Friday, June 10, 2011

A Look Back 2010 - 2011 (Part 3)

This is a summery of what we did this past school year for reading, spelling and handwriting.

Little Man (4th grade)
Cursive Success (Handwriting Without Tears)
Spelling Connection 3rd grade Unit 1-36 and 4th grade Unit 1-16

Little Mama (3rd grade)
Progressive Phonics Intermediate Phonics Books 1-14
Printing Power (Handwriting Without Tears)
Spelling Connection 2nd grade Unit 1-36 and 3rd grade Unit 1-18

Baby Girl (kindergarten)
School Zone K-1 Reading Readiness (from Walmart)
Sight Words Lapbook
My Printing Book (Handwriting Without Tears)
Progressive Phonics beginner Phonics books 1-5

So far I've used Progressive Phonics (http://www.progressivephonics.com/) with all the kids.. I love this program and it works very well. We never did any of the worksheets. All we do is read the stories. I read my parts and the kids read theirs. It's that easy. The stories are short and very funny. The older kids enjoy them so much that they beg to sit and listen while Baby girl now reads the same stories that they read when they were younger and just beginners. Not only is this program fun and easy it's also free.

This year we tried something new for spelling. Spelling Connection (http://www.zaner-bloser.com/spellingconnections/practice-pages.html) is a free spelling program complete with printable worksheets. All I did was download and print the workbooks and the kids did the rest. They thought that the worksheet were fun because it was full of crossword puzzles games and codes. They loved working on it and didn't complain at all about how much work it was. At the end of each week I would inter some of their spelling words in to the spelling city website and they would just play games and quiz themselves. I love using websites like spelling city (http://www.spellingcity.com/) to help the kids memorize spelling words the fast, fun and easy way.
We plan on continuing to us all the same free resources for next school year.

For handwriting we have always used Handwriting Without Tears and it is still working for us. The workbooks are fun and very easy for the kids to work on independently. Even Baby Girl is excelling with this handwriting curriculum. The workbooks are reasonably priced and they last the whole school year. ( http://www.hwtears.com/)

We love books. We love all kinds of books from mystery to cookbooks we love them all. There is never a shortage of things to read at our home. This year we used the Sonlight book list as a guide to what books we checked out from the library. I love doing this because we discovered some awesome books that we really would not have discovered if it wasn't for Sonlight. The whole family can't hardly wait to see what amazing treasures there is for us to read next school year.

What about you? What all did you get done this past school year?

4 comments:

Belinda said...

What a beautiful family you have.

This would be a great way of looking at this past year as, right now, I feel totally overwhelmed with our dd's summer schedule (college, volunteering), and I keep thinking that I'm getting nothing done. I probably do need to sit back and just see what's been accomplished.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog. I cannot believe how the Lord has blessed me with your friendship on the Curly Nikki hair board--a Christian, a homeschooler, and a transitioner! Wow! I'm sure we'll have much to "talk" back and forth about in the months to come. God bless you.

Micka said...

This is easily my most challenging time of the school year. I struggle with balancing summer fun and school. The kids want to play and swim all day and I just don't want them to forget anything they learned. I hate reteaching material after summer break. So we still read alot and continue math reviews using computer games and fun activities.

I Love your blog and spend many hours reading and learning from you. Thank you so much for visiting.

Daylight said...

Your blog is so inspiring! I want to home school my kids one day (when I have them).

Micka said...

Amber, you are very wise to be thinking about homeschooling so early. You children will be blessed by you early research I am sure.