Preschool Corner: Evaluating Progress

Over the last week {despite the fact that we have a few letters of the alphabet left to cover} we’ve just been having fun ~ all while I try to get a good idea of exactly where Zachary is in the scope of things.

The reason? The big ol’ question of Kindergarten.

You see {and here’s where the rule-stickler in me has problems sometimes} three of our kids missed our state’s cut-off date age for starting school by just a bit. Zachary is the closest to that cut-off date but the beauty of it all is ~ I’m HOMESCHOOLING. So really…I can start him if I want, right?

But then I start to second guess myself and wonder if he is emotionally ready for it. And then I remember that he isn’t going to be in a large classroom. It’s just us. I’m the one that has to handle the emotions, right?

To boost my own confidence a bit, we’ve just been having fun and reviewing what he does know to see where he stands in the grand scheme of all things academic. Since the girls are starting their yearly evaluations, he wanted to do some things too. :)

The kid has been blowing me away ~ in a GOOD way! Here’s what the little man has let me know:

• he can count to 100 ~ by ones and tens
• can identify numbers up to 100
• counts with 1:1 correspondence
• can give ordinal positions (first, last, second, middle)
• he knows the days of the week, months of the year
• he’s adding single digits (under the sum of 10)
• matching upper and lowercase (knows them all now by name)
• reading 4 letter words and working on that silent ‘e’
• writes his own name and everyone else’s too
• knows his address/phone number, date of birth, everyone’s full name, address…
• names the continents and major bodies of water
• fine motor and gross motor – definitely no problems there
• definitely doesn’t have problems expressing himself in any way, shape, or form
• is telling time to the hour and doing better with half hour
• tells time on a digital clock

After all this…I’m pretty comfortable starting him as a Kindergartner next year. Does it really matter? I’m not going to be reporting him to the school system yet anyway, so not really. But just in the back of my mind it helps give me a better idea on what to do and which direction to head (i.e. including him in studies with the girls more vs. doing things more independently).

The wonderful part of homeschooling is that it doesn’t matter either way. Yes, I obviously want to keep them at their grade level (not below), but we have so much flexibility in going ahead if we want too ~ and keeping up with his pace and where he is at.

That is what I love.

Next week we will return to the alphabet posts, but just wanted to share what we’ve been up to. Hope you all had a great week!

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