I've got two littles. They both have summer birthdays and they both started kindergarten at approximately five at our local private Montessori school. My oldest turned 5 on June 19 so was five when school started. My youngest turned 5 on August 25th and so was four when school started in early August. The cut off date for enrollment in Georgia currently is September 1. Both of my children were among the very youngest in their class. I never really considered red-shirting because I knew I would be homeschooling first grade. I knew I would teach to whatever their level was and I knew the Montessori school would do the same. In GA, I only have to declare the age of my student and not pick a grade, which is nice. I do, however, have to administer a standardized test at the end of 3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th grades. To that point, I guess I have until the end of third grade to determine what grade my child is in. Even then, I don't have to submit the results of the test to anyone, so I suppose that in my own little bubble, it doesn't really count until I announce we've begun high school and a 9th grade standardized test is taken and a transcript is kept. To the point of the article, my thoughts are that of course the older children have an advantage. How can it not be true that, “We found that delaying kindergarten for one year reduced inattention and hyperactivity by 73% for an average child at age 11,†Thomas Dee, one of the co-authors and a Stanford Graduate School of Education professor, said in a release. It seems obvious to me that young kindergartners aren't prepared for the type of seatwork that we currently expect for kindergarten now that kindergarten is the new first grade. On the other hand, I do want to make one comment specifically about ADHD. I do believe that a young child in kindergarten would be more likely misdiagnosed with ADHD when compared to the older kindergartners in the same class. On the other hand, I do believe that ADHD is a "real" thing and it doesn't go away with age. So while a young kindergartner might be misdiagnosed because he is the youngest in the class, some small percentage of kids in the same class will actually have ADHD and that will NOT go away regardless whether they start kindergarten at five or six. My oldest has ADHD. She started Montessori kindergarten at a young age five and her (very experienced) teacher noted that she had some different learning needs. She never once ever ever said ADHD. It wasn't until I brought her home that I though wow, this is what ADHD (inattentive) must look like. She is and always has been advanced in several areas of learning, especially math and science. She lags in writing and spelling. If I were to try to place her in public school, I would be in a difficult position. Placing he in 4th grade math and science because her writing and spelling skills lag behind would be a disservice to her. At the same time, she wouldn't really be served in a 5th grade classroom because of her writing and spelling skills. Truly, she wouldn't be served in either classroom because she couldn't pay attention and it wouldn't matter if the classroom was labeled 4th, 5th or even Kindergarten. Starting a child too early doesn't cause ADHD. Having unreasonable expectations for young children certainly makes them appear to have ADHD when maturity might make a big difference. I'm so glad I homeschool because that's a hard decision I don't have to make.

I planned to homeschool before I had children for academic reasons. Around the time the oldest would have started school, we had some family issues. I was suffering from postpartum depression and then the death of my mother. I was an absolute wreck and my oldest was a really really really difficult child to be around. (I know that seems like an awful thing to say, but she wasn't a pleasant person.) I ended up sending her to a private Montessori school for a year and half. It was an amazing experience for both of us. (Though I felt guilty at first, go figure.) Anyway, when she finished kindergarten, I was at a different place in my life and so was she. I brought her home and have never looked back. I guess to answer your question, initially I homeschooled for academic reasons. After bringing her home and talking to my friends with kids in public school, it reconfirmed that brick and mortar wasn't for us. I really enjoy keeping to our own schedule. Following our own interest and having the freedom to travel when we want. Now that I have two that are school age, I can say that my youngest might do pretty well in school. She's a good student, attentive, eager to please. My oldest, on the other hand, would be a problem. She's 2e. She's gifted but also ADHD. She would be absolutely bored in regular school with math and science and unable to keep up in language arts. ETA: Researching curriculum is a hobby of mine. :)

I like Reflex Math (www.reflexmath.com). My daughters don't love it (I can't lie). It has games, which some kids would probably enjoy but my children see right through it. You can't fool them. Math facts are math facts. ;)

Dd10 Professional Ballerina Dr 7 Veterinarian My youngest has said veterinarian forever and has a special bond with animals, so it wouldn't surprise me if that actually happened. My oldest has changed her mind lots of times. Who knows what she will really end up doing.

OMG, it's always sunshine and rainbows here. Are you kidding? ;) Some days, weeks, a month or so are absolutely awful. It could always be worse though right?. I sometimes think about how awful it would be to send them to school and have them come home, exhausted and ready to argue with me about homework. What if it were absolute busy work with no educational value, yet still had to be done (as I so often see with my friends that have kids in school). They come home, rush through homework, you shuttle them to extra curricular activities, home, dinner, showers, in to bed. Next morning, rinse, repeat. Where is the time for family? What do I do? Change things up. What's working and what isn't? I try not to compare one child to another and different things work. Call a family meeting. Get their input and lay down the law at the same time. Everybody gives a little, everybody gets a little. Then keep on plugging away at it, a little bit a day. Also, Susan Wise Bauer has a great lecture on homeschool burnout.

