Yes. He was on a Wizard of Oz kick at the time. He too is concerned about the cyclones in Kansas, despite know all about tornados. He has absolutely not interesting in going there. Poor Kansas has a bad reputation. Maine on the other hand is one place that he really wants to visit more than any other. I blame One Morning in Maine for that one.

My son (4) is convinced that Kansas is dull and grey. He saw a truck with a Kansas plate and proceeded to inform us that it was a lot more cheery and not so much a dull and grey truck anymore.

My son has purple mittens. I found them in the girls department. He is 5. He likes purple. It works for now. Eventually I am sure he will protest. I told my husband he might be getting pink boots the moment it snows. Little boy really wouldn't care I am sure. Just as long as he gets to run and roll in the slush. We found black ones finally.

Agree about the places above. Too expensive for a pair of boots that may or may not be worn. We might not get any decent snow at all. Or we might not get any for months and at that point my son might have outgrown his boots. I went to 6 stores (target, 3 Walmarts, 2 Meijers ) in a 60 Mille radius in 4 different towns over the last month and had no luck. There were many girls or they didn't have any then close in size. Why not make more unisex snow boots? My husband finally found a pair at a K-mart and I had him grab them site unseed. They are the worst snow boots they don't close around the front. But the kid is stuck with them. Better luck next year? Likewise. We can't find gloves small enough not the thin knit ones. But the water proof ones that would be good for building a snowman. They are all too big. The smallest size says 4-5 boys and they fit me! And I do search used locally. No luck in a small town.

Would he like a DVD of information. We love Peter Weatherall's science DVDs. A lot of people I know like Rock N Learn science DVDs. The content is nice. I am just not a fan of the jokes.

How about getting the What Your Grader Needs to know books. Maybe start with First grade. Then read through them together daily. Or let her read them alone and discuss.

We use CLE as our spine. My son is currently doing CLE2. He does 2 lessons a day. It takes him 30 minutes tops. He would like to do more. We then do some "challenge" math to keep him engaged. Currently he is doing Mathantics. We go through the Singapore math text book every few weeks, but we do it verbally. It doesn't take us long to read a few lessons this way. If he is weak in an area I may create a game to play the next day to reinforce that. We are going to add some hands in equations for fun also. And he also has several math apps he sometimes does. Math is fun and played several times throughout the day. TL:DR. We do 30 minutes of CLE2. 30 minutes of challenging math for fun in games or video form. (Mathantics, Ray's Arithmetic, and soon HOE) Sometimes Singapore math verbally for bedtime reading. Math apps whenever he wants. About 15 minutes daily.

Ahhh the potty chair. My friend just privately shared a picture of her 18 month old on it. It has been a life saver as the poor girl has medical needs and needs frequent enemas.

Oh yes indeed! My son just turned 5 the other day. I was part of an online community of about 200 women when I was pregnant with my son. I have become good friends with many of the mothers as our kids have grow up. You have no idea how many times I have read on Facebook this month about how their children are no longer babies, they are little kids now. My son will always be my baby. But I haven't considered him a baby since he was 1. He was a toddler then. I have another friend that insists her 4.5 year old is called a toddler until he starts Kindergarten. So it is odd to me. But to each their own.

And a place under his bunk for his shoes. :) I like the books. For infants 0-12? Probably not. But I have found that people even call their 4 year olds babies these days. I think the math books would be cute for toddlers.

Snap circuits

Red apple Reading is less gamified than others like reading eggs.

If you do feel that it is all too easy you could just bump them up to the first light unit of the next grade. They would then review everything and move on. The reason they also have all the boxed information first is that is the lesson. It is often a spelling rule. The child is to read the lesson, as short as it is, and then apply the knowledge. The things in the box are reinforced 5 times before they are quizzed or tested on them. Which inherently makes the quizzes and tests a breeze. Eventually the boxed information is removed, but by then the child should know the rule.

I agree. Do the first light unit of second grade. And if he is still struggling you can get the light units from 1st grade you need to reinforce a concept. But I don't think you will need them.

What grades are you using? Thus far we have done grade one and some grade two. This is specifically pertaining to math. Each grade starts off super easy. I actually skip the first light unit in math as it is just review of the previous year after the summer break. But even the first few units past that are pretty simple. But half way through the year it is really quite rigorous. I know quite a few children start CLE Math100 in kinder and then don't finish it until the end of first grade. What we were able to do was do 2 lessons a day. We completed first grade in about 3 months. We also did Singapore Math 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b in that time. I found CLE math much more rigorous.

