Melody - my "Kindergarten Girl"

I'm so excited to teach Melody this year for Kindergarten and she's thrilled to be a "Kindergarten Girl". She's such an enthusiastic learner that I know she will be a joy to teach. I look forward to seeing her blossom even more this year! Now I want to share some of the curriculum we will be using.

First, my friend Suzanne shared a super idea with me and some other ladies yesterday. I've seen "lapbooks" before online, but never in "real life". We had a field trip yesterday and all got together to visit afterwards and she brought a bag full of them! So... we will be doing a few lapbooks this fall. It sounds and looks right up Melody's alley! I will post some pictures when we get started, but I believe our first lapbook will be on fire safety, based on yesterday's field trip to the fire station. Here is a cool website that Suzanne said she uses a lot for her lapbooks:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/


Here's an example of a lapbook centered around a human body theme. I got this picture off of lapbooksbylarisa's blog:





Phonics Pathways - Melody is itching to read and she's in the very beginning stages of it. PP is a simple, no-frills curriculum that still provides plenty of fun. For the most part, she knows all of her letter sounds and is beginning to blend. She can sound out some CVC (consonent-vowel-consonent) words but she's mostly working on two-letter blends:




http://www.dorbooks.com/phonics.html


Just for a fun supplement, we are using time4learning as well. It's great for phonics! Whitley used it for awhile a few years ago and loved it and Melody does too. We may move on to Headsprout later in the year.

http://www.time4learning.com/

http://www.headsprout.com/


Singapore and CLE Math - For K, Melody will be using Singapore Math. I'm just waiting for her to grow into CLE First Grade math. We have it just waiting on the shelf for her! But in the meantime, I think Singapore will be a good start.

For everything else, Melody will be sitting in on Whitley's school - Apologia, Mystery of History, Rosetta Stone, etc. Because Whitley and Noelle will both be in school on Wednesdays; Melody, John Isaac and I will be spending some special time together. I've labeled these days "Wacky Wednesdays" and Melody is very excited about it. ;) So far, she's only decided to go out to eat together. We'll also go to The WonderPlace, the zoo, ec. and of course it will be a good time to focus on her schoolwork without her big sister around.

Just for fun, I want to list some of my other favorite homeschooling resources/websites. These are listed in no particular order and are all fabulous! Some of them I'd even forgotten about until I revisited my "favorites" - so I'm glad I did. Are any of these new to you? List your favorites in reply!

http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.donnayoung.org/

http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/index.html

http://www.janbrett.com/

Make your own crossword puzzle! We've used this with Latin and Greek root words before.

http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/

http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/materials/bingo/

This is a great place to order blank books, blank board books, blank game boards - you name it! My mom got Whitley a bunch of stuff from this website a few years ago and she's had a lot of fun with it!

http://www.barebooks.com/

http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/printables/printables.html

http://www.progressivephonics.com/

This is a cute way to help new readers distinguish between the lowercase letters "b" and "d" - Mr. Beady Eyes. 8-)

http://boostforreaders.com/mrbeadyeyes.html

That's all I've got for now!