Kindergarten~ a year in review

Since First Grade is already in full swing, let's take a moment to reminisce about Kindergarten.  We were thankful to find a nearby Classical Conversations Community following our move back to Texas. It was something familiar to the girls as our Florida born babes were surrounded by unfamiliar things. We kicked off schooling at home right after our first CC day & the girls were very excited! 

Implementing Classical Conversations at home:

Simply stated, Charlotte has a love for Geography...makes me wonder if she will be an adventurous young lady with a passport someday.  We introduced continents to Eloise in the same way Charlotte learned them when she was four. A map, play dough & some little flags.

Charlotte worked on what we call "blob mapping" which is basically drawing the general shape of each continent in the proper place in& eventually in relation to the prime meridian & equator. She spent enough time tracing it over the past year that she can draw it from memory. Eloise's favorite part of Geography was the dry erase markers & one of my favorite parts of Eloise is her facial expressions. 

Maps, maps & more maps! Our Geography covered 120 locations & features with a focus on the USA.  We learned all the states & capitals, many mountain ranges, rivers & lakes. Eloise was tired of the "baby class" & tagged along with me to Charlotte's class for the second semester. At three & a half she drove Charlotte crazy when we would work on our maps of the USA & I would say the capital & they would name the state. Eloise was faster than fast & proud of it!

Our goal was to start in the mornings with reviewing the memory work from CC with this fancy board I made. It was used about half the time & was really helpful....I'm actually not sure why I stopped but we still made it & learned our memory work without it. We included the boys strapped in their highchairs for most of this portion since they were highly entertained by our silly songs & hand motions. They actually memorized the six parts of the circulatory system with hand motions by 18 months of age. HILARIOUS. 

Classical Conversations weekly for 24 weeks:

We were part of a CC Community that met on Thursday mornings & Charlotte was in a class with kids that were 4-5 and a couple that turned 6 rather early in the year.  Her tutor, Mrs. S was the highlight of Charlotte's time there. She did an incredible job capturing the attention of eight busy bodies & engaging them in learning all sorts of fun things. I'm thinking they were jumping like bunnies for this one : ) One of the kid's favorite things was coming up with voices such as robot, monster, opera singer or the very favorite for my girls, the mousy voice. Since it is our goal to recite each portion of the memory work seven times, voices add some excitement. 

For the first semester our focus for science was on human anatomy which I loved. It was so simple to teach with my background & Charlotte really enjoyed exploring more about this subject through books. Each week they colored & cut out different organs & on week 12 they put them together on their own life size human body. Her's is still hanging in her room & will probably be there until she is at least eleven.

One of the many things we love in class each week is presentation time. Charlotte was confident early on this past year which made it all the more fun to help her prepare & watch her stand up tall, speak loud enough for all to hear & answer questions from her audience.  One week she was assigned to talk about her favorite state & as the picture reveals, she spoke about Florida. 

Another super cute one that would make her Aussie family proud....

For Fine Arts we started with basic drawing, moved on to tin whistles (always a favorite in the littlest class) which included basic music theory, great artists & their masterpieces & last but not least, classical composers. During the last six weeks we welcomed an organist from the church where we were meeting followed by a a cellist from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Both were amazing & I came home trying to convince Rob to let me take cello lessons. Here is Charlotte with her beloved tin whistle.  It's hidden very well when at home & when it is not, it gets washed about a million times. She made some sweet little friends including Gracie who she was happy to exchange Valentine cards with at the class party.  Also, a picture of the girls working on an art project. 

Charlotte actually became very interested in Georgia O'Keeffe & her style...if that's what you call it. She drew a certain flower & colored it with colored pencils about 100 times over the course of a week & could identify a Georgia O'Keeffe piece of artwork when out & about.

Over all for Classical Conversations Cycle 3 we were exposed to & worked to memorize:

• 161 events & people in a chronological timeline
• 24 history sentences including the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution & The Bill of Rights
• 44 U.S. Presidents
• 120 locations & geographical features with emphasis on the United States
• 24 science facts including elements of the periodic table & human anatomy
• Latin rules & vocabulary including John 1:1-7 in Latin
• English grammar & facts including the principal parts of 11 irregular verbs
• Multiplication tables up to 15x15, common squares & cubes, basic geometry formulas & unit conversions

Rob, me & the girls enjoyed a fun morning at the Perot Museum & also spent many a day with the family at the zoo learning all about animals & eating popcorn & Dippin' Dots. 

