E is for Emergency

I discovered that my dry erase board from contact paper also serves as a surface for reusable stickers.  The emergency vehicles are those stickers.  How funny it is that in making a phone for my son, I wanted to draw a traditional phone and realized that he probably would not associate that very well considering it's possible he's never seen a phone other than a cell phone.  So I conformed to the modern world with this phone reference.  We went over situations that he may need to call 911 and what he would need to tell the dispatcher.  We are going to continue working on his address.  Image #2 is the front and back of an index card.  Something concrete to practice dialing numbers and to reference that important information that he will hopefully never need.

Hopscotch

On the second day of Fall, we are having an absolutely beautiflul day here in Wichita.  While going through the very long story of God's people being rescued from Egypt, the girls were playing out in the back yard.  So once our story was complete, we opted for some hopscotch outside.  We are working on some teen numbers.  10 through 20 has been a slower process.  Tomorrow we get to writing the number 20 and then focusing on smooth counting and recognition up to 20.

For our hopscotch game, I would call out a number and he would jump to that number.  We would also switch places and he could call a number and I would jump to it.  For some reason, he felt he needed a whistle and that was just fine with me.

Deliverance from Egypt

E is for Egypt.  This is a lot of scripture to get a 5 year old to sit and listen to but he has seen movies and read stories and I did not feel like the importance of the story had really unfolded for him.  I opted to read it and pause for illustrations while discussing the plagues.  I do feel like there was a better understanding of the story after this lesson.  Until today, the most he understood from the story was Moses' staff turning into a snake.

We began recapping why the Isrealites were in Egypt, recalling the story of Joseph and stating that Joseph had since died and he and God's wonders were forgotten in Egypt.  Asher understood the evil of Pharoah by his order to kill all the male Hebrew babies and the desperation of the cries of the people to God. 

With the dry erase board on the right, Moses and Aron are approaching Pharoah as commanded by God.  You can point back to this image after each plague.  We went through each of the plagues on the chalk board taking time to discuss the awful effects those things would have on a people.  Back on the right is the deliverance by God being led by a pillar of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and reaching the Red Sea where the waters were parted and the Isrealites went through ending the story with the waves crashing down on all of Pharoah's army.

May not be the best illustrations but something about me drawing them and drawing them quickly kept him sitting and interested.

D is for Distractions

D is for DISTRACTIONS.  Our D week was quite lax as we had my dad visiting from out of state.  What a blessing homeschool is when we can make education a second priority to much cherished time with Papa. 

Still, we got the basics in and it was a good week overall.  We are still on schedule with letters and numbers.  We covered David and Goliath in more detail than we have in the past and included the movie from the series of "The Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible" hosted by Charlton Heston.  We will finish up the week with Daniel and the Lions Den and also have a movie from that series to follow.  Asher has seen these all a hundred times but I love to watch the focus and interest he has after we have read about it and talked about it.

Our memory verse is Pillipians 4:13 I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.  This verse was chosen to be driven home by a couple of God's great heroes that Asher loves, David and Daniel. 

We review a lot and I have been impressed to see how much he has retained and can recall all we have learned in four weeks.  This is truly an absolute joy to take part in this experience with him.  I am beginning to LOVE homeschool well beyond what I saw as a duty.

# 10 (Ten Commandments)

I love this idea!  This came from pinterest from www.histreasureseekers.com.  The printables were from www.biblestoryprintables.com.  There is very little that my son really hangs on to if we don't do some sort of a craft or illustration to accompany it.  This worked well although some of the commandments are tougher for him to understand at 5 years old, he still was able to retain all of them at least to some degree.

C is for Cross

C is for Cross.  In C week, we are learning what it means to be a Christian.  We made a cross with a piece of trim and some brad nails.  First Asher used blue string to symbolize the sadness of sin, followed by red string to symbolize the blood of Jesus, then the white string symbolizing being washed clean.  Our memory verse is John 3:16.  Because he is 5  and this verse is long, we are focusing more on the content of this verse than memorizing it but surprisingly, he is very close to memorizing it anyway.  He's got one more day at this point before we move on to another one.

 A bright year has just barely begun for this bright boy of mine. Week 2 was kicked off with picture day and he is so good for pictures.  We have a little secret about this picture though that maybe only another homeschooler would be able to guess what it is ;)