Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Another Year... Kindergarten

Near the end of another year...  What were the take away's for each of us?  Here's the summary of my 6 yo's year...

Biggest change
Independence and self-confidence

Best learning tools/curriculum
  • Beginning reading skills:  Headsprout -- expensive but he likes it and it has about a year and a half to get through the 80 lessons at the pace we're doing it (we take breaks quite often -- the pace of doing it every day was too much for his reading development.  He should have it completed by about the end of May
  • Math:  Life of Fred Apples, Butterflies plus games, games and games (chess, war, skipbo, speed, monopoly junior, the Game of Life, allowance)
  • Handwriting:  iWriteWords app for iPhone (doable whenever waiting places for highschool brother)
  • Learning activity:  A weekly "bookclub" coop with friends where we covered a huge number of categories:
    • Detectives
    • Maps and compasses
    • Ears and Eyes
    • Native Americans
    • Environment
    • The Earth
  • Learning activity:  Junior FIRST LEGO League Snack Attack -- he LOVED being on a Junior FIRST LEGO League -- field trips, sharing LEGO's, watching youtube videos about how different ingredients are grown and processed (cocoa beans, sugar, etc.).  And he loved telling people about his models.
  • Learning activity:  Stop motion animation with LEGO's -- by far, the best software for elementary students:  Zu3D
  • Most common obsessions:  LEGO's (especially minifigs with weapons), nerf guns and battles, military strategy, wii games, free play with friends
  • Favorite read-aloud books:
    • Magic Tree House books
    • Mary Pope Osborne's Odyssey series
  • Favorite electronic games:
    • Plants vs. zombies
    • Anything LEGO or Mario on the wii and gamecube
Next learning goals
  • Reading -- move further along the journey to fluent reading (challenge is getting him to "see" the words)
  • Spelling -- part of reading
  • Math -- writing out math problems -- his knowledge of math is great
  • Handwriting, handwriting, handwriting
  • More general science and social studies discussions



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