Do you think RSO Life would work for a kindergartner? I was going to wait until first grade to start RSO, and my kindergarten plan was to do a lot of nature study with some units on things dd is interested in (human body, insects, birds, etc.). But when I look at RSO Life, it seems like I may just be duplicating a lot of it with my own plan (but probably not so well!). So now I'm wondering if I should just do it for K. Thoughts?

Oops, wrong forum. Sorry!

Wow! Good for him!

It looks like they're going to have a deal for the Little Kids mag on the 23rd. :)

I have printed some from Homeschool Creations. She has cute stuff. Honestly, though, I find that just a few preschool packs are more than sufficient since they all target basically the same skills. And they take me longer to find, print, laminate, and cut out than they take to complete! So I would also suggest some other "school" activities for your little one. We've gotten much more use and variety out of things like activity bags, beads, stamps, stickers, workbooks, etc.

I think epignone has good advice--choose your subjects and then start researching curricula. WTM (the book) is a good place to start because it narrows things down quite a bit and you can trust that SWB's suggestions are high quality. If you're feeling really overwhelmed, I would suggest choosing from among her recommendations for the specific grades you need. As for the transition, I think it may depend on the curriculum and where your child is in each subject. You may need to evaluate each subject separately. Ask a lot of questions on this board, go to a homeschool conference and flip through potential curricula at the curriculum fair, and try to find the best fit for where your child is. Your K/1-er will be much simpler because you can just start from the beginning. Good luck!

Good to know! I still print her pages with the starting dots on each letter and I usually watch her a little to make sure her strokes are in the proper direction. So happy not to spend extra money on the workbooks!

My dd (4.5) LOVES to write, so she does quite well for her age. Most of what we have done so far is that I let her dictate words, stories, or letters (to grandmas, cousins, or friends) and I type them up in StartWrite for her to copy. I recently ordered a bunch of kindergarten stuff from Rainbow Resource and I was going to get a couple GD workbooks but I forgot and now I don't want to pay separate shipping for them. :thumbdown: I guess I'm wondering if it's okay to just keep doing what we've been doing (I also plan to add in some simple sentences from OPGTR to reinforce what we're reading.) I've noticed in people's siggies that a lot of people use these handwriting books through all the levels. What would my dd be missing out on if I skipped all the workbooks and just did copywork? I don't want to spend he money if it isn't necessary, but I don't want to short change her either.

I'm sorry, I just had to thank you for this! It gave me a great laugh! (and it's a really clever idea)

Yeah, I can see this being the case. I actually do think we're all a little overly paranoid about supervision, but we live right near some woods with walking trails (which we love and enjoy regularly!) and I just don't care to have my toddler wander off and get lost. When dd (4) is playing outside with her little band of friends, I actually let them go do their thang. But if DS (2 in May) is out there, supervise I must. And that wouldn't be the case for me if I had a large fenced yard--I would let him do his thang, too!

My dd gathers sticks and leaves and builds "bird nests". She also loves to gather berries and make "salads" with leaves and grass. She plants acorns with every belief that they will grow into oak trees in the near future. She draws with chalk. She LOVES all things water and will walk around with a spray bottle spraying things for a good hour. She also likes to pour and measure (I just put a couple water tubs outside with some measuring cups and spoons.) Right now she is really into trying to climb trees. DS follows her lead. :D

It depends on the day around here, but we live in a townhouse with limited space outside. I don't have the time to sit on the porch and watch my kids play for 4 to 6 hours a day. I can spare an hour or so and then I usually watch them from the kitchen, so when the weather is decent, they can definitely get in 3+ hours. On colder days, 1-2 hours is their limit (can't say I blame them). We only hit the park about once a week. For me, I just can't keep up on my chores, meals, organization, etcetera, when I leave the house too much. I know some people thrive on it but me, not so much. If I'm gone too much the whole operation falls apart. :ack2: I think that CM's recommendation was based on the setting her students lived in. It was a lot more rural, they had more space. If I lived in the country, I KNOW my kids would be outside all day. I know this because we don't do TV or other screen media and whenever they're in the country or even at a house with a big yard, they find endless things to do outside and they spend all day doing them. Unfortunately, that's not our reality. :(

:iagree: So true!

I'm wanting to do a gentle little American history survey for my dd's K year, before we start SOTW in first grade. (I just want her to be vaguely familiar with some of the main figures and stories and stuff.) I am considering a number of approaches, including a focus on biographies of famous Americans. But I also think she would love something like the American Girl series and I have found a number of unit study resources online to go with that. I know the books are for 8 and up or something, but would you consider them an appropriate read-aloud for kindergarten? I glanced through some of them and they are definitely things she would love, from what I can see. Heck, she loves Andrew Lang's fairy books and those stories are LONG and use some tricky language, but she totally follows them.

Bummer! I guess I'll keep my eyes open for the next one. How do I find out when it's coming? Don't tell me people talked about it here, because I don't want to believe that I overlooked that.

Yes, this is the one consistent piece of advice that I'm seeing everywhere, and I'll be honest, I'm guilty of setting her up to lie. So that's something I need to work on. But the more common scenario is that someone will start crying (either my ds or my niece) and then they will say that dd hit them and she'll deny it. There have been a few times where, with enough pressing, she confesses that she did hit. But for the most part, she will deny to the death. Since I know that my niece is a bit of a drama queen and loves to get dd in trouble, I also think SHE is lying about it sometimes, so if dd denies to the death, I can't punish her in good conscience. But a lot of times, I'm pretty sure she did do it and is totally lying. What do I do with that?

My 4yo dd has started lying quite a bit. I know it's developmentally appropriate behavior but I also don't think I should just let it go. She lies about naughty stuff she does, like hitting her brother or her cousin, eating something she was told not to eat, drawing on things she knows she's not supposed to draw on, etc., in order to avoid consequences (obviously). I'm so confused about how to deal with it! I feel like everyone has different advice. Some people say to focus on the misdeed, and ignore the lying. Some say you have to address the lying, though separately from the misdeed. DH comes from a family with eight kids and every single one of them lied, lied, lied all the time to their parents. We have talked a lot about why they did it, and most of them agree that it was because the punishments were that bad (they were usually things like being grounded for the weekend and these kids were very social, so that was brutal). As a result, my SIL totally lets her kids off the hook as long as they tell the truth. She wants honesty so badly that she'll grant immunity from whatever crime they may lie about. I don't think that's a great idea either--do anything you want as long as you tell the truth about it. Another problem is that I'm not always entirely sure that dd is lying (though I'm about 95% certain), so I tend to err on the side of giving her the benefit of the doubt because I don't want to be unfair. But I also don't want her to learn that lying works. I'm just so confused! Aaaaaah! Help me!

Or did I already miss it? I feel like a bought a bunch of stuff about this time, or maybe a little later, last year.

I'm a writing tutor and general writing nazi and I could not agree with this more. Honestly, if you're not confident in your ability to write well, I would even suggest finding a friend, family member, or tutor who can read over your child's writing assignments and give feedback. That really is the key. There are affordable online tutoring services that can help, too (like tutor.com).

I totally love this idea! Thanks for posting it. It seems so much more fun than workboxes, and definitely takes up less space.

Good point. I don't know why I didn't think of that. We do ETC and she does love it. I guess we'll just keep doing what we're doing at whatever pace works. Thanks for the help!

What a great idea! My dd is definitely more amenable to reading lessons when I use the whiteboard, but I never thought of letting her "teach" me, which I think she would really, really love.

My 4.5 yo dd has incredible fine motor skills and just LOVES writing and spelling. She doesn't really care for reading, though, so I'm looking for some ideas to maybe use her writing obsession to sneak in phonics instruction. One thing that has been working a little is I'll have her read a little "story" (if you can call them that) in OPGTR and then she copies it (so happily!) and draws a picture to illustrate it. She also just sits down at the table and asks me to tell her some words to spell. She loves that. Any other ideas? Do you think something like WRTR or SWR might be a good fit for her? (And don't worry--yes, I realize that she's really young and I don't need to push the reading. That's why I'm not pushing it--I'm sneaking it. :lol:)

Canola. What side effects does it cause?

I played varsity basketball all four years (my true love) and softball and ran cross country, which I hated. I was a student body officer for two years--so much fun! I was in band until the middle of 10th grade, when it started conflicting with my sports, and then I was in choir. I also did Academic Decathlon, National Honor Society, and other nerdy things like that. I was quite heavily involved and I really loved it. I had a very positive high school experience.