Thanks for the feedback! I did ask the mom how he does with crafts, and she said it's kind of hit or miss, but that she just has a hard time getting him to sit still for long enough to do something like that. I may try a craft project just to see how things go, and if any of the kids are not into it, I guess they could just go play with my kids' toys or something. My DH picked up a couple of books with exercises and physical activities from the library the other day (like one where the kids are copying animal movements) that I think would go over really well. I will look into other kids of games we could play. The mom also told me that her son is very competitive, which I know is completely normal and healthy for a boy, but I am a little worried about how that would work in our small group. Basically, I am a clueless mom of all girls, lol....

I need some ideas for structured group learning/playtime for a small group (3-4 kids) that includes preschool and KG girls and a high energy, very active 6 year old boy. We plan on meeting about once a week. I had planned a story and craft and then just snack and free playtime, but I am worried about the "craft" part not appealing to the boy in the group. (My own kids are two of the girls.) We just want the kids to get together, and probably when the weather is nicer, we will use a lot of our weeks just at the park, but it'd be nice to have some activities for inside the house.

The Giraffe that Walked to Paris has been our favorite book rowed so far! There were so many different activities you could do. I got the first three FIAR volumes used very cheaply from a fellow forum mom, and I just go through and pick and choose books from those three volumes for my K'er. She enjoys doing lapbooks, so I find lapbook materials online and get an idea of other hands-on activities that people do through a quick google or pinterest search (a lot of what is in the curriculum guide just says to "discuss" such and such with your child, so we like to make it a bit more hands on). We usually spend about 2 weeks rowing a book, since we don't always get to it every day. My DD considers it the "fun" part of homeschooling. My 2.5 year old doesn't follow along with a lot of the activities we do, but she loves when it's time to read the book of the week and forms her own attachment to the books that we read. I am planning to add more "academics" next year and am thinking we may not have time for FIAR, but I'm pretty sad about the prospect of not doing it anymore, so we'll see...

I'd spend the money on school supplies like printer paper, construction paper and drawing papers, nice crayons and colored pencils, a pencil sharpener, etc. if you dont' already have those, rather than a curriculum. If you want curriculum, I'd try to find a used copy of Five in a Row, or, I'd just do some internet research to get a list of Five in a Row books (from the first two or three volumes) and do a pinterest/google search for activities to go along with the books. Since you already have a phonics program and a couple of workbooks, I'd focus the rest of the money and time on "fun" stuff and try to save money for more curriculum for next year. My KGer is generally very “schooly,†but I’ve found that the most she can do is a couple of workbooks and then she wants to do “activities,†like the 5 in a Row stuff, and you can actually find a lot of lapbook and activities ideas online if you have about an hour a week to do prep.

Thanks for the responses. Very helpful! If I decide to get the letter tiles, would you recommend getting both the letter tiles and the separate magnets? Any basic instructions/guidance on how you made your own? How did you know what letter combos to put on the tiles?

I have decided to start All About Spelling with my 5-year old after the New Year. What is essential for me to buy? I am assuming I will need the teacher manual and the student packet, correct? How much of the interactive kit is necessary? I have bananagrams and scrabble tiles; can I substitute those for the letter tiles that come with the kid? Thanks!

Math Mammoth seems to fit the bill of what you are looking for. It's also relatively cheap, which would matter to me if I had already spent a bunch of money on Right Start. You could supplement with appropriate Right Start activities.

