Mug Shots and Memories from our First Day of School

MUG SHOTS:




MEMORIES:

I thought I would give you all a sample lesson plan for a day of KONOS. We had a great day today... although it isn't over yet (we are starting school at 12 PM after lunch because Daddy is working the 1:30-10:30 PM shift for a few weeks). We still have a couple of KONOS activities to finish before doing our family read-aloud tonight... but most of this is all checked off! HURRAH! I'm thrilled with our first day. If ONLY I had taken Kevin's PDA to tape-record the conversations we had on the drive to the library today. The kids were making up stories to go with the classical music I was playing for them. I laughed out loud at some of the stuff they came up with and was mad at myself for not writing it down... but alas, sometimes you just can't stop life and take notes!
Here's our DAY 1 LESSON PLANS AND ACTIVITIES
(KONOS Attentiveness: Ears/Sound/Music)

• Family Devotional (Clay Clarkson's "Our 24 Family Ways") p. 8, Day 1


• Prayer


• Prayer Journals


• Bible Drill (Kaden had nearly 2 minutes, Morgan 1.5 minutes on finding their respective verses)


• Magazine collage for middle of journal to separate last year from this year (Art)


• Take school photos/upload and print school photos/paste in Journals


• Measure kids - write height, age, and three goals for school year in Journals


• Math - A Beka (2 pages each, one regular and one speed drill/test)


• Library Trip (check out 28 books, read while mom does research/gathers books)


• Listen to Classical Music in Car (part of KONOS) - make up stories to fit music


• Name instruments in music


• Define Attentiveness and discuss the units we'll cover this semester


• Discuss why Attentiveness is important and how it relates to topics we're going to cover


• Go over unit objectives and goals & discuss


• Write and look up definitions to Vocabulary words:
  
  • attention
  
  
  • distraction
  
  
  • notice
  
  
  • observe/observant
  
  
  • ignore
  
  
  • watchful
  
  
  • alert
  
  
  • scrutinize
  
  
  • courteous
  
  
  • aware
  
  
  • unaware
  
  
  • examine


• KONOS activity p. 2c
  
  • Dramatize parents calling name and children responding. Let one child be parent and the other be child. Pretend location is different each time (i.e.: mall, yard, house, grocery store, airport, etc.). When parent calls, child must stop and listen. Evaluate each other's attentiveness.


• KONOS activity p. 2d
  
  • Practice eye contact and encourage children to look at you while you speak - look at them as they speak also.


• KONOS activity p. 2e
  
  • Discuss how Christ was attentive to His Father and His Father's Ways. Let kids brainstorm as they go through life of Christ and find examples of how He never took His eyes off of God.


• KONOS activity p. 2f
  
  • Define concentrate with dictionary. There are several meanings. Taste something concentrated. Write a paragraph comparing concentrated food to concentrating on a task. How are they alike and different?


• KONOS activity p. 2g
  
  • Discuss what jobs might require concentration? (babysitting, tightrope walking, air traffic controller, detective, guard, sentinel, surgeon, hunter, accountant...)


• KONOS activity p. 2h
  
  • Play "Concentration" or a memory game. Demonstrate how important it is to watch carefully.


• KONOS activity p. 2i
  
  • Play "Picture Memory". Hold up a detailed photo/picture and remove from sight. Have kids try and remember objects and details of photo. Do this with a tray of objects. Have kids remember what was on tray.


• KONOS activity p. 2j
  
  • Play "Hide the Penny" with upside down cups. See if children can remember which cup penny is under by concentrating on cups.


• KONOS activity p. 4t
  
  • Play "I went to the store" - listen to objects mentioned and repeat them with another object added with the same first letter. (example: I went to the store and bought butter and beans... I went to the store and bought beans and bananas...) For older kids use first TWO letters. For extra difficulty divide by quantities of two (example: I went to the store and bought 67 butters and 33 1/2 buffalos...) - allow pencil and paper on the harder one!


• KONOS activity p. 4u
  
  • Play "Grandmother's Trunk". A similar game is to add a word next in the alphabet. For example: "In grandmother's trunk I found an anteater." then "In grandmother's trunk I found a balloon" - keep going until there is a mistake.


• Library Books (just two chosen for today:
  
  • Helen Keller and the Big Storm - Patricia Lakin
  
  Helen Keller Courage in the Dark - Johanna Hurwitz


• Family Read Aloud:
  
  • The Library of the Five Senses & the Sixth Sense: Hearing - Sue Hurwitz (one-nighter)

Today was a light day, so we didn't do everything we normally would. I didn't have one of the suggested books ("A Child's Book of Character Building"), so I'll have to borrow that from a friend who has it later this week. We also don't have a lengthy family read-aloud book yet... although a few have been suggested to me. I'm going to check some out at the library after I research it. For now, I'm picking longer library books to read with the kids. Today we were doing the Monday schedule since yesterday was a day off. There were a few things that were left off of our normal routine today (due to books not arriving yet - A Beka... and due to me going EASY for the first week):

I toggle my subjects by day, so each day has a few different items. Things that weren't on the list today, but are on other days include:

• Typing (Mavis Beacon)


• Visualize World Geography


• Sing


• Phonics Workbook


• PE


• Co-op (we actually start that on the 29th) or Field Trip


• Write Pen-Pal


• Phonics Through Poetry


• Craft


• Spanish (? - or Italian... still haven't decided ?) - may not start this until mid-September...


• Home Economics (cooking/etc.)


• Cursive Practice/Handwriting - Draw, Write Now! & A Beka


• Latin workbook


• History Reader/Quizzes


• Science Reader/Quizzes


• Educational Computer Games


• Maps/Quizzes - A Beka


• Tests on vocabulary, KONOS, memory verses on Fridays

This post is turning in to a book... and I have cookies to bake as a reward for all the hard work the kids put forth today. The kids are playing with their "Talking Toucan" and listening to themselves on tape. Too funny! Also wonderful is that this happens to be one of the hundreds of KONOS activities for this unit and they did it without any prompting on my part!

Hope you had/will have a great first day of school this year, too!


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