2023-2024 END of THE YEAR KINDERGARTEN AND PRE-K CURRICULUM REVIEW /What WORKED & WHAT we DITCHED!!!

hi you guys my name is Britney and welcome back to my YouTube channel you guys in today's video I will be doing my end of the year Reflections and curriculum review for my kindergartner and my prek4 you guys I cannot believe I have completed my fourth year of homeschool and I have officially completed my first go around with keny garden with my middle daughter and I'm so excited you guys I'm not going to lie I was so nervous and starting off one of my kiddos from the very beginning in our homeschooling Journey when I started off my homeschooling Journey with my oldest daughter she was in the third grade so I really feel like uh because she had previous Public School experience from K through second I really had a good layer of foundation for her and I really just was like continuing her education I wasn't starting from the bottom up but I really felt a lot of pressure uh this homeschooling year and starting one of my kiddos from the bottom up um not only that uh my middle daughter she does have a speech delay so I was really apprehensive in thinking can I truly teach her and provide her with all of the things and the resources that she needs even in knowing uh I guess her speech delay but I definitely will say I am so proud of not only my daughter but I'm proud of myself I'm proud of myself for uh believing that I can do it for doing the resource doing the research and uh finding all the resources that I was going to need to Aid my middle daughter and her having a successful uh kindergarten year and I'm so happy and I'm so proud of myself um I definitely will say that again this year was filed with uncertainty but I really feel like we came out on top um some things that I definitely will say I wish I didn't do uh this homeschooling year when it came to my kindergartner is I really wish that I would not have compared her to other people and other kids that I was seeing on like the internet I really wish I wasn't comparing her to her siblings in our household because I really felt like uh in those moments when I would fall into that comparison trap it was really a thief of Joy from the successes that we were having in our own homeschool I really had to look at my middle daughter uh for her successes and I really had to uh celebrate those mouth stones that we were reaching even though I felt like in times in our hom School progress was slow uh if I could talk to my past self right now if FR your Britney could go back and talk to past Britney I would say you can do it I would say you know you have all the things you're capable of doing if you don't know how to do it uh make sure you vet out those resources that you need to Aid you in a successful home school year and I really wish that I could go back and talk to that Britney but uh here I am on the other side and I'm really really happy again like I said um I really wish that I could go back and tell myself my future self that uh it's okay if your kids have a short attention span my uh kindergartener you guys when we first started off our homeschooling journey I could barely get her to work with me for about 10 minutes uh we were just doing short bursts and I was really becoming concerned like it's 10 minutes really going to be enough for me to teach her and as the course of our homeschooling year went those 10 minutes turned to uh 15 turned to 20 and at the end of our homeschooling year she can now sit with me for 30 minutes and do all of her Reading Writing and math in one shot so I definitely will say if you have a kiddo with a short attention span work with what you have don't worry too much about um I should say uh completing every single thing every single day when you first start off your homeo Journey just know if you do math one day reading one day for the first couple of weeks when you start off your kindergartner it's okay their stamina will build up keep things fun and light and keep them continuing when to come at the table and learn you definitely will have success and I found that to be true especially for my uh middle Wiggly body uh she definitely was like that at the beginning but now you guys she is like right at this table she's uh ready to play the games and uh she is like for all of the school so um I definitely will say that was one of my like curves that I had to um I guess uh or humps I had to uh go over in our kindergarten year this homeschooling Year my uh middle daughter she learned how to read short stories she knows how to write all of her capital and lowercase letters she knows how to write simple Phanatic sentences with a little picture on top we actually started that at the end of our um homeschooling uh year and I'm so happy so she's really going to begin working and mastering that skill going into the first grade uh she knows how to write all of her numbers she can add she can subtract she knows like all of her measurements she knows shapes patterns all of those basic skills uh that I truly can say I checked off and accomplished all the things she needs to learn in kindergarten and I I'm just proud of us like I said and um those are all the accomplishments that uh we did so you guys uh that is my kindergartner Reflections now as far as my prek4 Reflections I really can say my prek4 she really exceeded my expectations uh when it came to this homeschooling year when we started off our homeschooling year she was only 3 years old you guys and I definitely will say I don't know what it is about that baby child that last baby but they want a seat at the table they want their own uh pencil box they want their own crayons they want their own workbooks they want to do what they see the big kids is doing and I definitely will say I'm so happy that I did not deny her a seat at the table this home school schooling year I'm so happy that I found resources that was going to meet her and meet her needs and she really exceeded my expectations when it came to her schooling uh this year she really flourished in our second