Over Christmas Robby & I worked on setting up a better equipped area to teach/learn for little people who can't reach the kitchen table well enough to write legibly.  I always wanted to ride the school bus to school but never had the opportunity since we lived so close. Now my kids can ; ) 

I want to record that at this point in time, the playroom/schoolroom only looks like this about once a month when we actually pick everything up at one time & run the vacuum. All the cute magnets of the alphabet & numbers were chewed on & threatened to be swallowed so they have since been removed. This picture is a nice goal though of the benefit of keeping a clean & organized home. 

A focus for this year as a family was to memorize & learn about the Fruit of the Spirit so I was delighted to find this free printable on a blog. 

It has been so very helpful in encouraging & correcting our children, even the boys. To kneel down with them to ask "was that kind or gentle?" or remind them by saying, "you need to practice patience & self control" relates scripture to real life & easily reminds us of our inability to be perfect & need for Jesus. We are also using these words when helping each other reconcile about every 5 minutes it seems ; ) It usually goes like this, "I'm sorry for biting (hitting, pushing, you name it) you. I should have been gentle & kind, will  you please forgive me?" Even the boys know all nine when we are regularly practicing. 

Along with the CC memory work, we are responsible for adding math, reading, spelling & handwriting instruction. Some choose to utilize curriculum & I'm guessing for early years some tried & true home school moms just know what to do & when. I definitely fall into the category of "just tell me what to do, how to do it & I will get it done." This being my first go around, I was looking for simplicity & found it. Kindergarten is pretty simple anyway ; )

MATH:

For Math we almost completed Saxon level 1. Charlotte made her lessons look simple, at least until the last couple months where they have become more challenging.  She learned all about the calendar, patterns, subtraction, addition of two digit numbers, telling time, counting money & many other things.  She loves to write & practiced writing all the names of the numbers on the dry erase board. 

A fun part of our Math curriculum was setting up a store which occurred way more often than the book suggested. Thanks to Uncle Scott & Uncle Kyle they had a cash register that not only "spoke" English but also French & Spanish...Eloise always switched it to one of those. They gathered all sorts of items from our pantry, made price tags, filled the drawer with coins & made receipts. The goal was for Charlotte to add the two digit numbers on her own before typing the problem into the cash register which I'm pretty sure happened about a quarter of the time.  Eloise was cracking me up talking on the microphone to the customers about what was on sale or notifying them that the store would be closing in "20 40 minutes" or something strange to us, normal to her.  

We have about five lessons left before we move onto Level 2. I thought about trying a different curriculum just to see what it was like but considering the fact that Charlotte understands this one, works well with the style etc, we made the decision to stick with it since we will have enough change this fall when Arlo joins us. It is awesome that her reading has taken off enough to where I can circle the problems I know she can read & have her complete them while I put the boys down for a nap. She sometimes surprises me & does more than assigned.  Each lesson has an instruction portion, a 25 question addition or subtraction worksheet (what reminds me of a timed test in elementary school) & a worksheet that has about 6-10 problems on it covering previous material.  Instead of always going in that order which I did for almost the entire year, I now stay a day behind on the worksheets & have her complete what she can while I either clean the kitchen or get the boys settled & then I help her finish, make corrections & move into instruction for the next lesson.  There are assessments, both oral & written every 5th & 10th lesson which is another thing I love. It clearly reveals what she is struggling with & we can pause in between lessons & work hard to master the content before moving on, that way she never gets behind.  

Handwriting:

For handwriting she completed Handwriting without Tears in less than a month when I had planned to make it last the whole Fall. She just loves to write & took off so I let her run with it. Her letter formation changed drastically & words became easier to read in a short amount of time. Once we completed that book we moved onto a writing journal that also had space for drawing & added copy work which we both enjoyed.  The journal assignments would be something like writing a sentence about your favorite food or something you like to do, writing about people in the bible etc. We did an animal alphabet which turned out SO cute. Each day she would write the next letter & what animal it stood for. The pictures were my favorite. For copy work we used a print out of the scripture we memorized for CC, John 1:1-1-7 She copied all the verses a few times through & would read them back to me. We also memorized this in Latin but she didn't have to transcribe it ; ) When the weather was just lovely, Charlotte enjoyed doing her writing outside by herself. I was a tad jealous thinking I would enjoy being assigned to write something while alone....in the great outdoors. 