A good friend of mine recently called telling me she wants to pull her son out of school after the winter break. Hes in first grade and has been going to full-time school since at least age 4. She just doesn't feel like he's doing well behaviorally in school and she doesn't like that he's in school 7 hours a day and still has another hour of worksheet homework to do each night. Her son is very active and she feels like he needs a lot of structure or else things will fall apart. She's really intimidated and doesn't know where to start. She also wants to make sure he doesn't fall behind academically. (She has a PhD in physics, and the academics are important to her.) Another consideration is that she works part-time and her husband works from home, so they need something pretty easy for both parents to help with. She wants to have at least a general idea of what the plan is by the time school is supposed to start back up in early January, as she doesn't feel comfortable leaving him home without having a plan in place. She has a copy of TWTM, and I told her to start looking at that for curriculum recommendations. I have also told her that she can start out kind of small, just focusing on the basics (math, language arts) for the first few weeks until they figure out their routine a little better. She seems worried about not having enough planned though. I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has any particular curriculum recommendations for someone in this situation. I think she'd really love a complete curriculum so if anyone has any experience, I'm sure she'd appreciate it. She is not Christian, although she is a religious monothiest, so anything very specifically Christian (lots of bible references, etc.) wouldn't work well, but something more generally religious would be fine. Thanks in advance!

If you want more reading practice, you can try the Blend Phonics storybooks, that are available online for free here: http://donpotter.net/pdf/bplitebooks.pdf

I'm not sure if it's too late for you to consider this, but my friend is doing something that seems like it may work in your situation. She had her son in a preschool that she really liked; it doesn't have a true K program but does have a pre-K for 5-year olds, that is about 3 hours a day, I believe. So what she's done is enroll him in the preschool but also enroll him with the school board as a homeschooler, and she teaches him mostly reading and math at home, since the preschool he's at is not an academic program and she thinks that's all he's really missing. She plans to enroll him in private or public 1st grade next year. As for your homeschool curriculum, it seems like you are on the right track with focusing on her reading! Good luck with everything.

Thanks everyone. You've convinced me to drop phonics for spelling. We may just finish out the workbook we are on to give me time to pick and order a spelling curriculum, and then start the spelling. I'm excited to move on to something new!

Thanks so much for the response! So, I had only bought EtC books 1-3 initially (and we bought those over a year ago), and was planning on buying books 4-8 soon. Should I not feel bad if I just decide not to buy the rest?

In the past few weeks, my 5-year old has just improved her reading in leaps and bounds, mostly just from reading on her own. For example, she can easily read the Frog & Toad books, she told me she read the first chapter of the Box Car children on her own during quiet time (I got it from the library as a read aloud but hadn't started it yet, so she has never had it read to her yet), and recently was browsing her Burgess Bird Book and reading all the picture descriptions. So my question is that in light of this, should I try to speed through phonics or keep taking my time with it as I have been. We are doing the Blend Phonics sequence with EtC workbooks, and she is just in the third EtC workbook, and is still doing lessons on silent e/long vowel sounds. I wonder if I am wasting her time making her go through every lesson. She doesn't complain about it, but it seems silly to be spending 2 weeks on silent E, when she already figured out on her own what "through" is. At the same time, I don't want her to have gaps in her phonics so am wary of not spending enough time with it, and I feel like the best way to cover the bases is to not skip anything. I am sure many of you have experience with advanced readers at this age and was hoping for advice on how best to proceed.

I am joining the discussion late, but I wanted to add that Memoria Press is a classical-leaning all-in-one curriculum. But I mostly wanted to reiterate this post: WTM doesn't really treat K has an academic year; it's more of a "getting ready of academics" year, with the primary focus being learning to read. If I remember correctly, they don't even recommend a formal math program for pre-1st grade. With this in mind, I am taking advantage of K being legally required by getting warmed up to homeschooling, since it is our first year. We are simplifying things and focusing on basics. FWIW, our K home school involves: Daily recitations/memory work (a way to start the "school day") Phonics (Blend Phonics sequence + Explode the Code workbooks; could substitute OPGTR or similar) Math (Math Mammoth Grade 1) Five in a Row (spending about 2 weeks on one book, but not necessarily doing activities every day that week) Arabic with grandma Weekly co-op art class Lots of independent reading and strategically selected read-alouds I would like to do a better job adding in Science (nature studies and Mudpies to Magnets kind of stuff), but I am really liking the simplicity of what we are starting out with. Now, I feel like for next year, it's mostly a matter of adding regular history/science and replacing the phonics with spelling/language arts. In general, there is just so much flexibility with the K year, even if you want to strictly follow classical/WTM. At first, this overwhelmed me, because I just kept thinking about the options, but once I took the approach of keeping it simple, my life and our prospects for continuing homeschooling became much brighter :)

I kept putting it off because of shipping. But still, including shipping, I was able to have both books 1A and 1B printed in color, with spiral binding, for a total of $38 (I used a free coupon code for 50 free color copies). When I priced just book 1A at FedEx and Office Depot, it was $90!!

