Mid-Year Course Corrections
We are halfway through the academic year. It is time for me to take stock of what we have done so far this year in order to make some course corrections as we navigate through the sea of home-schooling. I have a lovely new calendar with lots of clean white space to keep detailed plans and notes.
Reading
Froggy is confident with her letter names and sounds. We are now starting on sounding out words. She is not interested often. Personally I am a strong proponent of phonics based reading. However, Froggy seems to prefer a more whole-language based approach. We will still be doing Starfall and the Bob Books but we will also be adding in some dolch words to give a more balanced approach.
Writing
At Froggy's request, we have just started introducing writing. I have ordered Handwriting without Tears workbook for Pre-K. We have a blackboard on which I will introduce the letter and we will make a rainbow tracing of each letter as we learn it. These rainbow letters will become a showcase around the learning room. I need to get her shorter dry-erase markers to use with her Kumon writing cards. We also need to investigate handedness as part of this practice. She seems to do much better when she uses her left hand to write/draw/color. Yet because I am right handed and show her using my right hand, when we are practicing together she picks up the implement right handed.
Math
We are ready to move beyond just counting. We are probably going to use Singapore Math for PreK. I have not yet ordered it. I am attending a homeschool conference with lots of vendors in May. I am hoping to be able to challenge her independently until then without a curriculum. But I may end up ordering it sooner.
Chumash (Religion Studies)
Despite my displeasure with My First Parsha, we will be continuing with this text. I am supplementing it with activities and discussion from TorahTots. We are adding an additional goal which is to have shacharit services at home daily. We will keep the service very short at first and gradually add prayers to it as we learn them together. For this purpose, we have added
The Jewish Children's Interactive Siddur to our Judaica Library
Hebrew
We are starting to learn our Alef-Bet and some conversational Hebrew. For now, we have added two Alef-Bet books into our reading basket and put Hebrew/English labels on various items around the house.
Reading
Froggy is confident with her letter names and sounds. We are now starting on sounding out words. She is not interested often. Personally I am a strong proponent of phonics based reading. However, Froggy seems to prefer a more whole-language based approach. We will still be doing Starfall and the Bob Books but we will also be adding in some dolch words to give a more balanced approach.
Writing
At Froggy's request, we have just started introducing writing. I have ordered Handwriting without Tears workbook for Pre-K. We have a blackboard on which I will introduce the letter and we will make a rainbow tracing of each letter as we learn it. These rainbow letters will become a showcase around the learning room. I need to get her shorter dry-erase markers to use with her Kumon writing cards. We also need to investigate handedness as part of this practice. She seems to do much better when she uses her left hand to write/draw/color. Yet because I am right handed and show her using my right hand, when we are practicing together she picks up the implement right handed.
Math
We are ready to move beyond just counting. We are probably going to use Singapore Math for PreK. I have not yet ordered it. I am attending a homeschool conference with lots of vendors in May. I am hoping to be able to challenge her independently until then without a curriculum. But I may end up ordering it sooner.
Chumash (Religion Studies)
Despite my displeasure with My First Parsha, we will be continuing with this text. I am supplementing it with activities and discussion from TorahTots. We are adding an additional goal which is to have shacharit services at home daily. We will keep the service very short at first and gradually add prayers to it as we learn them together. For this purpose, we have added
The Jewish Children's Interactive Siddur to our Judaica Library
Hebrew
We are starting to learn our Alef-Bet and some conversational Hebrew. For now, we have added two Alef-Bet books into our reading basket and put Hebrew/English labels on various items around the house.
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