The kids have finished up another school year!
They will continue to do some school over the summer. Mainly “Bridge” –type workbooks, reinforcement
of math facts (division for Georgie, addition/subtraction for Vicki), and lots
of reading.
This was a very interesting year, starting out with my
return to work, the brief attempt to continue our usual book-based work before
switching to Time4Learning for a few months while staying at grandma’s
house. Then a return to home and much of
our previous curriculum after the New Year with a private educator (our
wonderful governess/nanny, Jennifer).
Despite the chaos the kids have actually had a really good
year. They are both still working above
the grade level they would be in public school, and they have enjoyed a very
active extra-curricular schedule for the past few months.
Here it is, our wrap-up of the 2013/2014 School Year (and a
few comments on what we may do for next year)!!
VICKI (rising 2nd
grader)
Language Arts
HWT: At the start of the school year (July), Vicki
was about 2/3 of the way through the kindergarten HWT book, was very resistant to
writing outside of her workbook and even when writing for fun, did nothing but
scribble. Since then she has finished
the entire 1st grade book, and only has a few more pages left in the
second grade book. She is also doing her
own writing for the rest of her school work.
Lots of progress in just one year, but at this point I don’t think she’s
ready for cursive so we will probably do more copywork to continue practicing print
writing (if it seems to be needed, she does quite a bit of writing at this
point).
Reading: At the start of the year, Vicki was doing a little
bit of Explode the Code, and we had
just started All About Reading.
She was doing fairly well with CVC words and had just started blends. Other than her AAR readers and partner
reading some Dr. Seuss, she wasn’t reading too much on her own. She advanced very quickly while doing Time4Learning
and she’s now reading for at least an hour a day. She has worked her way through quite a few Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, Rainbow
Fairies, and some Geronimo Stilton
and Thea Stilton. I did the San Diego Quick Reading Assessment
and she scored at the 5th grade level. I don’t think she is ready for the smaller print
and lack of pictures in higher level books but she’s definitely doing great
with decoding. Her reading caterpillar
hit the wall so she is now keeping a reading log.
Grammar: She wasn’t doing any grammar at the start of
the year, except some games like Very Silly Sentences, because we concentrated on
phonics and reading. In January she
started with Scholastic DoDEA Grammar, Usage
and Mechanics Grade 1. In April she switched to Evan Moor Grammar and Punctuation since my Scholastic download had
gotten corrupted and I could no longer download it online. She is about half-way through the 1st
grade Evan-Moor. She may be ready to go
right into the second grade book in September since there is a lot of
repetition in the lower grades.
Reading Comprehension: Reading comprehension is another one of those
topics we weren’t covering at the beginning of the year to concentrate on
phonics. In January, she started with Scholastic 1st Grade Basic
Skills: Reading Comprehension and Reading
Skills (done mostly orally). We only
used the pages that consisted of reading a short passage and answering a few
questions. She did very well and moved
on to the 2nd grade book in February, which included pages on
synonyms, antonyms, sequencing and answering questions about a passage. By this point she was doing her own writing
and proceeding very well, but when she finished the 2nd grade
Scholastic book and switched to Evan Moor
Daily Reading Comprehension we started with 2nd grade. The Evan-Moor passages are longer, have more
details and the questions, while mostly multiple choice, required more thought.
She is currently up to Week 8 (out of
30) so will probably continue with 2nd grade in September.
The Wand: Vicki
has completed through Level 2, Issue 1 in The
Wand (which puts her about ½ way through).
The Wand includes activities in grammar, spelling, comprehension, and vocabulary
and is geared toward K-2nd grade (advanced for 5-6 year olds,
targeted for 7-8 year olds) so Vicki is right in the group it is meant
for. She will probably continue working
through the rest of The Wand and then switch to Writing with Ease 1.
Additional Language Arts: Late in the year, we introduced a few other
LA activities. Scholastic: Success with Vocabulary:
Grade 1 and spelling using Scholastic
Week-by-Week Homework Packets: Spelling Grade 1. Vicki has been doing well with both and I
really like the vocabulary. In the fall,
I want to start a phonics based spelling program. I already have All About Spelling, Level 1 and Level 2 but I don’t think Vicki
needs something that involved. We will probably
try out the Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners
Spell and Write (same program Georgie uses). It looks like she could go right into the 2nd
grade level.
Math
Math Mammoth: Vicki has worked through all of MM1A and most
of MM1B. She is completing the shapes
and measuring chapter, which leaves adding/subtracting within 100 and
coins. Since she is doing a separate
workbook on time and money, it may not be necessary to complete the coins chapter,
and since there is a lot of review with addition, she may be able to start 2A
in the fall.
Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners
Math: She has finished the 1st
grade book! We will probably continue
with the 2nd grade book in the fall since this provides a nice,
ongoing spiral review of concepts.
