END OF THE 2024-2025 HOMESCHOOL YEAR RECAP – Katie Did What

And that’s a wrap on the 2024-2025 school year!!!

We did it! However imperfectly… 😉 I am so proud of us, and of these kids, they really truly showed up and gave it their all, and learned so many new amazing things along the way. It wasn’t easy- lots of ups and downs, navigating a huge loss in our family, figuring out how to teach my nonverbal son well and in a way that serves him best (always a challenge that is constantly ebbing and flowing), adding in our own occupational therapy techniques (hello, daily crawling and other primitive reflex integration exercises!)… And so many huge wins along the way as well, like learning to ride a bike and starting to learn to read, learning cursive, and as always, reading endless amounts of great books, and me over here just redeeming my own education along with my children! It’s been such a beautiful journey, and I’m so excited to continue and see what the future holds!! We used the fantastic Charlotte Mason AmblesideOnline curriculum again this year, Sophie and Sam in Year 3 and Ollie in Year 0/Kindergarten.

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SPECIAL NEEDS HOMESCHOOL YEAR RECAP

Sam (age 11) has grown so much this year- he is ALSO learning to read (I never thought I’d say that!!! Praise God!!) and absolutely LOVES sounding out letter sounds, and doing his reading lessons. For those that are unaware, my eldest son has nonverbal autism, so reading has been a HUGE hurdle, but I believe in his abilities so much, I know he has so much to say but we just need to find a means for him to do so! We’ve started with All About Reading (also what I’m using with Ollie, more on that in a bit) and have been going through a letter a day also, naming the letter and the sound that it represents, as well as finding it around the home and reading a corresponding book (even if it’s just an alphabet book). This is what I’ve found works great with him, and he’s loving it, we also have his AAC device out so he can “say” the letter with his Proloquo2Go app on his tablet.

He’s been doing so well in his TouchMath curriculum as well (we’ve been trucking along with the kindergarten TouchMath program) and his fine motor skills are also improving! I just picked up this book on primitive reflexes which I’m excited to incorporate into our daily rhythm!

YEAR 3 HOMESCHOOL YEAR RECAP

Sophie (age 9) learned to write in cursive this year (we used the Good and the Beautiful for handwriting), did lots of sewing projects, joined American Heritage Girls (Christian Girl Scouts) and adores it, was in a production of Mary Poppins the musical (totally out of her comfort zone and she ROCKED it and overcame her fear!!), and continued to excel in reading and of course, always being creative and drawing and making art! She devoured the Heartwood Hotel and Sophie Mouse series, and read Charlotte’s Web and the Boxcar Children multiple times on her own.

As for our main lessons from AmblesideOnline, her oral narrations (simply telling back what we’ve read each time) have improved so much even from the beginning of the year! We still get some one liners and that’s perfectly fine with me, but in general she goes into more depth and seems to be understanding more, which is beautiful! We loved learning a new folk song and hymn each month, and singing together as a family. The artists were not our favorites this year, we tend to prefer impressionist painters, but we have been loving playing Chopin during our quiet afternoon time. Nature Study consists of spending time outside in our own backyard or going on walks in our neighborhood and observing what we see- the changing of the seasons, the animals nearby, birds and flowers. And then drawing or painting in our nature notebooks. This was something we especially loved doing and will be sure to do more often next year!

For math, we switched entirely to Life of Fred for Sophie (not super mathematically-inclined) and she LOVES it. It was like a flip switched and she enjoys math now, and we have no more tears!!! Hallelujah! And the books are SO good, it’s like sneaky math, and lots of other things, and it’s just brilliant and we all enjoy it. For next year, we are already planning on starting my Year 1 student on them, as well!

We are also starting to learn to knit, and are excited to include that as a family activity as well. I’ve been reading a lot about Waldorf style, and am loving lots of it, so we will be sure to include more handwork in the coming months of summer and then into the next school year, too!

YEAR 0/KINDERGARTEN HOMESCHOOL YEAR RECAP

Ollie (newly turned 6 years old) LOVES math and was so excited to complete his math book (Math With Confidence Kindergarten, student workbook and instructor guide, which he LOVED), and is learning to read, which is such a fun journey for us both! We went through the first 35 lessons in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and he honestly was NOT a fan- but he did them! So we’ve switched over to All About Reading and he is actually loving it and excited to do his reading lessons now! We also have Bob books to practice reading with, and I use this amazing Montessori letter board from Lovevery (we have this one from Amazon as well). He was also in Mary Poppins (and the youngest in the production, he was nervous but overcame his fears and did SO well and I’m so proud of him!!!). Of course, this sweet special quiet growing time for him meant he spent most of the year playing outside and perfecting his climbing/swinging/jumping skills!

The kids loved their classes at their enrichment center, including sewing, leather and wood working (Sam made his own leather belt and wallet!), art classes, cooking, gardening and Native American history. They also loved being a part of our Christian co-op and learning about world geography this year, and participating in a Christmas singing program which was so sweet and special!

RELATED: 2024-2025 HOMESCHOOL CURRICULUM CHOICES

So much goodness and growth has happened this year- what a blessing, privilege and a joy to witness it all firsthand. There’s nothing better.

Favorite books of the year-
Sam: The Family Under the Bridge
Sophie: Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and Pippi Longstocking
Ollie: Pippi Longstocking (all 3)
Mama: The Princess and the Goblin and Jayber Crow

I will be sharing our curriculum picks for next year soon!! I’m deep in the planning process now! But of course, gotta take a little break for some summer fun, too, yippee!

xo