I would totally do that. Those sections of Math Mammoth were absolutely mind numbing.

Absolutely. And we will definitely try again when she's more ready.

I started 3A and proceeded through all the currently published books with with my oldest (she was 6 when we started, super mathy advanced kind of kid) and she enjoyed the challenge. That said, I started 3A just recently with my second child and it was awful. Absolutely horrendous. She and I were both frustrated (and I've taught it before, go figure). We tabled it for now. It never even occurred to me to move on to the next chapter (duh) and I've already used all the published editions. In response to the poster above... My oldest is very very Visual-Spatial. It's a definite strength for her an an absolute weakness for me. I absolutely adore Beast as it brought joy back into math for my oldest. I was so looking forward to going through it again with my youngest but I'm not sure that's going to happen (and I already bought a second copy of all the workbooks, argh!!!).

Ok, I tried the google search and got what everyone else did. Then I did the yahoo search.... Ewwww. Just ewwwww.

I certainly didn't mean to pass judgement. I'm sorry if it came across that way. Everyone does what works for them. I was only trying to reply to the question of how strict. At my house, school is only a little strict and it gets done. If it didn't, I would have to be more strict. You said you have your rules because school wasn't working without them. It's good that you realized what needed to change to make things work for you. I certainly didn't mean to offend. I guess I was mostly trying to add levity by including my child's comment about not talking. Many apologies.

I get the girls up at 7 and we start school by 7:30. I didn't always get us up this early, but we lose a lot of momentum after lunch, so I decided to fit as much school time in before lunch as possible. We school from 7:30 to 11:00. There are some 15ish minute breaks in there and the girls chat as much as they want. At 12, we get back to work and my youngest (7) usually has just a couple of things to wrap up while my oldest (10) has around an hour to an hour and a half more work. I try to have them done pretty early so they can enjoy free time before after school activities. I wish we were less schooly, but we also enjoy just being done with school stuff so we can do the things we'd rather be doing. (Right now they are building a time machine.) We start bedtime routine for both at 8:30. We read together until 9:15. The youngest is usually straight to sleep following books and my oldest is allowed to read until 10:15. She's kind of an insomniac though, so if she has trouble sleeping she'll turn the light on and read a while longer. I asked mine how they would feel about not chatting during school and they looked absolutely horrified. "Please please please don't do that here, Mommy!" was my youngests response.

Woe is me... I hated Geometry and Trig. I'm determined to like them both before I have to teach them though. I foresee another AoPS purchase in my future.

I can do this if you still need them.

Oak Meadow. Holy moly. I don't even know what I was thinking. My children like craft projects, which it has in abundance but the level was so below my second grader and the writing was way to much for my fifth grader. It was such a terrible fit. In my beautiful homeschool imagination, it's exactly the kind of thing I want, but in our real life it's the opposite of what we need/accomplish. The advertising is just too sexy. I was drawn in and couldn't look away. It's like homeschool porn--all these beautiful happy families out enjoying the world. What's wrong with us that we don't fit the mold? I think I might just be too practical and I hate hate hate busy work.

I haven't used the Singapore books except for the CWP, but I really like MiF which is Singapore based. I've never even purchased the TM, (ok, once but never needed it). I teach straight from the text and then my daughters have used the workbook. It's very open and go that way and super super straightforward. The pages are clean and easy to read (MM wasn't for us) and the textbook teaching is very incremental and easily understood. We've really enjoyed it. (Well...my oldest enjoyed it at first, but quickly outpaced it and was frustrated at the pace but she's very very mathy.) My youngest, especially, is getting a lot out of it. We've also used LoF which is fun, but somehow not enough.

With my oldest, we have just finished BA. We started with MiF and when BA first became available, we switched. She finished MiF 1, 2, and 3 in the first half of her 1st grade year, math was her thing. BA we took really slowly because it was coming out slowly. We managed to drag it out until recently, but we've had to move on. We did BA all by itself. Right now, we are kind of doing review, Zaccaro Upper Elementary Challenge Math and Jousting Armadillos while we ready ourselves for AoPS pre-algebra. Mathmatically she's there, but emotionally, she is in a rough place. Being 10 has hit us hard. My youngest is 7. She's pretty mathy too, but not as much as her sister. We just started (this week even) BA and we are going to do it in conjunction with MiF. I'm not going to try to line them up. We are doing three days BA and two days MiF. I think this will be better for her because it will build in review and reinforcement. I've never used any part of Singapore Standards except the CWP, but I would probably continue some of it. It probably depends on how much review or practice your child needs. My oldest didn't need much in order to remember skills so we just moved along. There's not a whole lot of review built in with BA, that is to say, they build on previously learned skills, but they don't have any outright review. All that to say, it really depends on the kid. Helpful, right? Teresa

