Thursday, March 22, 2012

3 Year Old Mid-Year Review


At the beginning of year I wrote down some goals that I wanted to accomplish with Trevor this year.  Most of these were academic, but a few were related to other aspects of life.  I also did this last year when Trevor turned two and when it was half way through the year I did a mid-year review to see how we were progressing on these goals.  I'm a little behind this year, but February would have been six months and I wanted to do another mid-year review to see how we are coming along on the goals for this year!  I'll copy below what the goals that I set were, and then note underneath how we are doing!

Goals for the 3 Year Old School Year:

  • Be able to write all Uppercase and Lowercase letters
    • This goal has been accomplished!  Of course they are not all as clear as they will eventually be, but they are getting better every day =)
  •  Be able to read and spell words in sections A-G in The Writing Road to Reading
    • We are a little more than a third of a way through this list, but he can really read many more words since we are also using the McGuffey Primer.  I'm using this list just to make sure that we hit all of the important words and that he learns why each of them is pronounced how it is.
  •  Be able to count to 100
    • I was hoping to nail this at the beginning of the year, but Trevor really struggled with it, so I put it on the back burner for a while.  Just a few days ago he finally broke through and counted past 20 to 30.  So we will still be working on this one for the remainder of the year.
  •  Be able to skip count by 10’s, 5’s, and 2’s
    • He's got 10's down easy.  I say 5's around him a bit, but we haven't worked too much on that one, and not at all on the 2's.  So reading this is a good reminder to work on these!
  • Be able to write numbers to 100
    • He can write all of the digits (though not perfectly!), but I hadn't thought about oral exercises past about 13 (this is about how high we go for answers to our Ray's problems). Good reminder again!  I had been quizzing him using flashcards to identify numbers up to 100, but now I'll have to ask him to write the numbers that I say.
  • Memorize 50 Bible verses (this sounds like a lot, but I'm thinking one a week)
    • He's got about 25 actual verses memorized at this point, so we are right on track!  Using our memory box is a huge help in this...honestly I don't know how we would do it without it!  We usually have to give him the first word of the verse and then he is pretty good about getting the rest.
  •  Improve fine motor skills through arts and crafts
    • He is quite good with the scissors at this point.  He is finally coloring things in on purpose (as opposed to just scribbling around).  I'm not thinking of anything else specific to comment on here...
  • Improve gross motor skills through play and possibly a ‘sport’
    • We have Trevor in a 3 yr old boys gymnastics class once a week.  This has been great for coordination and balance.  We will stop for the summer since we love to spend time outside and he will get plenty of gross motor skill practice on jungle gyms and riding his bike!
  •  Be able to dress and undress himself well (he's alright at this now, but still needs some work)
    • He is completely capable at this point (though slow with buttons) with the exception of starting a zipper on a jacket.  He usually still asks for help in getting dressed, but I try to encourage him to give it a shot himself.  I guess I should be more purposeful about the zipper, or maybe I'll wait until it's actually jacket weather again =) Oh! Also, we've never talked about tying shoes.
  •  Learn to think of others before himself (not interrupting, not taking toys from Mackenzie, etc.)
    • This is a continuous learning process, but there has been improvement.  We had him memorize a Bible verse that talks about "considering others better than yourself" and we talk about that all day, every day =)
  • Begin understanding the concept of addition and subtraction through manipulatives
    • He does perfectly using manipulatives to solve his math problems in Ray's Arithmetic.  We are going to finish going through the book using manipulatives and then start the book over again to see if he's ready to start doing some problems mentally (I don't think this will be any time soon.)
  • Understand concepts: vowel, consonant, syllable
    • Vowel - check, consonant - check, syllable - sorta  =)

Through the encouragement of my pastor's wife, I'm going to start making goals that are more spiritual now too.  It's not something where he has to check the boxes off by a certain date (because it can only be God who works in each of our hearts!), but it's more of a way for me to purposefully take time to look at my child and see where he excels (ex: he is loving, likes to help others, etc.) and where he is struggling (ex: lies to not get in trouble, doesn't obey consistently, etc.)  I made those examples up, but I can then look at the list and see where I purposely need to be shepherding his heart and where I can be an encouragement to him!  I'm not going to share his specific strengths and weaknesses and the goals I set for him in those areas because for his sake it's getting a little personal =)  I will probably find that the things I discover now (the heart related things) will be things he struggles with (or excels at!) for the rest of this life.

So where are you at now that it's more than half way through school?  Have you taken a moment to look at your children and see how far they have progressed since the beginning of the school year?  Have you found some things that they are not excelling at either because you just forgot to teach it, or maybe because they need a new way of looking at?  If you haven't done this, I encourage you to give it a shot!

Happy Teaching!

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14 comments:

  1. Way to go Trevor (and Mama!!). Love the picture of him, too!

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  2. Wow! He sounds way ahead of the game. I'm just barely scraping by with my 3 year old and baby. I need get more serious this summer for planning.

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    1. Honestly, my son has never bee much to just sit down and play, he does much better with structure, so I've just taken advantage of that! If I give him the option "Do you want to play for a little while or do reading and writing?" he will pick reading and writing =) Every child is definitely different!

      If you have a little baby, barely scraping by is just fine =) It's just a season on life, and it's so good to focus on that baby right now! By next year you'll be able to teach your 3 yr old and the little one will love joining in on the fun!

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  3. Wow!! You've got a smart little guy, there. Great job!!

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  4. This is amazing! Great idea to type out all these different goals! I know the more intentional I am about goals for my kids the more I seem to accomplish. I love the goal to memorize 50 Bible Verses!

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    1. I seem to get sucked into the hum-drum of every day life if I don't have something to be aiming for, so simply making some goals really helps! Like you said, I just get more accomplished and feel better while doing it!

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  5. You GO, girl!! I'm sure that your spiritual goals will end up being just as profitable as your academic ones.

    Thanks for linking up with Loving Our Children Tuesdays.

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  6. So very smart to be goal oriented! I need to do more of that, Thanks for the great idea!

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  7. Thank you, everyone, for sopping by and taking the time to comment =)

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  8. I downloaded a Leap Frog song on skip counting that really helped my son to get this down. Before that, I'd tried nearly every learning help out there and he just never got the concept.

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    1. Songs have helped us too! My sister-in-law gave us an old School House Rock DVD that goes through a bunch of skip counting and that is how we learned 3's and 5's. Does the Leap Frog song go through different numbers? I'd be interested in it if it went through numbers we haven't learned yet!

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  9. Your son sounds amazing! Have you though about teaching him any history or geography? My kids love it.

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    1. I'm super excited to start history/geography this fall! He has been asking all sorts of questions (What did people do before there were houses? How long does it take to get to Japan? etc.) So I know he's ready and will be interested in learning it. What do you use for teaching history?

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