Comming to the end of the year...

As a teacher I definitely see the year as starting in August and ending in May, not the traditional calender, but for me a perpetual ground hogs day of repeating a year until I hopefully get it right.  This year though I am not only a middle school science teacher with 120 students that I have watched grow over the year, but I am also a homeschooling parent of my own children who technically will be completing kindergarten this year. 

I say technically, because I don't particularly like the idea that children develop into a new box because they completed a number of instructional days, or met a list of standards.  When it comes to my own kids, I can't take the ground hog's day approach of go back and revise the year to get it even better for next year.  I have to get it right as we go through, or re-teach the concepts until they are a part of their schema. 

As I come to the end of the year with my students, I am mostly looking forward to getting to be the primary teacher for my boys this summer.  I am often asked if they will have the summer off.  I'd like to think that John and I are keeping the lessons engaging and as closely related to real world skills, that they won't even notice that learning is something that gets turned off for the summer or on the weekend. 

I will also say, that spring is a crazy busy time for my husband.  If there is a season for sit down lessons to be reduced, spring is definitely it.  So, with that, I have had the boys doing a lot of big picture self directed projects.   We have gotten in our required 160 days and the next school year officially starts on June 1.  My goal is to keep moving them along as learners, readers, mathematicians, explorers and good citizens throughout the summer. 

It is crazy to think that this time a year ago I was having IEP meetings, and registering them for kindergarten with hope and anticipation and a bit of sadness that my boys were growing up.  I really did not even imagine a year ago that we would be homeschooling our boys.  Admittedly, we judged homeschoolers pretty harshly. We never could have imagined we would become one of "those families."  We underestimated ourselves, and the ability to teach younger children.  We did not know the power of education outside of the institution, and how for many kids this is the best choice.

Ultimately though, when it came down to making the decision it was the right one for our family and for our boys.  It has not been easy on our schedules, our finances, or on our sleep needs, but looking back, neither was "school-school." 

So here is what our kids can do now, that they really could not do before this year:

• They can read...  I mean like read and act out Piggy and Gerald books and Dick and Jane Books (yes, I did use these because the repetition helped the boys a ton and also built up their confidence) and most level 1 readers.
• They can have great discussions about longer chapter books that I read to them:  Charlotte's web, Magic Tree House books...They know about characters, foreshadowing, clues, prediction and inference.
• They can write all of the letters of the alphabet and know their sounds
• They know about long and short vowels and how to apply the rules to the sound the vowel makes when sounding out a word.
• They are in the process of learning about blends
• They know most of their sight words.
• 2-D and 3-D shapes
• Basics of Measurements
• Addition and subtraction with 0-10
• Counting to 100
• Reading a digital clock and a thermometer and what the numbers mean.
• Know about greater and lesser numbers
• They can build a catapult then redesign it to make it better, and tell you why it is better.
• Design a self cleaning hot wheels track
• Explain how steepness effects speed and distance of a rolling object
• Life cycles of plants and butterflies
• They are starting to learn the states, continents and oceans. 
• We have done loads of art projects
• Tons of facts about wild animals
• And this is just off the top of my head. 

My next step, is I need to really plan out what next.. What are my goals for them next year?  How do I want them to get there?  How do I design their learning experience to match their needs and their interest?  Blog post soon to follow on just that topic.