Reading:

I am not sure why but I was SUPER intimidated to teach someone how to read! I can read well & don't even remember how I was taught so surely I could have figured something out on my own ; ) Again, I did some searching to find a curriculum that would fit our family & learning styles well.I landed on All About Reading.  It has a multi-sensory approach, open & go lessons, fun & engaging games to review material & is mastery based.We started this in August, a month after Charlotte turned five. She knew all of her letters & just a handful of sounds. I hit the ground running after studying up but Charlotte was just not ready. I tried for a couple of weeks to just explore the possibility of completing a lesson to no avail. I spoke with a few women that recommended just putting it away for a month & trying again. I thought "No way! This is Kindergarten, we must move forward." What fabulous advice though that I am glad I took to heart. A month later, she was interested & easy to teach. We took our time through lessons, played our games a lot, she taught Eloise & the boys what sounds letters make or names of things that start with a certain letter & at the completion of Level 1, we had a budding reader that could not put down a book! The readers for this curriculum are fabulous. Three came with Level 1 with each containing somewhere around 10 stories so it looks like a chapter book, she loved that. Overall, I have been really impressed with the outcome & at the beginning of First Grade, we have moved onto Level 2. 

Spelling: 

We did not do anything special for spelling this past year as far as curriculum goes. As she learned the sounds of letters, we began sounding out the words she desired to write in her journal. This caused some serious frustration on her part because she would much rather me tell her how to spell each word so it can be written perfectly.  By the end of the year, she was comfortable trying her best before the two of us working together. We are starting All About Spelling this year which is from All About Learning Press just like our reading curriculum & look forward to seeing how it will go. 

It was harder to keep three siblings occupied throughout our schoolwork than it was to teach a kindergartner. Eloise was easier to entertain at three turning four than two almost two year olds.

Eloise, Owen & Anson- The Nest class of 2029 & 2031 respectfully. Robby & I just calculated when these kids would be 18 & laughed outloud...it sounds SO futuristic!

Now all of the previously listed curriculum choices & assigned work may sound like a lot but here is how our usual day is broken down:

• CC memory work review- 15 minutes after breakfast & anytime we are in the car
• Handwriting- 10-15 minutes in the morning
• Math & Reading lessons- 30 minutes each in the afternoon
• Reading out loud- Char to us- 15 minutes later in the day or evening

This totals about an hour & forty five minutes which leaves plenty of time for this....

A friend & roommate from college came in from New Mexico to visit family & stopped by to see us. Her sweet Sarah & Charlotte are just about a month apart in age. Tessa started the first CC campus in her town & was the director. I was & am so proud of her as that is a big undertaking. How special to be on the same road many years later.

Walking this road in a community of other like minded people is such an encouragement. There are some REALLY hard moments whether it be days full of whining & complaining (me included), disobedience, horrible attitudes or just rambunctious two year old twins whose goal at this point in life is to destroy things or injure themselves. I am worn out & I look back our checklist & feel like it was a horrible day because we didn't get certain assignments done. 

Education is so much more than learning about history, science, reading, math, spelling, language etc. It is also about learning though life experiences both exciting & mundane in the context of a family engaging with others. It is about knowing what it takes to run a household, how to care for a newborn & how to work hard amongst lots of distractions. It is about playing & enjoying what God has given us. It is about dealing with sin, both your own & someone else's, It is about reconciliation & reminding each other of the gospel. It is about using those light bulb moments to point a child to a greater understanding of who God is, how he works & increase their adoration of Him.

One of our primary reasons we have chosen to educate at home alongside Classical Conversations is to provide the foundation for a biblical worldview, to help our children know God & equip them to make Him known wherever they are & whatever they are doing once they leave our Nest .  An article I read recently from a Classical Conversations publication  (under the Subject Integration title) helped me understand in more depth how all the pieces of what we are studying fit together & reveal more of God's story through all of time. What a way to think about learning! 

I should drop the idea of a "perfect" home school day  (because mine has a lot of checked boxes next to subjects) & pray that my focus would be to shepherd our children's hearts to know & love the Lord through our studies. As challenging as days feel, I look at the faces of these children entrusted to our care, try to imagine what joy precious Arlo will bring to our family & continue to ask the Lord for wisdom as we move forward through the years of bringing up our little brood.