I typically like to write a post mid-way through the school year to evaluate where each child is and where I see us going in the near future as far as their academics go. Since we adopted Beau in December 2016, I never got around to writing this post during the Christmas holidays, so I will write it now even though we well over the halfway point of this school year.

Here’s a brief overview of each child and where they are mid-year of the 2016-2017 school year and where I am headed with each one:

Little Bug ~ 7.5 years old

All About Reading

Little Bug has completed Level 2 of AAR. She is an avid reader, but I still feel like we need to keep going in AAR. There is more than just phonics instruction in AAR and I already have Level 3, so we will begin that probably in the new school year, if not before this year is over. Little Bug enjoys AAR. The format of the lessons suits her learning style perfectly which is why I have decided to stick with AAR even though she doesn’t really need phonics instruction anymore to learn to read since she is a fluent reader.

Explode the Code

Even though Little Bug doesn’t need phonics instruction, she is doing ETC for phonics practice and reinforcement. I think children should have phonics instruction through 3rd-4th grade. ETC is something that Little Bug can do independently. She is about finished with Book 3 1/2 and then she will start Book 4. I had her do Book 3 1/2 when she did not pass the test for Book 3. The half books are reinforcement and she certainly needed to learn the concepts and rules from Book 3 again by doing Book 3 1/2. Her skills have much improved in Book 3 1/2!

All About Spelling

Little Bug is halfway through Level 1 and when she is finished with Level 1 we will move right into Level 2. This is a solid Spelling curriculum. I am a little concerned with how teacher intensive it is (not in preparation for lessons as it is certainly an open-and-go curriculum but because I am required to teach every lesson). I hope that I can keep up the teaching instruction with 2 children in AAR and then 1 child in AAS next year. We might have to have a small schooling session once the littles are in bed for naptime to get it all in. I really love All About Learning curriculum! It has been so effective for Little Bug!

Handwriting Without Tears

We worked through the Kindergarten book at the beginning of the school year and it was another great tool to use to give Little Bug the extra handwriting practice I felt she needed this year.

A Reason for Handwriting K

Little Bug is working through this book for the second time. I gave her a choice of doing this book again or letting her choose a different handwriting book and she chose A Reason for Handwriting! Once she is finished with the K level, she will begin Level A which will have her writing the letters again and then eventually Bible verses! The lessons are very short which will be good because she will also be doing Copywork. Ideally I don’t want her handwriting book and Copywork to take more than 10-15 minutes tops.

Copywork

I’ve had to ease Little Bug into Copywork. She started by tracing over what I had written using a Dry Eraser Pocket (genius invention!). By mid-year she was writing on the line below what I had written. By the end of this year, I would like to see her doing some Copywork in the traditional form of having some text and copying it to her own separate piece of paper.

Horizons Math

Little Bug completed the first book of Horizons Math 1 and then I knew the time had come to switch curriculum because there were too many problems crammed on the pages. I wanted to find something straight-forward without any fluff or busy work.

Christian Light Education 100 Math

When I found CLE and realized their scope and sequence is advanced just like Horizons, I decided CLE was worth a try. We have used it one month now and we both love the change! I love the systematic way math is taught. I love the simplicity of the math pages and that there are no colorful distracting pictures. I love that the Teacher’s Guide is truly there to guide me in teaching every single concept in ways that are just genius! I love the emphasize on basic math fact memorization and that there is a nifty little flashcard system built in to the curriculum for daily review of math facts in a very orderly, systematic way! I love the daily speed drills. CLE has every aspect of a math program needed for mastery of foundational mathematical concepts and skills taught by spiral review. I love everything there is about this math curriculum!

Sweet Pea ~ almost 5.5 years old

Confessions of a Homeschooler’s K4/5 Kindergarten Curriculum

Sweet Pea has nearly completed this, although she is only completing the bits and pieces of it that I decided we would do this year which is way less than half of what the full curriculum offers students! I knew we would have multiple things to dabble in this year and didn’t want to commit 100% to one curriculum for her. The activities she has done have been good for letter sounds and phonological awareness. She can sound out most CVC words which was my ultimate goal in doing the K4/5 Kinder curriculum. There has been some good basic math practice as well with skip counting, adding and subtracting and number recognition and counting to 100.

A Reason for Handwriting K

We’ve been taking this slow, working on one lesson (letter) per week! I think I will pick up the pace as I fully intend for her to work through this book twice just like Little Bug is doing. This is by far my favorite handwriting book for learning letter formation.

Explode the Code Primers ABC

I haven’t started Sweet Pea on these books yet. I’ve decided to hold them off for next school year once she has strengthened those writing skills even more.

BJU Math K

Sweet Pea started the year off working through the first half of this math workbook. Little Bug had done the last half of the book when she attended the private Kindergarten school right after we adopted Sarge. Sweet Pea loved working through this book and I saw that she catches on to math concepts quickly.

Math Games

We played lots of games towards the beginning of the year and I need to plan to play them some more with her throughout the remainder of this year.

