:iagree: I'd add that I expect my 5 year old to make his bed neatly. I also taught them mine and my husband's full names, phone numbers, and what to do in case of fire. I'm not sure if that is a skill needed prior to teaching formal academics, but we do work on it just in case they need it. I forgot to add earlier that we have several puzzles and have just started playing Memory. I expected it is be too hard for my 3 year old, but she actually beat me last time we played and I was trying. I usually have one helper in the kitchen too, it's a slow messy way to cook though.

Mine are 5,3, and 1, so take this for what it is worth. We have not done focused academic work prior to kindergarten. They get lots of free play with mostly non-battery operated toys (I don't put batteries in the ones that require it, but my 5 year old has figured out how to put them in now :laugh: ) They play a lot with legos, cars, dolls, and kitchen stuff. They play outside at least 15 minutes every day (well except in extreme weather) but on nicer days it's usually a hour in the morning and at least an hour in the afternoon. They have a playground, but also dig in the dirt, ride bikes, draw with sidewalk chalk, run through the sprinkler, blow bubbles, play with balls. They have access to everything but the sprinkler. As far as art, they have access to things that aren't too messy: paper, scissors, glue sticks, tape, crayons, markers, boxes. The messier stuff like paint & playdough they have to ask for. We do craft projects in spurts, sometimes we will do one every day for a few days, other times we don't do any for a few weeks. We read throughout the day, at a minimum 30 minutes after lunch and 45 minutes before bed, but it's actually more often than that especially now that my oldest is reading. We also listen to audio books in the car, not every time we go somewhere, just here and there. In the last year I have gone through 20ish read alouds with the older two. We go for walks a few times a week, to the library weekly, hiking a couple times a month, to the zoo a few times a year. As far as academic goals, I didn't have any before we started kindergarten this year. I had planned to focus on learning to read during my son's kindergarten year, but he learned well before hand. It wasn't anything I did, language is just his thing and he picked it up really easily. My husband and I do however point things out, colors, shapes, why something is the way it is, etc. It isn't something we were really conscious of at first, it just sort of happened naturally as I assume it does with a lot of parents. My 5 year old has a knack for language and easily picked up letter sounds without formal instruction. My 3 year old is more number minded and has repeatedly shocked us by telling us the time, or recognizing a number on a sign, she also knows left & right. I feel like my kids are pretty creative, I have no idea how creative compared to other kids though. I know my son is reading well above grade level, but I think he is average to slightly above average in other academic areas as compared to other kindergartners. It's hard to say for sure though, he is older than most of the other kindergartners in his class at church. I hope this helps!

I'm going to have to try this! Mine still think housework is fun though so I'll have to come up with something different as a consequence.

This may not work with all 3 of your kids, but I can get my 3 or 5 year old (individually, not together) to hang out on my bed and look at books while I take a nap. I take them to the library first so they have a bunch of new things to look at/read. Morning sickness can be awful, but you are right it doesn't last forever. I don't know how bad it is for you, but for those really bad days zofran was wonderful.

