After reading Maryanne’s post about their homeschool year in review I thought writing a similar post would be a good tradition to start at the close of each school year.

We are finishing up our first year of homeschooling (our last day is Friday!) and it honestly couldn’t have gone better than it did! I contemplated letting Little Bug attend the preschool she had attended for her PK3 year (especially since we moved 2 minutes away from the preschool just before the school year started!) but in the end I decided to go ahead and start homeschooling. It is a decision I do not in the least bit regret. This was a wonderful year of learning and growing for both of my daughters and I am grateful we did it all together.

What Worked for Little Bug

Bible – Pulling all the preschool Bibles and resources that I had been collecting since Little Bug’s birth was the perfect Bible curriculum for us this year. I plan to continue with something similar next year! I loved beginning each day with “Bible Time”. We got into a good habit of beginning our days this way.

Ready-Made Preschool Level 2 – I think it is very obvious from my weekly Homeschool Highlights posts that Ready-Made Preschool Level 2 was the absolute perfect fit for Little Bug’s PK4 year. One thing I have learned about Little Bug’s learning style this year is that she needs variety! Doing the same type of learning activities over and over again just doesn’t hold Little Bug’s attention for long. This is why I knew some of the free preschool curriculums that you see out there on the internet wouldn’t work for Little Bug. RMPK was EXCELLENT in providing a variety of learning activities that kept Little Bug’s attention and interest for the duration of the 30-week program. Little Bug learned her letter sounds and just like RMPK promised, she is ready, academically, for a phonics program next. Beyond literacy skills Little Bug learned math, science and history concepts too. I can not recommend RMPK enough!

Hands-On Thinking Skills – We got about half-way through Hands-On Thinking Skills this year. This was another good fit for Little Bug. She enjoyed the activities and liked using the manipulative set. This particular book is for K-1st grade so we will continue to work on it through the next two school years!

Mudpies to Magnets – This was another perfect fit to bring in some science experiments to our school year! And a BIG thank you to Grams who always prepared 1-2 experiments for us to do every week. She would gather the materials needed and have the lesson ready to go when we arrived at her house. I loved her involvement in this and so did the girls. Special memories. The majority of the experiments in this book were done successfully and only a small number of them were a “bust”. We did not work through the entire book so we will continue on with this next year as well!

Leap Frog DVDs – I can’t say enough good about these DVDs too. I am very picky about what my girls view on TV. I am also very conscience of how much TV time my girls get. Whenever the girls sit down to watch a Leap Frog DVD I feel so good about what they are viewing. So many children’s DVDs out there claim to be “educational” but Leap Frog DVDs truly are educational! The price for them on Amazon Prime is hard to not go and just buy them all! Instead, we make sure to give them to the girls for birthdays and Christmas presents.

What Didn’t Work for Little Bug

Saxon Math K – The only thing that was in our homeschool line-up at the beginning of the year and we ended up not doing it was Saxon K Math. I hesitated to put it in for Little Bug’s PK4 year and went ahead and decided to give it a try since I had borrowed the teacher’s manual and basically already had all the math manipulatives, but after 3 weeks, it just didn’t feel right for Little Bug’s last preschool year. Towards the end of this year, I pulled out the teacher’s manual and looked through it and realized the majority of the concepts in this curriculum Little Bug has already mastered from the Learning Times I’ve done with her since she was 2.5 years old and from doing Ready-Made Preschool. We are going to give Saxon Math K another try this Fall, skipping the concepts Little Bug has mastered and focusing on those that she has not yet mastered (basically time & measurement concepts). I have heard many good things about Saxon Math and after much prayer (yes, I pray about curriculum choices!) and consideration I am hopeful Saxon Math will be a good fit for Little Bug’s kinesthetic learning style.

What Worked for Sweet Pea

Bible Time/Reading books – Before I started any formal learning time with Sweet Pea my goal was to just get this girl to sit long enough to listen to a story! I would get 5 board books and make her sit with me and read them. It didn’t take long and she was hooked on reading just like her big sister. Sweet Pea’s attention span to listening to books being read to her has increased GREATLY over this year. Our Bible Time was also a good time to teach Sweet Pea to sit and listen to stories.

ABC School – Using the majority of the ideas from The Measured Mom’s Alphabet curriculum, I am working through the alphabet with Sweet Pea 1-2 letters per week with the plan to finish up with the last letter by the time our new school year rolls around in August. One of my main goals in this is to expose Sweet Pea to the alphabet through quality literature and fun, hands-on learning activities and crafts. We are about half-way through the letters now and, so far, this has been a total success with Sweet Pea. She loves her school time! Another of my main goals in doing ABC School with Sweet Pea is to have a “trial run” of what our routines will be like when I am schooling two children next year instead of just one! We have fallen into a wonderful routine that is working for us all so that I can school the girls together for some subjects and separately for others. My hope is when we start in the Fall, our routine will already be in place and we will avoid any bumps to getting started with our first official homeschool year with Little Bug starting Kindergarten!

What Didn’t Work for Sweet Pea

So far, nothing is not working for this little girl. She is very enthusiastic about her school time and has loved every activity and craft!

I am so thankful our first guinea-pig year was a positive experience for everyone. We are already looking forward to another year of homeschool beginning this Fall!

- Elaine