semester after she turned four and I really can say in our second semester of our homeschooling year was really when my prek4 began to uh start off doing a lot of kindergarten work that I was seeing my kindergarten do my kindergartner do at the beginning of her homeschooling year um she actually worked a lot on her letter sound she mastered all of her letter sounds we began with two letter Blends and she uh worked her way all the way up to CBC words uh this homeschooling year um she knows how to write all of her numbers 1 to 10 and all of her capital letters she's still working on her scissors skills because she's a lefty um I truly can say um that I am like I said happy I gave her a seat at the table and I allowed her to flourish and I allowed her to be with the big kids and um I'm happy to see the successes and the things that she's learned and uh it's really just going to Aid me in this upcoming homeschool year I can kind of just pick up where we're at with my youngest and kind of see where it goes but so far she really really enjoy school and I'm happy to do school with my uh baby girl so you guys now let's go ahead and get into our uh curricula for um my kindergartener and then I'm going to talk about the curriculum that I used for my prek4 and um yeah you guys this year uh like I said before I really kept things very simple with my kindergartner we only did Reading Writing math and arithmetic I didn't do any science or history uh in the state of Georgia kindergarten is not a required uh homeschooling year uh for us to like register our kiddos so I really had full uh Reign to pick and choose what I really wanted to do this homeschooling year without the pressure to meet the requirements of my state when it comes to our homeschooling laws which I'm so grateful for um because I just focused on Reading Writing and arithmetic I really was able to dedicate that extra time to do her speech with my middle daughter um we actually did speech through the public school system here in the state of Georgia they actually offer speech therapy and a lot of other services completely free to homeschoolers uh you just have to fill out the paperwork um I have a homeschool coordinator that actually works with me uh as far as doing speech I'm able to have access to speak with kindergarten teachers um to speak with different um I guess have different resources from the public system to Aid me uh when it comes to uh my 's education which is really really cool um I really enjoyed having that extra time for us to be able to focus on speech this year because uh that was my main priority and I definitely will say my middle daughter she flourished in speech this year and I'm so proud of all of her hard work and accomplishments she's been in speech since she was two years old so just to see her kind of like Get over this huge hump when it comes to like her speech it's just been amazing for us so that was my primary focus so let's go into the easiest things which was handwriting we did of course Handwriting Without Tears I love this she did the green book in her prek4 year so this homeschooling year we did the purple book which was the Kickstart to kindergarten and we're about halfway through with the second book which is letters and numbers for me we're just going to finish this one off over the summer and if this goes into our next uh homeschooling year that's fine I already have the first grade book as well so I really really enjoy Handwriting Without Tears I like the systematic approach when it comes to them doing their proper uh handwriting formations um I definitely will say um I enjoy it for their print but I don't think I'm going to use Handwriting Without Tears when it comes to teaching them their cursive I may use a different curriculum for that uh as we transition into that after like the second grade but uh I do love it for their uh basic print formation um so we really really enjoyed this this has definitely been a staple in my homeschool I think what this is going on our uh third year using Handwriting Without Tears with all of my kiddos so uh yeah uh that was an easy one um as far as math goes you guys we did kindergarten math of confidence and we also did a Matthew C primer and you guys I absolutely loved both of these curriculums um I am going to be making a separate review video of kindergarten math with confidence uh Matthew C primer that is going to be coming very very soon on my channel I definitely will say I really really enjoy the conceptual knowledge and the the deep understanding when it came to number senses with math with confidence I love that math with confidence covered a little bit more Concepts such as like shapes measurement symmetry um they cover more things than within the math you see I use math you see as my supplemental math so we would do math with confidence Monday through uh Thursday because this is a 4day week program they do have like a fun enrichment exercise on that fifth day which uh includes the math picture book that we did and on the fifth day I would always do the math picture book and whatever exercise when it came to math with confidence and then we would do math you see uh so we would always do both of these curriculums so math of confidence math you see uh Monday through math you see was Monday through Friday math of confidence Monday through Thursday so that's kind of like how I did it in our home school and I really loved her learning the concepts Through Math with confidence and then getting that extra practice and repetition Through Math UC see but again like I said before I will have my separate review video on math with confidence um all of my um I guess my Pros about it uh things I would do differently or things I am going to be doing differently as I'm doing the program with my Rising kindergarten are coming up this uh upcoming year but I really enjoyed it and I'm so happy with my math curricular Choice when it cames or when it comes to like our home school for kindergarten so we really really enjoyed that so we finished the kindergarten math with confidence