I've seen quite a few people here say that this is something that only teachers say to hold bright kids back. Personally, I've only ever heard it as a way to ease the minds of parents who have late readers. As the age at which children are expected to read has moved back, and as more parents introduce workbooks and private tutoring and "Your Baby Can Read" and whatever, not to mention all the bragging Facebook posts people post about their amazing brilliant genius 18 month old who is reading Kant and putting together 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles, I think that many parents do worry that their child will be left in the dust. I think that if you look at it from this angle, it is true. Most kids will be proficient readers by 3rd grade. They may be on a 2rd grade level v. a 6th grade level, but they will still be reading well enough to be able to succeed in school.

Thanks, those are some great recommendations. :)

Thanks everyone. I skipped the self-written script today, and just worked off the ons I'm following. It was a little more awkward, but not enough to make a difference. And DD is so into our "activities" (as I've been calling it) that she was very patient while I got to where we needed to be. It definitely was easier not to do that much prepping, though :)

To be good at reading, like most things, you have to practice. Some kids who learn to read young will read a lot, and some won't. Some kids who learn to read in k will read a lot, and some won't. Some who learn to read in 2nd grade will read a lot, and some won't. I've read many places that most children learn to read between the ages of 4 and 7, so if we say that most kids learn to read by the end of 2nd grade then I think reading level in 3rd grade or beyond has more to do with practice than with any innate intelligence or giftedness. So, I think that yes, there probably is some truth to it. It's a fair assumption that an 8 year old child who learned to read at 4 has had more practice than one who learned to read at 7, but I don't think that it's an automatic truth, and i think it becomes even less fair an assumption as the child gets older.

I put that I was a double major on my resume. BA, My college. May, 2001 Double major in history and studio art.

Gosh, I really wasn't expecting this level of critique. I can guarantee that the level of work we are doing is not "insane" for a kindergartener. We are doing one day's lesson from the kindergarten curriculum, one day from MEP reception level (which is specifically for 4 year olds, fwiw). Then we do either a science activity (mostly taken from Science is Simple, which is a book for preschool) or something that would have fallen under "social studies". This week we studied matter, which basically means we froze and melted stuff. Last week we did a kindergarten map curriculum I found online, because DD is really into pirates and has been making "maps" to follow, like in some of her books. And I try to have an art project of some sort, too, because she loves that. So, I'm sorry, but maybe I'm explaining myself poorly, because I really don't see how I'm doing anything except a very gentle kindergarten program. For a child who is kindergarten age in many districts, including where we are moving next year and she will be put in 1st grade. The reading program we are using is much gentler than most of the k curricula I see recommended here... I wasn't even planning on doing handwriting yet, let alone something like copywork. But anyway. Thanks for the perspective on prep work. I'm still figuring things out as I go along, and don't want to plan too far in advance so we can slow down as needed. Reading your responses, I think my problem is that I need to prep smarter, not harder :). As I said, I'm still figuring things out as I go along, and I didn't spend all summer doing stuff, and I'm reading about things as I go.

I make a checklist every day of what's planned. DD likes to know what's coming. Then when we do a task, she can put a sticker on it. She can't read yet, so I use pictures. I just do a google image search for something related to the task and drag an appropriate picture into a word document. We usually have 5-6 pictures on the list, and the first is always reading a picture book.

In my public school, the college track kids took it in 8th grade. That way they could get to calculus by senior year. That was in the early 90s.

I loved the nursery. It was the best part of the hospital stay, LOL. I'm not sure I think nursery less hospitals are a great idea. I definitely needed to nap and recuperate a little. With DS it would have been fine, but my 2 DDs were not interested in letting me get any rest in the hospital.

I find these ones easy to teach, there are just questions to ask and things to explain and I want to be able to do it correctly and efficiently. Maybe now that we are both more into the swing of things, and she loves what we are doing, I'll read right off the screen and see how that goes.

Well, we are doing kindergarten, for complicated but good reasons :) It's easier for me to refer to a single sheet when I'm going through things, and it's easier to modify the curriculum the way I want. Both the English and math ones were designed for a classroom.

We've done two weeks of school now, and everything is going swimmingly with the school. Less so in terms of my free time! I feel like I spend longer prepping the lessons than we spend actually learning them. It takes up all of my evening. We do about 1.5 hours of schoolwork. Both the English and math curricula we use are scripted, so I type them over onto a Word document, making changes as necessary. I'm a fast typer, so that doesn't take long. Then I find something to do for science or social studies, which could be a project or an experiment or an online game. I try the game or watch the video to make sure it's what I want (especially I portent, IMO, because she's so young so I want to make sure she can do the game and that the video is appropriate... For an older kid if I trusted the website I don't think I would bother), and gather all the materials for the project. Then I think of an art project for us to do, and gather the supplies for that as necessary. Finally, I print out a daily to do list for her, so she can see her tasks and check them off. Is this over the top? Or normal? Our school time is short, and she has a typical 4yo attention span, so I want to school as efficiently as possible, so we have extra time for the games and art and gunner tasks. And I don't want her to get frustrated this early into things, so I want to spend time making sure everything will work. And she's so young that obviously I have to present everything and work through it all with her: no telling her to read a book and write me a report on it. Does it get easier? There are things that I want to do in my evenings for myself!