My daughter has been memorizing her multiplication facts for four years. We drill them everyday. She had a similarly hard time with addition and subtraction facts. I eventually gave up on those and moved on. She does know her addition and subtraction facts, but she's not fast enough for reflex math. For multiplication, we have used Times Tales (she can't remember characters and stories quickly enough to make this useful), Timez Attack, xtra math, making her own table that she could use just for the day (making a fresh table daily)and now we are back to reflex math. Math does take her a while to complete, but she makes it worse by staring off into space. I've had her tested by an educational psychologist. She, like some other posters have mentioned, has slow processing speed and low working memory. The psychologist used the WISC IV. Rote recall is just never going to be her thing. We keep slowly plugging away at it, because she is slowly improving. For regular work, she uses a table and it's colored in such away that I believe it makes it easier to find the fact that she is looking for. If you have the money I would definitely look into having your son evaluated. It's really helped me understand my daughter and as an added benefit, she qualifies for untimed standardized testing.

We always ignore them. I'm not really sure she's ever noticed that she has them. I can't trace them to stress or allergies or anything. They seem to come on very randomly. I'll look into the magnesium. Thanks everyone.

Anyone have experience with this combination? My daughter is ten. I had her evaluated by an educational psychologist two years ago because of some learning differences I was concerned about. She is 2e. Processing speed and working memory are low. In other categories she really shines. One of the things the psychologist noted on her file was ADHD-inattentive. This was not a surprise to us. Earlier this week, I made the decision to call her pediatrician to see about treatment. I feel like we coped ok until now, but the increasing difficulty of fifth grade work has really taken its toll here and I know she feels it. She is trying so hard... In what I thought was unrelated, she started having tics around age two. They aren't frequent and they usually hang around for a month or so and then disappear. We have had blinking, throat clearing, sniffing, some kind of strange lip thing and a bird like neck stretch thing. We never draw attention to it and they eventually go away. Today we were at the gym and the woman behind us was talking on her phone. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but she said ADHD and tics and my ears perked up. I couldn't question her fully because I had my daughter with me, but Dr. Google tells me this is kind of a thing. Anyone have any experience with this? What did you do?

Today was our last day of BA too. I'm very sad. My daughter is too. She keeps having me check their facebook for page for news on the release date. I just ordered the workbooks for my youngest, so I still get to see the Beasts daily. I have that to console me. My oldest is 10. 10 is rough here. She's forgotten how to do a lot of basic math that she knew how to do a few weeks ago even. Multiplying and dividing fractions bring on huge drama. Lots of little struggles bring on huge drama. It's why we are not starting AoPS Pre-A this year, no matter how much I <3 it. We are going to hang out at whatever this place is, practice basic skills and wait for her to get bored (shouldn't take too long, she hates repetitive tedious practice). I guess then we'll talk about where to go from here. I've got Jousting Armadillos and AoPS. I have no idea what we'll be doing in six months.

We did Fable, Narrative 1, and part of 2. We got stuck at outlining. I'm a natural writer and if I ever learned outlining, it's long gone now. We needed much more explicit instruction with that. This problem and looking ahead at the assignments in Chreia made me feel like we were not in the right place. My daughter is a very reluctant writer who needs very explicit instruction. She told me today that she is really enjoying IEW SWI-A. I am too.

My daughter is older than your son, but we are finishing up Beast 4D this week. We'll be starting AOPS PreAlgebra and just taking it slowly. When the next BA comes out, I'm sure we'll buy it and do that because she loves it so much.

I'm crazy. :) Long time no chat, but I've been keeping up.

I am very much a do the next thing person. I've learned that I can never tell when my children are going to ask for more. I'd hate to say no, just because I'd planned a certain amount and didn't want to throw off the plan. I mostly purchase things that are do the next thing. We do math for a certain amount of time each day then put it away and pick up where we left off. My daughter who is learning to read is reading to me for a minimum of 20 minutes a day but frequently more because she is engaged in the book and wants to find out what happens next. Science, same. History, same. We go with the flow and rarely run out of time. Frequently, we run out of material and buy more. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion!

If you were feeling especially cheapcheapcheap, you could make it work without. You would need to write the sentence out on a separate piece of paper for your student to correct as the Teacher's Manual just shows the corrected version. We didn't use the grammar cards, etc that were included in the student manual. But, if you buy Fix-It directly from IEW, you do get the student book as a download. You still have to print it though. ;)