Yes, there are times I don't remember the details either and they are pretty boring. I think we both enjoy listening to the story on CD in the car too. Then it just becomes a neat story. I think the other thing my daughter was not appreciating is spending too much time on each section. I would read a section and then we'd learn more about it through library books, activities, maps, coloring pages, etc. My impression now is that she just wants to know what happens next. She doesn't want to dwell on it a whole lot yet. So I figure we'll listen and read all the way through and then come back and start digging. :)

Yes. This is a lot how I'd like our day/school to function. When we are not actively covering our "subjects" I'm encouraging us to continue learning, exploring, creating, etc. I'm trying to find a balance between classically educating and interest driven education.

Thank you for all of your advice and stories. It has been really helpful to read about different peoples experiences and perspectives. I edited my original post but I just wanted to clarify that we don't call my daughter a First Grader either. She is a Kindergartner and that is what she tells everyone. I did that for the reasons other people have mentioned and also because I don't want any pressure on her to keep accelerating at the speed she has been. If we have a slower year or if she levels off for any other number of reasons I'd like to keep her "label" on par with what our local school districts would label her as. I was just explaining that academic wise we have been following what is laid out for a first grader in the Well Trained Mind. Reading through this I am considering backing down a little though because we are spending the amount of time on work that a first grader is expected to do rather than a Kindergartner. We're covering all the subjects outlined in WTM. I'm thinking I might slow it down a little. Just not sure. I think I will ask my daughter what she'd like to do. ;) In response to a few things that were mentioned I do struggle with the challenge balance. I went to public school and I always got A's and school was never hard. I became an extreme procrastinator because of it. Often we would have projects that were supposed to take all semester, I remember one in Biology, specifically. Anyway, I stayed up all night the day before and skipped the first 3 classes before Biology and cranked out my semester long project. I got an A+. My best friend spent all semester on hers, worked hard and got a B-. Going to College was rough. It was the first time I had to actually work and I was in no way prepared for the amount of studying that was involved. I had never needed to study before that and it really was a rude awakening. I'm not sure how it happened really but it felt like everything I was supposed to be learning in Public School was stuff I all ready knew or was intuitive enough to figure out so I never learned how to study. Once I got to College and I didn't study and tried to use the same habits the results were awful. All this to say that I agree there is a fine line to walk. I'd like to make sure that I teach my daughter appropriate habits for learning and applying herself where she is capable of being. However, I don't want to push her beyond the point where learning becomes a dread rather than something fascinating, challenging and most of the time fun.

In reading a few various threads I'm starting to wonder if we are taking the right approach. I'd be interested in hearing from both sides no matter where you fall on the issue. I just reserved the book "Better Late Than Early" by Raymond S. Moore but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Here is my question. My daughter has a always been a quick and easy learner. She picks things up very quickly and has been advanced in most academic considered areas for pretty much her entire life. She's always done things sooner than kids her age. She is however, emotionally and socially just like any other kid, just a quick learner. Because she's perfectly capable of doing it we started first grade this year. It hasn't been an issue. She is learning the material and doing fine. We had to tweak the way we were approaching Story of the World and switch it to a read-a-loud for "fun" rather than doing any review questions or narrations with it and we are also using the activity guide and further reading on our own, etc. But other than stopping with the review questions we haven't had any issues. She sometimes dislikes giving some of her time to school (meaning she'd rather run off and go play Barbies sometimes) but once we start she's fine and we don't have any big battles or anything like that. With that being said, just because she is capable of doing all of this first grade work should we be? Would our time be better spent waiting until next year and focusing on other things now? My daughter turns 6 on Christmas Eve and would have started Kindergarten this year if she were in Public School. We decided on 1st grade because she's met every end of year item that would be expected from a Kindergartner simply by living our regular life. Up until this year we've never done any type of curriculum. So, from those who have been down this road or for those that just have an opinion I am all ears. :bigear: ETA: Haven't had a chance to read all the responses yet, working on it, but wanted to add that my daughter is only told that she is in Kindergarten. She has no idea she is doing first grade work. I didn't want that kind of pressure on her and I also don't want her to feel bad if her learning curve slows and she eventually is doing work that is grade level. Anyway, as far as she knows she in Kindergarten and that is what she tells people (family, friends, strangers) that ask.