There is a state park called Wompatuck State Park that is about 35 miles outside Boston. I believe that it's the closest camping to Boston. It's in a really lovely historic town called Hingham, which has not only Wompatuck but another large park called World's End. World's End is just beautiful: it was laid out by Frederick Law Olmstead to be a housing development, but the houses were never built. Most of the trails are the carriage roads that he laid out. From there, you can either drive into Boston easily (not so easily during rush hour), or there is a commuter train and a commuter ferry. The ferry is a great ride (indoors and out, and there's a bar!) and it takes you right to downtown. It's also about 1/2way between Boston and Cape Cod if you wanted to see that.

I've had both, and I would never, ever do th OB again. Hearing it was really traumatic for me. Go to the OR and insist they put you all the way under. And I'm so sorry for your loss :(

DD loves writing, so even though I wasn't really planning on starting to work on her handwriting until she at least had some reading down, I think I'll speed things up. I really like the way the Barchowsky Italics look, but the program seems expensive. Does anyone have any reviews of it? I like the Zane Bloser cursive, but they start with several years of manuscript writing and I'd rather get to cursive quicker than that. I found some school (I think) that writes their own Palmer-based series. Even though I know nothing about it and can't see inside the workbook, I'm sort of tempted. Feel free to talk me down, LOL. I know that everyone loves HWT, but I don't really like the way it looks. I think it's fantastic for kids who hate handwriting but you need to convince them to make it legible, but DD loves handwriting and I think she'd like something a bit fancier. New American Cursive is designed to start before manuscript, but I don't love the way it looks. I prefer the Zane Bloser. Should I just do that and we can work through the manuscript books at double-speed and get to cursive in the middle of next year? DD has been obsessed with doing random handwriting worksheets that I print off the internet for months and months now, so I was thinking I should get her into the good habits of whatever style we go with now, so I don't have to reteach later.

The government sets a per mile reimbursement rate for government employees, and many private employers use it as a standard too. It's supposed to include gas as well as wear and tear on the car. In 2011, it was $.51 per mile. http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=232017,00.html I would offer to pay either that, or half that, depending on which you think is most appropriate. If your neighbor refuses, tell her that you want your DD to understand that life has expenses, and transportation is one of them.

Around here there are minimum standards that private schools must adhere to, or else they are shut down. I've never heard of it happening with a k-12 school, but it does happen with trade "colleges" with some frequency if there's proof that their graduates are not passing whatever licensing exams there are in enough numbers.

That describes me to a T, too... that's exactly why I was asking! I MUST MAKE SURE TO HAVE ALL MY BASES COVERED OR MY CHILDREN WILL BE MATH FAILURES LIKE ME! :eek: :lol:

I gave birth at that hospital, too! I had a great experience all 3 times, even though I did have C sections. Their lactation specialists were amazingly wonderful and I wanted to bring them all home from the hospital. I refer to it as my 4-day resort stay with all the free babysitting I wanted... :lol:

The curriculum we use has her memorize a few sight words in the first few weeks. This allowed her to read a whole 'book,' which she was so incredibly proud of being able to do. I think this was a big boost to her self-esteem, and she's now excitedly finding those words in picture books I'm reading to her. She's learning letter sounds too: b last week, and short a this week.

I know someone who is non-practicing Christian who was just hired by a Jewish school to teach math. He has excellent credentials, though. And it's a large and prestigious school. Those things would probably make a difference.

I would do it. Tell her that now that she's in kindergarten, she has a phys ed requirement, and she can either fulfill it with dance, or by running 25 laps around the block 2x a day :D In all seriousness, yes I would do it. I think that dance is a wonderful thing to study: it teaches self control, posture, rhythm, and movement. I plan on making all three of my children take it. Just very low key classes like you describe, but I think those are the best kind.

Thanks everyone, all of these responses make sense. I'm just starting out, so all of the choices are overwhelming, and though I know at DD's age it doesn't really matter, I want to feel like I'm on a good path.

I was so overwhelmed by math curriculum choice that I decided to go with MEP, since it's free. We're 15 lessons into the reception year, and things are going well. It's definitely slow and gentle, so I think we're going to start doing the Year 1 lessons concurrently: they're so different, I don't think that DD would notice. She's very good at math concepts. I was searching MEP here, and it seems well liked. But I noticed that almost every single poster who mentioned it said that they were also doing Singapore, Miquon, or MM (is that Math Mammoth?). Is there a reason MEP seems to always be supplemented with another curriculum? It is just people covering their bases, or are there deficiencies?

What I find funny about this is that one of the things that draws me into the WTM concept is more memorization.