This summer we are working on learning to write, using Montessori sand paper letters and free handwriting printables. At the current rate, we'll be through the alphabet and the numbers by mid-September. At that point she'll be able to write numbers, and that will open up a world of math learning options.

Once we've finished the handwriting, the plan to continue with reading is to focus upon learning words by writing them. She LOVES to write, especially letters to people. And I've noticed that she remembers words that she has written several times in her letters when she sees them. So we are going to do more with that, writing little captions to pictures, other letters, and things like that. I also plan on using Bob books and maybe revisiting Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for the last lessons.

As for math, we are using a lot of manipulatives. Montessori materials (addition/subtraction boards, multiplication board, beads through 1000, the stamp game) and toys (Discovery toy's Playful Patterns, a marble run, legos, etc.). I need to remember to do clocks and money.

For science, we are going to use the Science Wiz electricity kit and science experiment books from the library.

I also want to continue doing things with Spanish.

For social studies, books from the library.

That's as far as I've gotten. I think this should take us through December. After that we'll see what we're missing from the content standards, if anything, and fill them in in the spring.

Geography

This month we are studying Central and South America. Through chants, a large shower curtain map of the world, and a globe, she is learning all the countries of this region and their capitols. It isn't as hard as it sounds - songs and chants seem to effectively teach anything at this age. Other vocabulary: Amazon River, Andes Mountains, and Panama Canal. We are highlighting animals from the region (e.g., Green Anaconda, Pirana, etc.). We are also highlighting a couple of countries: Argentina (she has a friend whose dad is from there), Brazil, and Mexico. On an evening of the month we are eating a dinner from each of these countries, listening to music from the respective country. I'm also reading children's folk lore from the region.

Favorite Books

I wanted to make a running list of our favorite books at this age:

More, More, More said the Baby
Some Dogs Do
Swimmy
Inch by Inch
Millions of Cats

When Sick:
Don't You Feel Well, Sam?

Fall:
Runaway Pumpkin

Christmas:
Snow Angel
Swimmy
Inch by Inch
Millions of Cats

Reading

We continue to use lots of books from the library. I'm going through the Kindergarten supplementary books on the Seton Home Study webpage. And I'm teaching her to read using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We're about half way through. We only do it when she asks for it.

Social Studies

Today we played Candy Land with NO RULES. It wasn't any fun. Then we played it with the rules, and it was great. We did this to introduce the concept of law. We talked about laws she is familiar with - I drew pictures of a stop sign, speed limit sign, and stop light, and we talked about what would happen if people didn't follow those laws. Then we talked about the 10 Commandments. We went over the 3 branches of our government in a representational democracy, and then talked about dictatorships with good dictators and bad dictators. In the kingdom of God, God is the one and only ruler - a supremely good dictator. Our country is the USA, and it is a rep democracy. We talked about how we have reps at a state and national level, and worked our Melissa and Doug state map to draw her connections between state government and something she is already familiar with - states. Did we really do all of that??? Seems like a lot for a 4 year old when I write it out, but she seemed to really follow it.

Science: Botany

I'm using the curriculum standards from Core Knowledge (http://www.coreknowledge.org/) and the NJ Dept of Education Core Curriculum Standards.

We've been growing beans and seeds and doing simple plant experiments, like putting a carrot in water and seeing what happens. We put kidney beans in damp tissue paper wrapped in foil, one or two a day over the course of a week. Then we unwrapped them and arranged them in order of least to most developed, talking about germination. We did some experiments with this. Like, with some beans we tried using too much water - she thought it was fun to use too much water, but then when she smelled the saw the rotting bean she decided not to do that. She designed her own experiment - putting pine needles in a bucket of water to see if they would turn green. The experiment was successful - she learned that they will not turn green through water alone. She also helped improve on the carrot experiment.

Science

GREAT early elementary science resources that are not too expensive:

http://www.sciencewiz.com/books/books.htm