Unit 5: Nest

Unit 5 is all about the letter Nn and nest. Words to remember are God takes good care of me. We learned that God wants to be like a parent to us, keeping us safe and helping us to grow. He knows how to take good care of us. We read the story of Elijah being sent to the bad King Ahab with admonishment, but King Ahab would not listen. He instead listened to Queen Jezebel. She continually made trouble for the King. God cared for Elijah sending Ravens to feed him and he will do the same for us if we obey his commands.

We were supposed to do some projects, but too many complaints from the little guy so I am going with bare minimum for a while. Here is his handwriting page and matching letters to pictures. His fives look really good I think I helped him with these.

 Math was fun he had to draw the right number of eggs in each basket. He also had to trace a penny and write the number of cents it equaled. The penny kept moving when he was tracing. Sigh!

  Caleb drawing pictures that start with the letter N. From left to right he drew a net, needle, nest, and nectarine. Can you see it?

We read two books. Elijah took a couple of weeks in between reading Alice in Bibleland books. I like the Young Readers Christian Library books because even though they have a lot of words there is a picture for Caleb to look at on every other page. Pictures are very important to little people.

Another reading activity with no words was to put this in sequence. After a couple of tries he finally got it right.

Unit 4: Apple

Unit 4 is all about the letter Aa and apple. We learned that fruits grow on trees, bushes, and vines. God says that if we live and stay in Jesus, we will grow a lot of fruit. Have you ever seen fruit growing on people? What kind of fruit? Well, the Bible tells us exactly what kind.

So we created this cute little apple tree called  "Fruit of the Spirit" and taped it to the fire place mantel. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23a NIV. I love having this out were we both can see and be reminded when we are not acting accordingly. What a great opportunity to build character directly from the bible.

For math we put an apple graph together. Caleb learned first, second, and third and reviewed sizes smallest to largest. He also cut an apple in half and we talked about 1/2 and 1/4 then we enjoyed eating fresh apples for the rest of the week.

 Handwriting page and another little more complicated graph for math.

 Sound discrimination page were Caleb must put an X through each picture that does not start with the letter A or have the /a/ sound. The second page is recognizing which letters go with the pictures. 

 Still trying to encourage Caleb to draw his own pictures. There is an alligator, apple, ant, and an ax. Just use your imagination.

Nice book. The little girl wants to make an apple pie, but when she goes to market there is a sign on the door "Gone Fishing". So she travels all over the world finding wheat to grind into flour, a chicken to lay an egg, a cow for fresh milk, salty sea water for salt, and fresh picked apples. She bakes an apple pie, invites some friends over to share and she goes to market for ice cream only to find the there is a sign "Still Fishing".  

Unit 3: Leaf

Unit 3 is all about the letter Ll and the Leaf. We learned that if a leaf is plucked from the branch it will whither and die. A leaf needs to stay connected for nourishment and continued growth. A leaf is happiest when it has plenty of water, food and warm sunlight. I told Caleb the story of an unhappy leaf who wanted to be his own boss. He did not want to have anything to do with the plant anymore. So I broke off the leaf from the plant and set it aside. We discussed what might happen. 

 After a few days the leaf started loosing it's beautiful green color and finally turned brown. Then we pretended he was the leaf and God the plant giving us the nourishment we needed to live our lives recognizing some people want to live without God and do not want to obey his commands. Jesus said, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you . . . If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love . . . My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." John 15:4, 10, 12 NIV

   Caleb did two different leave drawings. One is an outline of a leaf the other a rubbing. He did not care too much for this project so the rest of the activities were scratched.

In Math Caleb is learning about sets. When I asked him why the wrench went with the bolt he answered because they are tools. Great! He gets the concept.

Handwriting Ll and the number 3. I helped him with his 3's. Oops on my part - he'll expect me to do it every time.

Caleb learned the letter /l/ sound. I can't wait for him to start reading. In Unit 4 for will start learning his vowel sounds.

Our read aloud for this unit was I Am a Leaf by Jean Marzollo. Again, I did not make it to the library to see if they had any books about leaves so we finished up On Plum Creek and started Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. These books have so much information in them I find very refreshing. I also started something new Devotions for the Children's Hour by Kenneth N. Taylor. It is a great way to start the day. So far we have learned There is Only One God, Who Is God? and Where Did God Come From? A great book that teaches doctrine on a level children can understand and probably many adult if they took the time to read it. I am finding it helpful for myself in my own walk with Christ.