Ooh fun! Will look to see if our library has this.

This is fantastic!! Thank you so much. Thanks for the tip on evernote too. Off to look that up.

Good to know! I imagine it is so much easier on the younger siblings once you know what to expect. Poor first children, they are such guinea pigs.

Thank you! We implemented memorization this year and she is so quick to memorize things. We started at the end of September and she's memorized 7 poems so far and a few scriptures. Not to mention little sayings for learning the months of the year, how many days are in a month, etc. Plus 30 spelling words. She's got a pretty amazing memory. Or maybe it's normal and I'm just so impressed because my memory SUCKS. She memorizes the poems before I do. What are VP cards and Living Memory, etc? Are these curriculum's? Is there a book or a link that discusses the various methods and auditory helps and such? I've never heard of such a thing. We just read them over practicing one line at a time, writing them down, reading them, etc.

Thanks!!

Thank you for everyone's advice! It has been tremendously helpful. As a little update on our personal issue, Camden is enjoying the SOTW so much now. We received the CD's from the library and it is the only thing she wants to listen to in the car. We are on the 3rd CD now and she is eating it up. The other day when she got to choose a read-a-loud she went and grabbed SOTW. She loves it, she just wants to read it like a story and isn't quite ready to be interrupted too much by doing little mini-units quite yet. She did pick out an Egyptian book of her own on the library (we've all ready read dozens) but she told me as she brought it to me that she wants to keep learning about Egyptians. Yay. I am absolutely loving the CD's as well. They're fantastic.

Thanks! We will give the trial a try. :) Anyone else? She keeps trying to play this game because she wants to like it but it drives her bonkers. There was a game where seagulls were flying by clutching birds and she was supposed to click on the word "good", which was fine. But she had to click on 20 of them before that game was over and the birds flew slow. She was so irritated. I wish they had an advanced version of this game that proceeded a bit faster and had less repetition.

A friend recommended the website Reading Eggs to us and how much their children loved it. There is a 2 week free trial so we signed up for it. I do like that it has a pretest so it doesn't start them on material that is too easy and she loves that you earn golden eggs, that you build a little world and advance through levels and all of that stuff. The problem is that it is too repetitious. It really annoys her since she is a very quick learner. It would be one thing if it checked her knowledge of the topic again later or in a different form but when you do one activity it has you do the same activity over and over before moving to the next game. For example one of the activities is to click on the word, "and" and every time she does it does a little animation. Well it has her do this 6 times or so before it moves on to the next game and it is like that with every activity. If you are kicking a soccer into the goal and they tell you to choose the word "it", then she has to kick the ball into the goal "it" 5 or 6 times before moving on, etc. She loves the concept of the game and the games itself but get really annoyed by doing the same thing over and over. Does anyone know of a similar fun reading game that reinforces what they're learning in a fun way? She loves to play on the computer and I'd rather her play something educational. I'd prefer a game that has a free trial of some sort. If you have a child that needs a lot of repetition your child would love this game. My daughter is a very quick learner so stuff like that irritates her. If you want to check it out yourself just sign up and make an account for yourself. I set up my own profile and played with it awhile and had it start me on their furthest level for starters by answering the pretest questions all correctly and I found it annoying for all the repetition as well. Website: http://readingeggs.com/

I think that it is so funny that "when two vowels go a walking, the first one does the talking" contains a contradiction of the rule within the saying. LOL.