in March and what we did was we went ahead and picked up the first grade math with confidence and we finished this off at the end of our home school year we're on uh week five of the first grade math with confidence um I'm not too sure again if we're going to work in this through the summer uh but I do have this here so if we do want to pick up a few lessons throughout the summer we can but for the most part uh I think I'm going to go ahead and pause this and we will begin this at the beginning of her first grade year but uh I absolutely love this math program a little spoiler so that is what we did with math now as far as phonics instructions we worked in all about reading level one and I definitely will say if you watch a lot of my videos I really think I have like a LoveHate relationship with all about reading I feel like um maybe it was just because of my daughter's progress being slow with it I began to doubt the program and I began to feel I began to lack confidence in uh the program and saying like am I doing something wrong uh you guys I promise you I have read the front of this book the back of this book I have went online and read all the facts the uh facts and the tips and tricks when it comes to all about reading I joined a few all about reading Facebook groups just to kind of see any tips or tricks that people have and using all about reading because I know a lot of people have success with this program but I definitely will say uh I was doubting this program however I am so happy that I stuck with it because now we have been going through lessons really really fast things are clicking with her and I'm so happy I did not give up on this program because I am truly beginning to love and see why people love it and I definitely love like the multi-sensory approach to the all about about reading I love how we have the letter towels that we can use when we are uh working on the letters and I just love how she's able to pull these like magnetic towels and working with it um I love this box right here that we use uh to go over like all of the high fluency green words and again the yellow words are just the sound cards that we go over at the beginning of each lesson so I really do appreciate all the different approaches it comes to helping the kiddos learn their reading it's scripted but one thing I will say is when I began to get stuck on lessons like as far as we had I felt like we may have had too many high frequency words we were not quite ready to move on to the next lesson was areas where I I kind of didn't really know what to do uh and I'm so happy that um what I ended up doing instead of quitting the program I just went online you guys and I found a lot of like uh resources from actual like people to teach me how to teach her one of my favorite online uh resources in teaching phonic was a Spencer's channel from toddler kin Reed he posted so many good nugget videos how I was able to take the concepts that he was teaching reading and apply it to the all about reading and it really aided me in giving my daughter effective phonics instructions it really gave me the confidence as a parent in coming in our phonics instructions and I really really appreciated the time and effort he put in his videos because even though I wasn't doing his program that he WR I was able to take all of the nuggets and apply it to all about about reading and I definitely will say if I can give anyone any tips of advice when it comes to phonic instruction is that just don't go into phonic and reading instruction and just think that oh yeah you just can use one book and that's the end all be all you will be pulling in a variety of different resources and games and things to continue to engage your kids in working as far as teaching them how to read and sometimes you do want it just to be one book and it to be done but it's really not like that when it comes to reading instruction a lot of time I had to shake things up change the different resources and I'm going to share with you guys some of the things that I did do in PHX to shake things up to kind of like Get over us over the humps but I definitely will say um just be open to use multiple resources be open to stepping away from the lessons because sometimes you guys I wouldn't do a all about about reading lesson I would just take out our fluency cards and our board and we would just practice just words like right here um this was another cool thing that I did I would grab these little teeny toys for my daughter that she had in her room these trinket toys and I would just put it right here and we will practice each sound and she'll uh put her toy under each sound as far as helping her blend BL so those are just different ways that I kept her engaged when it came to our lesson I also have like the all about reading the letter towel app and uh we used that for a while in our first semester but I was finding it became distracting and we went back to just the old school letter towels and that really helped her out and it helped her to be uh remain focused and learning um another thing that I would do is I would use different like U magnetti uh letters to go over our Rootin instruction to shake it up so she wasn't just using the letter towels from the all reading I would use my other magneti letters sometimes we would just take a plain dry erase board with a a marker and I would just write out the words and we would just go over it that way I really kept things and shook things up for her when it came to reading and it just worked out so well for her so I'm really really uh happy about our success with all about reading we made it all the way to lesson 17 and um I really wanted to make it to lesson 27 but I'm happy with where we're at and we just going to continue truckling along with all about reading into her first grade year and again I'm really proud of her success uh one thing I definitely will say about all about reading is she really enjoyed these cute little stories in this run bug run book A lot of them are really funny and I like them I really