My Father's World: Kindergarten

MFW: God's Creation From A to Z (Kindergarten)

This is our first official year we will be homeschooling our princess, going into Kindergarten.  We have always done some type of school with her: teaching her the basic, anything to prepare her for Kinder.  After some extensive research we have decided on going with My Father's World for her Kindergarten curriculum.  To supplement math (the only thing in MFW curriculum that didn't seem much of a challenge for her), we decided to go with Math U See Primer.  

I've put together how I organized the curriculum trying to make things easier for when we start our school year.  Hopefully this will someone out there or give you some idea as to how to get things started.  We are new to all of this so it's a growing process for us.  



I took the teacher manual and decided to place tabs in every unit and index section, to make it easy to flip to the unit or section I need to look through.  

TEACHER'S WORKBOOK

Bought a 3" binder to hold everything I would need for this school year.

In the inside pocket of the binder holds the unit that comes next.  I try to have 2 units ready at a time.  The one we are going to work on and the one after.  Never know what might happen so I always try my best to be prepared a little early.

I have every section in the binder divided up by units or materials I may need for the year.

Our first section hold all the zipper pouches.  First pouch holds all the alphabet flashcards for the units.  I placed the letters in order of the units, which is not in alphabetical order.



Second pouch is our Say Hello to Classical Music CD and I've included a picture of each composer to go along with the cd.  I've also done some research on each composer and tried to find whatever information I could of each music, which I couldn't find it on all but a good majority.  Just something basic to let her know some information of the composers and music she is listening to.  There's the link to the blog where I have posted all the pictures of the composers: Say Hello to Classical Music.  

Third pouch holds the ABC Game Cards, and Bingo cards.  I had these cards laminated, I know these will get lots of use so I wanted to make sure they would withstand the use.

In the fourth pouch I placed our Biblical Concept Flashcards (memory versus), I have also placed these in the order of the units.  It makes things easier especially for when I am prepping the lessons.

Fifth pouch holds all the Badge Patterns, which I also laminated and have in order of the units.  

Sixth holds some Passport cards (3 different kinds that I bought in the Dollar Tree) and some flashcards that have different flags from around the world. Purple Passport: Landmarks of the World, Green Passport: Nations of the World, and the Red Passport: Flags of the World.

Seventh and last pouch holds the picture cards which I've laminated.  The cards go in here after we use them for the units.  

Next is the outline section.  Here is where I have the unit reading list.  I write down all the books we use as we go along in the units.  I preorder the books from the library at least 2 weeks in advance.  We decided not to buy the book package that came with this unit mostly because we have a big enough library of our own and we decided to use the library for this.  Our local libraries hold almost all the books that are in the list.  

This is the second part of the outline section.  Here I write down the instructions to each craft I want to do for each unit.  Helps me know materials I would need in advance and be able to prep things instead of trying to do everything at the last minute.

Next sections are the units.  I have divided each unit and all the worksheets I need (student packet), all the paper is in clear page protectors.  That way all I have to do is take the worksheets out that I would need for the unit instead of having to go through all worksheets and try to find what I need exactly.
I also laminated the picture pages, since the child would be going back to the pictures during the unit.  

I took the Cuisenaire Rods Alphabet Book and took it apart and put each page in a clear page protector.  

An example of the pages in the protector. That way I can take the page out that she will be working on and not worry about having to get the whole book out.

I decided to divided the rods and show her a diagram of how it will be used and what amount each one would stand for.  

MATH U SEE

This binder holds all of our Math U See materials: dvd, teacher manual, and student manual.

In the pouch in the front holds our Primer DVD.

Inside is our teacher manual workbook and student manual.  I've taken the student manual and took it apart and placed each page in a page protector.  

I keep the worksheets in their page protectors and let her write on them with a dry erase marker.  That way I can always go back and reuse the pages as many times as need.
  

This box holds all the Math U See manipulatives.

A picture of the manipulatives.

KANANI'S WORKBOOK

I got Kanani her own workbook (binder), also 3", to hold all of her finished work and charts.

First page is her 100 Chart, will actually it's the attendance chart but that's more for me then her, she writes down the number of days we have been school.  Once we reach 100 we will celebrate by probably going somewhere special of her choice and have a mini party.

Next page is her calendar, she writes the days down as we do school.  I have the page in a page protector as well. 

Next is the section in which I put her worksheets, crafts, and poems in.  

I will have her poem along with her worksheets for her unit.

All her crafts that can fit in the page protector will be stored for each unit individually.  The ones that won't fit the page protectors will be in her folder in the back of the notebook.

HOOKED ON PHONICS 

Here are some Hooked on Phonics worksheets I had bought for her for Pre-Kinder.  I use them as part of a review while we do each unit.

UNITED STATES MAP

Here is a picture of the United States with all the states names on them.  We are trying to remember all the states and then we will move on to the capitals of each state.

UNIT THEMES BUCKET

Lastly I have a Unit Themes bucket which houses all of the units materials.  I have a ziplock bag that has toys, pictures, shapes, etc... for each unit theme.  For example for Unit 1:Sun and the number 1,  we placed the letters Ss the word Sun, pictures of the sun, stamps of the sun, and the number 1.  Above the bucket I printed out a small list of the units so I could pull the bag out I would it.  I also have the bags in the order of the units.

All the other materials: Butterfly garden Ant Hill, world balloon, and etc.... I have on a top shelf for when we need them I can pull off the shelf.  

I hope this has been helpful for those of you considering to do this curriculum.  So far we have enjoyed it and have learned so much.  The best thing we love the most of this curriculum is that it is based of the bible.  Which is so important to us. 

