school: Curriculum and the Latest

Here are some of the books we are working on this year.

We use Scholastic Phonics Level A workbook. Felipe is over half way through it and so far I am very happy with it. I am going to have to buy one for Cassandra soon.

For English Language Arts we are using Harcourt Brace Signatures. We are on the second story and the kids seem happy with it. It is a lot like what I used when I taught first grade. We don't have the workbooks, but I never liked them anyways. We just do our own activities with the stories.

For Spanish we are using Houghton-Mifflin Kindergarten Spanish. For this one we only have the workbook, but not the anthologies. However, the workbooks is really helping them with their Spanish and most of the stories we either have in Spanish or are at the library since they are mostly just the traditional tales like the Gingerbread Man and The Little Red Hen. Felipe is over 2/3 of the way through and Cassandra is just beginning the workbook.

This is the Math book that Cassandra is working on. However she is working on a Spanish version that has the practice workbook and extra review sheets. Felipe finished this book and is working in the first grade book that follows. He will probably finish the first grade book in January. My only complaint is that there aren't enough addition and subtraction practice sheets in the first grade book. I am making a supplement book for him to work on for 2 min. every day with just the math facts.

I used this book with Felipe last year. We got about half way through but he started to lose interest and so did I. I am debating if I should try it with Cassandra. I think it helped him a little to sound out words, but I like the Scholastic Phonics workbook better.

We have a few other supplemental books that I use like leveled readers and a nice science experiment book for kids.

Here are some pictures of work and play we have done:

I mounted my white board on the wall. Now I can't think of anything to write on it.

I made this puppet show from a plastic exercise bar that Cassandra had but that was too light to hold any weight and some old drapes (they still have plenty of wear left :)

Little Felipe made this city for his trains and cars. It has a hospital, fire station, park, grocery store, lakes, grass, and our house.

I set up the doll house next to the school room. Cassandra and Carolina have been playing with it a lot now. We took it down several months ago because nobody played with it and spiders started to move in.