Horizons Math K

While Horizons Math 1 wasn’t a good fit for Little Bug after the first book, I do really like Horizons Math K as an intro to basic math concepts for my 5-6 year olds. I had planned to start this with Sweet Pea at some point this school year, but then I discovered CLE Math and I know that is the direction I want to take our homeschool. As I said above, Little Bug started CLE Math in February and I decided to start Sweet Pea on CLE Math in the next school year and not do Horizons with her. CLE Math 100 starts at the very beginning of math and it would not be necessary for her to do Horizons Math K to be ready for CLE Math. However, just last week, I could tell Sweet Pea wanted more, so I pulled out the first Horizons Math K book and she wanted to start it right away. And we did. And she completed the first 10 lessons right then! So my plan with this is to work through it with her as long as she is interested. We most likely won’t do the entire Horizons Math K curriculum and we may not even get through the entire first book because I do still intend to start CLE Math with her next school year.

Together

Bible

Dave started reading Apologia’s Who is God? to the girls at the beginning of the year, but they stopped as he felt it was too much for them at their current ages. He thought the book was excellent and we fully intend to pull it off the shelf again when the girls are a couple years older.

We read The Jesus Storybook Bible from beginning to end and we all really enjoyed that.

After that we read God’s Names which was an excellent book to read through with the girls to teach them about the character of our God. We actually have a few names still to read about from that book that we will get back to at some point in the near future.

We are reading from the NIV Adventure Bible now. There is nothing better than opening the actual Word of God with your children first thing in the morning!

Classical Conversations

This year I planned very minimal activities and projects to do to correlate with our Memory Work. I did that on purpose because we were adopting in July and I knew I needed to keep this school year extra simple with a newborn in the house. I had everything planned and ready to go in file folders by week (and many weeks had nothing at all because, like I said, I was keeping this year simple). When that adoption failed in late July and we ended up not having a newborn in the house at the start of our school year, I didn’t add anything to the file folders and I decided to keep this year very simple and see how I liked it compared to last year.

I think next year I will be planning more activities to do to correlate with our Memory Work. This is partly because they are fun and my children enjoy them but mostly because I have been looking forward to the content of Cycle 3’s Memory Work since we started CC! American History, the Human Body and USA Geography are fun to learn about and there are so many fun activities and projects we can do!

Sarge

Sarge has definitely added an extra measure of challenge to our homeschooling being a 2-year-old this school year, but overall, we found our groove in keeping him busy during school time so we were not constantly intervening his antics to destroy school! He loves his room time and currently at 2.5 years old he still has his room time in his pack n play which is set up in his bedroom. He plays happily in there for 60 minutes 4-5 days a week while listening to music! It is an absolute lifesaver to me having that solid hour to do what I need to do with each girl without the “help” of their toddler brother! Once Sarge is out of his room, we have been able to complete our morning school work by having 1 sister play with Sarge while I am working with the other sister. Most recently, I started implementing “table time” with Sarge where he joins us at the dining room table sitting in his booster seat and I give him puzzles, coloring or magnets to play with while we finish up. I’d always heard it is harder to homeschool your older children with a toddler underfoot than it is to homeschool with an infant in the house and that is totally true!

My goal with Sarge this year was to read to him daily and I do this every morning before he has his room time. He knows the routine. We go read in his room and then we come back to the dining room (where the girls are doing copywork) and he says bye to his sisters as he goes off for his room time! I will continue to read to him daily during this time. We read more throughout the day, too. By age two, I want my children loving books and I have successfully gotten Sarge loving books!

Beau

My goal was to get Beau on a solid and predictable eating and sleeping schedule. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to do this as I knew our first priority needed to be attachment and bonding, however, I am confident giving him the gift of an eating and sleeping schedule helped him learn to trust me as his caregiver! He was so desperate for sleep and routine and predictability…and he found it here at home. He sleeps during our morning school time, going down right before I take Sarge to his bedroom to read to him!

When the babies start sitting independently, I start intentional “room time training” where I teach them to play happily in their pack n play. Beau is nearly an independent sitter so it is almost time to start teaching him about room time! (Before this, the babies have some independent playtime on the playmat to get them used to playing by themselves. Unlike the other 3 kids, Beau became mobile before he could sit up so the playmat time doesn’t work with him as he just scoots right off the playmat!) Soon, I will start having Beau play in his pack n play for 10ish minutes in the morning sometime before his morning nap. Gradually, I will increase the amount of time until he is at 30 minutes by 12 months old. From there the time is gradually increased to 45 minutes by 18 months old. By age two, they are doing 60 minutes of room time! Their room time increases as their morning nap time decreases. Once they drop the morning nap, they are already trained to have room time. Room time takes the place of their morning nap so we can still get school work done in the morning!

Summary

This school year has flown by. I have greatly enjoyed having the majority of planning and prep work done for the entire school year at the beginning of the year! I did that in preparation for the baby and it still paid off in the end since we adopted Beau in December! I really worked hard in June planning and prepping and I intend to do the same (maybe not quite to the extent that I did it last year) this June.

Both girls are making progress and learning although after this year they will both have a big shift in their school work. While Little Bug will still practice phonics through 3rd-4th grade, I need to decide what we will use for learning about literary tools and the other components of language arts. I hope to have some clarity in this after this year’s Homeschool Convention. Sweet Pea will start her formal academics next year and begin learning to read. I look forward to seeing another one of my children blossom into a fluent reader!

We are well on our way to a successful end to our fourth year homeschooling!

- Elaine