GOD FIRST in EVERYTHING!!

I'll also blog each unit once we have completed it.  It will show some of the things we do for each unit or theme.  

God Bless!

I will post a link to each unit as we finish each one below:

Classical Music Composers

Say Hello to Classical Music

Letter Ss

Creation Unit and Unit 1: Sun

Letter Mm

Unit 2: Moon

Letter Ll

Unit 3: Leaf

Letter Aa

Unit 4: Apple

Letter Nn

Unit 5: Nest

Letter Tt

Unit 6: Turtle

Letter Uu
Unit 7: Us

Letter Dd
Unit 8: Dinosaur 

Letter Oo
Unit 9: Octopus

Letter Ww
Unit 10: Water

Letter Ii
Unit 11: Insect

Letter Gg
Unit 12: Goat

Letter Cc
Unit 13: Cow

Letter Hh
Unit 14: Horse

Letter Ee
Unit 15: Elephant

Letter Pp
Unit 16: Penguin 

Letter Kk
Unit 17: Kangaroo

Letter Zz
Unit 18: Zebra

Letter Rr
Unit 19: Rock

Letter Jj
Unit 20: Jewel

Letter Bb
Unit 21: Butterfly

Butterfly Garden Experience 

Letter Ff
Unit 22: Frog

Letter Xx
Unit 23: Fox

Letter Vv
Unit 24: Vegetable


Letter Qq
Unit 25: Quail

Letter Yy

Unit 26: Yellow

Observation Center

Our Observation Center has been coming along quite nicely.  We have really enjoyed our center and learning new things.  

OBSERVATION CENTER

FOUR SEASONS & GLOBES & BUCKETS

On the top self is our four seasons models and two globes (one is a game and the other a regular globe), behind the globe is our science beakers.  The first shelf holds three buckets.  ABC bucket has different games to learn and review letters.  PROJECTS bucket has many different types of arts and crafts for her to chose.  MATCHING bucket has different types of games from matching to memory ones.

SCIENCE CENTER

Second shelf is more like our science shelf with a microscope, our second set of beakers, and clock.  Also has our cursive cards and three small baskets.  The red basket hold our gems jar and a bag of gems that she found in her bag of sand.  Green basket holds fossils of shark teeth, coral, and some rocks.  Blue basket has some sea shells we found when we went on vacation to the beach.  We also have a model of Albert Eisenstein, a slinky, and a wooden grasshopper that makes the sound of a grasshopper (which we bought at the Natural Science Museum in Raleigh). 

NATURE CENTER



Third shelf is our nature shelf.  Thanks to my dad for cutting the wood into different sizes.  We went to Lake Rim Park for our nature walk and got some sticks, gum tree seeds, three magnifying glass, and rocks from our walk.  

Here's a close up of the different pieces of wood my dad cut for me.  I really love how it came out.

Some of the sticks we found on our nature walk and the wooden tubes are from a potpourri bag I had.   The gum tree sticks and the pine cones are more treasures we found from our walk.

In the green basket is a closer look of our three magnifying glass and the basket of rocks are from different places we have been.  Kanani is a bigger rock collection that he holds in a basket in her room.  There is also some sand papers I put in for the kids to use on the wood.  

RAINBOW CENTER

Fourth shelf is our RAINBOW shelf, which we made mostly for Dartanian.  Put it at his level for him to have easy access to it.  He really loves taking things down and observing them.  Now if only I could get him to put things back when he is done with it.  In due time for now he's sister and I will put them back for us, at least he'll hand it to us.  We have a dominion puzzle, two slinkys, some alphabet blocks, color wheel, rainbow, and our cute rainbow caterpillar.  There are 10 different plastic containers, each are different colors.  The containers hold different objects that represent each color.  Dartanian likes picking them up and looking through them, Kanani actually opens them and places them in a tray to observe each object that is in the container.

NATURE CENTER

In our last and fifth shelf is more of our nature stuff.  One big log which is used for a lot of imagination play and what the kids use the sandpaper the most.  The basket of pine cones are from a nature walk and home.  The square basket holds some logs my wonderful dad cut for us and it also has some flat pieces of wood that he also cut for us.  

A closer look of our log and two of our I SPY bottles.

I moved the basket of pine cones into a smaller basket to make it easier for the kids to move.  The stick in the back is one that Kanani found at my dad's house which she made sure to bring back with her.  

In this wonderful basket you can see a closer look of the wonderful job my dad did in cutting the wood and the flat pieces.  

Here Kanani is observing the wood, getting a closer feel for the wood.

Imagination at its FINEST!

Therapy, Working, Service Dogs

Today we went to West Regional Library to learn about therapy, working, and service dogs.  Once I told the kids about it they couldn't wait to go to the library.

My superheroes

The kids put on a small skit about Balto the dog hero.  Kanani couldn't stop smiling that she was the doctor and Anthony was the narrator.

Daniel was Balto, a very cute one.

After the kids finished the skit for the two visitors that came they learned all about the hard working dogs.
She (can't remember her name) would show them different pictures showing the three different types of dogs.  They learned about therapy, service, and working dogs.

Here are the dogs that came to visit: a mini Dachshund named Tili (12 years old) and a German Shepherd named Brit (11 years old).

Tili is a therapy dog 

Brit is a retired Army dog, who is a working and therapy dog, a very gentle giant.

Dartanian couldn't get enough of Brit, he loves big dogs.

Anthony really took to Tili.

Some of Brit's beautiful pictures, one of my favorite breeds.