Well, here is the update! Today, we finished Kindergarten!!! It has been such a great year!
When we started, Jewel was reading letters and sounds, but not doing much in terms of words. Today she is reading fairly fluidly, even learning to read in her head. She loves to read! I find her reading to Flower all the time. Her favorite books to read are a book of fairy tales and a Disney princesses book. Neither are "beginner" books. Both were bought as read-alouds, but she has taken them over. Today, for her last beginning to read story for K, she read the story of Balto the dog to me. She did great! There were several words she had never seen before, and she sounded them out without any issue. I have not worked intentionally at all with Flower, but she has learned her alphabet and all the sounds just by being with Jewel. She has taken over Jewel's Barbie computer and does a great job recognizing the letters and the sounds. She is so ready to start school. As much as I'd planned to wait until after her fourth birthday, I've relented and will start her in October as well.
Back in September, Jewel had learned how to write all of her letters. This year, her handwriting has improved immensely and she loves to sit and spell out words on her magnetic drawing board. She has been teaching Flower how to write the letters and she can now write her own name without any help, and the rest of the family's names with spelling help. Jewel has written all of her own thank you notes this year. The proof is in the pudding, and a few weeks ago a substitute Sunday School teacher, who is skeptical about home ed, came to me afterwards to tell me that they had never seen such neat and precise handwriting in a child before. Yay! (He was even more shocked when Flower wrote her name on her paper--his son is one month older than Flower and doesn't even know his letters yet.) To me, it is just verification that it is working.
Reading together has been great fun this year. Sonlight has some amazing books to read. We've read:
*The Boxcar Children (books 1 and 2)
*James Herriot's Treasury for Children
*The Apple and the Arrow
*My Father's Dragon
*The Hundred Dresses
*Johnny Appleseed
*The Light at Tern Rock
*Five True Dog Stories
*The Family Under the Bridge (Jewel's favorite)
*Twenty and Ten
*Mary on Horseback
*Dolphin Adventure and Dolphin Treasure
*The Story About Ping
*The Story of Doctor Dolittle
*In Grandma's Attic
*The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Flower's favorite)
*The House at Pooh Corner
*A Grain of Rice
*Richard Scarry's Please and Thank you Book
*Capybobby
We have also really enjoyed the reading about missionaries as part of history. Granny Han's Breakfast amazed them both. It is so great to be able to use the stories we read to enhance their love of God. The Bible readings coupled with coloring sheets from Calvary Chapel have made this a rich year in terms of learning about God.
Science may be where we have had the most fun. Although we have not done all of the experiments, we have done several. They loved growing beans,
and watching caterpillars become chrysalids then become butterflies that we released.
Plus we have learned lots from watching the peachicks from last summer grow up and now one of the females has a set of chicks of her own. They bring us hours of entertainment and education in our own back garden. That coupled with the cygnets and ducklings have given them a good sense of the growth of birds.
If Science is where we have had the most fun, math has definitely been the least. Jewel is just not conceptualizing what she needs to be able to do. She is adding and subtracting double digits, but it is hard work and rote. She has no idea why it works or how to make it work outside one presentation. I have decided that the problem is really three-fold: she is only 5 and in the States none of this would be started until first grade!; Singapore Math is just not a good fit for her in how it is presented; and her math major parents have a very difficult time communicating math to her in simple terms. The first problem will correct with age, and I'm trying not to sweat it. As far as the latter two, I am changing her curriculum next year to something a little more visual and that has a dvd "teacher" to help explain the concepts in simpler terms. I hope that helps her learn to enjoy and not dread math!
PE has been all about learning to swim. Last week Jewel was the only one in her class to achieve Level 2 badge (breast stroke, back stroke, front crawl plus other water skills) and has achieved her 5m distance badge. She is just slightly off achieving her 10m distance badge. Flower has already achieved her Level 1 badge (front crawl, able to swim pool length on her back--no stroke requirement, able to get out of pool on her own, able to jump in and get on her back safely, able to collect something off the pool floor) and she also has her 5m distance badge. She is just starting to learn the breast stroke and should start back stroke next week. They both love their swimming teacher and he is really incredible in how far he has taken them in a short time. Jewel started just over a year ago with lessons and Flower started in January!
Finally we have incorporated school into as much travel as we could. We have been to an old textile mill where they demonstrated how the machines actually worked, we have gone to a horse rescue center and saw them caring for the horses and the veterinarian's work area, we explored a Sherlock Holmes museum and worked on deductive logic, we have visited several castles and gardens in stately homes, we have been to a planetarium (in addition to getting our own telescope out on a few occassions), we have had a demonstration of Krispy Kreme donuts being made, we have walked on a proper Roman walls in York and Chester as well as a real Roman Road in Rome (and so many more sites in Rome), we have visited the Egyptian room at the British Museum and saw mummies, we learned about Hadrian and his wall (and even *met* him to ask him questions about the Pantheon), we have learned about dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum and about Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre, we have gone to the ballet (Angelina dances Sleeping Beauty) and the theatre (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), we have learned about the early days of Rock'n'Roll at the Beatles museum and so much more. How could we not love home education? I won't show you pictures of all of that, but here is a couple of my favorites from the Media Museum where they were learning to interact with a blue screen. Jewel did some weather presenting (but she couldn't find where we lived on the map) and then they played with the tellytubbies. Too funny!
It has been a great year. We will be taking the rest of August off for Holiday Bible Club (VBS) and then a mission trip to Romania. When we return, I plan to use September as down time and preparation. We will start back the first of October! Wow!
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1 comment:
Wow...I am really impressed at everything you have done with them. Way to go Jacque.
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