I'm Back!

Ok, so I just went back and looked at my last blog post...November 2011!! It's been over a year and a half since my last post!! I'm trying to get back into the blogging groove, since J will be starting kindergarten this year. I want to be able to look back at all the things we did and have fond memories of her younger years. I'm in no disillusion that they will last forever.
So here's a quick update on what we've been up to the last year and a half-
J finished the Letter of the Week program from Confessionsofahomeschooler.com. We absolutely LOVED this program and I plan on using it with my little man E. Here's a picture of J beside her completed Chick Boom Tree (we added a letter to it each week).

Then for the last 'school year' we started with 'Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons'.

 

I recommend this book to any beginning reader. We got through about lesson 75 maybe, and J began to get overwhelmed with the length of the stories. She would take one look at how long it was and begin to cry. I knew that was when we needed a change. We began to check out easy reader books from the library that had a story spread out over the whole book, not all on one page. This made a huge difference! But again, Teach Your Child...was an excellent start to our reading journey. It gave her solid foundation.

Along with this book, I incorporated lots of 'Preschool Packs'. If you do a search for them on Pinterest, you can find TONS and TONS! Some of my favorite websites to find them are-
3 Dinosaurs
Over The Big Moon
1 + 1 + 1 = 1
Confessions of a Homeschooler
Homeschool Creations
Royal Baloo
Again, these are just a few. And all the ones we used were FREE! You can fit them to the interests of your child, seasons, holidays, etc. They usually involve reading, phonic, math, reasoning all into one specific theme.
Here's the first and last day of pre-k-
 

And that's how J finished up her pre-k year. I'll be updating later with our curriculum choices for this coming year. On to kindergarten!!!

A few pictures through the year ;)
          

HOW THEY'VE GROWN!!!!