MFW LEARNING GOD'S STORY: WEEK 1
Welcome to our adventures in first grade using My Father's World Curriculum. We are excited for this new chapter in our lives after completing MFW: Kindergarten Curriculum. Can't wait to see what new adventures are in store for us.
Kanani was super excited to finally start first grade. She has been asking me when were we going to start, but I need to some time to relax and organize. We took 3 weeks off between finishing Kindergarten to when we started first grade.
BOOKS
Some of the books we used this week
BIBLE
We began reviewing about Genesis 1:1 in the beginning. Here Kanani is showing me where on the globe we live and what her bible shows and tells about the beginning. She was able to tell me the story of how it all began till the 7th day of creation. I'm so glad she remembered everything.
After we finish our devotional Kanani draws in her notebook what she learned and then explains her picture. This something she decided to do on her own.
When we don't use "The Big book of Devotions" that came with the curriculum we use Veggie Tales Devos for girls. We start our day off with a devotion before we began our lesson. Trying to instill in Kanani to seek God first before starting her day, she loves her devotional.
BIBLE VERSE
Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and be wise!
~Proverbs 6:6
For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
~Galatians 5:14
Give your gifts in secret, who knows all secrets, will reward you.
~Matthew 6:4
WORKSHEETS
Practicing writing the letters, which has gotten so much better. She doesn't really like to write her letter I pray as we continue she will begin to enjoy it more.
To add to our language lessons I bought a Phonics and Reading workbook from Dollar Tree for more practice.
Bought this cute booklet at the Dollar Tree. Kanani has always liked small books to practice her reading, I believe the bigger book overwhelm her right now. These come in handy and help boost her confidence in reading.
Practicing the order of events
She was so excited to have completed her alphabet scroll. Love the excitement on her face as she opens her scroll.
MATH
I printed out a several copies of the 120 chart to do several different games with it. Got them from The Stem Laboratory Blog. Printed them on card stock and then laminated them. Here I set up a card of the chart with dice and a dry erase marker. She would roll the dice and then look for the number on the chart and then circle the number. Once she completed the numbers 1-12 she wanted to do more searching, so I could call out random numbers which she in turn would circle. Great for identifying numbers.
Worked with our pattern blocks, we've had the Melissa & Doug one for awhile and we all have enjoyed working with it. She also likes making her own patterns.
We started working in the math book already due to how most of the beginning of the book is more of a review for her. She was doing Math U See in Kindergarten. Here she was working on sequence and what doesn't belong.
Working on order and watched Leap Frog Math Circus. Love Leap Frog movies the kids really enjoy them and learn so much.
Brought out some of the Popsicle sticks I had made awhile ago for Kanani to build shapes with. She made a pentagon and then made a door to go with it because its shaped like a house. Also made a musical triangle, such great imagination.
ARTS & CRAFTS
For this craft she got some cutting practice in by cutting the grass for our "Close to the ground craft". She then colored the bottom of the paper brown to represent the dirt and then glued the grass above the dirt. Then I painted her thumbprint to make ants, worm, snails, and slugs on the dirt. Got the idea from Multi Crea Center Blog.
In the devotion, Fishy Friends, we learned about loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. Kanani wanted to draw a picture of several marine animals who are friends and always take care of one another. Either through baby-sitting, helping the other teach their babies to swim, and just being there for one another. She has such a big heart, love how she came up with this on her own.
Kanani made popsicle stick book mark worms after learning about earth worms. They came out really cute.
ACTIVITIES
Start our days doing our devotion first, then the 100 chart, number of the day, days of the week, month, and weather.
After we do the number of the day, weather, days of the week, Kanani likes to do the calendar.
Set a try with her last name which is divided into by each letter, she had to match the letters and then I had her try to place the letters in the correct order without looking. Need to practice more with her, poor thing has a long last name.
Made this cute caterpillar for Kanani last year of her last name. Brought it out again to make learning her last name fun. She almost there completing her last name correctly.
Used our Leap Frog magnetic letters to place them in the correct order on her dry erase board.
After completing several pages in her math book I set up a tray for her to complete the sequence I had started. She's always loved patterns and putting different objects in sequence or pattern.
Since we are reviewing the letters I put together a bin of rainbow pasta with some alphabet foam letters in them. Kanani would match the letters on the paper, make the sound for the letters she would find, tell me what color they were, and counted how many letters there were. Little man of course had to help his sister with this activity, he always loves sitting in the bin no matter whats inside of it.
Using our bananagrams to spell out her name.
Put together a magnet bin for the kids so they could explore the magnetic forces of magnetism. Bought a Magnetic Mania that came with two magnetic wands, 10 magnet marbles, 50 counting chips, and a booklet. I also added extra magnets we had so hey could search for them in the rainbow pasta. They have been playing with this for 30 minutes already. I'm so glad they are enjoying it. Kanani even put together some of the chips to make different colors.
SCIENCE
After reading about some of the things that are close to the ground from our Things Outdoor Science book I pulled out our figures of the ant life cycle. She placed the cards I made in order then explained what each stage was. Once she was done explaining she placed the figures on the correct card.
We went outside after it had stopped raining to check on our log that we had placed on the ground several days back. Found several snails, rollie pollies, spiders, beetles, and some strange looking bugs. I could only get a picture of the snail since the other bugs were moving fast trying to hide.
Went to visit my dad and the kids went to the backyard to continue looking for more earthworms. My dad has a garden and lots of flowers in the backyard. The kids really enjoyed finding all sorts of insects under flower pots, bricks, and rocks.
Some of the insects we found: lots of rollie pollies, snails, and spiders.
In the top left picture is how the dirt looked before the kids started digging, top right is how the dirt looked under a plastic bin which shows the tunnels the earthworms had made. Bottom left picture is the earth worms poop and the bottom right is one of the earthworms the kids found on the shovel.
Put together an earthworm habitat for us to observe in the next couple of days and then we will let them free.
One of the activities mentioned in the book was to collect leaves and try to identify them. We actually had done this activity for Kindergarten and saved it. It's part of our Science center.
Kanani is observing the different leaves and letting me which ones are her favorite and what they look like to her. She wants to collect more leaves to make her leaf collection bigger.
It was neat observing the earthworms make their tunnels and pull the leaves and food down the tunnels. We let them go at the end of the week before it started raining again so they could live in their natural habitat. Hope we get to do the ant experiment, just been hard with all the rain.
SCIENCE/NATURE CENTER
Since we will be learning a lot about nature throughout the year I set up a science/nature center for the kids to be able to pull out different items for them to observe. On the table there are two trays for them to be able to set the items they want to observe at the time and take it with them wherever they want to sit. There are also two floor mats next to the black book shelf that they can pull out on the floor to use for their observations.
Here is a closer look at what is on the white book shelf. The top shelf holds our microscope, test tubes, slides, magnets, clock, globe, some bug figurines, and some sensory bags. Second shelf holds some lap books, bags with: pattern sheets, color wheel, and many different types of life cycle figures, it also holds a tornado bottle and 4 baskets that have: fossils, shark tooths, seashells, gems stone, different types of coal, sandpaper, and magnifying glass. Third shelf holds some wood blocks that my wonderful dad cut for us last year, different types of pine cones, rocks, and seashells. Bottom shelf holds bigger wood pieces, bags filled with different types of items we found outside: moss, pine needles, dry grass, cotton which we used to make bird nests, and many more nature items.
A closer look or what's in the bags
Love that we have the nature center because its has been raining a lot this week and it has been hard for them to go do a nature walk which we all love.
VIDEOS
Watched some cute movies from our collection to go with the topic close to the ground.
POEMS
One of the poems we read was "Five Garden Snails", found this cute poem on Early Learning HQ website. I decided to draw some birds in different colors and 5 snails to go with the poem. Kanani really enjoyed being able to interact with the poem.
END OF THE WEEK
Enjoyed playing in the rain, great way to end the week.
It has been a great first week, can't wait to see how the following weeks go for us.
GOD BLESS!
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