We started our first unit with a yummy pancake breakfast.
Levi LOVES bacon!
He was a big fan of the salt tray. You can see that his S is backwards. I will correct him once, but don't focus on it much. He recognizes all letters, even the lowercase ones that are easy to confuse. (Like D, B, and P.) He only wants to flip them when he writes, which I'm thinking is pretty normal at this stage.
Here was his favorite of the worksheets! He enjoyed circling the items that started with S and putting an X over the ones that didn't. (Markers get him much more excited to color than crayons do.)
He had a special morning with his Gramma Toni reading Sun Bread and baking their own, too! Levi is always in the kitchen with us, asking to help prepare, bake, or cook, so I know he really loved this project!
It was so warm and delicious with a little jelly & a glass of milk!
Thankfully we got in some painting when he made his handprint sun craft!
Levi has a 5 year old pen pal named Trey, who lives in New York! We found it on the map and he asked to visit. He traces my letters for extra practice. It's an exciting time when we are ready to put it in the mailbox!
Bear Shadow was one of the many books we read this unit. Bear tries to run away from his shadow and discovers how it changes throughout the day. We went outside after we finished and traced Levi's shadow. Then, a few hours later, we did it once more and were able to see how it had changed. I wish we would have started earlier and traced more than 2 times, but still a cool concept!
At the beginning of the unit we taped 3 white shapes to a piece of black construction paper and hung it in the window. After allowing it to sit for a week, we took it down and removed the shapes to discover that the sun had faded the black paper significantly! We talked about how, like the sun, God can make dark things light, and similarly, bad things good.
This is his, "I'd rather be outside drawing with chalk than doing school" face. Too cute!
A glimpse at a few of the books we read. We check out about 10-15 books each unit!
Not pictured:
We took our globe into the bathroom and turned off the light so it was completely dark. Then, using a flashlight, I showed Levi how as the earth moves around the sun, only parts of the world are lit while others are dark. We discussed how when it's day where we live, it's night elsewhere.
Another time, Levi wore a blindfold while I spun him around. Then I asked him to try and find familiar objects in the room, like the couch, or the piano. Because he couldn't see he had trouble doing this! We took off the blindfold and talked about how God is a light to guide our path, and without Him we will have trouble and stumble or fall. This may have been a bit over his head, but you never know what they take in until it comes out again later!
We started each lesson listening and singing along to "Shine Jesus Shine". Here is the video we used. One afternoon while Levi was playing on the porch, I caught his little voice singing these words. Such joy! What a gift to see the fruit of labor and to know he is, in fact, learning!
Here is another video we used to learn about the letter S.
All in all we are doing great. The biggest struggle has been making school a priority, especially being overwhelmed by ALL THE THINGS to finish and do before baby comes in 4-7 weeks. I can't always have my ducks in a row before we start a lesson and that is HARD for me! Instead of the nice smooth schedule I had hoped for, we squeeze school in whenever we can! But that's one of the many perks to homeschooling - FLEXIBILITY! I am quickly learning I need to let go of perfection and embrace this journey for the messy one that it is - and I imagine once we throw baby in the mix it will only get messier!
So that wraps up our first unit : Ss Sun! We move on to Aa Apple this week! Yahoo!
