A Beka Grade K Recap

I can officially say Lovely has finished her A Beka Kindergarten lessons for the year! YEAH! Now, let's give a recap of the pits and falls of the year of tears, turmoil, a few smiles, some giggles, and a whole lot of wishing I could just quit...

First, I admit, I started Lovely out a little early, given her birthday is in the fall. However, she seemed extremely advanced, knowing all her sounds/letters, etc. before starting school, and she wanted to do school. So, I purchased the materials, and in August we began the arduous trek of homeschool. Here is my year in review:

Phonics & Letters: Colorful worksheets with lots and lots of practice. Did I mention, lots of practice? They emphasize blends a bit too much in my opinion, so we worked on blends, but Lovely did better sounding things out with just a basic knowledge of blends. Otherwise, school dragged on and on for both her and me.

Math: You should know how I feel by now: I hate A Beka math with a passion so intense that I will forever remember the feeling of relief when the last worksheet was completed. Yes, my daughter knows numbers and knows how to add, but fill-in-the-blank problems without any pictures/counters is ridiculous! I bought my own counters which she used with every problem, and they were a life saver. However, she does not need to complete 20 math problems a day, so I frequently made her do half of the work. The sequence of problems is organized, but they really don't give much time to master a problem before moving on to the next concept, but after a while, they never shut up about all of the concepts learned...I'm just work-booked out.

Readiness Skills: What?! You've got to be kidding me. If my daughter can't handle that in Kindergarten, she certainly wouldn't be able to handle the rest of her work, so I'm not sure that it really measures 'readiness' to any extent. To me, this was often boring, and a waste of paper.

Social Studies: It was neat to learn a few things about a few countries, but my daughter could have handled a more in-depth look a people around the world, or in our country.

Science: My children wanted the entire book read to them in one sitting, which I pretty much did. I would have liked a little more do it in science.

Art: Fun, colorful, hands-on. My youngest daughter learned to cut because of her art projects, which was great. The only drawback: lots of paper crafts all over the house that secretly need to disappear...

In conclusion, I may stick with A Beka for phonics next year, but I'm going to thoroughly explore the possibilities.