luuknam
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Posts posted by luuknam
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When you say she can write sentences, do you mean copy them? Because you could copy a sentence the same way you'd copy a drawing - no memory of letter names or w/e required.
If you ask her what number comes before/after another number (e.g. what number comes before 6), can she answer you? With or without counting, or not at all?
Somewhat irrelevant question, but curious how high she can count.
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The lectures I have gotten have all been from women over 60. And I think I just don't respond correctly. They mostly go "of course he can't stay here alone...what about his safety?" Then I say "I'm not sure how he is unsafe." And I think that gives them the opening to launch.
Yes, that gives them an opening. I'd reply with "He's nine", in a "of course he's old enough to stay alone" way. Since they're over 60, if they feel the need to continue to pursue this even after you tell them he's nine, you could ask them what their parents did when they were nine, if they survived (obviously), and why things would be different now since the crime rate is actually lower now. Or, you could just tell them to mind their own grandchildren.
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I have a Life of Fred misprint (Farming). I contacted ztwist (who I'd bought it from), and they sent me a correct one right away, no questions asked (no returning the misprint or w/e), and super-quick, and very polite email.
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I've threatened to find a surgeon with low ethical standards to take of it for once and for all.
I don't see the problem. Education trumps vanity, doesn't it? Plastic surgery for education's sake - totally acceptable in my book. :D
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I did have a good giggle when you followed "cramping my style" with getting a dental crown as an example. I was expecting something more...party-ish.
It was gold! I'd imagine, since I'm not the OP. Gold is party-ish, right?
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I find the comments the author inserts occasionally a little strange
That reminds me, the books do have the occasional religious comment, like naming a set with 12 elements, one of the sample answers is the disciples, or Fred praying when he's scared or something (but without writing out the prayer). It's pretty minimal, to a point where I don't mind it (hey, I survived christian elementary school and Sunday school and still became an agnostic/atheist), but I thought I'd point it out in case there are people who think any trace of religion is too much. I also think in most instances the religion is easy to skip when reading out loud.
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if you need to gap a year it's a much more fragile process with young egos
My oldest (7.5yo, ASD, 2nd grade in ps) was very quick to be confused when one of his classmates was a year older than him last year. You know, "you're 7 (at the start of the year) so you should be in 2rd grade" kind of thinking. I don't know how much he said about it at school (I hope nothing, but given how he was talking about it at home, I can only imagine what happened at school - poor older kid). It just doesn't take a genius to realize that a kid who is a full year older must have repeated a grade or been red-shirted (but it does take some social intelligence to not point it out to said kid).
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When I was in high school we used to drop our pencil so our male gym teacher with the nice butt would pick it up for us 😂
Yeah... I don't think most homeschooled kids drop their pencils for that reason.
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I just want my next house to be over 1000 sq ft (ideally 1500-2000 sq ft though). And cost at least 8 times as much as our previous house (we're currently renting). I also want to win the lottery so I don't feel slightly envious of someone wanting a house that's at least 1000 sq ft smaller. I'm not sure what negative sq ft would look like, but that's what our house would be after subtracting 1000 sq ft (both current rental and previous house, though not combined). I've never bought a lottery ticket though, and the odds of finding the winning ticket on the sidewalk are exceedingly slim. :)
Couldn't you just pay someone to help you clean for a few hours every (other) week? That can't cost much compared to the mortgage, taxes and maintenance costs of a house that's 1000+ sq ft too big, right?
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You might want to try borrowing a couple before purchasing. What some of us find fun and quirky can be annoying for others. Even though Fred has been awesome here, it's offbeat and I don't think it will work for everyone.
You can find a sample chapter for each of the books online, I think on ztwist? For a kid entering 3rd grade next year, I think I'd suggest starting with Apples (and I'd probably add it now, not next year), just because it's fun and not too many books behind. But if you can find someone to borrow Apples-Dogs or so from, that would of course be even better, budget-wise. On the bright side, last time I checked they kept a pretty decent resale value.
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Not so much the dropping. Just the disappearing. Where did they all go? Are pencils the new socks?
