End of 2nd Grade and Pre-K

I meant to post this last week, but we finished up our school year last Thursday morning.  I was a little apprehensive as to when we would actually get done, if we would need to continue into the summer, but it all worked out well and we are now off for summer!

Caleb finished the following studies:

Bible- Caleb learned about the names for Jesus this year in school.  I love that our curriculum went through the names that the Bible calls Him and refers back to the Old Testament prophecies, as well as the New Testament texts.  We also studied about the history behind the names and how the times and areas influenced that.

Spelling- The spelling program we used this year was actually quite wonderful!  I wasn't too sure about it at the beginning, but Caleb has come so far in being able to think through and spell out words that he might not know.  We covered all basic spellings of the variety of words and Caleb can now confidently write and tackle words that he might not know while reading.  I grossly underestimated the power of spelling, so I'm excited for us to continue working on this skill next year.

English- Again, I was unsure of the English that came with our curriculum, but it also proved to be a great program.  We walked through half of a book (the other half is for next year) and Caleb has excelled in all the topics he has encountered.  To, too, two and there, their, they're are no match for him, among others.

History- This year, our curriculum was pretty history-centric.  We spent the year learning about the founding of the USA and studying the states.  Each day we either read and did a project on a founding father, inventor, or someone else (or something) important in our history -OR- we studied a state.  Caleb learned many different things about the states and can look at a blank United States map and correctly identify roughly 75% of the states on there.

Science- Our science involved  variety of things from kitchen experiments, projects with air, water, light, etc. We used magnets and learned about the body, electricity, wind, animals, insects, and birds.

Math- We worked through the whole second level of Singapore math, a curriculum that isn't super popular, but is a phenomenal program.  The lessons are quick, concentrated and colorful, so the kids pick up the concepts so fast and move on to the next without having to do page after page of wrote practice.  Caleb loves math and asks to work on it, so he's excited to do the next level in 3rd grade!

Reading- Our curriculum has a lot of reading built into it and Caleb read many chapter books this year in school, all centered around simpler times in our country.  He read about the Native Americans, a few Laura Ingels Wilder novels, and others.  This was something that we didn't have to work hard to accomplish as Caleb loves to read.

Piper worked on some school work this year, but with it being pre-K, I didn't push too hard.  However, this year she has started reading, doing simple math and has some serious fine motor skills under control!  We will start Kindergarten next year using My Father's World, like we did with Caleb, and I anticipate that she will love it like he did!

For now, we continue to work on getting this house sold, moving down to join Jes in Houston and enjoy our summer!