I’m in PA and I’ve included my objectives page for my rising first grader below. Mine is a little intense because that’s how we roll 😂 Everyone in my house functions better when they have a lot to do. Formatting came out super weird and I’m not sure how to fix it because I’m willfully tech challenged. English -Reinforce and enrich existing knowledge of grammar, spelling and vocabulary. -Continue to develop reading skills including an emphasis on phonics and sight words. -Will include several read-a-loud novels and non-fiction titles Texts: Logic of English by Denise Eide Arithmetic -Complete Common Core requirements for first grade in this subject area. -To include: adding and subtracting whole numbers, adding within 100 and subtracting multiples of 10, measurement, and part-whole relationships. Texts: Singapore Math Level 1A by Marshall-Cavendish Education Singapore Math Level 1B by Marshall-Cavendish Education Science -Science instruction will focus on Astronomy. -Weekly experiments and hands on exposure when appropriate will be included. Text: Exploring Creation with Astronomy by Jeannie Fulbright Social Studies -Enrich existing knowledge of history from 1815-Present. Texts: Story of the World Vol. 4 by Susan Wise Bauer Physical Education and Health -incorporation of exercise into everyday activity -Yoga -Weekly gym and swim. -continued discussion of importance of nutrition, fire safety, human growth and development, and transmission of disease Music -Continue ongoing music instruction including piano, music theory and sight reading through Faber and Faber. Texts: My First Piano Adventure Lesson Book B By Nancy and Randall Faber My First Piano Adventure Writing Book B By Nancy and Randall Faber Art -Expand skill in the use of familiar media including pottery, charcoal, oil pastel, watercolor, pen and ink and mixed media. -Develop a deeper knowledge of art movements and specific artists. -Field trips in this area when appropriate. Text: Art Lab for Kids by Susan Schwake Language -Develope vocabulary and knowledge of Latin grammar. Text: Song School Latin Book 2 by Christopher Perrin

Oh yes. Except that it’s snowing here today so we’re not exactly basking in the sunshine. I’ve been surreptitiously buying more seeds than I have room to plant and taking long walks with podcasts.

I don't have time to think clearly in the morning with school and managing behavior BUT I adore Sayers as a writer and really can't imagine she meant her (rather clever) lecture to be the foundation for an educational movement. It also seems natural I suppose, that there is a need to distance oneself from agers and stagers who do advocate a strict interpretation of that sort of "poll parrot" stage. My oldest DD attends a Sayers-style tutorial service and her science teacher seems to think this way. Likely ex-CC.

Anyone want to help me think this through? I often hear people argue that grammar, logic and rhetoric are not truly ages and stages and that a genuinely "Classical" approach is that the Trivium are the key subjects to be studied. I can't quite find my way to settling in either camp. Isn't it both/and? I am sort of in the early middle years of homeschooling and when I was parenting only very young children I had no problem scoffing that ages/stages was bunk because it seemed obvious to me that teaching children how to think began immediately and never really came to an end. Now I'm not so sure that there isn't some validity to approaching the Trivium as a loose framework of stages. My young children are less complex thinkers and they do suck up information (especially before age 7 or so) and my older children are much more attracted to logical analysis than their younger siblings. it's a little harder for me to see Logic and Rhetoric as separate stages but maybe that's because I haven't watched that unfold first hand. On parallel lines, it still seems obvious that no matter the choice of grist for my particular mill (Latin, mathematics or anything else) the Trivium drives the structure and method of my teaching. In other words, I'm always teaching all three and they are the ultimate "subjects" I want my kids to learn. Anyway, I'm usually the type who doesn't mind a little ambiguity and I'm happy to do the work of teaching and parenting in the way that is best for my kids with little fuss over semantics but I sometimes find myself "caught out" and unable to articulate the way I see these things.

