We're off! We're trying out Amanda Bennett's Easter unit study before committing to a year of unit studies next fall. To be honest, mentally I'm already very excited about the unit studies and very committed (as in, I have the year sketch-planned). But you know, before making the commitment with our wallet, I wanted to try out a couple of studies. We're beginning with her 4-week Easter study. Two days in, I have mixed emotions. I'm still very excited and mentally committed to unit studies, but I'm not sure this was the way to start. The studies we plan to do in the fall are 1-week studies specifically geared toward kids K-4th grade. The 4-week study we are doing is a K-12 study that is divided into two sections, Lower Level and Upper Level. The upper level is fascinating for me! I'm really enjoying going through the material and learning lots of new things. However, even the lower level isn't quite "low enough" for a Kindergartner. We only do about 1/3 of each day's lesson because it's a lot of information. And some of the ideas are just plain difficult to present to a 5 year old. Let me back up. The Easter study is a study of Jesus' life, beginning with Old Testament prophecy and ending with His ascension. Trying to explain prophets today was a flop. Adeline kept telling me, "But Jesus wasn't born yet." This is where a background in education would be helpful to me! Maybe the idea of a prophet is too abstract for a 5 year old. Maybe I just don't know how to explain it. I dunno. Either way, she didn't get it and we moved on. I'm ok with that, though. We're still having a great time studying the life of Jesus and the kids are learning *something* even if it isn't everything that is laid out. We can return to the study in a few years and catch the rest of the info.
So, that being said, here is what we've done so far this week:
We started a timeline of Jesus' life. Adeline drew Jesus in the manger with Joseph and Mary. I was going to add the approximate date to our timeline, but I felt like that was information overload at this point.
Each day we open a Resurrection Egg and talk about the item's significance to the Easter story. Monday was a donkey and Tuesday was silver coins. This activity is a BIG hit. They want to open all the eggs right away!
On Monday, Adeline copied the first half of John 3:16. She already knows this verse, so we used it for handwriting practice.
Tuesday she copied the second half.
She also journaled about one way we celebrate Easter. She wrote the sentence herself. It says, "We hide Easter eggs." Pretty close!
We located Israel on the map and marked it with a cross. It was neat for the kids to see exactly where Jesus lived while He was on earth.
We have started a word wall for Easter. We are adding a couple of words each day.
That wraps up our Easter study so far. Two days down, eighteen to go!
In Language Arts we added the concept of two vowels appearing together. You remember the rhyme? "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." We also added the "and sometimes Y" portion of "A, E, I, O, U." I've been mostly happy with BJU Press' phonics program up until this point. They use characters to help show word patterns, and although it's a cute way to explain phonics, it's hard for Adeline to remember the concept without the use of the characters. Below is Miss Long and Miss Silent explaining the "a" and "y" vowels. We will not be using BJU Press next year for phonics, but I have been happy enough with it that we will probably use it again for Kindergarten with Braxton and Sadie.
In Math we are revisiting money, adding the nickel to the previously learned dime and penny. A friend found this book at the library for us. It made a great introduction to the chapter!
Well, that brings us up to the present. I have a fun Easter craft planned for tomorrow and we've started a Pinterest flower growing experiment that I will post about later this week. So far it's working! And for the record, I'm still not a Pinterest person - just thankful for those who are that share their findings!
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