Not strictly chemistry books, but Sean Connolly's science books are a lot of fun. His math books is fun too.

I write out what lessons we are doing for the day in a teeny notebook. Then my son goes through his list. There is a sense of accomplishment when he crosses everything off each day. It is for him. Not me.

This is my son! He is advanced at reading and math, but he can't remember number facts or spell. He also struggles with music. Just when I thought he knew a few simple nursery rhymes he forgot them all. But his long term memory in general is amazing. He remembers in depth details about when his grandparents were visiting us 2 years ago when he was 2. I am trying to pinpoint if it is a working memory or a processing issue. Or maybe he just needs more time. Which is fine. :) We are currently doing (really playing) math at a fourth grade level, and he gets everything swiftly. But it takes him a long time to do anything because of his computation skills. He figured out how to do multiplication and division on his own before I even taught him. But he does it in such a convoluted way that makes my head spin. He has fun and enjoys it so we continue to play math. But we work a few grades lower on a seperate program. I do incorporate a lot of Singapore math, math on TV and some apps that help him also. We do Singapore math verbally. That all being said, we have been making progress lately. What has been a game changer, was choosing the right math curriculum. We are absolutely loving CLE. It heavy in fact practice. But it has been well loved by both of us! But when we go through lathe math facts for CLE during each lesson I help him by teaching him tricks to remember them. For some reason he remembers that 8+9 is the same as 8-1+10 (he was much more comfortable with -1+10 than +10-1) and with a little prompt he figures the answer out. Likewise using a spelling program that teaches rules, and prompting with the rules has helped us a lot also. We are doing CLE for language arts and reading. There are a lot of rules incorporated. But I also use rules from Logic of English.

Things I have found worth memorizing are measurements. I grew up with metric and I live in the US which uses imperial and i still sometimes check a chart when I am cooking. I have cookbooks in metric but all my cooking utensils are in imperial. And it is super helpful to know how to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius when talking to my mum in Australia.

Travel with Kids and The Story of us are our new gems.

Indeed. Some states in the US do have 4-5 year olds in Kinder. But it is not the norm. California just transitioned out of this. I was actually comparing the sit at the desk for most of the day academics of Recpetion and Kindergarten as being the same. To make it even more confusing some states in Australia call 4-5 year olds going to academic school like R and K, Prep, While preschool is called Kindergarten or more often just Kindy. But other states call it Kindergarten like the US system. In Canada Juniour Kindergarten is 4-5 year olds, though a child could be 3. And senior Kindergarten is mostly 5-6 year olds, though a child can start at 4. All baffling and even more so in an international community.

Kindergarten is 5-6 years old and it is the first year of elementary school. Many years ago it was half day, more play based and sometimes seperate from elementary school. But now that has changed in most school districts. Most school districts are full day. But you will see a few that have half days. 1st grade is 6-5 years old. Before Kindergarten it varies a lot across the US. 3-4 year olds can be in preschool. And 4-5 year olds can be in preschool, but it is sometimes called pre-kindergarten or just pre-k. Comparing it to the UK system nursery is preschool. kindergarten is reception.

Amazing Alex. James says she is beautiful.

I assume are you in the UK? In the US Kindergarten is the first year of school. Like Reception. For 5-6 year olds. :) I would post this on the after school board too. There are many people that send their children to school and continue to give them a classical education at home. That might be an option to explore. For me what we decided to do was to "play homeschooling" pressure free, to see if it was a good fit for us. We don't have to register for school where we live until a child is 6. My son is almost 5. This has been able to give me a few years to test the waters, so far so good. But if at any time it is not working out I would enroll him in school when he turns 6 and after school him instead.

I like many of the suggestions above. Math facts don't stick well for my son either. But we made a decision to keep progressing. I would keep going but pace yourself. Give your son access to manipulatives.... Counters, number lines, ten frames, addition charts etc to use when he needs them. Give him some "tricks" to help him remember certain facts. Doubles were the first thing my son learnt. After that we could do double +1s, then monkey in the middle, and +9 is the same as +10-1. Stuff like that. There are quite a few books out there to help you. 2+2 is not 5 is a good book. Check out the Yellow Is the Sun song on YouTube. It will help with adding 5s. YouTube has other math songs if your son is so inclined. There are also CDs and Itunes downloads that might help too. You could play those in the car. I once read some where that addition and subtraction fact mastery was not expected until the end of grade 2. That reduced a lot of the worry for me.