Reception Year (age 4-5) 2015-2016

Reading

Reception year for B4 will be all about reinforcing her A,B,C’s.  By the end of this year I hope B will be reading simple words.  I will be doing some more letter learning activities from the free Easy, Peasy, All in One Home school ‘Getting Ready I and II’.  This is completely free and fairly scripted.  My mum will be redoing All About Reading Preschool, which I have been through once with her, and feel she could do with a refresher.

Once the alphabet has truly sunk in we will use some phonics readers.  By the end of the year, I am hoping B4 will be reading simple phonical words.

I am very excited about beginning B4 on Easy Peasy Homeschool.  It has some fabulous resources and every single one of them is free.

Writing

B is far more interested in learning to write than learning to read.  This does not really surprise me because I think we might have a little artist in the making.  B4 gets through realms of paper every day, colouring, drawing and ‘writing’.  She is never happier than when she has a pen in her hand and she really enjoys any kind of hands-on activity.  I have sourced lots of printable sheets for her to use and both mum and I will work on her writing.  I am hoping it will also reinforce her recall of letters.

I will be using the following resources:

• Tracing letters
• Writing letters
• Letter Mazes
• More practice

Read Aloud

Mum will be reading the Brer Rabbit collection, Peter Rabbit collection, Uncle Wigglies’ story book, Dr Seuss Collection, Llama who had no Pyjamas (100 favourite poems) and James Herriot’s Treasury for Children to B throughout this coming year:

I will be reading the Children’s Book of Virtues, the Big Bible Story Book, a Children’s Book of Verse, School Days with the Millers, Wisdom and the Millers, Prudence and the Millers, Storytime with the Millers and Missionary Stories with the Millers.  As you can see, these books are a little more serious and Bible based than the books mum is reading and handily I own them all.  I will be reading these books to both the younger girls throughout the year:

At night-time I will be reading from The Lion Book of Bible Stories, Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass:

In addition, at night the girls will listen to a CD story to help A7 relax and fall asleep.  B4 usually has no trouble sleeping and will fall asleep early on in the stories.  But A has a busy mind, just like her mother and takes a long time to fall asleep.  Since A turned seven they have listened to many Michael Morpurgo books and some Roald Dahl.  I also have some Bible stories for them and nearer to Christmas, some Christmas stories.  We also own the entire Paddington bear set and Peter Rabbit set on audio CD so they have lots of wonderful childhood literature still to come 🙂

Maths

We pay a monthly subscription for this and we all love it so much I am loath to change it.  So for now B4 will be completing the reception level of Conquer Maths.  This will cover everything she is expected to know in very tiny incremental lessons which take about ten minute to complete.

Continent Unit Study

We will continue with our world geography study using FIAR as our spine.  So far we have covered the Arctic, the Antarctic and are currently learning about South America.  Over the next year we will hopefully finish all the continents of the world.  As money is in much shorter supply now, I will be utilising our local library and hopefully will remember to take the books back in time and avoid an overdue charge (you have no idea how bad I am at this!).  I will also be sourcing lots of internet based resources and trying to put together a continent adventure box for free. 

Along with the FIAR books I will also be using Read and Find Out Science Books as go alongs.  I have used these for a while because they are interesting and perfectly pitched for the age of both girls.

Each study will not only include all the work the FIAR curriculum sets out but also a lapbook and many, many picture books.

My biggest goal for B4 is for her to begin to learn to read this year and I am sure with mum’s help this goal will be reached.