I go to the library by myself every Monday night and check out 40+books. I take requests before I leave from all four kids and though I occasionally edit out twaddle I am not draconian in my definition and there are plenty of graphic novels, tween series, etc... in the mix. I just limit genuine junk. We have an old house with a tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs that we turned into a library with comfy chairs, a lamp and Billy shelves. We have a noisy, emotionally chaotic household (mild SPD for more than one kid) so it has turned into a great place for my kids who need to be quiet to find some space. They are only allowed free screen time one day a week. We also allow them to read on the Epic app and I'll admit that I'm considering getting rid of it. For some reason my kids seem to gravitate towards the lowest common-denominator junk on the app and then there's the screen factor. I just don't love it. In the end it's a work in progress. Training appetites and ordering affections is a lot harder than teaching grammar, logic and rhetoric because it's sort of alchemical and there is an enormous degree to which we are more like guides than teachers in this area. I make great books available. I fence the pasture so that reading might be a desired activity. I read voraciously myself and talk to them about books but in the end I'm not writing the story of their love for reading. They are. I'm also conscious that they may never love literature the way I do (my genuinely lovely husband does not) and that that's ok. There is much to be said for the empathy, insight and delight that can be had in reading a great book but it is not an experience I can force.

Yes, she was just at Wild and Free San Francisco. She posted a video of her talk on Facebook so you can probably find it there. I may have listened twice 🙂

Just wanted to update that we've switched to Beast Academy for a while and seen a big improvement. I think the way BA is laid out has helped her switch gears emotionally because she has complete access to all the information she needs to learn the concepts. I suppose I could hand her the Singapore teacher's manual but it's not as conducive to self-study as BA. She's always been a kid who craves constant attention so self-teaching can be tricky but I'm always pleased when it works out because it's just one more little step toward maturity. For her this tendency is due to SPD because she does not naturally self-regulate well and often tries to manipulate others into hanging around and carrying some of that responsibility. She doesn't have any other diagnoses and the SPD is fairly mild but it's been an issue for three out of four of my kids. I have tried posting on the Learning Challenges board but I generally feel more comfortable here because my older kids fit into the gifted category (I'll reserve judgement on the younger two) and I find that if I mention SPD here it can be taken in the context of giftedness and is less likely to be misinterpreted. I've had a few times when people got very intense very quickly over there giving specific therapy advice that just didn't apply to my kids. It kind of spooked me. I understand the temptation because I myself always think SPD when someone tells me that they have a really intense, smart kid who can't handle themselves but I've learned to be cautious about specific advice. We did end up having our older two evaluated (they don't have other diagnoses, just high IQ/SPD) and did about a year of OT it was absolutely the right choice.

😂I see now that “negating my truth” is pretty opaque and steriotypically millennial phrase. I was born right on the edge in 1982 so it just slips out occasionally. I just meant that I have often been told by people who don’t know the situation very well that my publicly high functioning child is either completely normal or (usually online when they have only my limited words to go by) a total mess. Neither is true. Anyway, I like the idea of sliding back and forth with another curriculum. I wonder if BA could work. The online version (which we have) is very approachable and she might respond to the independent nature of the work. I myself was a gifted kid who didn’t learn to dig in and “try” when things didn’t come naturally so I am acutely aware that this is something my kids need to learn. We have done music from an early age and this is one area where we have had a lot of success coaching them to try even when it gets challenging. With sensory challenges that has been a little one step forward/two steps back at times but we HAVE seen progress. It’s just hard to see the road ahead and the “how” sometimes even when you know the “what.”

We have done lots of patient relaxed talking about it and she says she finds the instruction part of the lesson embarrassing, that is it’s somehow embarrassing that someone is telling her how to do something or asking her to narrate back what she did. I believe that she does feel this way but I’m not sure know to proceed. I should add that she is a little bit 2E and has a sensory processing disorder so meltdowns have always been a part of our academic journey. She has done OT and it was incredibly helpful but she is still a sensory seeking kid and when things are hard she tends to have an outsized response. I know a lot of parents of gifted kids can relate the this but the hard part is often that I share something like this and I get one of two responses: a) “oh all kids are like that and cry about school you just think your kid is “special” or b) “wow that must be terrible, I’m so sorry.” Ha. Sometimes I just want to hear “I’ve been there too.” In a way that doesn’t negate the truth of my experience.

