It's May. YAY! May is my favorite month. I love the weather in May (although right now it's a bit chilly for my liking) and I've always enjoyed the feeling of relief as the school year ends and summer begins.
We will "officially" be done with school on May 19th. By then, we'll be done with the required number of days for the year and we should be finished with several of our curricula. It'll be a good place to stop, for a while. Right now, I'm planning to take June and July off. We'll probably have a week or so of science projects and art lessons somewhere in there, and we'll do a little bit of math (Prodigy game, which Lexi loves) just to keep current, but we'll also spend a lot of time going to the pool and playing with friends. The plan is to start back up in full at the beginning of August. We start early so we can take some extended breaks during the fall and spring when the weather is nice.
I'm excited to wrap our school year up! Just for fun, I'd like to look back at where we started this school year and explain where we ended up. I copied and pasted from my Back to School post and noted how things went. The formatting is going to be odd because of that, but it's too much work to change it now ;)
Lexi
Reading- Learning Language Arts Through Literature. Lexi finished the Red Book and got a good chunk of the way into the Yellow Book. There were big changes between those two books, and neither of us really loved them. She craved a challenge. I ended up supplementing with some reading workbooks I found at Barnes & Noble, and we're planning to take a different route after summer break. The girl wants to know how to decode and read larger words so she can read more challenging books. I'm hoping after next year, she'll have the skills needed to transition from "learning to read" to "reading to learn".
Math- Singapore Math. She finished book 1B and we are about 3/4 or so into 2A. We slowed down for a while to drill some concepts. We added Prodigy Math as a great way to practice facts in a fun setting. I love it so, so much. We will continue with Singapore Math and Prodigy this fall.
Science - Noeo Science, Biology 1. We have been at this for well over a calendar year! Which I am OK with. We're going at our own pace. We've enjoyed this curriculum, but there were several months without any experiments followed by weeks crammed full of experiments. We set some of the experiments aside for the summer and I plan to have a week of fun science stuff. I'm hoping we'll finish the whole curriculum over the next couple of weeks/months and move on to something new this fall. We may go with Noeo Chemistry, or we may try something else.
Spelling - All About Spelling Level 1. We finished Level 1 and are a little more than halfway through Level 2. I really, really like this curriculum. We are going to use All About Reading for both girls next year. I'm excited by the systematic teaching of rules for spelling and reading. I'm learning along with them!
Social Studies - Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times. After giving it a try for several months and feeling stuck, I finally gave up on this. It wasn't a good fit for our family. I sold it, bought something else, sold that, bought something else and stuck with it. We've been using Beginning Geography by Evan Moor and she absolutely loves it. I think it might be her favorite thing we do, which is crazy, because it is lots of worksheets. I have to make her stop haha. I've changed my philosophy on teaching Social Studies this year too. I think kids need to learn some general geography and information about the world before learning the history of it. Not that we haven't learned some history here and there, but I think at this age, we need to focus on the basics.
Writing - Essentials in Writing Level 1. We are nearly finished with this and liked it pretty well. It was a tad expensive and pretty basic, but that's what I was looking for. One of my main goals for Lexi this year was for her to become a more fluent writer with more stamina for writing. I think she has grown a lot as a writer over the year. She is now doing her own written summaries in Science and doesn't complain about writing as much. This fall, we're starting Write Shop, which she is VERY excited about. Seems like it might be a lot of work, so I'll take some time this summer to prepare.
Art - Artistic Pursuits K-3 Vol 1. We've been going through this sporadically and the girls enjoy it. We'll continue using it until we've finished the volume and then probably pick up the next one. My goal is to have an Art Week this summer where we can dive in and have fun! I don't want Art to get lost in the shuffle.
Music - Lexi did piano lessons with my mom once per week. Thanks Grandma Diane! We changed to a different piano curriculum last week, Learn to Play (I saw it at the Homeschooling Convention!) and I think it will build a better musical foundation for her. The general idea to to provide students with lots of easy music to play so that they can really master their skills before moving on. Makes sense to me! We'll see how it goes.
Lydia
This girl! She's been tricky this year. Some weeks, she's excited to do some formal learning, and others, not so much. I've gone through varying cycles of pushing her and backing off. I'm currently in a "backing off" phase. Using a variety of techniques and books, I've taught her the basic concept of sounding out words. Some days, she's cooperative and excited. Others, not at all. I am trying to go with the flow. My overall goal is for her to love learning, but I also don't want to be afraid of working on new skills. I think at this age, it's better for her to have a positive view of school and learning. Striking a balance is challenging!
We've decided to call this fall "Pre-K" for her. She'll turn 5 late July and while I think she's capable of some kindergarten level work (that we very well may dive into) I really think she'll do best with some extra time. I think extra time will allow her fine motor skills to develop more. I think that a little extra time will help her mature some, so that when we do start some more formal school, she'll be ready. She has learned a lot this year, even though it isn't all measurable and organized. But if I am going to be true to my philosophy of education for little ones (lots of play, lots of reading, learning doesn't always follow a schedule) then I need to be OK with this! So I'm OK with this. Boom!
We've already got a lot of fun plans for the summer (a trip to Omaha, VBSs, going swimming a lot, maybe getting a kitten!) and I think we are all ready for a break and a change of pace! Only 13 more school days to go :)
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