Jordan's First Semester

Our first semester ran from 6/29/09 - 11/20/09. Jordan was four for the first semester, turning five November 22. Although we have been homeschooling preschool for several years, this was her first "official" school year and it has been a great year! Here is a detailed review, for our records and for anyone interested. (for a few shared subjects, the information is either the same as Cali's or similar with unique comments and with a few slight variations)

Overall, Jordan is doing very well! In the first 18 weeks of school Jordan completed both her Health and Math curriculum. For Math, we began with Math U See Alpha and she was doing wonderfully until we got to the required mastery of addition facts. She was able to add numbers quite easily with counting, but struggled with memorization. After a couple of weeks in lesson/week 9, we decided to combine her with Cali in the middle of Primer, which really is their K product. This has similar concepts but does not require memorization of facts (beyond skip counting). The final week of the semester we graduated to Horizons K Math and she is flying through with ease. Health went wonderfully and we finished in half the time due to interest. We will focus on PE next semester.

Language Arts is a very broad subject that covers alot, but this is definitely a strong suit. Spelling is being handled just like a second grader, as that is her current level. In the beginning her tests were one word at a time said orally or written on our large whiteboard. Then we moved to spelling computer games for her words (love Spelling City). By the end of the semester, she was taking a full spelling test done via dictation, correcting her own work, and adding any missed words to her Spelling Notebook/Dictionary.

Phonics work is done independently through Explode the Code worksheets while I work with Cali and she is doing very well learning syllables, rules, etc; Grammar work is done on the 2nd day of each week with our Sonlight LA curriculum, applying grammar principals to our copywork passage. Handwriting began with Italic but was quickly changed to standard manuscript. In the beginning, a 2-3 sentence copywork passage would take all week. Toward the middle of the semester, it went to 2 days, and now it is completed the first day, as expected for 2nd grade. I used to have to model each letter prior to her tracing -- now she does this independently as well.

Creative Writing has been spectacular. Most of her work is done simply by explaining the assignment and copying verbatim what she narrates verbally. When instruction/leading/correction is needed there has been occasional pushback, as she is pretty confident in her work, however each lesson has ended with a final product that is her own work that both of us are extremely proud of. Along with these assignments, she frequently creates stories on her own that are quite imaginative, and she does an excellent job of including techniques that she has learned like similes, metaphors, dialog, adjectives, etc; Journal writing is in the beginning stages -- definitely wanting growth here. She is great at creating stories that are elaborate, but struggles with wanting/ability to express her own life events in personal journal form.

Reading is awesome! She reads very fluently, with dramatic flair and expression. She has begun to read for pleasure on her own, as well as to earn computer time. We did begin the idea of a "presentation book" -reading a very easy reader very well with dramatic interpretation - but Mommy dropped the ball. Would like to pick this back up.

Art consists of her hundreds of drawings she does throughout the day. She really enjoys drawing, as well as any other artistic projects we do, and she shows a real aptitude and skill for drawing.

Read Aloud Literature consists of daily chapter books, shorter literature stories, and poetry. Comprehension and enjoyment is high for all of these.

Our Read Aloud Books and Novels this semester have included:
Hero Tales (stories of missionaries -- we really enjoy this!)
The Boxcar Children
Eric Carl's Animals Animals
The Real Mother Goose
The Apple and the Arrow (actually only read 1/2 of this book. Girls did not like at all!)
My Father's Dragon
The Hundred Dresses
Dolphin Adventure
James Herriot's Treasury for Children
Little House in the Big Woods
Pioneer Sisters chapter book
Capyboppy
The Wizard of Oz (for the most part. . . we kinda let this one fizzle out during a vacation, oops!)
too many library books to count or name

History is going pretty well. We decided against doing a timeline this year, as they are still so young, but we do read the daily selection and discuss. While there is some interest (and much more with living books and biographies when used here), this would probably be the least enjoyed subject at the moment -- but still learning and comprehending nicely. Unfortunately the bulk of Sonlight's History consists of Usborne Encyclopedias, which aren't the living books I would have picked, but we are changing this in the coming year.

** NOTE- after the first few weeks of the second semester, I noticed a big jump in interest with asking them to act out or do charades of their favorite parts of the daily history readings!!! **

Science is wonderful! Biology I is the course this year with NOEO, and so far we've covered most of the animal kingdom, weather, Bacteria and Fungi, and 2 Habitats (woods and seashore). Experiments have not gone so well, but the reading assignments have been a favorite reading, and they complete creative narrations 2-4x's a week. So far Jordan's narrations have included stories, highly illustrated drawings and creative storytelling/puppet shows. Favorite Resource here has been the Usborne Pocket Nature Encyclopedia.

** NOTE -- after finishing NOEO, ahead of schedule, I can quickly say that the Pocket Nature Encyclopedia got a big run for its money when they started reading Usborne's First Human Body Encyclopedia!! **

Bible reading is very well comprehended and told back with great accuracy. Jordan lives up to her middle name -- Faith! She inspires me!! While we use a variety of Bibles at different times, choosing the one that tells each story the best for their age, the Egermeier's Bible Storybook is definitely our primary text. We began using our own Devotionals around mid-semester, and are now near the end of our second book. I am very pleased with this time, spiritual insight and understanding, and growth.

Scripture Memory had been excellent. Mom did not stress this for a 6 week period in the middle, but all verses before and after are well memorized and enjoyed.

Extracurricular Activity is Drama. This has been excellent!! While most of the drama classmates appear to have been entered to get over shyness, Jordan is flourishing in a creative outlet. The only problem with this class, in fact, is the stress on creativity, which ends up feeding her stubborn streak a bit -- for example, when she chooses to do a certain assignment differently then what the teacher asks for, and it is accepted as a wonderful use of creative free expression. For this reason, there has been some discussion of supplementing with another extracurricular that requires more discipline (music, art, karate, or soccer).

For school, the daily schedule has gone through multiple revisions, however the current set up seems to be working very well. Short lessons with a timer helps keep focus and best effort. Also for creative tendencies during "lessons", trying to stick to the Listen-Do-Then Share Creative Thoughts and Ideas works well. Also clearly stating expectations -- in school and before outings - has been crucial.

The schedule used for the majority of the first semester (and was changed shortly after, ha!) consisted of Bible/Devo/Scripture with Breakfast, move to counter for Language Arts work, then either a short play time of 15 minutes or straight to the sofa for Story Time.

During Story Time Jordan reads her independent reader to all of us, then I read History, Science, Poetry and our "lighter literature" selections (we have a 12 book collection called My Book House that we are reading through). On Tuesday and Thursday, at a minimum, we would follow this time with picture science narrations. We would sometimes have another short break here or go straight to the counter for Math and Health. Our chapter book Read Aloud Literature was read after lunch. Drama is every Monday from 5:00 - 5:45 pm.

Chores - Most days Jordan gets dressed on her own without prompting. With prompting, she makes her bed, picks up dirty clothes, and brushes teeth/washes face. She also occasionally feeds Shawn (the dog).

Future Changes -- There were a few times when Bible was moved to lunch and it worked beautifully tying our conduct/effort in school with devotional discussions. May be good to begin the day in prayer but permanently move Bible/Devo/Scripture to later in the afternoon. There has also been great results with moving our Literature Read Alouds to lunch time.

That sums up Jordan's first semester! Now we are winding up the final two weeks of her second semester. Hopefully I will be able to do much more frequent posts so to avoid such lengthy ones :-)