Year in Review
We are coming to the close of our first official year homeschooling. That is, where we registered with the local school board. Of course, we have basically been homeschooling since birth. But now is not the time for a speech about the role of parents in education!
It has been a year of homeschooling with Kindergarten and Grade One texts. Some things went well. Some were a waste of time. But overall, Little Fox flourished and we both learned a lot! Let me share with you what worked and what didn’t work.
Reading
I have already given my review of Little Fox’s reading success this year. You can read all about it in my article From Phonics to Chapter Books. And in that article I wrote about how in 10 months my daughter went from struggling with letter sounds to reading Magic Tree House books. For a quick review, let me tell you this: The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, combined with the Catholic Little Angel Readers, gave my daughter a firm understanding of phonics and love of reading, respectively.
Writing
Writing required some changes throughout the year. We started with the Level 1 Handwriting (print text) book from The Good and the Beautiful, which is technically meant for grade one. I decided to use this because I could buy the pdf for a low cost, and print off copies for each of my children when they reach the age/skill level to use it. There are some Bible quotes and platitudes about God in the copy work; however it isn’t catechetical. The main reason I gave it a try was because it was cost effective and since I had a new baby (Little Owl), I didn’t have time to pull together my own copywork and writing practice… or so I thought.
So, this was a good book for short daily practice, and enjoyable for the extra colouring it includes. Also, the colouring helps with fine motor development. However, this program did not really help Little Fox reach towards excellence. So while we decided to still finish the book for fun/as busy work if I needed her to wait for me while I changed the baby, in February I switched to a new writing program.
The new writing program, Shortcut to Manuscript, is brilliant, and free.
You can get it for free on DonPotter.net, which is also linked in his YouTube video about the FREE program. This YouTube video also describes how to hold the pencil. Anyway, in one week of using his method, Little Fox’s (and my) printing became so clear, beautiful, and easy to read, that you wouldn’t believe a Kindergartner was writing these letters. I cannot say enough about how great this program is!
Mathematics
For Mathematics, our main program is Kate Snow’s Math with Confidence! We love it so much! The lesson plans are quick and easy to follow, the workbook pages are attractive for children (and adults, really). In the Kindergarten booklet, the child does one page (one side) a day. The greatest thing is how the child practices writing 5 numbers with every workbook page. And this was super effective for improving Little Fox’s number writing. The Grade One workbook has the child do both sides of a page. So one side is the new material from the lesson, and the second side is for reviewing material.
We have already started the Second Grade Math with Confidence, and look forward to the continued use of this program!
We also used a supplementary program to review math skills or to spend longer on a subject. The Math with Confidence suggests games and activities for this purpose, however Little Fox likes to keep going even when she isn’t ready. So being able to switch to a second program for a few days helped engage her in strengthening any areas she needed to spend extra time on.
Mini Review of Singapore Math
The second program we used was Singapore Math. The textbooks are fun to read, and it is a challenging program. However, I didn’t purchase the teacher guides, so we did not have the full program. With this program, we read a few pages of the textbook at a time. The number of worksheets to go with the textbook pages varied greatly. Sometimes Little Fox did one page, other times there were around six pages for a single lesson. So, the inconsistency bothered me a bit. Although not too much, since we were just doing it as a supplement and not as our main teaching text.
This method was a good fit for us, and Little Fox’s temperament. Even so, having two math programs is unnecessary, and I would recommend Kate Snow’s math series over Singapore.
The Byzantine Life
Thank you for checking out this week’s article. Although we covered other subjects this year, I don’t have strong opinions about how we did those subjects. For Kindergarten, reading, writing, and math are the priorities! And the Badger Dad did the religious education.
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