Homeschool Wrap-up

We have officially completed the home schooling for the year. We began back in March, which we were not anticipating. I scrambled to get some supplies and away we went. Things went pretty well if I do say so myself.

I began teaching her phonics and simple sounding out words. We moved on to the Bob Books. She really liked that she could figure out the words in a book. We finished all 12 books in the first series. A really good start! She knows all her letters, both to recognize and to print out. She knows the sounds of all the letters as well. Good stuff.

She also started a book in which she would draw a picture and then dictate a story to me, which I copied down for her. This was a good exercise. Every one of her stories began with the common "Once upon a time...". We frequently go back and read her stories. She feels a sense of pride to have had them recorded in a book.

We did some nature study as well. We did not/have not done as much as I would have liked but we have the next 12 weeks to do that. We planted a huge garden and started some seeds in the root viewer. They are very lanky and weak but we will see what happens with them over the coming month. We did some field trips and Auntie Jen took her to the Museum in Regina.

We worked almost all the way through the Handwriting Without Tears workbook. I have decided that I definitely do NOT like that book. The letters look odd to me. I am going to be using the D'Nealian script in the fall for sure. It lends itself to a smooth transition to handwriting and it just plain looks better.

We learned some math skills as well. She worked on her counting by ones and by tens. She learned to add and subtract small numbers. We did some measurement with a ruler and with recipes too.
She learned patterns and ordering and has a start on telling time. With a real clock!

We listened to a lot of classical music. She has a knack for picking out the violin in each piece. We did a lot of art as well.

We did some chapter book reading as well. We most recently finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. She absolutely loved that book.

For the coming weeks we will still be learning. I plan to do 20 minutes of reading every day using the instructional book Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I would like to build her reading skills and confidence over the summer months. We'll be tending our garden and Daddy wants to do some fishing with her too. Daddy and Athena and Uncle Jordan and Abby are planning a weekend camping trip in July , which should be loads of fun. But most of all we'll just be lounging about the yard learning from nature and just letting her be a kid.

I have submitted my formal Education Plan to the Board of Education for the fall. I am just waiting to hear back. I suspect there will not be a problem. I have a lot of work to do this summer with the planning of First Grade. I have all the materials I need, save for the library resources, and now I just want to organize my thoughts and the lessons plans so we can have a smooth running academic year.
I'll be sitting in the shade on my deck drinking copious amounts of wine, I mean lemonade, and enjoying the summer, if it ever decides to show its face around these parts.