loved how all about reading already includes like the reading comprehension so it tells you what page number to ask your kiddo a question and I was so surprised of my um kindergartener comprehension level already after just reading the these short stories and I really like how it gets them to stop and think about what they actually read this early on in reading so that's one thing I really appreciated about all about reading in their readers so along with all about reading again we use the explode the code and this you would be so surprised how this marries so well with all about reading a lot of the uh words that they're going over uh they match the high frequency words and these are just really really really simple activities you can do with your kiddo again like I said some days I wouldn't even pull out and do all about reading lesson we would just do explode the cat we would practice the high frequency words and we would just call it a day and uh this really helped her it's something about them actually writing out the CVC word and blending it together that really helped it stick with her and solidify with her uh we completed half of this book The explod the cult level one and I hope to complete this uh one over the summer and then we can go into books one and a half and two in her first year but this was definitely a great addition I definitely will say don't skip out on the explode the go the explode the cods teacher guide because this has really really good nuggets in here as far as like phic awareness um different stories and picture books you can get with your kiddos and um this is definitely affordable and I definitely will say um you can actually use the explode the cold uh this teacher's guide and the workbook as like a allinone reading curriculum but I didn't use it that way but this little teacher guide was definitely very helpful and giving me more tips and activities to do when we wasn't necessarily ready to move on to the next lesson and all about reading so I really enjoyed explode the cold uh something else that I used again with our reading instruction was Bob Books I absolutely love these Bob books for my kindergartner um a lot of the times uh we wasn't ready to read it like another story in our run bug run book but I wanted her to practice reading a story every single day so so I would just pull out one of these books and she would just practice it at the end of our um school session and or she would read it to me at night before bedtime she would read me a cute little story and she really got a good kick out of these Bob Books and I'm happy that I had other additional readers for her to read uh so she can feel like that sense of accomplishment like she actually read a book you know cover to cover and just a smile on her face to see her when she completed like one of these Bob Books it was just I don't know it's just gold for me and I definitely am happy that I have these Bob books now for our upcoming home school year I went ahead and I got these uh decodable books from Toddlers can read again that Spencer's Channel you guys please check it out he has so many nuggets but I got these cute books to go along with our Bob books for this upcoming year this is a set of 12 and um I am so happy to have additional readers along with our all about reading curricula so uh that is like as far as like the readers goes now one thing that I also did do in teach teaching her um reading and finest instruction is that I pulled out these old school site word box books I have the levels one to three I actually used these with my oldest daughter when um I was helping her uh learn how to read I was really supplementing her education at home uh when she was in public school we will always go over these words and I would have her read to me at night uh when she was in public school my oldest daughter so I saved these and I pulled these off and what I did was when my daughter would Master The High Frequency uh words right here in the allabout reading what I would do is I would pull out those same exact words in these uh site word uh bundles and I would just lay them out on the floor I would use my porner stick we would just play games I would have her like hop and jump on these words uh so she can really begin to get fluent with it and as you guys can see these site words that I pulled out are actually words she can sound out so if she forgot word she can actually sounded out in in so she so these were still giving her like that uh I guess repetition and practice she needs so when she it came time for her to read the little books she was able to be able to really be confident in knowing a lot of the words uh and only happen to sound out some and it really aided her in her fluency and I do like these site word books uh these site word um cards because it has a cute little sentence at the back and sometimes that also helped her remember the high frequency words so I really am happy that I pulled out these and I just played different games and shook it up when it came to her like phonics instructions uh as far as my uh kindergartner goes so those are like all of the pieces of curricula that I used and again like I said I really kept things really really simple when it came to her uh schooling this year so that is all of her curricula now let's go into my prek fors curricula and the things that I use for her so and starting off our homeschooling year for her um I thought that I was going to do the allabout reading pre-reading I actually did this with my um middle daughter last year but I definitely will say she was surpassed this point the pre-reading goes over uh Rhymes letter sounds they have a a full on like um poems that you're going to be reading to them little short stories it's really really cute but um my uh last daughter she definitely surpassed this point she already mastered her letter sounds and I made the ultimate decision to say you know what she did doesn't need this let me move on to the next level with her so what we ended up doing for her is we ended up doing the get ready for