What a Difference a Year Makes

I was cleaning out some of Brianna's old workbooks getting ready to start the new ones and as I was flipping through I began to notice how different her work looks now as compared to then. I thought it would be fun to document some of her accomplishments over the past year.

Last year she could count to 10 and recognized about half of the numbers.
This year she can count past 100 and can reason out larger numbers. She recognizes all of the numbers and can write them.

Last year she scored about 70% on letter recognition and about 90% on letter sounds.

This year she has mastered sounding out simple words with short sounds and is now working on two vowel words and special blends. She reads at a strong 1st grade level.

Last year she could copy what I wrote for her with some difficulty.

This year she has begun to use creative spelling to write her own stories. We have a pen pal and are regularly writing her.

Last year she could look at pictures or items and count them all together (or "add")

This year she has mastered adding and subtraction and we are now starting on double digit numbers.

She just finished learning her first complete Bible verse, John 3:16.

Of course this doesn't account for all of the changes seen in my baby girl, but I hope you will find this encouraging. Most weeks we did 2-3 days of school. Most days we did 30 minutes to an hour of "sit down" school. Sometimes we skipped 2 weeks just because we needed a break. I didn't really have to "teach" her much of what she learned. I simply exposed her to it. We were sort of half unschooling. This year we have been more organized, but I am still convinced that I don't teach her half of what she learns. Here's to another great year of growth and learning!