Kindergarten 2013 - What We're Doing

 This year we will embark on the Alphabet Path again!  Cecilia is so excited, because she has some memories of this when Caroline was in Kindergarten.  She is thrilled to be doing school and especially is excited about coloring and writing.

You can find past posts about the Alphabet Path under the label "alphabet path" to see what we did when Caroline was in K.  I am realizing there will be no way to get in all the crafts and baking projects we did then, along with doing 3rd grade and keeping up with my most active toddler yet!  But we will still try to do some fun stuff... this week, we managed to do apple prints with paint as well as work on parts of an "All About Me" lapbook.

Cecilia's week basically looks like this:
* Listening to and learning the Flower Fairy songs/poems
* Reading and memorizing poems from A Catholic Alphabet of Saints and God's Alphabet
* Listening to the stories from the Alphabet Path in which new saints, flowers, and letters are introduced by friendly fairies
* Coloring sheets for various saints, fairies, and other themes for each letter
* Copywork from the two poem books - tracing at first, moving on to actual handwriting at some point when she is ready.  She will also trace letters with her fingers on paper and in cornmeal and model them with playdough.
* ABC Virtues - one for each letter; coloring and binding into a book
* ABC Museum picture study - studying one painting for each letter and then Cecilia will draw her own version and compile them into a book
* Listening to various classic childhood picture books
* Listening to various picture books on science and nature themes (for instance, A is apples, B is birds, F is flowers...)
* French video once a week - Bonjour, les Amis
* Number Practice for Little Folks
* Catholic Children's Treasure Box books, read at tea time
* Whatever art projects and crafts we can fit in

We will also do Circle Time every day, which will include:
* Calendar work: saint of the day, date, days of week, months of year, liturgical color of the day
* Monthly prayer and hymn
* Reading about saint of the day
* Counting patterns with beanbags
* Beginning to learn about time and money (really basic right now, as she is still learning the names/values of each coin)
* Nursery Rhymes beginning with the letter of the week (she will also choose her favorite one for each letter and illustrate it in a book)
* Finger plays beginning with the letter of the week

Cecilia is not yet reading, as Caroline was going into Kindergarten, so I won't be having her reread the Alphabet Path stories aloud to me.  I will probably have her narrate them back to me after reading them each week.  I will also read to her from Devotional Stories for Little Folks, most likely... just have to figure out where to schedule that in...

I am planning to go make some pie crust in a few minutes so it will be ready for her to make an apple pie tomorrow... so, I'd better end this now and schedule it to post in the morning!  I love the gentle, fun, laid-back Kindergarten days and am glad to be able to go through the alphabet path again!