Thursday, October 4, 2012

First Quarter Review and New Goals

We've been doing preschool officially for 9 weeks now!  It's been great and I've really enjoyed myself.  I feel like Lydia is enjoying herself too.  I've wanted to homeschool for a long time, but one of my main concerns was whether I would be better at it in theory or in practice.  So far I'm loving it, so on we go.

I plan to homeschool year-round, taking breaks when we need them.  Even so, my goal is to do at least the 36 weeks that brick and mortar schools do.  I remember that every 9 weeks we'd get a report card, so I think 9 weeks is a good time to look back at my goals and see how we're doing.

Back in July I wrote down a few things that Lydia could do and what I'd like for her to accomplish by the end of the year.  Here's those milestones, with her current ones added.

Reading/Spelling
July: "Right now she knows and recognizes all the letters and their sounds.  She can occasionally tell me the first letter of a word when she hears it.  She can also spell her name using magnet letters without any help."
October: She can read all cvc words.  She can also read several short vowel 4-letter words.  Mostly these are ones that end with double letters, like "mall," but also words that end in -ck.  She's still fairly slow at reading, but she is definitely improving and progressing.  We haven't worked at spelling at all.

Math
July: " She can currently count to 20 without help and recognize numbers 1-12 when written.  She can mostly count small numbers of objects (10 or less) and tell me how many of something there is, but sometimes double counts things or guesses."
October: She can count to 30 without help and recognize numbers 1-30 when written.  She can count objects with accuracy if she takes the time.  She understands the concepts of smaller/larger, same/different.  She is struggling with the concept of more/less.

I think she's done very well in 9 weeks.  She's also memorized 2 religious pieces, 2 poems, and 4 facts/lists.  I've seen a marked improvement in her fine motor skills and her coloring has definitely improved, as has her tracing.

Goals for the year
July: My goals for this year are to have her reading at least cvc word on her own.  I want to complete Essential Math A and MEP Reception for math and be able to count to 50 or more on her own.  I'd also like for her to be able to write her own name.
October: Get through Section 6 in OPGTR (she's in section 4 right now), which includes many blends and digraphs.  It doesn't include silent "e".  For math, I'd like for her to finish Essential Math B and as a shooting high goal, I want her to also finish Miquon Orange (we dropped MEP Reception).  Once she finishes Essential Math B, we'll start on Math Mammoth 1A.  I think this will probably be sometime around February, but we'll see.  I also think it is totally possible for her to finish my memorization plan, so that is also another goal.

So there it is.  I'm doing these goals and progress reports more for me to have a record in the future than for any one else's benefit, so if you made it this far, congratulations!

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