Progress Report

" So, how is school going?" people ask me.  I tell them fine.

But I believe some of my friends and family would like a more detailed answer, especially the five teachers in our families.

So here is a little more detailed answer:

Kristen started her pre-K year this past August.

My main goals for Kristen this year were to work on phonemic awareness, begin reading, learn number sense, count and begin adding and subtracting.

And in just a few short months, she has achieved all these goals and more.

So now we are working on more advanced goals. (Some objectives are listed as Kindergarten and some are listed as 1st grade.) 




But we are not doing structured "school" to achieve these goals.

Instead, we play and learn through playing.

And Audrey is playing with us. My goals for Audrey include letter recognition, number recognition, simple counting, beginning phonics, shape and color recognition and an increased vocabulary.

 

I am amazed at Audrey's progress. The three-year-old is meeting some objectives listed for Kindergarteners!

Both girls are loving learning and I am loving my role as facilitator.


 

So would you like to hear about a few things we have been working on ?

We count everything: snacks, steps, leaves, kids, dolls, rocks, etc.
 

We look out our windows and watch the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks. We go on walks, collect leaves, and pick up sticks.

We talk about everything. We ask questions and look up the answers, sometimes in encyclopedias, sometimes in books, sometimes at the library and sometimes on the internet.





We read and read and then read some more.

We play lots of games...

 some of them reinforce letters, some reinforce numbers, some work on counting,

others work on reading and all of them work on manners and moral behavior. 

We write for real purposes: encouraging notes, blog posts, thank you cards, grocery lists, birthday cards, Christmas cards, and to-do lists.



In the spring, we planted a garden and watched it grow.  We learned about plant needs and plant life. 

In the fall, we raked leaves and estimated how many bags we would need.

In the winter, we plan to estimate the amount of snow we will receive, measure it and graph it by months.



                 We color every day.

Sometimes we use crayons and sometimes we use pencils;

                                          most days we use markers.



                   We also like to cut and paste,

paint and stamp,

                        play with glitter

and of course put stickers on EVERYTHING. 

We have studied any animal friends that have hopped through our yard that we can catch,


which so far has included four toads, a grasshopper, a walking stick, and a few crickets.

We are also working on some life skills. 

We have played with coins, separting them by color and shape.

 

We have talked about each coin's worth and practiced counting them.  

 We have inventoried our pantry and made grocery lists.

We have grocery shopped often,

 paying attention to prices and sizes.

We have estimated prices and then compared real prices.

                          We clean often.  We have dusted shelves,

                   swept floors, wiped tables,



and folded laundry.





We chop, mix and cook food together. 

We have done a few worksheets,

  The girls really love them, especially when they get to use their dry erase markers on them.

and I have done some instructing, mostly phonics.

But most of our days is spent on moral training.

 

We read the Bible everyday. We memorize God's Word by reciting it, singing it and sometimes drawing it.

We talk about what it means to be a friend, how to act as a friend.

We practice taking turns and speaking kindly to one another.

We practice common courtesies, like please and thank you. 

We talk about the golden rule and what it means. 

We talk about how we are all sinners and make mistakes. 

We talk about how to apologize when we make a mistake.  And we practice that skill often. 

We also practice forgiveness and how to accept an apology.

 

We talk about selfishness and its opposite, sacrifice. 

We practice sacrificing for our sister, friend, mother, father, and neighbor. 

We talk about God's laws and their importance in our life.

 

We talk about obedience and how it is difficult, but also how important it is.

 

And then we practice obedience, over and over again.

We mess up a lot, but that gives us more opportunities to practice apologies and forgiveness.

And it shows us our need for a loving, forgiving Savior.  

            
                             We laugh alot.

 

We love each other and love the opportunity to spend so much time together, playing and learning.

We are joyful... and when we are not, we talk about all that we have to be joyful about.

We are learning more and more about who God is and what He wants of us.  We sing songs of praise to our wonderful, gracious God and we lists all the blessings He has given us.

We talk about how we can bless others. We talk about what the word encouragement means and we try to live our lives as an encouragement to others.

We are learning how to be the hands and feet of God and we are trying to live that out with our families, neighbors and friends.

So basically, we are living our lives, loving each other, loving God and learning from everything.