Homeschooling Update

H and I finished up our Kindergarten homeschooling year last week! Yay! We're very happy about all she has learned over the year. Good job, H! G, M, and F have also made progress throughout the year. We're proud of all of you, girls!

We used Rod & Staff for our core subjects this year, and H also took piano lessons and we read a lot of books on various topics. Her reading has really taken off! She can read just about anything now, and does so on a frequent basis. She can spell pretty well and can write just fine when she takes the time (she is usually rushing, though. . . it's hard to find a balance between "good enough" and "do your best"--any ideas?). Math wasn't particularly fun until I stopped making her do the drill worksheets and started quizzing her orally with or without flashcards.

I'm VERY completion-oriented, but after talking with some friends I learned that it's okay not to do every page in every workbook. I loosened up a little bit and crossed out some areas in her workbooks where she had mastered that skill, which helped us reach the end of the year with a better attitude (not as much busy-work!). It's so nice to have other homeschoolers to talk to and learn from! Thanks, friends! :-)

H's excitement about being able to read has started rubbing off on her sisters, who also have been wanting to read. G can read simple books and has a lot of sight words memorized already. It's been interesting to see her learn to read differently than H since her thought processes are not the same. G isn't as patient, so she will sound out the beginning of the word and then make an educated guess, which often is correct! She is learning to slow down and is getting many more words right and is very pleased with herself. :-) G is also learning some basic math problems from hearing us drill with flashcards (she knows the 0+ and 1+ facts, some of the doubles (like 2+2 and 100+100), and can count past 100! Kindergarten will probably be a breeze for her, and she doesn't even start yet this year since she has a December birthday! H has also taken it upon herself to teach G piano, and G actually listens and practices (when she's in the mood, of course!).

M wants to read, too, but right now we are still working on her letters and speech. Considering she only spoke about 5 words when she turned 2, she has made FANTASTIC progress this year! We worked with a speech therapist throughout the school year and M is now talking in long sentences. Her intelligibility has improved, but she still needs more work. The plan is to send her to a speech-focused preschool in the fall. She has been working on her alphabet and on counting up to 30 and beyond!

F has made great strides this year, as well! She learned to walk and is practically running now! She's got 8 teeth and is 17 pounds, exactly where H was at 1 year. It's not surprising that she is on the tiny side, considering all the running around she does to keep up with her sisters! She says "Mamamama" and "Dada", but not on command, so I'm not sure they are specific yet. She also says something like a very high-pitched "hi!" sometimes while waving, but again, she won't do it on command, so it could be a fluke. :-) Here is a picture of her playing dress-up with her sisters. Too cute!

I am making a few changes to our curriculum, just to shake things up a bit and make them more interesting. I've started with the Math-U-See Alpha curriculum, hoping that would make math more interesting for H. So far she and G love to watch Mr. Demme and work with the Math-U-See magnets I made for them. I'd been looking to buy the manipulatives, but they are expensive, even on Ebay, so one day during naptime I came up with this! I printed the colored blocks onto magnet paper on our printer, then cut them and covered them with mailing tape (H even helped!). The girls each have a set that they use on a cookie sheet while they watch Mr. Demme on the DVD. This way we aren't losing manipulatives, and it didn't cost me anything since I used materials we already had! If you want to make a set, the magnet paper is about $10 for 5 sheets (which is all you need). Leave a comment or email me and I'd be happy to email you the files I created. One hour and about $10 later you'd have a set of magnetic manipulatives!

So we made it through our first "official" year of homeschooling with flying colors! Things went well and we are slowly inching into first grade by continuing to do a little bit of school here and there throughout the summer. We are doing a revised year-round schedule, but we need a little bit of a break. We'll focus a little more on science, spend lots of time reading, and hopefully log some school hours in a different way so we still feel like we are getting a break. We also have a list of other goals to focus on over the summer, things like tying shoes, riding a two-wheeler, and practicing more with our address and phone number.

On a side note, the pictures of the girls in their purple froggy shirts were all taken on different days, believe it or not! They got matching shirts and they LOVE to wear them whenever they are clean. And since I do laundry SO often in this house, it seems like they are clean almost all the time!