After homeschool steadily though out this past school year, I decided to do a reflection on how things have gone. The kindergarten school year was an easy one. Every now and then we would hit a bump in the road, but so far they haven’t been too hard to overcome!
What I would do differently:
One thing I would do differently is the extra curricular things. Throughout the year we had a variety of extra curricular activities going such as typing, Spanish, game time, trivia Fridays, recess games, reading time with larger chapter books, art, etc. Toward the end we had cut out much of the extra curricular except a few fun things like Outschool art classes. When I started out I wanted to do it all and make it very “well rounded” but this was quickly a buzz kill of busy work. So, for the new year coming up, I’m not even going to start out with these things. Keeping it more simple and adding in an extra curricular like story time and Outschool courses (which are live zoom classes) seems far more like the way to go!
Shop my favorite laptop for Outschool and other kids programs here!
How I would change the preparation for the year:
Last year we did thinks like make the school mat, reading pillows, reading wands etc. You can read our preparation page here. One thing we didn’t do is start on any worksheets or do any of the curriculum box ahead of time. This year I plan to do some summer school activities with the curriculum box that we should be getting soon. That way we are a little ahead of the game and the school days aren’t so labor intensive. It spreads it out more across the year. For summer school it won’t bee the in depth it is with all the subjects during the year, but it will at least give us a heads start.
You can grab a set of these mats to help prepare for your homeschool classroom here!
What I will keep:
I will keep the same main curriculum pack we have been using, the Abeka academy. It is a Christ centered accredited program that cuts out all the garbage you would get elsewhere. The books and worksheets, for the younger grades anyway, are colorful and fun with lots of pictures. I like the full color aspect of these pages. Shop more full color kindergarten and pre-k curriculum from amazon here:
Grab the I can trace (for toddlers) fun full color tracing activity book here!
Teacher Resources:
One thing I like about Abeka academy is it has great teacher resources for the parents. So, in the back of the teachers manual there are word lists of words the kids will need to know for that year. It also has math and handwriting information as to the extent the kids will be learning that year. This will allow us to get a jump start into learning this summer, getting ready for the next grade, and hopefully avoiding that, “I forgot everything over break” predicament.
For summer, I like to use some of the curriculum I’ve created and sell on Teachers Pay Teachers to keep my daughter up to date on what she knows. It has lots of fun pictures as well, and goes along with one of the books we have published. You can check out the addition and subtraction bundle of curriculum here!
You might also be in the market for some fun and inspiring kids notebooks! Be sure to shop our notebook store on amazon here to check out all of our designs!
Thanks for stopping by for the end of the year review!
Brie
More Resources:
- Spring Flowers Printable Crafts for kids or teachers!
- Story Based 3D printing pen mats for kids!
- Decorative bunny journal
- Is it a rock? | easy reader book for kids learning phonics
- This dog… | Easy reader book for kids learning phonics
- Free Phonics Game for kids!
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