Reflections on Kindergarten

Well, here we are, at the end of our kindergarten year.

Our plan was to sort of hang loose this year, try to figure out what works for us, in terms of schedule and curriculum, and basically just try to have fun. You're only five years old once. 

I think we've succeeded in general. We're going to be schooling year round, so that opens us up to being pretty flexible (with regards to scheduling,) next year. My husband and I are discussing the possibility of schooling four days a week. I've found curriculum (Heart of Dakota) that I think is going to be a good fit for us. L likes it, and it's totally do-able for me.

We had set one hard and fast goal for L this year, and that was to have him reading fluently by the end of the year. I'm happy to say that we've met our goal. As nearly as I can tell without formally testing him, I think he's reading at about a second grade level, and is happily devouring Pokemon books. It's been a pleasure to watch him progress. Frankly it's been sort of a nice confidence booster for me, too, since it means we've managed to scale this first real hurdle together.

We've also managed to (mostly) stay the course this year in spite of several major illnesses and a few deaths in our family. I've realized that given certain ongoing situations, (chronic illness of loved ones, my husband's weird work schedule,)  we need to be sure that we're building lots of flexibility into our plans, so that we can be available without feeling  like we're neglecting school. (This is where the four day week may come in for us.)

We're going to be schooling during the summer, but we're going to hold off on the formal curriculum, and "unschool." I've written before about L's extremely narrow set of interests, which generally center around one or two topics, to the exclusion of everything else. He's recently made sort of a breakthrough, though. He's asking questions about random things, like how flies eyes work, and "what are mummies?" This is huge for me, and in order to encourage it, I'm going to let him lead us for the next couple of months.

So that's where we are right now. We've overcome a few bumps, and we're currently struggling with some others, but with God's help, I think we do this homeschool thing.

Thanks for sharing the journey with us.