Russell Ramblings: Zebra Week

I have a new favorite children's book - On Beyond Zebra by Dr. Seuss.  The boys begged for this book over & over again during our Zebra unit.  The story is about a boy who is proclaiming his knowledge about the alphabet all the way to "z is for zebra."  His friend then expands his world by taking him on beyond zebra to all sorts of new letters & creatures in his own imaginative alphabet.

Some of the highlights of our zebra unit were making a zebra mask...

...making zebra pudding (layered vanilla & chocolate pudding)...

...learning lots of zebra trivia, cutting & pasting animals on an African map, & enjoying our stack of "zebra" books from the library.  We considered the question - are zebras white with black stripes or vice versa?  (A question I had never thought about before!)  It seems that most people agree they are black with white stripes.

In other homeschool studies, I switched AJ from the MFW first grade math to CLE (Christian Light Education) first grade math curriculum.  The MFW math felt a bit disjointed and light for me and my math-loving boy.  I felt like it needed a lot of supplementing to be a complete program.  CLE is much more of a deliberate, workbook-based approach.  I'm hoping to lay a good foundation of memorizing his facts in the remaining months of first grade and perhaps move on to a different program next year.  MFW recommends Singapore in second grade.  I'm a bit overwhelmed with all the choices out there, but, at the end of the day, I guess I just need to pick one.

CJ continues to plug away at the MFW kindergarten math and phonics.  Math is a breeze for him, as is learning letter sounds.  We continue to work on sounding out words, but it isn't his favorite part of the day and I'm okay with that at his age.

JJ is always delighted for "his lesson" and begs for more & more of my stash of freebie worksheets from online.  I try to print out a few worksheets relating to our unit theme for him, and he just can't get enough of it.  (I'm thinking it may be more the one-on-one mommy time :)  Some of my favorite go-to sites are as follows:
-All Kids' Network (I like their realistic pictures)
-Confessions of a Homeschooler (love Erica's letter of the week curriculum-for free!)
-Homeschool Creations (full of resources)
-1+1+1=1 (great lapbooking resource)
-Our Little Monkeys (lots of great printables if you own the MFW Kindergarten curriculum)

Thanks for stopping by & have a blessed weekend!

This post is linked to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers weekly wrap-up.