Love love love RightStart. It is giving my K-er such a fantastic foundation for future mathematics, I am truly thrilled with it.

We do the majority of "school" in the afternoon after lunch -- I swear we are twice as fast when we wait to start! Finding the opportune time for *your* kids to be focused and really engaged is so important.

We're doing the Warriors books as read-alouds, and my DD is quite pleased about how both male and female cats are warriors, the Thunderclan leader is a warrior, etc. We also like the Redwall books (still read-aloud at this point) for having some (not enough, but some) pretty strong female characters.

OK, so to follow-up, do most people drill and memorize these facts in isolation? I mean, the times tables I get, and I think up to 12 x 12 should be absolutely down cold. But, while I have personally "memorized" addition facts, I can't remember them ever being consciously memorized. I feel like I just added 5+2 enough times that eventually I just knew it was 7. I mean, just from using RightStart, with its emphasis on not counting, my DD knows everything up to 5+5 without having to think about it. It seems to me the rest of them will come the same way, just practicing enough times so it's second nature. Am I naive? Or is that just another way to drill?

I keep seeing posts about helping children memorize their "math facts" and I have no idea what you're talking about. It seems to go beyond times tables. What are these mysterious facts? It is just knowing things like 6+2=8 down cold so you don't have to do the calculation?

I am documenting our cooking and gardening as part of our health "curriculum" as well as using the Food Pyramid stuff from the USDA website: http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/resources/mypyramidclassroom.html

We're in a similar boat. My DD does a lot of free writing, because it's fun for her and she does a lot of story writing with creative spelling on her own time, etc. But we are also methodically going through HWT, even though she certainly thinks she can already write, for many of these same reasons. She even starts her S's from the bottom! And she had this bizarre way of making lower case e's that I thought would be a total pain to correct, but after reviewing lower case e in HWT and my reminding her a few times when I saw her doing it her funky way, she now writes them correctly without prompting. So, I'd think it would be worth it to work through the K level HWT book and really get proper letter formation down.

Logic, Engineering, but also math, and science (physics). We use LEGO all the time for math.

A friend of mine has her son chew gum and play with silly putty while she reads, and all of a sudden he is retaining the information. Something that works in my house when my K'er gets glassy-eyed is to stop every few sentences and check in with her, see what she's retaining as we go. It's annoying for *me* to interrupt the flow of the reading, but *she* can sometimes find it very helpful.

Here's mine from a few months ago when we were first getting started. It's still pretty much the same! http://www.chickencounting.com/2010/07/day-in-life-of-our-homeschool.html

We use AAS as our phonics program, along with the McGuffey primers. It has been working really well, and I love how she is learning decoding and encoding at the same time and not as separate skills.

I am glad I decided to start it this year for K, because some of it would be way too easy/boring for a 1st grader. But there are other parts that I think will challenge her -- I'm just planning to speed up the pieces she already knows and linger on the stuff that's new.

:bigear: We just started and I'm thinking we may be moving pretty quickly through the first lessons, but then it does seem to get a big meatier. Or maybe it's just a matter of finding my DD's level.

We don't have cable, and the only broadcast channel that comes in consistently is PBS (yay!). But I don't like to be limited to what's currently playing, so when my kids get to watch TV (usually 30 min per day), we select something available on Netflix streaming. In addition to all the great PBS shows already listed, my 2 and 5 y.o. really like Arthur -- it's not as explicitly educational, because mostly it focuses on emotions and family relationships and ethical dilemmas, but they absolutely love it and it's prompted excellent discussions.

Thanks for the links! I feel like we do so much, but the need to document everything just exhausts me. "As we made oat bran muffins, we talked about the importance of eating healthful food to keep our bodies strong." Can I just take a bunch of pictures of DD's organic vegetable garden she's been working on all year?? Documentation is going to be the death of me. ;)

Audiobooks of Winnie the Pooh have worked for all my kiddos. My 2 yo DS currently falls asleep at naptime (and bedtime) to the soundtrack from the movie Songcatcher -- it's all Appalachian folk music. Very soothing and lullabye-ish.

Got it for $2.44 -- thanks! I hope you have an Associates account and are getting credit for all these referrals. :)

Grrr, apparently I am supposed to be teaching Health. This is a total joke because of course, as a mom, I am *constantly* teaching Health! Nutrition, handwashing, etc. But I will somehow have to document this for our bi-annual review. Any ideas? Or is there a quick-and-dirty workbook-type curriculum we can do and be done with it? :bigear:

My DD, who is in K this year (but is "old" for her grade level and is doing lots of work that would be considered first grade level) is whipping through the K level HWT book (Letters and Numbers for Me). She will be done by the end of October at this point. So should she just continue to practice what she's learned for the rest of this schoolyear by doing copywork and writing practice? Or should I move on to the next workbook? Or should I supplement with another program, just to cover the bases? She is doing quite well with HWT.

No way could you blow it. Cut yourself some slack, for sure. It's K! Think how much he is benefitting just getting to listen to the olders' lessons! Stuff he would never be exposed to in public school. So, he's already ahead of the game. I write myself a weekly checklist to make sure we've gotten to everything I want to be able to do in a week. That way I don't feel like I'm letting things slip through the cracks. It could be as simple as checkboxes next to general things like: fine motor; writing practice; independent reading; count to 100. For me, it's a visual reminder to keep me on task and reassure me that we're gettin' some learnin' done. :)

I have a two-and-a-half-year-old who will not be deterred either. And I am a big believer in waiting! I am giving him tons of free play and crafts and outdoor time and all he wants is to sound out letters on the fridge. I've relented to letting him play Starfall and even let him start his own Reading Eggs account. It satisfies his interest for now, but I'm hoping he backs off, honestly. Early does not mean better -- but then again, you never want to squash a child's eagerness to learn!

All three of the "phonics" tools we use are "other" on the poll... :) 1. Reading Eggs -- best computer-based system I've seen. 2. AAS -- teaches the phonograms systematically in a way that is engaging and really works for my kid. I love that she is learning encoding and decoding at the same time. 3. McRuffey Eclectic Primers -- love love love. I feel like we are learning our phonics and our history at the same time. ;)

I have the abacus and all math manipulatives I might need in a basket on the shelf. The basket only comes out at math time. It includes the cards for the games, and ziploc baggies with things I've printed off and cut out ahead of time. In my weekly folder, I have a copy of any worksheets or other paper things I will need for that week's lessons. Other than that, I read through the lessons before-hand so I know what to expect, and that's that. I love the script, and mostly we stick to it. I also love that because the lessons are so short, we can do math every day but not for too long -- she never gets bored with it, but she gets lots of frequent practice.

Well, fitting in nature study is obvious. :) I find worksheets and other written work to be tough to do out of the house, but we bring art and lots and lots of reading (as well as our nature journals!). I always bring a blanket to spread out under the trees and we read. Glorious (when the weather allows!). :)

We do it during tea time. Very low key. Each week rotates between an artist, a composer, or a poet. Over the course of the week, we read about the artist's life, listen to their music, do a picture study of their work, listen to their poetry, or whatever. This way they're at the table, but they're primed for fun, which puts them in the right mindframe.