My kids are the same ages as yours. Before my oldest started kindergarten this year our schedule was: Wake up 7-8ish Breakfast Chores -empty dishwasher, make beds, get dressed for the older 2 Playtime/ baby naps- outside even if hot or cold, just limit time to 15 minutes in extreme weather Lunch 11:30 ish Reading time and some playtime Naps (or rest time for 5 year old), 1-3 Playtime Supper Reading time Bed- 7:30 A couple times a week after lunch we go to the library, Y, grocery shopping, or park. Once a week we have bible study in the morning. I usually try to fit a walk in every day too, but it just kind of depends on how the baby has napped as to when we go. It actually happens 3-4 times a week. Now that we are doing school, our schedule is pretty much the same but instead of playtime in the morning we do school. I don't entertain my kids, I interact with them, but it is rare that I get on the floor and play with them. If they are having trouble getting along, they go play in separate rooms for 30 minutes, we call it alone time playing. We don't have a lot of toys but they do have of Legos & Duplos, hotwheel type cars, a train table, a play kitchen, and other random things. I keep most of the toys out of sight in a couple of tubs, and every so often pull out one they haven't seen in awhile, they will play with those for hours! They also spend a lot of time drawing and making stuff out of boxes. They play with playdough or paint some, but since they aren't good at cleaning it up themselves, in only comes out a few times a month. I get that it is really hot in TX, we live in the south, spent a week in TX at the end of June, and spent a few days in LA in August. We still went outside though. Kids don't care as much about the heat, if you keep it brief. Can you let them run through the sprinkler or play in a kiddie pool or do you have water restrictions? I'd suggest go outside first thing when it isn't as hot, and spray the kids with bug spray if the mosquitoes are that bad. I know heat is worse when you are pregnant, so if you are uncomfortable, send them to the backyard for 20 minutes. You can stay near a window to keep an eye on them if it makes you uncomfortable, but at least you'll be in the a/c. My kids love to "help" me cook so usually one of the older ones is with me whenever I am preparing a meal. I have them dump things in, do some measuring, get utensils, and even crack the eggs (when I'm not in a hurry). It takes twice as long to cook this way, but they really enjoy it and I like it much better than playing Legos or cars.

I'm sure this varies with all kids but I have a 5 and 3 year old and they can both tell me what happened in general with a read aloud. With probing questions I can get a little more out of them. The 5 year old gives much more detail than the 3 year old. My 5 year old is a very detail oriented child though and language has always been a strength of his. Does she only seem to have trouble with listening skills or does she seem to have trouble with verbal skills? Can the child talk about what happens in a picture book? Can she talk about what happened in a tv show? Can she explain something she did earlier in the day? Is the daughter distracted and not really listening to what mom is reading? Does mom read in a monotone voice? Can the girl answer any questions about the story, what's the girl's name, what's the pigs name? Has the mom tried audio books? We recently started Stuart Little with my son. When I asked him what happened in the 1st chapter, he couldn't tell me much. But, when I asked him to draw a picture and tell me about it, I got most of the story. So sometimes, it's just not knowing how to answer the question the way I was asking.

I only have young children, but I do take them to anything on a subject they would find interesting, even if it is intended more for adults. I took my 5 year old to a local art exhibit thinking it would be over his head, but he enjoyed it and told his younger sister all about it later. It is a great way to learn even if they don't pick up all the information you would. My parents did the same with me. My dad took me to see a candidate for vice president when I was about 8, my siblings and I were the only kids in the audience and it was way over my head but I have never forgotten it. As far as speakers teaching more to younger kids, unless the speaker is experienced in speaking to a certain age group, it is probably difficult for them to figure out how to speak at the right level. It may be helpful to encourage your daughter to go with prepared questions. If she asks the questions early on, maybe the speaker can then adjust the talk to a higher level. Although it will not help for an event you attend, give the organizers and the speaker feedback. If the talk is advertised as being for ages 8-12 and actually is geared toward 3-5 year olds, let them know so they can adjust accordingly in the future.

We've been working on it for a week now, I wish I had seen the book in person and started with book b instead. It feels more like a preschool book than a kindergarten book to me, but maybe that is because my son is an older kindergartner. My 3 year old has been piping up during the lessons quite a bit though. Since we have it, we are using it. He doesn't mind doing easy things and the later units will introduce some new concepts to him. So far I've been setting a timer for 15 minutes and he goes through however many pages that works out to be. It has been about 7 or 8 pages a day. I haven't really done any of the further learning things on the bottom yet as I feel like he is mostly reviewing right now. I think he will slow down when we get to the weight and capacity units and the extra activities will probably be helpful then.

Well, he says he does it that way because he likes to. I did discover that he thinks names are supposed to be all capitals because I said capital letters were for names. I thought I was clear that only the beginning of names are capital, but who knows, sometimes he hears what he wants to hear. I'm not overly concerned, just curious. My 3 year old doesn't seem to have the dexterity to write letters yet, but we may start some tracing in cornmeal or something.

