"CK" Consonant Team - Fun Reading Activity!

Basically, this week I'm sharing some of the many cool activities we used from the All About Reading Curriculum (you can find the link on the sidebar) Level 1.

Today, you'll see Little V practice reading words ending with the consonant team "CK":

At the All About Spelling Curriculum, we learned when to used this consonant team at the end of words.

How do we work with these word flippers? After assembling them, I let Little V read them all the way through on her own, if she mispronounce a word, I first wait to see if she catches her mistake on her own, if not, then I just remind her of  the correct pronunciation.

Reading is a love of hers, so she doesn't mind at all reading a second it all a second turn, she's really eager to read and to pronounce word properly and I love it!

This is a good idea to help your little ones to practice reading some of those words that might be giving them a hard time. You don't have to elaborate something fancy. I would definitely use some color markers.

If you are using this curriculum, you can also have them color each word once they mastered reading it! It just a little thing to help them feel that sense of accomplishment! ;o) The same feeling they have once they move the word cards behind the "mastered words" tab!

How have you been using the word flipper activity? Any cool experience you would like to share? Please, leave a comment below, we would love to hear from you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Letters From Felix - We recommend!

One of the objectives of this blog is to share cool stuff we find in our homeschooling journey, and as soon as we got this book I knew I had to talk about it! What a clever idea and how fun this book is!!!

A very dear friend gave Little V this book, it was from her daughters who are older now, but she was kind to pass it on and we simply love it!

Letters from Felix by Annette Langen & Constanza Droop is one of those books that we definitely recommend, and why so? Because it's fun!

There are little letters from Felix to his owner, and it shares information about all these different places Felix is visiting. Can't tell much more, we do not want to spoil the fun! So check your local library, and if you trust us enough, add it to your shelf. ;o)

Once you read it, let us know how did you like it!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Sorting Syllables Fun Activity!

I honestly don't think I'll ever be tired of telling you how grateful I am that Little V is having this great opportunity to learn in a fun way. I'm privileged to be able to share with her and with you these little things that make learning so much more fun and easier as well. Why do I think fun is so important when learning? Because I personally experienced how terrible it can be to go to school day in and day out and be just bored, so bored that you mind wonder in another direction, far away from the board, boring books and boring teacher speaking things that you cannot quite comprehend because it's so boring!

That's why I put a lot of effort in finding the right curriculum, the one that has more hands on activities and browsing for videos to add to the lesson, and making PowerPoint presentations to help Little V grasp more of whatever subject she needs to learn.

Why am I sharing all of these? Because the topic of today's post was the most dreadful to me, sorting syllables was just not my thing and my teacher did not make it easier either. I was able to get by with the grades and all, but just now after learning with All About Reading so I could teach Little V I feel more confident with this topic!

Here's what I learned through AAR and how a taught*: each syllable has a vowel sound, so you find the vowels first and from there you can start separating the syllables in the word. That's so simple, I wish my teacher had explained to me that way!

Even if the words has 2 vowels, as in the word: BOOT, they are working as a team to make one sound, therefore we keep them together, never separate a team, right!?!

Now, some fun pictures of Little V working on sorting syllables:

An activity as simple as what you saw in the pictures above is enough to involve more senses in the learning process and get the information rooted! ;o)

Have you found a cool way to teach sorting syllables? Leave a comment below, we would love to hear your experience!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

* At this point Little V is only learning how to identify the syllables and sort them, we haven't gotten into all of the separating syllables rules yet.

Skip Counting by 5s Fun Activities!

If there's a way to learn Math and have fun, you can be sure that we are in! I feel like Little V had a great amount of fun learning Math this entire year and today I'm sharing some of the cool activities she did while learning how to skip counting by 5s.

Our K4 Curriculum had these cute flashcards, and as Little V is a great visual learner they came in handy!

Another cool activity from our K4 Curriculum was the number puzzles:

... and also the number mazes: 

I used these activities and others in addition to the activities of the Math U See curriculum we regularly use. These activities were a way to add more practice, review and have some fun!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Our Homeschool Schedule and Subjects!

Our state, Illinois, requires that a child attend to 176 days of school/homeschool, and that's the amount of days we dedicate to homeschooling. I planned 2 weeks for Winter Break and 1 week for Spring Break in our homeschool calendar.

