“Bones, Kitchens, and Kenya” Week 34 First Grade

Old Bones (Fiction, Level 5) by David Hill

Kitchen Science (Non-fiction, Level 5) by Gare Thompson

A Look at Kenya (Non-fiction, Level 5) by Helen Frost

A is for Africa (Non-fiction, Level 5) by Ifeoma Onyefulu

This week was Week 34 – only 2 more weeks left in first grade! Wow, this year has really flown by, and there have been so many wonderful books in our AlphaSkills kits week after week after week. With one fictional storybook, one science-themed book, and two social studies-themed books, this week was no different. Old Bones is a story about a little boy recovering from the loss of his dog by getting a new one. Kitchen Science shows how every kitchen is like a real science lab. And A Look at Kenya and A is for Africa are great resources for learning about the people, animals and land of Africa.

The activity I want to highlight this week is Step 2: Word Recognition and Phonics Development for A Look at Kenya. In this step, instructions are provided for teaching the phonetic pronunciation of the words Nairobi and Kiswahili, helping students use an index to understand the purpose of key words and how to use them, and how to read a web address and understand the importance of correct letters and punctuation marks. Yet again, these are skills that may have been taught through multiple worksheets in other curriculums, but having a way to teach them with the same entertaining books we’ve been reading this week makes the concepts so much more understandable for my little guy. Worksheets are sometimes painful for both of my boys, so having an alternative way to reinforce concepts is extremely helpful.

I am in awe when I think of how far my first grader has come this year, and I know that I have AlphaSkills to thank for that. For more information about the AlphaSkills Read with Sarah curriculum and our family, see the AlphaSkills Blog Introduction.