I’ll try to keep this brief. I have a child who has always worked two or three grades ahead across the board in all subjects. Like all people she has strengths and weaknesses but in general she is bright and capable no matter what she tries. She showed early comfort with math concepts and was carrying numbers and multiplying at age four. Fast forward to now and she is nearly hysterical over the simple single digit addition required to find perimeter in Singapore 4A. We have always used Singapore though her younger brother uses Beast Academy and she has occasionally dipped into that as well. Her fear of math has developed slowly, finally hitting a wall last year or so when the math knowledge she knew and understood with minimal instruction caught up to grade level. She is not afraid of effort or learning new knowledge in other areas and has taken on challenging new subjects with relative ease (including chemistry which has a lot of math itself.) what to do?

I have homeschooled from the beginning but even homeschoolers run into this kind of thing. I agree with the posters who pointed out that it can be expected that five year olds may be mean and also those who suggested some ongoing attention to character development for those of us who are people-pleasers. My daughter is not a bit shy and typically very assertive but we ran into a similar situation with a neighborhood friend group when she was 3 (!) Same exact thing: Best friends forever/ I don't like you anymore... on again off again. It was exacerbated because my husband and I saw the other parents socially quite often and because I knew the family well I can say for sure that she was not modelling her parents behavior and in my opinion was also too young to be acting out something she saw on a screen. I think that just like some kids are prone to people pleasing some are prone to other character flaws like bullying. Though her parents are aware of the problem and do their best their now nine year old is still a bully. In the end I gradually eliminated play with this girl because I believed it was going to be a long-term pattern. What would alarm me most about this situation wouldn't necessarily be the bullying (though you're wise to address it) but the way the school has responded. Clearly a toxic environment and likely not only in this circumstance. PS-My daughter was actively disappointed when I explained that we couldn't spend time with her "friend" anymore but six years later she completely understands. It didn't take too long.

Curious. I don't often use the home instructor's guide anyway so I'd be happy to go on without it. Wonder if vendors like Rainbow Resources will have it available at the April GHC conference. Maybe too soon.

I use a bullet journal for my entire life plan. Index in the front and then just make sure I add to it as I add pages. It's perfect. My husband is a programmer and I asked him to write something that could do a sort of brain map for me because everything I'd seen left out some important component. He got frustrated somewhere around the time I said I needed it to automatically order groceries, keep track of the weather and graph the amount of sleep each of our children got each night compared with their mood throughout the day. Ha.The bullet journal doesn't leave anything out because the possibilities are limitless. It doesn't order my groceries though.

Wow guys, Thanks for your gentle, thoughtful replies! I didn't post this on the learning challenges board because I have found it to be a (tiny) bit more reactionary than I'm comfortable with. Raising a kid who is different than his or her peers can be isolating and hard and it's so easy to hear our own experience in the voices of others. It's so very common for GT kids to be sensory, emotionally intense, resistant to change, etc... and when I've described (an admittedly low point from a few months ago) my kids over there I've gotten an immediate hand slap in the "your child is on the spectrum and you aren't handling it appropriately" vein. We're really happy with the OT we're doing and I can see real progress in that area and many others but it's so hard to see around the bend in the road that is inevitably right in front of us. I loved Cindy Rollins book Mere Motherhood. It really caught me off guard as it's the type of book I usually give up on about halfway through. Lovely. My oldest (8) was crying the other day and saying that she doesn't know any other kids who are as emotionally intense as she is and she's sure her friends NEVER cry the way she does. We talked about modern life in a community where we don't get to see or hear the lives of our neighbors and how that distorts our view of "normal." I can't promise her that her friends are every bit as emotionally intense as she is but I KNOW they cry sometimes, their parents get overwhelmed, they aren't always perfect. I appreciate both your responses because they help to chip away at that feeling of isolation just a bit, as Rollins book does, as working to make community more transparent, more real often can.

Yep I don't schedule it. My son is only technically in K so I let him float between the new 2A and 3A-D. He as able to do any of the problems so I let him work where he's happy to work and leave the other stuff alone. I have been testing him quarterly this year so that I'm sure he's not hiding gaps. I'm ok with this self-directed approach to math because he has highly structured work to do in music and writing.