Additional Math: In addition to a Disney Time & Money workbook, she has also been working through
Scholastic First Word Problems: Time & Money, Scholastic Practice, Practice, Practice:
Addition & Subtraction, Scholastic Algebra Readiness Made Easy: Grade 1 (same program George uses, a nice
introduction to logic problems), and Solve
the Riddle Math Practice: Addition
& Subtraction (same ones Georgie did).
This is probably the first time Vicki has started using programs
originally purchased for Georgie.
GEORGE – (rising 4th
grader)
Language Arts
Cursive Writing: George started the third grade Handwriting without Tears Cursive book
in June of last year. He finished it in
April, and since then has been practicing using Scholastic Cursive Writing Practice: Jokes and Riddles. He’s also been doing more of his other school
writing in cursive. While I really like
HWT, I don’t think he needs more instruction, just more practice, so that’s the
way we’re heading for him.
Spelling: George
was finishing up the third grade Evan Moor
Skill Sharpeners Spell & Write in August of last year. Since then he has completed the 4th
grade and started the 5th grade workbook. These books provide a nice mix of traditional
spelling practice (copy the words), phonics rules, grammar and creative
writing. He almost always scores 100% of the spelling
tests and it also shows in his writing.
For fifth grade, he’s had words like pitcher, trouble, station,
beautiful, journey, neighborhood, everyone, surrounded, countries, quickest,
guarding, purpose, ordinary, approach, tomorrow, knight, variety. He completed through Unit 6 before stopping
for the summer.
He learned about Harriet Tubman, had a writing assignment to
pretend he was a newspaper reporter when an alien was spotted in a cornfield, had
to come up with five interview questions for Lance Armstrong, and learned about
Knights and Pages.
Reading Comprehension: He just finished up Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension 4th grade, just in
time for summer break. He will continue
with the fifth grade book in the fall.
Vocabulary: He started the year doing the third grade Evan Moor Word A Day. He completed that book and moved on to
the 4th grade book about mid-year.
He gets practice using the dictionary looking up each word before
answering the questions. In addition to
the multiple choice questions, the fourth grade book has writing assignments using
some of the words. George’s selections
included: “When I lose computer time I
get cantankerous”, “I’m wearing an orange dapper suit”, “I am very gregarious”
(he really is), and “It’s so tedious doing schoolwork”.
Writing with Ease:
George has completed through Week 22 of WWE1.
I think we’re going to continue with WWE2. He is certainly doing a lot of other writing
and grammar but I like the exposure to classic literature and we don’t have
anything else that includes dictation work.
He has come a long way with copywork this year. Below is a sample from September and one from
May. Big difference.
Additional Language
Arts: Late in the year (following
another Scholastic Dollar Days sale actually) we introduced some additional “fun”
language arts. More Proofreading Practice Please! which has helped George apply
the grammar, spelling and punctuation he is learning in other programs, Scholastic No Boring Practice Please:
Spelling which goes over general spelling rules like syllables, suffixes,
plurals and silent letters one rule at a time.
Math
Math Mammoth: George finished up MM4A back in April and
they took a break to work on solidifying his recall of math facts. He is doing very well with recollection of
multiplication facts but is having more trouble with division facts. He will continue to work on getting the facts
down well, and move on to 4B in the fall.
Skill Sharpeners Math
– Grade 4: George started doing the Evan Moor Skill Sharpeners Math workbook around April to add some
mixed review and practice. It gives him
additional word problem practice, and topics such as coordinate graphing, calculating
area, computation practice, fractions, and measurement.
Algebra Readiness
Made Easy: George finished up the 5th
grade book but was starting to really struggle by the end. We decided to hold off on the 6th
grade book for a while, and possibly even re-do the 5th grade book
in the fall.
Logic Puzzles: He started out the year doing a variety of
logic puzzles from Scholastic Logic
Posters, Problems and Puzzles which offers a variety of types of
puzzles. His favorites are definitely the
grid puzzles. Once he finished the
Scholastic book (some of them for the second time), he started doing some grid
puzzles from a Mental Floss logic book.
He likes them so much, he’s started making up some of his own.
Additional Math: George has learned how to do Sudoku puzzles,
starting with 4x4 puzzles he has now moved on to the 9x9 grids. He
also started doing Evan Moor Daily Word Problems,
Grade 4 in the hopes of getting him in the habit of actually reading the
directions and writing down his steps. Math
is starting to get hard enough that he makes mistakes trying to do it in his
head. He is also doing some math facts
drill using Scholastic Fast Facts:
Multiplication & Division and Super
Sudoku Math: Multiplication and Division.
Both
The kids have been making great progress in their school
work but they’ve also been having a ton of fun.
In addition to swimming lessons (Vicki is now swimming
underwater), they’ve been bowling, ice skating (both are doing great), fencing
(Vicki has a real knack for fencing!), fishing, and camping. They’ve studied Vikings, Electricity, and been
to the National Zoo.
Posts on all that will be coming soon!
Wow, what a whirlwind year! It sounds like your kiddos have made a lot of progress. How lovely that you could find a nanny to help meet your desire to home educate.
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