Thoughts on a year of homeschool

It has been a year (39 weeks) of teaching my Dragon. It has been rewarding, exhilarating, and exhausting. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the teachers who do this every year with 20+ students.

Things I learned this year:

  • I have no patience when she doesn’t try
  • She knows how to push my buttons
  • I don’t have to do everything by myself
  • I know a least a little bit about a lot of different topics
  • When she tries, she learns really well
  • She has great ideas
  • She really enjoys creating
  • She’s good at math when she focusses
  • I forgot about the crochet portion a LOT
  • I’m incredibly proud of my Dragon

Things my Dragon learned this year:

  • How to print all the letters in small caps (she already knew caps)
  • How to play with playdough
  • The sound of each letter
  • How to count to 100 by 10’s
  • How to count to 100
  • What a pattern is and how to make one
  • A few French words
  • The days of the week
  • The months of the year
  • The seasons of the year
  • How to brainstorm a story, storyboard it, write dialogue, and then put it all together
  • How a stop-motion movie works and created two
  • How to draw from reference
  • How to measure baking ingredients
  • How to measure something with a ruler
  • How to raise her hand and wait for her turn (in virtual school)
  • How to turn on and off camera and microphone in a video conference
  • How to navigate to the chat and click on a link
  • She learned to read music – the 9 notes around middle C
  • The values of whole, half, quarter and eighth notes
  • Can clap and count a line of music using those notes
  • Completed several finger exercises and the value of practicing them
  • How to play chopsticks

Overall, I would call this year of Junior Kindergarten/Maternelle successful, even though the hard part, the learning French part, didn’t go as well as I had hoped.

The important thing was that she had fun, and she tells me that she did. She also wants to make another book and another movie during the summer, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m so very proud of how well my Dragon did this year.