write a book

We used to have this problem. I now use our online system constantly. I check out books online and I get weekly emails telling me what is due, what is ready to be picked up, etc. We go to the library at least weekly but usually more than once a week. It helps that it is only about 5 minutes from our house and on the way to the other places we go. When we finish reading a book (if it is not one that will be re-read), watching a movie, listening to a CD, etc. it goes on a designated spot on our kitchen counter by the door. Then the next time we leave to go to the library it goes back and we put it through their drop box so we don't even have to go in. We have an entire bookshelf dedicated to library books. That is where they belong when they are not in someones hand. Everything from the library goes on the bookshelf whether it is DVD's, CD's, tapes, etc. For books in their room, my kids each have their own library tote. A large plastic tub that library books go in when they are not reading them. If they're not put in the tub when done then my kids lose the privilege of having library books in their room for x amount of days. The rule in my house is that if a library book is late/lost the child responsible will pay the late fees. Everyone is VERY careful about the library books now. :) Honestly, I don't know how we'd survive without our library. It is an AMAZING resource for us. Through the inter-library loan we have access to so many great libraries here. In the first few months of this year we've saved upwards of $400-500 by using the library but we use it for A LOT. Lots of audio cd's (all the jim weiss ones), books on tape/cd, dvd's and vhs, history books, read-a-louds, mcguffy readers, encyclopedia's, SOTW on CD, american girl books on CD, computer games and on and on. We always have 75+ items out at a time. So far this year we've paid .20 in library fines that my daughter had to take out of her piggy bank. ;) Oh yes, you can also try calling the collections department of the library and being extra nice but plead your case. Let them know you are homeschoolers, let them know of the mistake, how you are implementing a better system and how much not using the library affects your family. My guess is that they'll offer to reduce the amount owed as long as they haven't done it for you before. In one city I lived in they took away more than half the amount owed. Oh, and we only use ONE library card! Crucial for us.

My guess, from limited experience, is that in the long run it won't matter. The readers that come with your program will be geared to use and give him confidence in what he has all ready been taught. You'll build up as you go along and when the program is complete and he has learned all of the necessary rules he should be able to read any book. Our program, Phonics Pathways, which I love does not come with any books but I still have to find books that focus on early phonics (short vowels, cvc, very basic sight words, etc) and avoid books that we haven't learned the rules for yet. Other times I just tell her what the rule is or give her the word.

I think you will like Writing With Ease. We are doing this as well and my daughter enjoys this program and has no troubles with the narrations or questions in this program. I think because she is familiar with the stories we have covered so far and because the stories are short and sweet. Granted she likes the copywork much more than the narration exercises but she doesn't mind them. She just doesn't always produce a narration that is central to the point. For example, when we did a narration for Alice in Wonderland when they were in the courtroom for the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts her narration sentence was, "The White Rabbit held a trumpet in one hand." LOL

Oh your post was beautiful. Thank you so much. And you are so right, it is such a balancing act. I wish someone would give me a fake kid to homeschool from k-high school, screw up a bit and then give me my real kids and start over. LOL. I suppose that is what forgiveness is for. None of us will do this perfect. What I have to stop and tell myself on occasion is that my relationship as mom is MORE important than my relationship with her as teacher. I can find a whole slew of people to be teachers for her. But I don't want to find anyone else to be her mom. Basically my long term goal is to raise kids that want to be around us when they're all grown up, that enjoy learning and that find the meaning of life. So, back to things you raised in your post. Finding read-a-loud time is tough right now. But I'm trying as hard as I can. My 2 year old makes it really tough. He is a handful and enjoys with glee disturbing people. Don't ask me why. He is so precious on one hand and just as cute as can be and the other part of him enjoys getting a rise out of any and everyone. Seriously, the other day while we were grocery shopping he was in my arms and a man walked by and he threw himself to the side and hit the mans arm. Not hard or anything, not to hit him as in hurt him but hit him like "ha, ha, I got you!". Anyway, that's a tangent but this little guy is making me reevaluate everything I thought I had nailed down as a parent. OK, so we are reading as much as possible and I'm sure in another 6 months or so we'll be much better off there. I stick to chapter books at night before bed after the 2 year old is asleep. So, from those of you who have pushed too hard, what are the warning signs? Especially once your children are older. I think when they are young it is pretty easy to see (maybe not always) but for me I know to back off if she is not enjoying it because a. she's five b. we have her whole life to cover the material c. she's five. But how do you find the fine line when they are older. Obviously sometimes they just don't want to do it because it's not fun, because there are more exciting things to do/learn so sometimes we must push on but when do you back down? I really appreciate your post. I keep reading back through it. My mind is getting so tired now so I'm having a hard time with specific responses but thank you for all the thought you put into your post.

