Our second year of homeschooling is complete! Although I recognize that New York State ends the year on June 30th, we haven’t quite gotten to that point, and instead we’ve still considered my daughter to be in preschool, despite doing kindergarten work also.

After two years of homeschooling, there are a few things that have remained consistent:

• My daughter has a huge love of learning and still asks for homework regularly.
• The resources we use tend to keep her interest for a few days/weeks/months before she completely loses interest and wants to do something different (I think she has too much access).
• She has access to screens, but her creativity levels just keep growing!

There have also been changes in our homeschool, including Speech Therapy, a growing toddler wanting to join in on everything we do, science experiments, and reading lessons. With all of that, here’s what homeschooling has looked like for year two (a second year of preschool for my daughter, and toddler learning opportunities for my son).

Books, Reading, and More Language Arts

There is something about the written word that I just can’t get enough. Last year I read almost 200 books, not including all of the children’s books I read to the kids. My hope is to pass my love of books to my kids. Considering my daughter’s great love of learning, I think I’ll succeed!

This past year, we have made a habit of visiting the library a couple of times each month. We are lucky to be surrounded by a significant number of related libraries so we’ve taken the time to visit several other libraries to see how they’re all different, but also the same. We’ve been working our way through the 1000 Book Project, and try to grab a new bag of books anytime we visit. I’m planning a future post about it.

At one point last year, we had a college kid from Alaska visit our door selling books from Southwestern Advantage. We got the majority of their books for kids and I’ve tried to start using them with my daughter this year. Their selective dictionary is fun for her to randomly choose a word to learn.

We also signed our kids up for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (a free book each month for kids age 0-5) so it feels like Christmas every time they get new books. My daughter is graduating out of the program in a few weeks when she turns 5, but my son has several years of new books heading his way!

Book Curriculums

My daughter has been working through Reading Better Together to learn to read. It’s been a challenge, but she keeps trying so I’m proud of her. Although we’re at the beginning of the process so she’s not reading books yet, after I read a book to her, she is getting pretty good at flipping through the pages to reflect the story back to me… even when I don’t think she’s paying attention.

Rabbit Trails Through Literature: Preschool has been fun. I like that we basically have been focusing on one animal/subject at a time and reading a bunch of books on that topic. There is also a video to find on YouTube and a bunch of crafts to round it out. We still have a handful of topics left that we’ll continue with into Kindergarten as a fun extra activity.

We also enjoyed Storytime Lessons: Frog and Toad are Friends from Kelly with Hope in the Chaos. After going through the lessons once, my daughter asked to go through again. She really enjoyed it and I could see her learning about author, title, punctuation, and more. It was great exposure for her to learn about some things before starting her reading program.

Lapbook and History

I haven’t really mastered the art of the lapbook, but last year I decided to take a composition notebook and use it as a memory keeper. I created a simple cover in Canva that we cut out and glued on the front, and we glued a variety of projects into it. Learning her alphabet and matching letters, practice spelling her name by gluing the letters in the book half a dozen times (including once that she did it in reverse), a bunch of coloring pages, and a bunch of dot marker pages amongst other things.

I’ve also written in some activities for her, including replicating the pages in her Bede’s History of Me book. Instead of me writing in the answers and taking dictation, she tells me her answers and I spell them for her to write. I love that I get to see her progress in writing, drawing, and coloring and will have this notebook as a memory.

I gave my son his own notebook several months ago and he loves to color in it. My plan to allow him to keep using this notebook until he starts Preschool and gets a learning notebook of his own.

Other Resources

We’ve been working our way through our Brainquest: Pre-K book all year and have nearly finished it. I like it because it gives me a sense of what things she should learn about at her age, but we don’t limit her to just those things.

She loves learning about science and doing experiments so we try to use her Science kits several times per month (Blippi and Christmas science). My hubby got us a microscope to use but we haven’t gotten there yet.

We did some of the Teaching the Bible curriculum, but we seem to always fall back and read the Children’s Bible. My daughter has learned to do the sign of the cross and pray this year and always makes sure to say “I love you God!” during her prayers.

For physical education, we have a trampoline in our family room that the kids will randomly use, or I’ll ask them to use it to get their energy out. There’s a number poster near it and I think that’s how my daughter learned to count – counting while jumping. She kept forgetting a few numbers in the teens until she started practicing like that. Game changer!

Digital Resources & Freebies

Last year I compiled this list of homeschool bloggers that create free and paid resources that we’ve purchased or gotten free homeschooling resources from. I’m sharing it again since we have used a variety but I don’t remember who made which… in no particular order:

• In Our Homeschool
• Malia Phelps Waller
• The Wolfe Pack
• Katie J Trent
• Blessed Homeschool
• Techie Homeschool Mom
• Happy Hive Homeschooling
• 10 Minute Momentum
• Inside Our Normal
• Hope in the Chaos
• How to Homeschool My Child
• Homeschool with Moxie
• Homeschooling 4 Him
• Homeschool & Humor
• Homeschool Resource Co
• Whole Child Homeschool
• Peanut Butter Fish Lessons

Adventures & Field Trips

We had regular visits to the library and errands where I tried to encourage learning opportunities, and we visited the firehouse and got to explore and check out/ hop in the firetruck. We also went on two cruises and I learned that creating unit studies on where we plan to visit might not be the best idea when our cruise to Bermuda was switched to a cruise to Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada) the night before embarkation. Although it was a fun time and I loved learning there, we scheduled a cruise a few months later to the Caribbean because we still wanted to experience the warm weather.

My daughter joined her first class this year—a homeschool sports class. There were only a couple of sessions but she had a lot of fun playing with the other kids and trying something new. This summer we all got season tickets to the local waterpark and she loved going. We also checked out a new, local trampoline park.

Final Thoughts

This school year feels like it’s been more productive than last year. I know I wasn’t as consistent as I wanted to be, but my kids are happy and learning and growing. I’m growing too, through participation and attending homeschool summits and deepening friendships with other homeschool moms.

I wasn’t expecting to start reporting until 2025 for first grade, but, for K to get speech therapy through the district, I had to register her and therefore will need to report for kindergarten. This was a pretty big surprise, but I’m actually happy about it.

Kindergarten has very few requirements in New York State, just a handful of subjects and no hourly requirement. That means this coming year will allow me to ease into the reporting process before the requirements expand for first grade. We already had our Letter of Intent and Individualized Home Instruction Plan accepted, so we’re ready to go! My next post will be about our kindergarten curriculum choices.

Thanks for joining us today In Our Homeschool.