First Day of School & Dinosaur Unit

I could not have asked for a better first day of kindergarten for Marshall! There were no tears shed as we hugged goodbye outside his classroom door, no wondering if I was making the right decision, or if I would regret sending him. Nope, not here! I loved every minute of it and I know he did too!

Marshall started with a little attitude this morning, he wanted to play a computer game instead of start school. After getting dressed, with teeth brushed, and all ready for the day, I promised him if he worked hard he could earn time to play Reader Rabbit.

We started off with a prayer and that really seemed to set the tone for the day. After that things came together pleasantly and we had a fun day full of learning! After gospel study we moved onto Moving with Math. I am loving this curriculum!

We would have done our calendar/nursery rhyme memorization, etc. in between gospel and math, but it's not finished yet. Or even started. I fully intended on making a calendar board but was sick the better half of last week :P

Despite being unprepared for that, our new morning routine went as well as could be expected with a destructive toddler on-board.

comparing sizes

Coen, our toddler, wanted some hands-on play too!
Here he is lining up the teddy bear counters.

After math we took a break for playtime with mommy and the computer time, as promised.

special playtime with mommy

let's see how high we can make it!

After lunch and more playtime, Coen went down for nap so Marshall and I could focus on reading and our new unit study - Dinosaurs!! Marshall is really resisting our phonics instruction - Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - so I resorted to a flash card phonics quiz and having him read me Bob books. He only missed "u" in the flash cards, he gets it mixed up with "n." After reading a Bob book he asked to read another! He is a great reader, just doesn't like 100EZ for some reason. Any suggestions? I don't have the money for a new program right now.

Thanks to PBS's "Dinosaur Train," Marshall has shown a huge interest in these terrible lizards lately. I decided to go with it and make it our first unit study, a fun way for him to get into school and get used to the routine. I also wanted to introduce him to lapbooks. So we read 6 books about dinosaurs. I sent my hubby to get the books I had on hold for this unit last week and he was convinced I had cleared out the dinosaur section, hehe.

here he is tracing a skeleton and the letter b for bones

he assembled a toilet paper tube paleontologist

Coen woke up as we were doing the lapbook and wanted in on some coloring action

as he put the colored pencils back in, he was very precise about having all the tips pointed out

We drew a T-Rex using the book "How to Draw Dinosaurs" by Rob Court. Marshalls turned into an "everything dinosaur" and he used it for the art on the cover of his lapbook.

ordering some sequence cards - eggs, hatching, baby, grown-up

Coen learning how to cut with the "shar" for sharp, his word for scissors. And knives.

We read 2 books about how big the dinosaurs were. As we got to each dinosaur in the book, Marshall would fill in the graph.

Tonight we read the chapter book "Dinosaur Detectives" by Ted Enik as our read-aloud. It's a Magic School Bus Science chapter book.

That about wraps up our first day of school!