End of Kindergarten Update.

I know its been a long time since I wrote anything on this blog, but it feels like a good time for an update.

Phonics:
We ended up buying the Veritas Press Phonics Museum Combo for Kindergarten and First grade. It didn't work so well for us. Chloe destroyed the little paper dolls within the first day (she is quick and sneaky!). We tried it for a few days before it made me crazy, because Caleb already knew all of this stuff. So we skipped around, and that made us even more confused. Finally, I just purchased some BOB books and just used those. Caleb learned much better without all the extra repetitive paper work. Sometimes we learn better just by doing. The Bob books have been great and we also used the readers from the Veritas Press Phonics kit. These readers are so long that we had to take turns reading each page... they were designed for a classroom to take turns. Caleb is doing an excellent job reading now. We've just been going at his own pace and its working great for us. We may try to use the first grade part of the phonics kit for 1st grade, but I'm not sure yet.


Math:
As for math, we gave Saxon 1 a try. It was only a few weeks before I stopped using that as well. I guess I'm too much of a free spirit to use cookie cutter shaped curriculum. We've just been doing math in our daily life and he loves it. Manipulatives are a fun idea, but I'm so afraid I'm going to loose the pieces and then won't be able to sell it (see note about Veritas Press Product being destroyed in the first day!). We have more fun adding and subtracting m&ms and gold fish crackers, measuring flour and cocoa, dividing fruits and pizza, measuring worms and cars, and counting money the kids earn by doing chores. I actually bought a colorful math practice book from Walmart and he does the math problems in those very well. They are more attractive than the boring Saxon workbooks. I'm thinking about actually giving Horizons a try this coming year because their books are filled with color pictures that will make solving problems more fun.



Bible:
We do enjoy the Children's Story Bible from Veritas Press, but also enjoy the A Beka Flash-a-Cards Bible set. We use these before bed time (and sometimes nap time too).


Science:
Science was not part of my planned curriculum, however, my son is a pure scientist at heart. I have strong suspicions that he will be some sort of biologist when he grows up. He has forced me to learn more life science in the last year or so than I remember learning in my school life. We have researched all kinds of bugs, birds, snakes, butterflies, moths, worms, caterpillars, fish, and ocean life. When he gets interested in any of these he becomes kind of obsessed. I never had the passion he has for science, but I get really excited because he is excited about it. We would love to schedule a trip to the zoo or an aquarium this summer or fall. I know he would love it so much. He's made me buy several books on these subjects and insisted on our family watching documentaries on ocean life. Some great videos I found were through our instant queue on Netflix.com . These include the Incredible Creatures That Defy Evolution series and a few IMAX movies.




That's an update on how our core curriculum went this year. We did end up reading most the books on our book list and what we didn't, will be on our summer reading list. We of course read books that were not on our list as well. I think we've had a pretty good year for Kindergarten. On to first grade!