Whew. So many good points in here. Where to start. In order, I suppose. :) 1. This has come up a couple of times in this thread which must mean it is important. I asked another poster but I will ask you too. Can you elaborate for me? What teaching styles, methods and such are standard to be familiar with. The first I ever read was John Holt and I loved it. Then I came across unschooling and some of it resonates but for me it isn't the answer. Then I came across Charlotte Mason and then The Well Trained Mind which is where we are now. Is there a nice basic list of authors/books or other such material that should be the spine, per se, of any home educator? 2. Where do I look into gaps at? Gaps? What gaps? I have gaps? Someone help me??!! Teasing. LOL. But seriously, elaborate please. 3. This is good advice. We haven't had any tears. Well, okay, when her brother drew all over her copywork there were tears but I can't shelve him. Harumph. 4. Yes, I think we need Phonics Road. I was going to invest in that for next year or the year after. What is a good year to start? I am a great writer. I write all the time and I love to write. Someday, I want to publish books. But I know nothing, absolutely nothing, but the very very very basics when it comes to grammar and punctuation. What makes me angry is that I didn't even know that I didn't know anything about this until I went to College. So, I want to learn alongside my daughter in terms of grammar and writing in general. I've got ideas of plenty but apparently putting them on paper appropriately is not my area of talent. I have not heard of Tapestry of Grace. What curriculum is that for? I know I could go google it but I'm lazy right now. Humor me. :) Is it a boxed type curriculum or does it teach something specific? 5. Yes, yes and yes. I have had to remind myself of this for her whole life. She has alway been extremely verbal (talking in full sentences and having complex conversation at 18 months) and it makes it very hard to keep her real age in mind. Academically she is ahead but emotionally and maturity wise she is just like any other 5 year old for the most part. It is a constant battle to not treat her like she is 7, 8 or 9. It helps to be around other kids her age to have reminders of what my expectations should be. I'm just trying to follow her lead academically, so far I haven't pushed her academically at all. But I definitely forget to keep my expectations of her behavior and emotional maturity in check. And thank you for everything else! :)

I think it is important for us to all hear stories like these. While teaching classically is a very valid and helpful approach we can not get so lost within a method that we lose the child or ignore warning signs. There are so many ways to learn and I feel so blessed to be able to homeschool my kids and have the freedom to change things up, if needed. Good for you for being so in-tune with your daughter that you were able to really help her thrive in her learning. I think that is what it is all about. I think there is so much truth to the unschooling method in terms of following a child's passions, which I was originally attracted to. We've spent the first 5 years (minus the last 1 1/2 months) with my daughter navigating all of our learning. Now granted, I exposed her to things and guided her a bit but it was all "interest led". It has taught me a lot and helped me to understand what she enjoys. I am trying to meld that with what we are doing and I also keep it in the back of my mind as we implement new areas of study.

Thank you. I appreciate knowing I am not alone in this experience. We love the maps and coloring pages too and just checked out the SOTW Cd's from our library to try out. I'm excited to listen to them in the car tomorrow. I think that is how my son will be before too long. He is only 2 so very limited in what he is physically able to do but he follows us around all day and when he's not actively trying to destroy what we are trying to do, he is trying to copy us. When my daughter is spelling her spelling words or spelling out the words to a word she is writing he copies her. It is funny. Especially since he can hardly even speak in full sentences yet.

Do you have a book/article/link or source that has helped you learn to apply Socratic questioning/discussions or other ways to facilitate good open ended discussions. I mean, we do this, to an extent but I would love to read something on this topic as this really seems worth being well versed in.

I use the "tell daddy" all the time too! It works great. :) So what has helped you the most? What has gotten you into your groove?

Yes, you nailed it! We do have the activity guide and have really enjoyed the coloring pages and maps and are just getting started with the activities. We're getting ready to make scrolls and clay tablets. We did do cave paintings and that was fun. We are also going to make our nile river but we keep getting sidetracked from building our activities. She always wants our spare time to be spent reading or doing art so honestly the history activities keep getting bumped but I think she'll have a blast when we get to them. So. Million dollar question. Did you mummify the chicken?? Anyone mummify anything else even more exciting??

Thank you for sharing. It is good to make sure we keep things in balance especially when we are presented with a little one who will not fit into our preconceived molds of how things will go. I'm pretty sure my son is going to make me start from scratch when it comes time to start formally teaching him. My daughter is so easy to teach, she pretty much teaches herself and I'm just here to expose her to things and guide what we're learning. My experience parenting my son so far is teaching me that things will go much different with him.