Finishing Up

Over the next couple weeks we will be finishing up our preschool work.  It is hard to believe that my little girl is reading and learning addition.  She loves learning, and it is so much fun to be a part of it.  I never want her love of learning to diminish or change.  This past year she has been doing Abeka K4 math, and we only have about 13 lessons left.  She can now count to 100 and do simple addition.  Brian and I both like math, and it seems to have been passed on.  Ok it might be a little early to say that, but I'm hoping it is true.  We also will be finishing the preschool Explode the Code phonics books.  She has done very well with these, and has really enjoyed them.  It's amazing how far she has come with reading and phonics since we started them. 

We are still working through our reading book The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, and probably will be for at least another year.  K was not a fan of this book when we started, but I do think it is the best thing out there.  I started writing the lessons on our white board so she didn't see the book, and now she is doing great.  We also will be continuing with Zaner-Bloser Handwriting K and then will move on to the 1st grade book.  She writes very well for her age, and has always loved to write words.  Even when she had no idea what she was writing, she loved to copy words and names. 

For science, we were going through the First Nature Encyclopedia.  We would read a two page section and then she would color a picture that I printed out of one of the animals or plants we learned about.  Then she would tell me something she liked or remembered about the plant or animal, and I would write it down.  (Our first attempt at narration.)   There are some pretty funny ones!  When I get a chance I'll scan a few and put them on here.

We used Sonlight P3/4 for read alouds.  I loved this!  I am even planning on using some of the books again for next year.  K loved that there were so many fairy tales (she is very into princesses).  It was a great selection, and I will definitely be using Sonlight for a long time.

For art we used a lot of different things.  It kind of just depended on what she felt like doing and what we had around at the time.  K loves painting and coloring, so that is what she did most of the time.  She is pretty creative so usually I can just put some supplies in front of her and she comes up with her own thing. 

This next school year will be a little bit more academic, but mostly I just want it to be fun for both K and E.  We will continue to do a lot of hands on activities, games and art.  I can't wait!