School's OUT for the summer!!

School's out, but we did one lesson. I think my plan is to review things at random over the summer, but have one good lesson each week, that teaches a life lesson instead of just the alphabet. I trial ran it on Tuesday...

The one lesson we did was about using kind words and how it is hard to take back mean things once you say them. We used a toothpaste as a good visual prop for this lesson. First I had them squeeze all the toothpaste out, to signifiy saying mean or bad things. We talked about how sometimes that seems fun, just like squeezing it all out.

 

 Then I had them try to put it all back inside.... they didn't think this was as fun. I explained that it is hard to take back what we say. We talked about how we felt when people were mean to us and tried to relate that to the feelings they were having about putting their toothpaste back inside the tube.

Kieryn's first and last day of school comparisons!

Seems so grown up!

 Thanks Ms. Shaffer!

Over the weekend I had my 15 year class reunion. Cheers to the B&B Falcon of 2002! We had 13 of 25 people make it.

So many fun memories!

Yippie! Summer's finally here!

Space and Sports!! What a fun week!

The week started out in the 90s so we spent the first two days of the week enjoying the fountains and being outside. We found it hard to focus on our lesson when we'd rather be outside playing! Only 2 weeks left of school (this one and next!).

 This week we talked about the solar system! We started on Monday with 4 min video about the planets. It was a sing-song video so Ronan really enjoyed it!

Then we did an astronaut maze...

We played a planet memory game...

And practiced counting backwards from 10! We even practiced tracing and writing the numbers 1-10.

On Tuesday we began our lesson with the rocket shooters and dancing to the "rocketship run" song! This is a great song for backward counting!

Then we did a letter and shape review picture. The picture had the lowercase letter. They had to match the shape and the uppercase letter. 

Ronan begged to watch the planet sing-song video again, so I let him and Micah watch it again together.

On Tuesday night Kieryn had her first ever team sport practice (t-ball)! She did very well and is looking forward to more practices and games!

On Wednesday Ronan and Micah did an alphabet review with Aunt Janell while I worked at the gym. 

On Thursday, Ronan and I spent the morning in City Park watching Kieryn play in her field day events. For Kindergarten nothing was really a competition. Everything was just fun! She really enjoyed it!

When we got home that afternoon we talked about the moon and how it orbits our planet like the planets all orbit the sun. We painted a moon and made the craters using the open end of an empty sprinkle container.

Afterwards we made "moon sand" (4 cups of flour and 1/2 cup of baby oil). We dropped a bouncy ball into the moon sand to simulate how craters are made by comets/asteroids-"large rocks from space" when they hit the moon's surface. He really liked this!

 Ronan and Kieryn both had fun with the moon sand that night! (Super fun but kinda messy!) 

On Friday we talked about the stars. I tried explaining that constellations as groups of stars; some of them make designs or patterns in the sky that we can look for. We took time to poke holes in card stock paper. The holes were "constellation patterns." We then held a flashlight up to it and the constellation showed up on the wall/ceiling. This was really neat!

Afterwards we dug out the space fact cards and played with them and learned some new facts!

On Saturday morning I watched Jacob and Micah for Janell while she and Steven ran their first half marathon! The kids were really excited to cheer for them!

Uncle Jeff and Uncle Travis ran the 1/2 marathon too! Congrats to you all! You all did wonderful!!

We spent Sunday in Seneca celebrating my Mom and Dad's 35th wedding anniversary! This was the gift from all us kids! They loved it! We love you Mom and Dad, congrats and Happy Anniversary!

 

Until next time...