Xapa to the World

Tag: kindergarten homeschool

  • FIAR Vol. 1 – Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

    I went ahead and splurged on the treasury edition that has 4 of Virginia Lee Burton’s classic stories. We’ve borrowed it from the library enough that it was time to add it to our home library. The kids love this story and the personification of Mary Anne the steam shovel. They could help me finish the repetitive lines throughout by the end of the week, and my 5 year old even wanted to say the little boy’s lines when we got to them. He said them from memory and wasn’t too far off from the text.

    We went on a train ride the last day of the week with my sister, to experience what a real steam engine would be like. Alas, it was pulled by a diesel, but the conductor had a side by side illustration of a diesel and a steam so we could see the differences. It was a super fun experience for the kiddos regardless, especially trying to walk around while it was moving and going between cars. We’re also blessed to live close a river and there used to be a canal running alongside the river throughout our side of the state. Sunday afternoon, we visited a museum with all sorts of artifacts of the time of the canal and the river boat culture.

    Social Studies

    “Superpower” has amazingly detailed pen drawings of steam trains and the various engineering aspects of it. We spent a lot of time inspecting the pictures, but the text was very much beyond our abilities. “Creekfinding” was a really great true story about a man who re-wilds a farm, describing the process of restoring a creek that ran through it, enough for trout to thrive again. I recently took an EPA class on wetlands so this really checked some boxes for me – wetlands are amazing!

    Art

    These books are very cool, even though my kiddos don’t have the skills to draw with this kind of detail or sight. It’s valuable to see the stages of a drawing, from simple shapes to gradual adding of details and then definition and bolder markings. I almost always learn something more about art when we do these exercises and read these books.

    Science

    “Engineer it!” books are awesome! They are “super simple” and, practically, would be great for older elementary. My kids just don’t have the skills yet to do this kind of stuff on their own, but my engineering-minded 5 year old was really inspired just looking at the pictures.

    “Make Way for Animals!” was such a neat read! All about wildlife crossing of various kinds across the world. These kinds of books awaken your mind to problems that you would never know existed unless you were right there dealing with it. We’ve been thinking of all kinds of crossings that could be implemented when we’re out driving and what animals they would serve.

    This week’s poem is a classic, The Song of the Engine:

    When you travel on the railways,
    And the line goes up a hill,
    Just listen to the engine,
    As it pulls you with a will,
    Though it goes so very slowly
    It sings this little song,
    “I THINK I CAN, I THINK I CAN,”
    And so it goes along.

    But later on the journey,
    When you’re going down a hill,
    The train requires no pulling,
    And the engine’s singing still,
    If you listen very quietly,
    You will hear this little song,
    “I THOUGHT I COULD. I THOUGHT I COULD!”
    And so it speeds along.

    “The Song of the Engine” by Christine Weatherly

    Disclaimer: This site uses some affiliate links. This costs you nothing, but helps supplement our homeschooling costs.

    Complete Booklist:

  • FIAR Vol. 1 – Who Owns the Sun?

    This book was a little too much for my kiddos, and not for the content, but for the amount of words. I try to read our weekly book while the kids are eating breakfast. My 3 year old always speeds through her food, but even though my 5 yr old takes his time, they were both getting antsy before I finished reading. The subject matter, however, did bring a lot of discussion, as did the other books I found to enhance our week. My only complaint is that it was written by a young white girl and not in “own voice.” But, I found plenty of books to balance that so my kids could hear about this history of our country from people who had it in their own families. It is very important to me and there are so many books available out there that I have no excuse to not include them.

    Social Studies

    We used “The Drinking Gourd” as our first chapter read aloud, reading three chapters one night before bed and the next three the following night. My 5 year old recognizes the Big Dipper constellation already, so he was pretty interested. We skimmed through “The U.S. Civil War” book picking up highlights and details and then tied in “Before She was Harriet” to talk about life before, during, and after the war. “Show Way” was awesome! We actually saved it for our Language Arts day and it tied in with the storytelling through piece quilts that we learned while Rowing “The Rag Coat.”

    Art

    We skimmed through this book to see how artists will draw a picture in stages – photograph source, straight lines or circles for framing, light sketching, and then filling in more detail until complete. Lots of great pictures and things to talk about.

    Science

    Simple Machines are so much fun and I learned right along with the kids about some daily things we all use and what type of simple machine they are. We did a quick run-through on our favorite and least favorite things of different seasons, and our five senses. I am hoping that someday, my kids will look at the food I put on their plates and realize that each piece plays some part of building a healthy body. Until then, PBJ sandwiches it is! (actually, my kids are great with fruit, so I’m calling that a win for now)

    Additional Books:

    I thought I was doing a really great job at balancing stories of historic slavery and biographies of diverse people doing really awesome things and also just living lives like our family. Kids connect information in wonky ways sometimes though, and my 5 year old saw a picture of a modern Jamaican man and said, “Oh, Mommy. He has dark skin so he was enslaved.”

    Yipes. So, we had to have a quick talk about how people with dark skin live and move all over the planet and that not everyone with dark skin has themselves (or in their family history) been a slave, and U.S. chattel slavery was a long time ago. I’m glad that I also borrowed these books from the library so we can see black people living their full lives, overcoming adversity of all kinds, and NOT just as enslaved people in the 1800s.

    I struggled finding a poem this week for us to memorize. My kiddos are little and don’t understand a lot of poetic symbolism. They also can’t memorize something too long. I decided to stick with the sun theme for this week.

    Stand with your back
    to the shining sun;
    watch your shadow
    dance and run.

    Stand and face
    the shining sun;
    look ahead –
    your shadow’s gone!

    “Shadows” by Judith Nicholls

    Disclaimer: This site uses some affiliate links. This costs you nothing, but helps supplement our homeschooling costs.

    Complete Booklist: