My 6 yo is ahead in some things, average in others. I'd say he is bright, and would probably test at gifted level in public school but not profoundly gifted. As others sad, giftedess is more than being a couple of grade levels ahead. I have thougt my son was gifted since he was tiny, but not because he knew his abc's at 15 months but mre the way he used words and the questions he asked at 1 and 2 years old, and just the way his mind works; however he is also 6 and has trouble listening and paying attention and with impulsivity, which makes getting school done, a challenge many days. I haven't known enough homeschoolers well yet to say if as a group they are ahead or not. I think there are so many people now that are relaxed, that it is hard to say. And the kids at the two ends of the curve ( both ahead and behind) may be more likely to be homeschooled in the first place, because those are the kids who will be less likely to get their needs met in a typical school.

I agree with some others that 3 hours per day may be too much at age 11. I think that can be too much at any age while one is still school age, but JMO. Just some random thoughts... we have our whole lives to work, and while this much may be fun at age 11, there will probably be years working jobs like this regardless of what career is ultimately pursued, and starting so young may burn her out early. Speaking from experience of working retail jobs through high school and college and grad school summers. A few hours a week sounds good. I would also be wondering about labor laws and actually using the cash register. If she wants a job, there could be other opportunities which also offer the chance to earn money (which offers additional educational experience in itself). Maybe not full babysitting at 11, but a mother's helper, or odd jobs for friends and family. When I was that age I helped in a family member's office a couple hours per week and they paid me out of pocket. I also wonder out loud whether part the reason she likes being there so much is a social benefit that could partly be fulfilled other ways--finding a way to have free unstructured time with a friend in one of those time slots, instead. I am just not sure when she would have that, reading your posts, with school til 3 and then all those activities plus the 3 hours per day in the shop. ETA sorry for not answering the original question! I don't know about your state requirements. I do think it is educational but at some point there won't be any new academic skills being learned, no? Maybe there is some way for her to do related projects based on her experiences there. Is there a junior business program or something where she could design her own model?

We are doing both FLL1 and WWE1 this year. I had the same questions about whether to delay grammar or not. It seems to me that you could go either way, although by "delay" I also mean to third grade, not middle school. Another option, I think, could be to wait until second grade and go through both FLL1 and 2 in one year. You could condense some of the lessons and easily do more per week, at least for FLL1. WWE does cover many of the same topics, but not parts of speech. My ds likes FLL. It does only take a few minutes, even with the enrichment activities. I have just started doing our own poem memorization, so we now skip the FLL poems. Depending on the day, we may skip the narration or picture study as well, because in addition to WWE we narrate for our other subjects. So we are primarily doing FLL for parts of speech. I think this is fine because he is already reading well; if he weren't, I'd probably devote the extra time to phonics rather than learning the grammar.

My 6 yo is in 1B and the home instructor's guide says he should have addition and subtraction facts to sum of 10 memorized before moving into unit 3 (two digit addition and subtraction). Am I going to cause problems by moving on with him even though he doesn't have all the facts down cold? He does know some of his addition facts. We have been doing Calculadders daily for a couple of months (only addition, though). We play dice games and card games regularly. Last week I tried both flash cards and copywork-- with the goal of learning 4 facts by the end of the day, going over them several times throughout the day, for several days. But he just can't get instant recall of these :confused:. He does get the right answer, but he has to figure it out (in his head) every time. And, my second question-- do I need to worry that he can't seem to remember the facts that we have been working on regularly? He has no problem memorizing poems, or anything else. Should I just keep working on it with him the way we're doing, while moving on in the curriculum, or should I pause the curriculum for a few weeks and use manipulatives more and work on facts?

The BFIAR , and most of the FIAR booklist, especially Mike Mulligan, Katy and the Big Snow, Katy No-Pocket, Big Green Pocketbook, Miss Rumphius, Roxaboxen, Cranberry Thanksgiving, Night of the Moonjellies, Madeline, Papa Piccolo, Caps For Sale, Jesse Bear, Runaway Bunny, The Bee Tree Berenstein Bears Big Book of Science and Nature (from Sonlight pre-K) All of Robert McCloskey's books (guess they would count as classics though) All of Virginia Lee Burton's books-- besides the ones that are well-known, there are: Maybelle the Cable Car, Stewy Stinker, and Choo-choo. Hello, Snow! by Melanie Kroupa the Frances Books, by Russell and Lillian Hoban Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild! by Mem Fox Bill and Pete books, by Tomie de Paola (also Strega Nona, by same author) The Seven Silly Eaters, by Mary Ann Hoberman The Two Sillies, also by Mary Ann Hoberman George and Martha, by James Marshall In the Night Kitchen and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (maybe only for little boys though, the little boy in it is nude at one point) Boom, Chicka Rock by John Archambault Alphabet Soup, by Scott Gustafson Duck on a Bike, by David Shannon Thunder Cake, and Rechenka's Eggs, by Patricia Polacco The Bed Book, by Sylvia Plath many of the Bill Peet books Knuffle Bunny, by Mo Willems Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges and Trina S. Hyman (more fr age 5-6+ I think ) Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears: A West African Tale by Verna Aardema Dr. Desoto, by William Steig An Extraordinary Egg, by Leo Lionni

I so agree with all of this. Sixty hours per week is a lot, but she works too and probably has more of the child care. Does he help with laundry or pitch in with other things? Is their 4 year old maybe going through a phase where more intense parenting is required and she is overwhelmed? The dinner thing makes me wonder... have they ever sat down and defined their expectations for who does what around the house? I think that is the first step. Does he expect her to cook on the days that they both work? Dh and I had an adjustment period after kids where we had to redefine our expectations for one another and be clear about what we wanted and what we were willing and able to do.

We are halfway through first grade and SOTW1. Ds nearly always narrates--we do one section of the chapter at a time, so that is usually two days per week. I write his narration down and he draws a picture. We do the map on the first day. From time to time we also use the globe or our world wall map, and with this we can review the previous chapters and what happened in the different areas. I always search my library for the supplemental reading, but only have something maybe every 2-3 weeks. I don't worry about it. We just read these when we can, some time during the week. Sometimes over several weeks, in the case of Egyptian and Roman myths, and the retellings of the Iliad and the Odyssey--these type of books are not part of our "history time", but just part of life, and we read them in short segments and we take turns telling back (I need to do it, too, so I can keep all of the characters straight!). I think the AG projects are great, but most of them don't appeal to ds. I do see him incorporating history into his play, or sometimes he will take one of the project ideas and think of something else that is sort of related, to do. They are not typical cookie cutter projects; most of them are neat ideas, ah well, maybe my second child will want to do them in a few years.

I wonder about this, too. I have a 6 yo who is reading. I don't know how to assess reading level exactly, but he reads SL 2-intermediate books independently--I guess that is late 2nd grade level? We are almost through AAS level 1 and up through lesson 19 or 20, it is mostly cvc and cvcc words, so we fly through a lesson and he hasn't learned anything new. But now that we are getting to the end of the book and encountering a few rules, I am feeling like it is a waste of time to do spelling now. I wonder if it is not only good to wait until they are reading well, but also really writing a lot and having something to say? My son does copywork daily and he might write a note or a caption or something once a week or so. But I think it might be better for a rules-based spelling program to be learned when he can apply it. There is also the thought that some will be natural spellers and won't need a spelling program, but you won't likely know that yet in first grade. I have heard that spelling lags 1-2 years behind reading level. I am a natural speller and having to learn rules might have tripped me up more than helped (because there are many exceptions to the rules).

Thank you! I will look into what you all have posted. I am familiar with MFW and do like a lot of things about it; however, I should have mentioned I am using SOTW for history (first grade currently) and maybe TOG in a few years. So I want a program that goes through the Bible separately from history. I'm happy to hear any other suggestions, too.

As I go through the Vos Story Bible in conjunction with readings from the OT, I keep thinking about this. Right now DS is getting a survey of the Bible in story form. I am guessing at the rate we do this, with occasional picture books and activities about the Jewish holidays, it will take about 2 years to get through the Bible. I was thinking, wouldn't it be great to have a multi-aged curriculum that would go through the Bible chronologically, in cycles, with accompanying books, commentary, and perhaps, activities? Is ther anything like this? I know that TOG has Bible integrated with year 1 history, but what do you do in the other 3 years? And I don't necessarily want to discuss the Bible only as history, either. I am thinking of a guide that would go through and advance the study as progressively higher levels, but that could be done as a family the way TOG does for history.

You could always do both. :) We used FIAR for K and had a great time with it. I also read chapter books aloud, including many of the SL K books, the ones that were more fun and less intense. There are a couple of books from SL1 that are also great for RA for this age-- Mr. Popper's Penguins is one that I remember. When I started reading chapter books aloud with my kids, I started with only a few pages at a time, until they'd start getting restless, not even a whole chapter.

Janice Van Cleave's book for human body looks fun. We are using it later this year for first grade. I am looking for interesting things for plants, also. We have a small garden and the kids plant things with us all the time. Maybe I just need some good printouts for parts of a plant along with some good books; I'll be watching this thread.

I agree there is value to both. With my 6 yo son we are doing CM-style narrations for the lit. we read, and sometimes for SOTW, and then with WWE we just do summary narrations. I usually ask the questions as written in the workbook, but this past week I have started asking him first to summarize in 1-3 sentences, and then if there are any questions he didn't address, I go back and ask him those. He is doing great with this and I am considering going through level 1 at a slightly faster pace or skipping a few weeks so that we begin level 2 with some dictation towards the end of the year.

There is also Animal Worlds from Winter Promise, but I don't know what ages your dc are. You could also do your own thing--have a heavy science program as your spine and then add lots of living books based on science including science biographies. You would get a little history thrown in that way, too--history for whatever time period the discoveries were made.

I am curious, too. I think it is good to summarize, but also good to remember some details. It seems like there is a difference between TWTM approach to narration vs. a Charlotte Mason approach. I think from my reading of CM that a narration such as your ds gave would be encouraged, whereas WWE (and other TWTM resources) would encourage a short, concise summary. I think there is benefit to both--I let ds do longer narrations for our lit. and history, but with WWE I encourage him to get it down to a couple of sentences. Looking forward to other opinions.

For first grade we still need to add in science (we've only been reading a few books sporadically), composer study, artist and picture study, and could be more consistent about art. I'd like to start nature notebooks, too. We have nature walks and look things up but haven't been documenting any of it.

:lurk5:

We are on week 8. Ds6 does a lot of narration across the curriculum. I don't always say "Tell me one thing you remember" and ask all the questions. Some times I just ask him to narrate. Usually this is longer than a workbook page, so I will write it on another piece of paper. Then write down a couple of sentences on the workbook page for him to copy. You could use your own handwriting paper and have the copywork be a little longer. Or do additional copywork from history or science.

When we started at 5, I also figured we were on par to finish around 6. But there were times when we needed to slow down, or even drop it for a couple of weeks, to let things sink in. Or spend a week going over certain phonograms again, and mainly reviewing past lessons. We only have about 30 lessons left, but we are doing it at the rate of 3 lessons a week, and have been incorporating some writing since starting multisyllable words. He is 6.5.

Calculadders?

I have a 6 yo and have both. Drawing With Children does take more planning. AP is open and go, pretty much. AP is more open-ended and does not provide any drawing instruction (at least for book 1 K-3). It is looking at art and then doing a project. I started DWT but switched to AP. I do want to go back to DWT later, but for now, getting my feet wet with all this other new first grade curriculum, I just wanted something easier for me. We are having a lot of fun with AP, though.

Ours go to children's church from about age 3 to about age 6. This is only during the sermon, so for about 20 minutes. They are present for the rest of the service. Before that, I have never left them in the nursery, even though in my church about 95% of people do, even the tiny babies. I don't have any articles to support it, only my feelings as a mom. I cannot keep my mind on the service if I know my baby is another room, crying for me. When they are tiny, often their nursing is unpredictable, so they need to be with me. Even as toddlers, my kids are pretty attached. DH and I have taken turns sitting with them in the nursery as 1-2 year olds, if they are too wiggly for the service. And having sat back there many times, we have observed that though the parents are given pagers, the workers don't call them even if the child cries most of the time. I'm just not okay with that.

LA: cementing phonics with portions of ETC 5-8 copywork: WWE level 1 (4 days/week) and Draw Write Now book 1 (once/wk) All About Spelling plus some sight words notebooking some of his independent reading narrating with WWE, literature, history and science FLL 1 (2-3 times/week) various literature for read alouds Math: Singapore 1A/1B History: SOTW 1 with activity guide--mapping and notebooking, library books Science: This is the favorite subject so we are mostly child-led here. Mostly life science this year, with some other experiment kits from the Young Scientist's Club added in. Lots of library books, discussion, and independent experimentation. :) Art: Artistic Pursuits book 1 every 1-2 weeks Ambleside Online scheduled picture study Music: AO scheduled composer study-- still need to add this in children's choir PE: soccer and swimming Language: plan to add in The Easy Spanish when I get our schedule a little more streamlined

I believe the children are expected to read on their own by year 4. Yep, Robin Hood is very advanced for a second grader! (It's advanced for me, lol). HTH.

I think the Sydney Taylor (All of a Kind Family) series was mentioned. Elizabeth Enright books are also wonderful; I loved them as a little girl.