Kindergarten and Preschool School Year Summary (2018-2019)
This was our first official year of homeschooling, and as I write this we have just finished our last day! Big Brother was in Kindergarten and Middle Brother did some preschool work.
Our Normal Routine
*note: I use the word “routine” instead of “schedule” even though I typed up a fairly detailed schedule at the beginning of the school year. I like to see it all written out on paper, but our real day-to-day life is quite flexible and doesn’t follow the schedule very strictly.
Mornings: We were usually up, fed, dressed, washed up & finished with chores by 8:30. I enjoyed watching the neighborhood kids being picked up by the bus at 8am and thanking the Good Lord that we didn’t have to be ready then because we were ALWAYS in pajamas and sometimes not even done eating. I’ve been thankful for the freedom & opportunity to let the boys sleep until they wake naturally and to enjoy leisurely mornings together!
Devotional: Around 8:15-8:30 we gathered at the couch and did a short devotional time together which included a few pages from a Bible story book or childrens devotional and some short practice reciting our memory verse for the week. Then we moved to the piano and sang two or three childrens songs, hymns, or Bible songs together. We never spent more than 15 minutes on this whole segment.
Big Brother’s School Time: Following our devotional, Middle Brother and Little Brother went upstairs to do independent playtime in their separate rooms for about 45-60 minutes while we did the bulk of Big Brother’s school work. At this time I worked with him on math, phonics, science activity book, and handwriting. If we had time we would do his piano practice also, but often I sensed he needed a break and we would bump that to later in the day. After that, Big Brother was *officially* done with school work for the day! I didn’t tell him that the reading we did later in the day was part of his school. 😉
Middle Brother’s School Time: This segment was never more than 15 minutes and usually closer to 10. He is still young – four years old! – and I wouldn’t have done anything formal at all except that 1) he very much wanted to and 2) he seemed ready and enjoyed all that we did. During this time Big Brother went upstairs for some independent playtime and Little Brother played near us with a box of special toys. We worked together on a short math lesson followed by a short phonics or reading lesson. After this segment – usually around 10:00 – we were finished with all our book work for the day!
Late Morning: This time period varied quite a bit. It was sometimes filled with house work, outside time, errands around town, free art time, playtime, baking, or even a short movie.
Lunch: Most days during lunch I would read aloud to the boys while they ate. This was partially to work through some of Sonlight’s extensive book lists for the year, and partially because I wanted them to get used to the idea of listening to a story without seeing pictures all the time. And I figured they would sit best for something like that when there was food to keep them occupied. 😉 It worked well, and now they are disappointed if I don’t have something to read to them during lunch.
Other “School” We Fit In: After I put Middle Brother and Little Brother down for naps, Big Brother would read to me from his reader for the day and I read some of the read-alouds that were scheduled for that day but were too advanced for his younger brothers to enjoy. We also would squeeze in his piano practice later in the day if needed and occasionally do an afternoon art project together.
Materials We Used:
Math: Shiller Math – Big Brother worked through all of Book 1 and Book 2, and Middle Brother worked through about half of Book 1. Eventually MB reached a point where it was advancing too quickly for him and so we quit Shiller Math (just for him) and switched to Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 2 by the Critical Thinking Company. He loved this book and we finished it!
Phonics: Big Brother completed all of Book C from the Logic of English Foundations series and half of Book D. Middle Brother completed all of Book A and then we spent time spelling words with our letter tiles and slowly reading through the first set of Bob Books.
Science: Building Blocks of Science Activity Book K (finished), along with reading various books about science topics that Big Brother was interested in.
Handwriting: The Rhythm of Handwriting (Manuscript); we worked slowly through this and did a small section each day.
Devotionals: We read through The Beginners Gospel Story Bible (twice!), The New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, The Lamb, and supplemented with some of Ella Lindvall’s Read Aloud Bible Stories.
History/Bible/Literature: We used Sonlight’s Level A program, using the four-day school week option and the 2nd grade readers. If you’ve never used this before, it is a LOT of reading! Some of the simpler & more accessible titles I read to all three boys, and the others I just read to Big Brother. We didn’t finish and will try to continue some of the reading over the summer.
Art: Pinterest 😉 and lots of free art time using blank papers and crayons, markers, pencils, or paint. We also used some of these art cards by Memoria Press which are just beautiful! However we didn’t spend much time with them – we would look at them and describe what we could see, then I would hang them up to be observed & enjoyed for the following weeks. I hope next year to read and learn more about the different artists.
What We Learned + What We’ll Change
With this being our first homeschooling experience, I was pleasantly surprised to find how little time it took to fit all these subjects into our day. Most days we were finished with the bulk of our work (excluding only some reading) by 10am! I was so grateful to be able to give Big Brother lots of free play time and open-ended creative time – more than I feel he would get if he were in the public school for a full school day. Six is still so young and I believe unstructured play time is a necessity.
Some of our curriculums will change next year. Much of this is a natural change as First Grade feels more “official” than Kindergarten and so some subjects that were “casual introductions” this year will become more in-depth in the coming year. One example of this is science; I loved our activity book this past year but will be looking for something a little more focused for next year.
I learned that I don’t like doing school work when the weather is good. It’s soooo much easier to sit down and work with a good attitude when the rain is falling or the snow is blowing or the high temp for the day is in the negatives. Hashtag Wisconsin, ugh! We will see how our homeschool evolves in the coming years, but I am considering modifying our breaks based on when the weather is best. For our area that would probably mean no school during much of the late spring/early summer and early to mid-fall. It’s so refreshing to get outside when the weather is not extremely hot or extremely cold and I hope to take more advantage of those seasons in the future.
On a related note, I’d like to spend more time outside and in nature in the future. Part of the difficulty with this is our current stage in life – Little Brother is not strong enough yet to play in the snow or to walk/hike very far, and my pregnancy this year has limited my energy and willingness to go out on excursions. As our children get older and stronger they will be able to do more outdoors and I hope to set aside more time for that as my energy returns.
Finally, I want to spend more focused time with Little Brother next year. He still will not be old enough to do real school of his own but I’d like to either find activities he can do alongside us, or ways he can participate with us, or simply make some time just to read to him alone. I know it’s easy to give younger siblings less one-on-one time than the older ones get and I want to be aware of this and careful to give him the time & attention that he needs.
And there you have our year summary!
Originally written May 8, 2019