The subjects we are covering during the Kindergarten year are:

- Math (5 days a week)
- Spelling (5 days a week)
- Reading (5 days a week)
- Science (2 days a week)
- Geography (2 days a week)
- Arts (3 days a week)
- Music (2 days a week)
- Portuguese (5 days a week)
- Bible (5 days a week)

We currently have 4 long days and 1 short day (Math/Spelling/Reading/Portuguese/Bible). I organized this schedule by checking the number of lessons for each subject, then dividing it by 36 weeks, this way I was able to have an idea of how many times a week I needed to cover each subject and complete the curriculum. I do have an extra day for Arts so she can explore new things like arts and crafts, or practice more of something that she likes, such as painting.

I can't believe we are 3 weeks away from finishing Kindergarten, it seems like it was yesterday that we started it.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Artist Lesson - Jackson Pollock - Part II

As I mentioned in the previous post, Little V had lots of fun learning about Jackson Pollock and one of the reasons for it was the fact that she had a chance to experience a little the style Jackson Pollock used to paint.

I taped a big cardstock on the floor and she was free to paint it, splatter onto it... make a pretty mess!!;o)

Here's short video, so you can see how fun was to paint like Jackson Pollock!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Artist Lesson - Jackson Pollock - Part I

We had so much fun learning about Jackson Pollock, by the end of these 2 parts post you’ll be able to see why Little V had so much fun learning about this great artist.

Jackson Pollock was born in the city of Cody, Wyoming, in 1912. He is best known for his huge paintings made by splattering, dripping and throwing paint onto his canvases, style often called Abstract Expressionism. You can clearly see movement in his style of painting. For this unit we used the World's Greatest Artist Vol 1 curriculum and the Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists - Jackson Pollock. 

So here are some of the activities Little V did:

Working on the Pollock flashcard

 Preparing the Mini-book

Here, you can see her checking some of Jackson's artwork to place on the right tab in the mini-book.

Pollock's Mini-book all done.

 Now, time to put the puzzle together:

It can be hard when the puzzle is an abstract art! ;o)

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Cool Science Experiments Books!

When you find something cool, you know you just have to share it! You just can't help it!

I was so excited when I found these books at our local library, these are books with lots of science experiments for you to do.

Let's get to it, shall we?

My first pick was the one about Electricity: Amazing Experiments with Electricity and Magnetism by Paula Navarro & Àngels Jiménez, and Illustrated by Bernadette Cuxart.

Another great one too is: Explore Solids and Liquids by Kathleen M Reilly, and Illustrated by Bryan Stone.

Last but not least: Surprising Experiments with Sound by Paula Navarro & Àngels Jiménez and Illistrated by Bernadette Cuxart.

You can find these and other cool science experiments books in the widget on the sidebar!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Search and Find - Fun Activity!

Besides the regular curriculum activities I try my best to give Little V lots of fun activities to do, and when I can include something that helps her to develop a skill, it is even better and I believe worth of sharing it.

So, today's post is dedicated to a fun activity that not only Little V does by herself but we also do as a family. We bought this huge Search and Find activity pad at Sam's Club last year, it was inexpensive and totally worthy.

I like activities that prompt our little ones to stay focused and to pay attention to details, these are very important skills not only for school but for life!

Little V  is our only child, so we try to teach her the concept of team work by working as a family and on top of it all, we all have fun. Many people tend to think that kids only learn about team work in school with their peers, but in real life team work involves people of different ages, different backgrounds and a good team player is the one who knows to respect both old and young, knows when to ask for help and when to offer help, a good team player knows that it's not about him/her but that everything is done for the benefit of the team and to accomplish something.

We took a page and worked as a family to find as many objects asked as possible. You can also set a timer to add some more excitement. Ask your little one how he/she thinks we could work as a team, listen to their ideas, offer to try out their suggestion, it's all about helping them to see if their idea will work out or not, what they can  improve. Little V suggested that we all worked a part, so we divided the area in 3 parts and tried our best to find as many objects as we could, it was a good idea!

Try also finding the differences activities (you can find lots of these online) and those books from the I Spy Series.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Benjamin Franklin - Science Unit

How much fun did we have learning about Benjamin Franklin, a man of many talents and interests. Besides being the Founding Father of the United States of America, he was also a printer, writer, scientist and diplomat.

We used the Scientists & Inventors curriculum and the Getting to know the world's greatest inventors and scientists - Benjamin Franklin by Mike Venezia.

Below, Little V is working on Benjamin Franklin's inventions:

Next, some vocabulary:

Soon, I'll share more of the activities Little V did!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki