homeschool :: first grade year complete!

We have officially finished up our first grade homeschool year (well, I am supposed to still give her an end-of-year test, which I will do at some point this summer), and I think it's safe to say that we are all three feeling pretty great about it.  Claire continues to be enthusiastic about our school set up, as do her papa and I.  I will happily keep going on in the same manner and direction until and unless she requests otherwise, but for now we're feeling like homeschooling is where it's at (for us).

We covered so much this year~  We studied North and South America (making maps, and studying each country in both continents and writing a page of interesting facts and information for each one- though we did study the US in a bit more depth than the others and took a turn for a while into US History 'light'), did all sorts of science (focusing mostly though on botany, biology, the human body, and the solar system) including, at the end of the year, delving just a bit into basic taxonomy and classification (which I myself loved in college), lots of reading and writing, spelling words, a touch of grammar, all sorts of math (coin counting, place value, clock-reading, a bit with fractions, addition and subtraction with regrouping, a bit of simple multiplication), and a smattering of other fun stuff such as ukulele, horseback riding, daily afternoon art classes (she comes to work with me), building projects with papa, and Project Feederwatch.  I truly enjoyed developing a personalized 'curriculum' that worked for us, for her.  I can't claim to really have much of a clue or direction about how I did it or if what I did was better or worse than using some other curriculum/approach, but it sure seemed to have worked for us, so I'm calling it a win!  I've made lots of notes already about second grade- how we'll approach things the same way or differently, what sorts of things we'll focus on, etc.

And so, now on to summer........  she is filling the extra time so far in much the way I'd expected she would- listening to her audio books, drawing, playing the ukulele.  We are both making simple lists of things we'd like to do this summer, some things grander and more complicated than others, but to be honest a lot of it boils down to water and fruit, really.

Onward.