If you only taught the 3R's for K question

[bttrflyvld]

This question goes out to those who has already completed a Kindergarten year with a child.........

 

If you only taught the 3 R's for Kindergarten and didn't do any of the extras (ie. science, history, etc.) when you were through with the year, were you glad you went simple, or did you wish you had done something extra?

[AdventureMoms]

Just subbing.

[Mystie]

It's what my mom did with her 7 and what I am doing now with my 3rd. I think it's the best way. They need more play time and stories and just living alongside you more than anything else. I only do about 15-30 minutes for math and phonics and memory work 3x a week with my 5yo, except that she is also with us for Circle Time (singing and extended memory work for my older ones) and she hears a lot of the other stuff going on with the olders. But my others aren't at all "behind."

[Soror]

I started some content w/ ds but ended up dropping it and did not regret it at all. I have #2 in K now and we are just doing phonics as Math just comes naturally, I didn't started ds with Math until 1st and it worked well. Of course that doesn't meat that content subjects don't come up. We talk lots of walk in nature, read tons of books on all subjects, do "sciency" kind of things for fun and such.

[UrbanSue]

I'm gearing up to start Kindergarten, round 3 and I get simpler each time I go. My plan this time is one lesson a day alternating WRTR and Education Unboxed-style lessons with c-rods. Otherwise we have lots of books, lots of puzzles, lots of art supplies, lot of Melissa and Doug fine motor toys. I think we're set.

[coffeegal]

At the kindergarten level I tend to view the 3 Rs as mandatory but history and science as the fun extra. The child could tag along with older siblings or run off and play. Generally my boys ran off and played. My daughter tagged along. A light kindergarten schedule keeps school from becoming unending drudgery, allows the child plenty of time to paint, color, or dig in the mud, and also keeps mom from burning out.

[ErinE]

I think others with more experience have chimed in, but I did the 3Rs with my youngest and don't regret it at all. I did encourage her to research her own interests at the library (which helped build those skills).

[boscopup]

My oldest essentially did that at school, and I have no regrets about that. He started history formally in first grade and now knows a LOT of history.

 

I'm doing 3Rs with my current K'er. He wasn't ready for formal history this year. Next year, we'll be doing Sonlight Core A, still no history. He'll start formal history in 2nd grade. I can't imagine what detriment a child could have by not doing more than the 3Rs in K.

[bethben]

With my first two homeschoolers I did that and am now doing it with my 3rd. They still need a lot of play time at that age. K takes about 30 minutes. If she gets anything out of her brothers history or science lessons, that's great but not expected. The first two are doing just fine with the full schedule now. I wouldn't ever think of changing it. It worked really well for us.

 

Beth

[2squared]

Doing that with my third over here. No regrets. I only do the 3Rs for first and second grade too. No regrets there either. When my kids can read to learn, they read science and history, but they aren't formally taught by me. They get formal in fifth grade.

[NoseInABook]

I am not regretting it at all. I started out with a smidge more but dropped them. I found they were a waste of our time right now because we got the information through regular play and reading without needing to use a set curriculum for it.

[Ewe Mama]

I am doing the three R's with Faith in the mornings. She occasionally joins us for history and science, but that's entirely up to her. She likes doing her own experiments and I encourage that, but she leads it at all times.

[blondeviolin]

I require my current 5yo to sit in on history and science, but my expectation of what he's getting out of it is far less than my first grader. I only require he sit in because if he doesn't, he's distracting. :lol:

 

With my oldest, she did math, reading, and FIAR (and only when I was prepared to do FIAR). It didn't hinder her K year at all. In fact, it gave her a good solid foundation to add int eh content stuff this year.

[suzielou]

3Rs! We go to the zoo, aquarium, nature centers, etc for field trips. My littles also watch big brother's experiments. Last week, my ds3 didn't want to give anyone else a turn with the microscope. With my 7&8, we do the little Rod and Staff workbooks one day a week for science, social studies, and health. It is just the right amount, but it doesn't start until 2nd grade.

[cagirlintexas]

I kind of did a simple approach. When he was 4 1/2 we started with OPG and HWT and that is all we did that year. By the end of the year he could read at about a 3rd grade level and was writing capital letters. This year so 5 1/2 we mainly did a little bit of HWT and RIghtstart A and part of B. It has worked wonderfully for us. He is now reading at a 3rd grade level and doing amazing at math. Next year we will do more handwriting. Handwriting has been hard for his so we have eased off and will pick it up next year. I feel like he has learned a ton in the last 2 years and isn't burned out at all. My main concern is that he still has enough time to play and be a kid while still learning enough that DH doesn't question what we do all day.

[ByGrace3]

I did mostly the 4 RS with dd for K, and honestly? Yes, I wish I would have done more. I think a lot is circumstantial. What are your reasons for doing just the 3R's? Does your child not want more? Do you have other important things that take priority? For me, I had time I ended up wasting when I could have easily spent more time at least doing more read alouds. I don't regret not doing intensive curriculum, but the next time I teach a Ker alone we will probably use SL, just to do more scheduled cuddle and read time. I need the structure. Some people don't "do" content subjects in K but are very hands on and read aloud a lot. That's great, some like me need it scheduled to do it. My current Ker sits in on science and history with dd and he loves it.

[Pamela H in Texas]

Honestly, I did it that way for WAY longer than just Kindergarten with my first two and I think there were real benefits to it.

They still got plenty of science, history, languages, art, music, etc from real life and interest.

 

With my current littles? I planned a full curriculum for this year. I quickly learned that we weren't ready emotionally for me to actually TEACH them.

I had adopted them in July which was a first hurdle. Second was not going to school. Third was relationship building.

Teaching would have required me to be "critical," giving correction, etc. There is just no way to do that gently enough for some kids.

Here we are now and the kids have been begging for a month to DO school. We have done a little here and there (and they can pick up materials any time they want).

Now we'll add 3Rs lightly (actually, I think I just was going to heap on too much in the first place).

 

Now I'm following my children's lead. I would LIKE to do a classical education with them; but my relationship with them is much more important.

As we can add to it, we will. I am trying not to say, "well, maybe by X month or when so-n-so is Y age."

Since I *know* it can be "just fine" to become schoolish much later and still meet whatever goals are reasonable for the kid (whether it is college at 15 or 18 or job training or whatever), there is no reason to be in any real hurry. We'll just do what makes sense for us as a family.

[Walking-Iris]

With my oldest, K was really simple. Just learning to read and write and do simple math activities and games. Anything that was science or social studies/history was just following interests and reading books and doing some activity because it was fun. I didn't specifically plan to do science or geography etc. It just sort of happened depending on what he wanted to talk about or read.

 

With my current Kinder I am just as simple. I planned on just reading/math activities. He however loves science, wants to be a paleontologist when he grows up, and requests science time. So I got a really simple science course for him--ScienceWorks. Before he showed an interest I never really thought I'd spend the money on science for a Kinder.

 

Now I have to say that I have been reading a lot about studies showing how important science can be in the early years for math and reading skills and I have been changing my opinions about it. Slowly science, even for littles, is starting to take a more important role in my planning.

 

Also Kindergarten might or might not look different depending on how many older students there are. My littles do science, art, and even participate in history activities because it's easier to just include them in what my 4th grader is doing than to try to keep them from interrupting. But if my Kinder doesn't show an interest in what we are doing, I don't make him. Learning to read and do math are still priorities