Evaluation of Sam's Kindergarten Year

We still have 2 more weeks before we take a short break from school but it is a good time to sit back and evaluate before making plans for Sam's year 1.


I use What Your Child Needs to Know When by Robin Sampson to evaluate the kid's progress. I don't use it to plan the year but use it as a benchmark that I review quarterly to make sure we are making progress. Sam accomplished all of the K level requirements by March and has done about 1/4 of the 1st grade as of today.


At Sam's 5th birthday.....

-he only knew the names of a few of the letters and even fewer of the letter sounds. He can now read simple 1st grade level books.

-He could count to 10 but did not recognize numbers. He can now count to 100+,understands place value, can do addition to sum of 10, and skip count by 2s, 5s, and 10s. He has started to answer the addition problems and then check his answer with blocks.


-He could write his name in block letters. He can now write all the letter in upper and lower case and has started doing some simple copywork.

Beyond the basics, Sam enjoyed many good books and through them he explored geography, science , history and literature in a fun , easy manner. He also did a very thorough study of the human body on his own initiative. Dad and Sam have enjoyed doing science experiments together when I'm at work including but not necessarily limited to magnets, rockets, and a few that I don't recall since I didn't get to participate.

I have learned that CM is a good fit for my younger children-I now have a solid framework to work with when planning this upcoming year. I have also learned that using manipulatives is very important for Sam and I need to be willing to work with that need during his learning to read phrase.


Looking forward to working with a 6 year old boy soon!

Our Year 1 booklist

Language Arts
Handwriting without Tears -Printing practice
Copywork Book 1 by Memoria Press
Our CM reading program + 100 Easy Lessons
All About Spelling Book 1

How I'm putting this all together....

-Oral narration from various subjects.
-Daily reading instruction
-Daily copywork from HWT/ Copywork Book 1/ or other subjects only 1 per day.
-Memory work from Copywork Book 1 + poetry

Mathmatics -Math-U-See Alpha

Foreign Language -Phrase-A-Day Spanish

Bible- Every Day with God

Poetry
A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
Now We Are Six/When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne

History
Story of the World-Vol. 2....reading to correspond with a local history co-op
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall

American History Biography
Benjamin Franklin by Ingri D'Aulaire
George Washington by Ingri D'Aulaire
Buffalo Bill by Ingri D'Aulaire
Pocahontas by Ingri D'Aulaire

Geography
Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling

Natural History/Science
Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
The Burgess Seashore Book for Children By Thornton Burgess

Literature
The Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
Tales for Shakespeare by Charles Lamb
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Among the .....People by by Clara Dillingham Pierson

Bedtime Reading
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
King of the Golden River by John Ruskin
Peter Pan by James M. Barrie
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Fairy Books by Andrew Lang

Also Weekly

Art Appreciation - one artist per quarter

Music appreciation-one composer per quarter

Handicrafts - to be determined by interest

Nature Study- follow Outdoor Hour challenges.

Spring Update.

Things are changing around here. Sam has grown completely out of the stage of hearing a story over and over so we have abandoned FIAR and reading 1 story each week. Instead we are reading SOTW story on Monday, Among the Meadow People by Clara Dillingham Pierson on Tuesday, Burgess Seashore Book for Children on Thursday, and a Fairytale/literature selection on Friday.

We are also planning on taking a break from 100 EZ lessons. I feel like we are nearing a wall and instead of frustrating Sam and actually hitting it we are going to do something else for awhile. He is getting bogged down with the sounding out of words as the reading selections have increased in length. I have pulled out the cards that I have laminated from LLATL and made a few more to correspond to what he has learned from 100 EZ lessons with the idea to spend some time drilling while playing games. I found a game board online and laminated it. I will see how creative I can get with this over the next few weeks. Concentration, Go Fish type games are a given. I think I can come up with a couple of ideas with the game board....roll the dice and you get to move X number of spots if you read X number of words....that sort of thing. We will also spend this time reading the booklets that we have from LLATL and the stories we have already read with 100 EZ lessons. I will also try to create some CM styled reading lessons with The Primer by Treadmill that I have on hand. Lots of ideas and I'll just have to wait and see which one works best for him.

Green Hour #10 & #11

Green Hour Challenge #10 asked us to have an outdoor picnic. My kids thought I'd lost it when I took this picture of them eating today. We eat outdoors several times a week most of the year-although usually not junk food like today!

