2015 - Reflecting and making a new start

Merry Christmas! 

WHOA! Where did 2014 go?! I feel like it blew past in the blink of an eye. However, I love the start of a new year. We have the opportunity to clean the slate and begin anew. We are taking this time to re-start here at home. New curriculum, new schedule, and new attitude (hopefully!). First, I want to reflect on what did and didn't work in 2014 so we move forward more wisely this year.

So, let's begin with what didn't work this past year:

Outdoor time with his new bow

• Any mom assigned work before dinner. This just didn't happen at all. Monkey was wired from sitting still all day and needed to go outside and play for a while. Homework from school gets done right away at the kitchen table with a snack, but anything beyond that waits until after dinner. 
• Heavy oral curriculum. While I love New Franklin Arithmetic's way of teaching math, Monkey just couldn't focus long enough to get through the lesson. He knew the material, but would zone out halfway or turn every question into a discussion about superheros. Math started to slip and we weren't getting anything done. 
• Phonics instruction with Boots. Make that any instructional time with Boots really. Anytime I think I've figured out what level of instruction she needs, she makes a leap ahead and is bored once again. She hated the phonics-based readers I gave her to practice. She wanted to read "real" books. So I made her a list of books and she has taken off. I do explain the phonics behind any word she doesn't know, but she rarely stumbles and is up to reading Frog and Toad books at the moment. 

Now for what did work in 2014:

• Reading aloud daily. Monkey and Boots loved to be read too. I noticed so much more retention from read alouds this past year than anything else we were doing. I've added in some history and science books to our reading basket and it has been a big hit all around.
• Teaching spelling as needed for writing. We started off last year with All About Spelling, but I dropped it and started addressing spelling as needed. This has worked wonderfully with Tank and Monkey. Both of my children appear to be natural spellers at this time and I don't want to bog them down with unnecessary extra work.   
• Dedicated art time. Both of my children love art time! Anytime I bring out paintbrushes and watercolors, they are ready. I don't follow any curriculum or dictate what they create at this time. I'm more interested in exposure and working their creative juices at this time. 

Watercolor painting

We have a few new things that we've added in for 2015 that are already big hits around here, but I will talk more about that in my next post. 

What worked or didn't work for you in 2014? Will you be making any big changes in the new year?