Preschool Year One: Complete!

We started our preschool adventure last April and that year came to a close this past week. We are taking some time off and then beginning our next year in May.

For Danae's 3 year old year, we did Sonlight's P3/4 program, which is basically a bunch of really wonderful children's books with extension activities. We discovered stories that we will read over and over and over again as the years pass. They are truly wonderful books. About a quarter of the way through the year, we added in Handwriting Without Tears PreK, which I am happy to say is also a wonderful curriculum. Danae thought handwriting time was play time, which is the goal for me at this age. She loved the wood pieces and her very own tiny chalkboard. I am so glad that this program is out there!

Danae requested that I teach her to read last summer, so we started working slowly through the Explode the Code workbooks. She enjoys these, but only in small doses so we are working very slowly. She knows all of her letters, upper and lowercase, and all of their sounds. I can't say that Explode the Code taught her these things, though. She learned her letter sounds from http://www.starfall.com/. She loves playing with that program.

We had a math program that we worked through and although I love the manipulatives it came with, I didn't love the program. It is Hands On Standards PreK/K. I found that it jumped around a lot and Danae would totally understand one thing and be totally clueless in another subject. We spent a lot of time just playing and learning with the manipulatives once we made it through the book.

David became interested in Danae's story books about 3 months ago, so he's been along for the ride for the past few months. If he wants to sit still, he sees the pictures. Otherwise, he's just playing in the room. Any seatwork we do has to be done during David's nap or we would get nothing accomplished!

I look forward to beginning Sonlight's P4/5 Program in May! Those books are sitting on the shelf begging me to read them!