First Unit of School & a Field Trip

Elaine is learning about her community in Kindergarten.  Our first unit was based on the Fire Station.  We learned about fire safety, made a fire escape plan, had fire drills, and learned about emergency calls to 9-1-1.  Along with this came shapes, colors, phonics, handwriting, and her first spelling word, it.

Learning about fire and how to put it out.

We spread all of this over our first three weeks of school.  At the end of the first week of school we baked a cake.  Elaine had been wanting to make an “Amelia Bedelia” cake from the recipe in the back of the book.  We talked about numbers with our measuring spoons, we mixed red and blue food coloring to create purple frosting (just like in “science class”), and we decorated it with the shapes we had just learned.

To wrap up the unit we took a tour of our local fire station – F.D.N.Y. Engine 242.  Some of our other homeschool friends came along too!

   
Sitting in the Rig – Nolan, Ian, Elaine

Ian and Havilah

Elaine and Addie

Nolan

Firefighter Lin showed us how to crawl in a fire.  He also showed the kids what a fireman in full gear looks like so that they won’t be as scared if they are ever in a fire and a fireman comes looking for them.

Jeni, Joanna, Judah
Andrea, Elli, Elaine, Selah, Addie, Fireman Chris, Nolan, Havilah, Matthew, and Fireman Ralph

After the station tour we all came back to our home and taught the kids about bucket brigades.  We “pumped” water from our fire hydrant and passed the buckets to put out a fire in the grass!

“Fire fire!”

after a few tries, they finally caught on!

Now I have to admit that homeschool scared me to death.  And I did cry several times that first week.  We are {mostly} having fun now.  A routine is forming and making things more smooth.  Just when we get it figured out we will have to pack it into the van for deputation!