Green Hour Challenge #11 asked us to start a seasonal tree study. Our focus area this quarter has been trees and we are ambitious and are going to try to follow 6 of the trees in our yard. We shall see how that turns out this year.....

Big Sis' joined us for a hike after lunch. We were able to climb the bike trails which is far more exciting then walking the flat walking paths. Sam calls this off-roading and it is one of his favorite activities.
We also toured a local sea turtle facility. Awesome! We've toured one during a recent trip to Florida but yesterday we were able to get up close. It was SO hot in there the kids were beet red and our clothing was drenched with sweat when we left.

Charlotte was amazed by the babies and didn't want to leave their tank. Sam was fascinated with the 2 year old turtles and we learned that in nature it would take these loggerhead turtles 7 years to reach this size.

Green Hour #9

We spent the day attempting to volunteer at the butterfly garden and chasing Charlotte which didn't work out very well. While we were there we got a chance to watch this baby armadillo do some serious rooting around in square foot area.

Be the armadillo, Sam! We did not have as much luck finding items as the armadillo but it sure was fun pretending.

Green Hour #8

Magnifying glasses have always been well used around here but our absolute favorite was a Brock Magiscope which proved to be indestructable but not toddler proof. Charlotte managed to hide the shaft so well that we have never been able to find it. Our new favorite device is the Eyeclops.
You really can see your sweat as it emerges from the gland and nothing gets our whole family involved in one activity than this cool device. Far better that an microscope because everyone can "ohhh and ahhh" at the same time. Today we looked at leaves, a couple of the wildflowers in our yard, and of course body parts....we can't seem to get the eyeclops out without trying to find something on somebody that is disgusting. It was remarkably easy to get Sam in the shower tonight after he saw how much microscopic dirt was on him after our outing this afternoon.
This week we added an entry for our Texas Ash tree. Sam disliked my attempted outline of a Blue Jay so I found a website with a picture that I printed off for him to color. He is very specific about what he wants to include in his notebook. This entry has a drawing of the bark , a leaf rubbing, a Blue Jay, and a drawing of his treehouse that is under this tree.

A pan of seeds, assorted funnels and containers to fill and refill and you have entertainment for the kids, seeds for the birds and hopefully plants in a few weeks.

Up close and personal- Green Hour # 8

Spring Schedule

Our spring got off to a rocky start with an unplanned 2 1/2 week break due to illnesses. Our daily rhythm has not changed too much since winter but we have added a few things to our week.

We are still doing our schoolwork in the mornings starting around 9am.

We work through

MUS, primer
HWT- Kindergarten
our story of the week-chosen from amblesideonline Year 0 and Five in a row
100 EZ lessons
Speech work.

We have added to our weekly schedule-

1. Composer study done informally- This season Handel. I have a a CD that I play during the little kids morning indoor playtime.
2. Artist study done informally- This season Da Vinci. I have been using various Da Vinci works as the computer wallpaper and taking a good look at a particular work once a week usually Mondays.
3. History Co-op on Mondays- Sam started participating in a Story of the World co-op and loves it so we will do a Monday SOTW reading with this group. He really felt like a big kid in this group. I have to be honest and say that SOTW isn't a favorite but it an awesome group of families and the co-op is the resource that I'd be foolish not to participate in.
4. Started reading Burgess' Seashore Book. Doing 1 chapter a week usually on Tuesdays. When finish will start Burgess' Bird Book
5. Started reading Little House in the Big Woods. Doing 1 chapter a week spread over 2 days usually on Thursday and Friday. When finish will either read another free reading selection for AO year 1 or perhaps start a AO year 1 literature selection.
6. Participation in the Green Hour Challenge doing our planned activity on Friday afternoons.
7. Poetry- poem related to our nature study that I recite to the kids several times a day. I keep a copy on the fridge so I remember to do this! No one has memorized it yet but it keeps sounding better and better each time it is read.

Our Afternoons are spent -

Monday- History Co-op 1-2 hour. 1-2 hours outside time.
Tuesday- Speech Therapy alternating weeks and 2-4 hours outside time
Wed- the kids are at grandma's while I work
Thursday- exploring various parks in the area - 2-4 hours outside time
Friday- Planned nature study time- 2-4 hours outside time