Are you talking about a topographical map?

Here is a link to the placement guides & the placement tests: http://www.singaporemath.com/Placement_s/12.htm , that should point you in the right direction.

I'll echo what some of the previous posters said, there is not any one reason we homeschool. We homeschool for a mixture of academic, religious, and family reasons. This is our first year and I don't know a ton of other homeschool families in real life, the ones I do know attend the same church as me. I would say that the main reasons for homeschooling would put half for academic reasons and half for religious reasons.

Thanks, I always correct him when we are doing official schoolwork. It's the writing on his own I've only been correcting when I notice. My 3 year old has shown no interest in writing until I started working with her brother. Now she wants to do penmanship whenever he does. So far she is only writing 4 letters, none of which are in her name, and all of them are lowercase.

My 5.5 year old is in kindergarten, we are using Getty-Dubay Italics for handwriting. He has completed all the lowercase letters and is mostly through the uppercase letters. I also have him copy a short sentence a couple times a week. He has no problem writing lowercase letters while we are doing a lesson. However, when he writes on his own, he uses a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters although it is mostly uppercase, especially in his name. He is not consistent in which letters are lowercase, he may write a g once then next time a G. Is this something a child typically outgrows kind of like b & d reversals? When I happen to notice, I will gently correct him, reminding him that capital letters are for the beginning of sentences and for names. Should I be watching him more carefully to avoid further cementing bad habits? My 3 year old is just starting to write letters, should I work with her from the beginning to make sure she writes them correctly?

Mergath, that is really helpful, thanks. My son is 5.5, and while he doesn't mind doing some things that are easy for him, he doesn't tolerate a ton of review of easy things. I have no idea yet if he is a natural speller. He loves writing books on his own and for the most part doesn't have much difficulty writing one syllable words. Edited for grammar.

Your kids are the same ages as mine, 5,3, and 1. No more yet :) What is it about AAS that makes it difficult to use with multiple kids? My 2 younger kids are pretty good about not getting into things on the table. Also right now the 1 year old still naps twice a day so we do school while he's sleeping. Did you like AAS and you just didn't feel like your daughter was quite ready for it? What made it boring for her? It seems AAS is highly recommended by most people, unless the are trying to teach multiple kids. I've been keeping an eye out for a used copy.

I would add The Read Aloud Handbook to this list. I haven't heard of Books that Build Character, I'm going to see if my library has it.

I just started homeschooling my 5 year old even though we made the decision to homeschool 2 years ago. I never did any official preschool work with him, just lots of reading. I am very sympathetic about the overwhelmed feeling, as this school year approached my anxiety was affecting my sleep. We have a few other homeschooling families at our church, so I talked with them to get a feel for how they do things, that helped a lot. A couple months ago I wrote down my goals, how I pictured our days, and what curriculum I would need to reach that goal. That eased the stress a lot. I also picked a start day (Sept. 3), but as it approached I realized that going from playing all day to sitting down to do schoolwork every day may be a shock to my little guy's system. So over the last 3 or 4 weeks we have been easing into things. This has helped my confidence a ton! He loves to write, so I started with penmanship every day after breakfast, after a week or so he was used to the routine so we added phonics, next week we will add in math. The easing in has been very helpful to me as I try to figure out how to teach each subject and how my son learns. There is so much information out there that it can be really overwhelming, I would suggest picking something and trying it. The phonics program I chose turned out not to be what my son needed, but I wouldn't have known if I hadn't tried. Because I do have younger children, I'll hang onto if for them. With a 4 year old I don't think you need a ton of formal instruction, my son was trying to read on his own so I checked out the BOB books from the library, it helped him understand better how words were formed. Mostly though we spent a lot of time reading, not just picture books, but novels too. Good luck to you! I have found this forum very helpful.

