’s story book, are too long for the boys to sit through with all the tempting toys in the room. Instead of following the schedule of one or two stories a week, we will be reading one story at the start of quiet time each day. This will cause us to finish Uncle Wiggily’s stories in just a few months rather than the whole year, but I have a long list of other books to read.
In addition to our hour of school in the mornings, Bebop will often ask to do a craft during quiet time. He has a lot of art supplies that he is allowed to use after his work for the day is complete. This is one of his creations; A picture of Uncle Ben and Aunt Bridget flying to visit us.
We even made a last minute field trip to the zoo with some friends. Bebop really enjoyed the maternity ward where he was able to pet the baby goats.
We are using Sonlight Core P4/5 with a few additions. You can read more about our curriculum choices for Pre-Kindergarten.
