Kindergarten began with a two week study on creation. She made a sweet keepsake book to learn about each creation day. I have a picture below of her day 4 when God created the sun, moon, and stars:
I couldn't resist her picture of day 7. The curriculum suggested they could leave the page blank to represent God resting and creating nothing that day. However - she preferred to draw a picture of God resting!! I love the big smile on His face....I guess she recognized that even God enjoys His day of rest!
She loved doing leaf rubbings:
And her study of a tree in our front year; complete with a leaf sample for her nature study journal:
She also enjoyed drawing and comparing different leaves from different trees. This is something her brother did studying Properties of Ecosystems from MFW ECC...but she wanted to do it too!
One precious memory is when we studied one of our houseplants...we talked about how the leaf lives on the plant, working together with the plant (and supported by the plant....but I left that for her to discover on her own). I told her one leaf wanted to leave the plant and go out on it's own. This leaf had its' own ideas about how it should live its' life. I asked her to show me that leaf and separate it from the plant. We placed it on the table next to the plant to represent the beginning of this leafs' journey of life away from the plant. She was shocked at how quickly the leaf withered and failed to thrive. We talked about what this meant for us and she decided she would definitely cling to Jesus so she can grow in Him! What a wonderful lesson.
One of my favorite pictures we made this year was when we learned the letter "Nn" for "nest". She really enjoyed making the tree with bits of paper and placing a nest in her tree. It is a bit faded...this one hung in the schoolroom for many months!
I also loved her "hand" octopus that she embellished with paint, sand, craft foam, googly eyees, and torn paper. We kept this one hanging on the bulletin board in our school room almost all year.
She had a lot of fun studying liquid, solid, and gas with water. This is the page where she journaled her science experiments we did with water, ice, and vapor.
Here is the entry in her nature study journal as she chronicled the growth of a sunflower. It is fascinating to watch these grow as you see the whole seed when you plant it (that looks just like the ones you buy to eat - minus the salt)! Then - as the tiny seedling pushes up through the ground you see the shell from the seed at the top of the tiny, green, sprout. The leaf grows from inside the seed and gradually emerges by pushing the shell apart. Eventually, the broken shell will fall from the tiny plant and she found it laying on the ground next to the seedling plant. As the plant grew into a gigantic sunflower - taller than her - she was able to enjoy knowing she'd watched it from the very beginning when she placed that tiny seed into the dirt!!
These are the cute cards that come with the student sheets to help the child learn the bible concept for each week's lesson. I really enjoyed the sun and moon after I figured it out. The sun card reads, "Jesus is the light of the world", but the moon reads almost the same, "I am the light of the world". At first glance, I was confused. But the lesson was beautiful. The sun represents Jesus as He provides light, energy, and warmth to our planet. However - the moon does not create its' own light - it simply reflects the light of the sun. Therefore the moon was the perfect example of us since we should mirror the light of Jesus. How beautiful!!
Our kindergarten year was such a success...I am sad to see it end. However - we are really looking forward to MFW 1st grade in 2011-2012. In fact - we already started - she couldn't wait!
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