Cruz's Last Week of K5

We spent our last week of school doing a lot of review.  We covered all of the highlights from our language lessons.  I had him pick two readers each day to read.  We plan to continue to read over the summer break. 

We played a lot of games. 

matching capital and lower case letters

Playing "Go Fish" using alphabet cards.  We played two ways- calling the letter and calling the sound.  As you can see it was not much of a challenge for me because both of my boys just laid their cards out in plain view.  ha  It's hard for their little hands to hold them.

working a math sheet together

In Science they wanted to know how colored pencils were made so we watched several YouTube videos about it.  It was very interesting.  Afterwards they got to use our colored pencils to draw something.

their artwork

something else Cruz drew another day on our dry erase board

In Bible we reviewed all of our verses for the year.  

This picture of our schoolroom wall makes me happy.  Not just because it is bright and cheery but because it shows all of the scriptures Cruz has learned over the past school year.  In addition to the 26 alphabet verses he also learned Matthew 6:9-13 (The Lord' Prayer), Psalm 100, Psalm 23, and John 3:16-17.  That blesses my heart!

Our Bible stories for the week were missionary stories.  We had three and Cruz loved them.  He has already asked "when can we read more stories about missionaries?".  I hope to do that soon. 

To celebrate the end of the school year I hung five balloons on our wall on Monday.  Each day at the end of class we popped one balloon.  It was a fun countdown.

5,4,3,2,1... Break Time!!!

I found this name writing worksheet at a blog I follow called Confessions of a Homeschooler.   We started back in August and I had him write his name each month.  I plan to continue this in 1st grade.  The blog also has a preschool name writing worksheet that I plan to start with Ben in the fall. 

name writing practice

I also did this comparison of him writing the alphabet.  One is from August and the other is from May.  Another blog I follow 123 Homeschool 4 Me has these really cute School Memory Pages.  I printed off several this year for kindergarten and plan to continue using them over the next several years.  They are fun and make a great keepsake from the school year.  This page and the next one are from the kindergarten set.

This is his end of the year drawing.  It's David, Cruz, and Ben. 

I made up this questionnaire at the beginning of the school year and printed another one for the end of the year.  I like comparing his answers.

To help me remember all of the great chapter books we read during kindergarten I am including a list here.  One of my favorite parts of the year was our nightly read aloud time.  We have read some good stories and it has given us some great conversation topics.  I love reading with my boys!

Our K5 Read Aloud Books:
Frog and Toad Are Friends
My Father's Dragon
Elmer and the Dragon
The Dragons of Blueland
Uncle Wiggily's Story Book
Mercy Watson to the Rescue
Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride
Mercy Watson Fights Crime
Upstairs Mouse, Downstairs Mole
Charlotte's Web
8 Class Pets + 1 Squirrel +1 Dog= Chaos
Toys Go Out
Mr. Popper's Pinguins
James and the Giant Peach
The Man in the Green Jeep
Pee Wee's Tale
Mrs. Noodlekugel
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
The Chocolate Touch
The Hoboken Chicken Emergency
The Box Car Children Book 1
The Box Car Children Mystery at Snowflake Inn
The Box Car Children Mike's Mystery
Magic Tree House series:  Dinosaurs Before Dark
                                           The Knight at Dawn
                                           Mummies in the Morning
                                           Pirates Past Noon
                                           Night of the Ninjas
                                           Afternoon on the Amazon
Our favorites were the three tales of My Father's Dragon, the Magic Tree House series, the Mercy Watson series, Charlotte's Web, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, The Chocolate Touch, The Box Car Children, and Frog and Toad are Friends.

Lastly, here is my completed kindergarten portfolio from Cruz's school year.  It is so full it will hardly shut.  It includes worksheet samples of everything we have done over the school year.  It has comparison sheets throughout the school year to show his progress.  It also includes things like my attendance chart, art work, and his writing notebooks.  It is thorough and probably more than is necessary for record keeping but it's also my first year of homeschooling and I wanted to make sure it was done right.  I think I'm covered. ha

I am going to miss kindergarten.  It was a lot of fun!  I am sure the other grades will be fun too but this first year has been pretty amazing.  Next I'll share about our last day of school celebration and the simple little graduation program we had at home one night as a family.  I've said it before but I'll say it again- these are precious days!!!