Tuesday, September 4, 2007

first day of school



Today there was much excitement in the house of homeschool. It was Kooka's first day of Kindergarten and she was sooooooo excited. Punk admitted to being a little bit excited - but only for science and art. Kooka dressed herself in her favorite "Don't Bug Me!" dress and asked for her very favorite hair - "one ponytail coming out the back." Even Punk put on a clean shirt for the occasion.

After chores and breakfast, we kicked off the day with art.

Art is Punk's favorite, and even though we knew this was easy work for him (having worked with Ms. Toni all last year) we started with color wheels. Kooka blended the primary colors to make the secondary colors. Punk had a tougher assignment - blending the primary colors to make secondary and tertiary colors (no easy task with the tempra paint we used). Everybody had fun - but we're all excited for Ms. Toni to come back - and this year Kooka will get her own lessons too.


Next it was on to reading. Punk started "The Cricket in Times Square," and is loving it. Kaia is reviewing phonics rules and using Sing, Spell, Read and Write books. She's a different type of reader than Punk - so it's more challenging to make sure she can actually read and isn't just memorizing sight words.

After reading it was on to math and language. Kooka is our puzzle kid and looooves math. She asks for it all the time, and is pretty quick (even though she still counts on her fingers). She just seems to "get it.". She aced the first two pages of a first grade book, and asked for more. Both kids are starting Singapore Math this year - which is supposed to be incedibly tough - so we started with some assessment stuff. Punk worked on a test, while Kooka used the numberline and flashcards For language, Punk started his new spelling list, while Kooka worked on rhymes and opposites.

Our final project was science - where we built food pyramids out of legos, and filled in our own food pyramids on paper. It's not nearly as cool (or gross) as the human body project they have planned for next week - but still cool.

When it was all said and done Kaia got to pick where we went for her "first day of school lunch" - China Buffet. But we couldn't leave until we took a picture of her with math book, and her new binder, and her fuzzy red pencil, and her color wheel . . . . .





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Could I come to school at your house? It sure sounds fun. You'e got a great teacher. I reminded Schroeder and Medea to thank each of their teachers each day as they left class...do you do this? I'm sure you do. I'm excited to hear more about your school days. Have a great second day!