Thanks for all your replies! I'm finding I want a little more hand holding than I thought I would as I figure all this out. I'm adding in math next week, so we'll see how it goes. My guess is my son will want to do a lot the first week and then want to slow down after that.

I am sure this question has been asked before but I can't find it. How do you teach Singapore Math Kindergarten Essentials? Is it intended to be taught as 1 unit per day, a few pages per day, 15 minutes per day, or something else? My books finally arrived today and on the initial flip through I think it is going to be pretty easy for my son who is 5.5. I could see him completing 10 pages in a setting without any problem. But should I let him? Right now I am playing things by ear on other subjects, but typically work about 15-20 minutes before switching to something else.

My oldest is only a year older than your son and we have just started doing schoolwork, so I hope someone more experienced will reply. I do know that if I had tried to have him sit down to do schoolwork a year ago, he would not have enjoyed it. I think fantasy play is wonderful, let him play. Spend some time each day reading some fun books to him. Unless you have to do school right now, give it a break for a few months. I know that we have to have a set routine, if I stray from it and my son thinks there is a chance we aren't going to do some schoolwork, he'll complain. He does fine once we get started, but he really hates having to quit playing. It may help to do 15 or 20 minutes of schoolwork every day instead of an hour a couple days a week.

I asked my husband about it tonight, he said there is a light version of AutoCAD. It looks like it runs around $150 vs. $4,100 for the full version. There is another software he mentioned called ProE. When I searched for it, another software popped up that is free for students, http://www.ptc.com/company/community/schools/download/. I don't know anything about it, but it's worth checking into. If you think your son may want to be a civil engineer someday, my husband said you may want to look into MicroStation, they have a free version for students, http://www.bentley.com/en-US/Engineering+Architecture+Construction+Software+Resources/Academic+Educators+Students/PowerDraft+Download.htm.; he said you will find more instruction available for AutoCAD though.

As a fast reader, I don't think it matters much in recreational reading. I do miss some of the details that my husband catches by reading more slowly. I had a lot of trouble with comprehension in more technical subjects in college. Fortunately by reading quickly I had time to go back and reread. I think it is easier to learn how to slow down than to speed up reading though. When I really need to focus, I'll cover the next line of text on the page to force myself to slow down. If he begins to struggle with comprehension or retention, you can work on that later.

It's pretty expensive but AutoCAD is what I think most engineers use. I know when my husband was in engineering school just a few years ago he was able to purchase a student version. I don't know if you have to be an engineering student to purchase that version though.

I get up around 7, my 5 & 1 year old usually get up around 8. My 3 year old wakes up early. I taught her that the first number on the clock has to be a 7 before she is allowed to come downstairs. If it isn't 7 yet, she has to stay on her bed. When she wakes up really early, she'll go back to sleep. If it's a little before 7 she usually looks at a few books before making an appearance. The 7:00 rule was much easier to teach my 5 year old since he isn't a morning person, I'm still working on my 3 year old. My 1 year old is in a crib, so when he wakes up early, he just plays or tries to wake up his brother until I get him, but I rarely get him before 7. I don't want to start my day earlier than that. Although I like my house pretty neat, I've allowed my standards to relax for now. I focus on one big chore a day which I do while the kids nap/rest in the afternoon (bathrooms, mopping, etc.). I run the dishwasher every night, even if it isn't completely full because it helps keep me on track with the dishes. The 2 bigger kids unload it every morning after breakfast (as best they can). I try to keep up with picking up throughout the day. The kids all go to bed about 7:30, my husband usually does bedtime, while I clean up the kitchen. Anything else that has to be done, gets done after the kids are in bed. I only have one school age child right now, and he's just in kindergarten, so school isn't taking up as much of our day as it could. I'm sure our schedule will change in coming years. As far as me time goes, I don't have near as much now as I did even a year ago. But the kids are usually finished with breakfast before me, so I'll read a bit while I finish breakfast. Or I'll sit on the patio and read while they play in the backyard. It may be just a bit here and there, but there is time.