Are there any homeschooling parents (or 4yo and 5yos) on this forum? - Page 3

[Belleweather]

I ave a newly 6 year old who we pulled out of public Kindergarten due to a painful and epic teacher-student mismatch. (You can probably excavate the thread over in Learning at School if you're curious, but things got really disgustingly bad before we pulled him, which I'm not proud of.) We've been homeschooling for a couple of weeks now and it sounds like we're much more academic and school-at-home-ish than most people here -- which is totally fine, we're following DS's cues, and that's where he's at right now but that may change as we go.

Right now, he does school for 90 minutes or so in the mornings with his dad. They focus on reading, writing and math every day. Currently, DS picks out one of the graded reading books from our library every week, and so he reads that book every day for a week -- initially working on decoding (he's already got really good phonics skills due to too many hours on starfall.com...) and then on fluency. He writes down new words from each book in his 'dictionary'. He's got some worksheets to reinforce phonics, and has to write a sentence or two in his journal each day for handwriting. Math-wise, he's got worksheets and manipulatives to use with them for basic adding and subtracting and is working on math facts with flashcard. Once he's got those down, we've got materials for place-value lessons and adding/subtracting two digit numbers, but I don't know if we'll get to those before summertime. We also have two great math project books (Family Math and 100 Math Projects for First Grade) that we do activities from.

For the rest of his curriculum, we use the core knowledge sequence as a guide.  It seems to sort of match up with what our public schools are doing, and it helps me to have a guide as to what to teach content-wise, otherwise we'd end up spending all our time on the Civil War (my current obsession) and Dinosaurs (DS's current obsession). We want to handle those things in a more project-based way, but we're still in the planning stages and don't want to overload ourselves. We've also added recorder and handwork from some more Waldorf-influenced books, and DS takes Judo and swimming lessons for PE.

That sounds way more 'challenging' and academic than what other people are doing, but we're trying to true up with DS's public school curriculum as much as we can, and his kindergarten literally WAS this academic-focused. Frankly, I think that's sick and wrong, but since we don't think we'll homeschool next year and we don't know where we're going to be physically (I've got some job stuff happening that means we literally could be anywhere in the world by September of next year, including right where we are...) we want to make sure he's academically ready for where ever he ends up, so we push formal reading and math more than we would otherwise.

[OkiMom]

Originally Posted by Belleweather 

That sounds way more 'challenging' and academic than what other people are doing, but we're trying to true up with DS's public school curriculum as much as we can, and his kindergarten literally WAS this academic-focused. Frankly, I think that's sick and wrong, but since we don't think we'll homeschool next year and we don't know where we're going to be physically (I've got some job stuff happening that means we literally could be anywhere in the world by September of next year, including right where we are...) we want to make sure he's academically ready for where ever he ends up, so we push formal reading and math more than we would otherwise.

We will probably be doing a lot more academic stuff come June/July (when I start the "new year") since my oldest would technically be in Kindergarten age wise.. My husband wants her kept where she would be if she was in school (the older she gets the less he wants me to home school her) and I'm not up for yet another fight with him about homeschooling. Shes ready as well, she asks to learn to read/write/do math stuff etc. I don't know if I'M ready for it! Shes a bit of a challenging child at times and I don't know about patience.. But I said the same thing about a lot of things so I know the patience will come when needed.. I need to sit down and decide on a curriculum of sorts for her.. I want to piece together one that keeps with her interests and will challenge her.. Like me she bores really easily.

[PNCTink]

We've been following their interests thus far, but we'll be following AO too. We'll be official in April, but in an attempt to form a more school-like routine we'll be doing artist and composer study, nature study, readings, and handicrafts in a more formal way starting Tuesday. :)

Originally Posted by Coco_Hikes 

Since summer ended we have been meandering along on a Charlotte Mason-ish path with 5.5yo DD. It's been a good fit with her personality and learning style. AmblesideOnline.

[rosinthebow]

I have a 4-almost-5 yo ds and 3 yo dd.  We aren't officially home-schooling, but I am strongly considering it for next year as opposed to public kindergarten which I just can't really bear the thought of.  Mainly because I am just not really a believer in early academics, unless of course, as some have said that it is initiated by the child.  We read and write a lot in our house and ds is becoming more and more interested, on his own, in writing out letters and also in trying to read.  After reading lots about Waldorf as well as other thoughts on early academics I just want him to learn to read and write at his own pace, when it just clicks for him.  I also want him to be able to spend most of his days outdoors while he is young, not made to sit at a desk.  So, I haven't officially decided to keep him home next year, but that is the direction I'm leaning.  Even though I think in my heart, this is what I know is best, I am having trouble making an actual decision.  

[three&me]

My oldest two are turning 6 and 4. Our 6 year old would be in Sr. Kindergarten if he were in public school, but we're doing K/1 with him. Our 4 year old isn't doing much but we're starting word families and compound sounds and we've done some Letter of the Week-type activities.

I lurk.. Rarely post, but I'm here.

[Magical_Mama]

I have a 4 year old, but I also have kids who are 13, 11, 8 and 3 months.  :) 

~Alicia

[mrsmischief]

I am home educating my five year old daughter. 

[Livviesmom0207]

I'm here..my daughter will be 5 in 2 weeks. We've not started "formal" homeschooling, but have been learning all along.

[JPiper]

We have a 3.5 year old daughter and will be focusing on home learning at least for the next few years.  My older two are in public school, but options for early childhood learning experiences are not so hot in these parts.  She attended a nursery school program 2 mornings per week in the fall, but it wasn't a comfortable fit for our family (DD enjoyed socializing with friends, but DH and I were not pleased with program).  Our little one is the youngest and craves all the things she see the older two doing-- homework, projects, independent reading etc... so we are just following her lead and enthusiasm right now.

It's amazing how much more younger siblings are exposed to and absorb just by observation and living alongside busy older ones!   

[Liberty5_3000]

We're homeschooling our 4.5 year old.  Its kind of weird saying that because less than a year ago it was more just that we hadn't sent him to school yet.  Now we actively do "school".  I don't really worry about what specifically we do as "schoolwork" any given day, I just want to start the habit of setting aside a bit of time as "school".  We do workbooks, have music/dance time, play games, read books, draw pictures, preschool stuff.  He loves maps and globes and learning different countries.  I didn't want to start reading yet and only work on reading as much as it takes to get him to sound out some words... he always wants to write things so I try to get him to think about how to spell the words sometimes instead of just telling him how.  He likes flashcards, so we have some with letters and numbers and addition, he knows them all, but he just likes going through them.  It would all be pretty fun if my 20 month old wasn't always trying to prevent us from doing anything :)