Can someone give me the link/name of the site(s) where you can order copy services inexpensively. I am wanting to make color copies of our Math Mammoth book, if it is not cost prohibitive, but doing so through FedEx or Office Depot is definitely cost prohibitive. Do the online places charge shipping?

We made a last-minute trip to the beach this week. Any ideas for nature study or other activities at the beach that would be appropriate for a KGer?

Thanks for all the great ideas and links!

Here is an article by Susan Wise Bower on the interplay between Classical and Charlotte Mason approaches: Ultimately, I think what's more important than deciding the educational approach to take is deciding what the purpose of your children's education is. And then you look at what will help you achieve that purpose, while keeping in mind, in the context of homeschooling, what kind of educational styles and curricula will make this relatively easy and doable. For example, if you have a bunch of little ones to take care of during schooling, and your older child doesn't seem to mind a workbook or two, then I don't see it as a problem to take advantage of that and make your life a little easier. Please excuse my rambling thoughts!

My DD goes to my mother about 4-5 times a week for Arabic instruction. She is only 5, but we will probably not teach her Latin in the future, at least not until high school, and even then, my preference would be for her to learn a living language like Spanish. I don't feel bad about this at all, as a lot of the benefit in learning Latin also applies to learning classical Arabic (which is the way Arabic is formally written and read, as opposed to the way it is spoken), especially in that it is extremely systematic and also will be more beneficial to learn than Latin for us for its religious association.

I was wondering how people use the Burgess Bird Book with their young children? I downloaded a free copy on my kindle and was thinking of reading a couple of chapters a week to my 5-year old. We read the first chapter to her tonight, and she really likes it. But I feel like I should be doing more than just reading it to her. Maybe have a mini bird study for each chapter? How do you all use this resource? Also, part of me wants to hold off on doing anything substantial with it until my youngest is able to also appreciate it (a couple of years maybe). In general, do you think it's a silly idea to wait to do something that an older child will like in the hopes of being able to include a younger child in the future?

Does that include shipping?

The homeschool buyer's coop sale on Math Mammoth has reached 40% off! That's my buying point, but I'm hoping we get to 50%. Anyone else considering joining in, now's a good time :)

I know exactly how you feel. I struggled with mixed feelings my first day (last Monday) too. I have been planning to homeschool basically since my KGer was born, and have always felt very confident it was the best thing to do, but for some reason seeing everyone's "first day of school" pictures really had me doubting myself! In addition to feeling guilty thinking my DD would likely love many aspects about school, I also just started to wonder, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I just be like everyone else and partake in this totally normal, totally accepted part of having children and being a child?" But of course, that's the point, isn't it? We have made the conscious and well-thought out choice NOT to be "just like everyone else." Sometimes it's taxing and tiring...but there are also lots of times that we will be so thankful that we made those choices. Since that first day, just a week ago, I've had about 10 other times when I've thought that I was glad I was homeschooling. Hugs to you!

Our school "day" is supposed to be 4 hours. So the requirement is 180 days of 4-hour days. Of course, even on our normal days, we are not sitting down for 4 hours, but we do about 1.5 hours of structured stuff at home, she goes to my mom for another hour (with breaks) for arabic, and the rest of the time I figure is "enrichment" or "pe" or whatnot. Honestly, part of my concern with this is in terms of honestly meeting the legal requirements, but a large part is also in responding to the many questions I get from the many non-homeschoolers in my life regarding what we do all day, how much my DD is actually going to be learning, how structured our day is, etc. People seem to have this impression that homeschoolers don't actually do much real learning.