the Colt series and she absolutely loved these books we're not we're not quite finished with the c book we should finish this one over the summer but she loved these this really just took her up a next Notch when it came to her letter sounds understanding the Beginning Sounds the ending sounds of words um I really enjoyed again using the teacher guide with it because it had like like a lot of nuggets in using the get ready for the Colt series and she loved these um at the beginning of our homeschooling year her penmanship wasn't quite there when it comes to like her uh when it came to like writing the letter so what I would do is I would just have her use like different stickers um and then we would use um crayons and different things like that I really didn't require her to like write out the letters and do the handwriting portions in these books and she really really enjoyed them so these are the get ready for the codes uh what I use for phonic instructions for her now I also um began doing uh two letter blend Lads with her by using the jda elemental phonics series with her where we would just go over two letter blends to really get her fluent and blending two letters and what I did was I just have my little flash cards that I made and again I would just put these all over the floor and she would go over the different blend ladders and um it really helped her begin to be fluent and blending those two words and after she began blending the two words we began working on CBC words and she began blending three-letter uh words my uh four-year-old so that is kind of like what she did so we did that as far as her phonics instructions for a while all the way up until this point and I made the transition from Elemental phonics to teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons because I needed more instructions when it came to her she wasn't quite ready to begin all about reading level one and I definitely can see she uh had the skills to begin to really read so I pulled this off of my shelf and she's doing really really well with this I think at this point we're on lesson 18 right now and it's going very very well with her and uh what I'm going to do is I'm going to continue to work in the teacher child to reading 100 easy lessons and then eventually transition her into all about reading level one and that's what I'm going to be doing uh with my four-year-old right now but that is everything we ended up doing as far as phonics goes um so she kind of like surpassed my expectations when it came to that now as far as math goes we did preschool in math at home she absolutely love this this was my second go around with this book and I absolutely loved it as well I really love the foundation that it lays because uh she completed this book in December and then um not December excuse me she completed this book in March and then we transitioned into um kindergarten math with confidence with her for the remaining of our school year so uh she did really really well with this and it really transitioned her to the kindergarten math of confidence seamlessly so I'm really really happy with this book it's affordable and um I'm kind of sad that this was my last go around with this one but it was really really fun I love the activities um we also did the jda's uh beginning preschool in math book and again these are just fun cute little exercises when it came to just reinforcing those same math skills that she learned when it came to her um preschool in math at home because this book doesn't have a workbook she wanted a workbook I already had this on PDF because I did this with my uh middle daughter last year as far as like extra worksheets as well so I just reprinted it off it was already here at home and it was just something fun for her to continue to work on those math scills so she really really enjoyed that as far as math now as far as penmanship goes she did the first uh my school uh book when it came to Handwriting Without Tears we used the chalkboard and we used the little sponges and the chalk as far as teaching her her capital letters so she knows how to write all of her capital letters and she really really enjoyed this book we didn't pick up this book until January but my little Lefty she is writing so good um as far as writing her numbers we use all of these cute little um number uh poems and Rhymes from the teachingmama.org and she learned how to write all of her numbers really really seamlessly and um it's so cool because now that she is in k Garden math with confidence she knows how to write all of her numbers and she's doing so so so well I really love these Rhymes if your kiddos are struggling in learning how to write their uh letters these Rhymes really really helps like this one is really really cute it says straight line down then around with a grin that's how we make the number 10 and uh they're they're really really cute and my kiddos love these little Rhymes when it came to writing their numbers so uh as far as my prek4 um we just kind of pivoted uh as far as her curricula goes I just had to level her up and kind of follow her lead but she did really really well and again like I said she exceeded my expectations and she loved coming and having us seat at the table and doing school and I'm so so so proud of her so you guys this is my end of the year curricular review and Reflections for my kindergartener and my prek4 um I definitely am happy with our year I'm happy with our success my only regret is I wish I believed in myself more and I wish that I had the confidence to know that I could do it because now like I said before um I did it and I'm so proud of myself and if you're lacking that confidence and that motivation it's okay I just want to let you know it's okay it gets to the best of us fed out resources do your research learn how to actually educate your kids and I definitely think that you will be okay uh you will have all the tools in your tool box as always you guys I really hope you enjoyed today's video and I look forward to seeing everybody in my next one bye [Music]