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So, if you do take summer break because your husband is a teacher, could you just do a shorter summer break and more shorter breaks during the year? Your husband wouldn't have that time off, but it might be helpful to you and your daughter. Where I'm from summer break in elementary school is 6 weeks long, and kids often get bored by the end of it anyway. We also had a week of fall break, 2 weeks of winter break, and then 2 more breaks in spring and easter or something. Schools there didn't usually half half days, but my son in ps gets half days fairly often imo... teacher training, teacher conferences with parents, etc.
And I totally agree with signing her up for camp. That's how I'm planning on retaining a semblance of sanity (that, and my psych meds). The Y's day camps are pretty cheap and you can have your kid sell candy bars to earn their way to camp. Or they could start their own home business of some sort (very educational - could totally do that during 'school time') and earn their way to some other camp that way.
ETA: I've got my 7.5yo signed up for a science camp at the science museum this summer. I'm totally planning on including that in my quarterly report if I homeschool him next year (haven't filed paperwork yet). One of the things he'll be doing is dissecting some things that live in the sea, so of course it's educational. :)
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I actually had a note sent home from school when my DS was in 2nd grade w/ guidance about when to leave kids. It said to begin leaving children alone for short trips (20-30min) when they were 9 and to gradually build up the time alone until 13 when they could babysit.
I would second gradually building it up. I'd also say it varies per child, and that a note sent home is probably going to put the ages on the high side so they can cover the age at which almost all kids have the right amount of maturity. Kind of like how you're supposed to keep little things away from kids under 3. My kids didn't put little things in their mouths after 15 months or so, and I would imagine that most kids probably stop that by 2yo, so that by 3yo almost all kids don't do it anymore.
I started leaving my oldest home alone to pick my youngest up from daycare (a block away) when my oldest was 6-6.5. When there was too much snow this winter so that my youngest (4yo) would just mess it up too much (snow piled up on both sides of the sidewalk about as tall as he was), I left him inside while I shoveled outside. Not home alone, obviously, but not exactly supervised either. Of course, some kids will decide to turn on your gas stove while you're out of the room for a minute. Those kids need closer supervision. I'm pretty lucky mine are pretty safe (and I think that really is mostly luck).
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My kids don't seem to ever use that phrase. They just whine "I want something to eat" combined with "I don't want that". Which is somewhat surprising, since my wife says there's nothing to eat way too frequently (no, she doesn't want cereal, oatmeal, bread with jam/nutella/peanutbutter, or another 5+ options). She's super picky at times, usually when she's already too hungry. I've learned to just ignore it - it's not my problem, even if she wants to make it my problem. That said, it annoys me, because it's tough to raise the kids to be good eaters when half their rolemodels are bad. But hey, there are kids with worse rolemodels. She's NOT shooting up heroin in the living room (or anywhere else) or w/e.
Usually my kids get 1-2 choices and if they like neither that's their problem.
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It's an affliction, really. Oughta go form a support group....
Thanks for the elaborate answer. I Googled Hermione parents and obviously got pretty confused.
I think it's a real problem in our culture (and most cultures, from what I can tell). The school system seems to try to encourage it, with multiple choice tests etc.
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FWIW, my dad was not given that option and he felt behind and too young and too immature his entire school career. He didn't feel that he was finally in the right grade level until he was in college. He would have loved to repeat kinder and had more time to mature.
If a kid seems to want to repeat K I'd probably let them, after discussing the pros and cons. That said, you just don't know how things will work out. If his parents had made him repeat K, he might now be looking back annoyed that he was always the biggest and oldest kid in the class, etc. Or maybe things would have gone great. You just don't know.
In 3rd grade the teacher talked to my parents and the parents of one other kid about us skipping a grade. Our parents decided that we were just too young (I have a late July birthday and he had a mid-August birthday, so we were already the two youngest kids in 3rd grade). I didn't know about this until I begged my parents to let me skip 9th grade. I really wish that they would have let me skip way back in 3rd. It wouldn't even have been that obvious, since it was a mixed 3rd/4th grade class, so I could have just started doing 4th grade level work in the middle of the year and then gone to 5th the next year.
None of us have crystal balls, and we all bring our own biases into it. The one thing I want my own kids to learn about grade levels is that they're super arbitrary and necessitated by the school system, but that it's very common for kids to not neatly fit into one box.
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I would go with what grade you think he should be in if, heaven forbid, something were to happen to you and he'd have to attend public school. It would be much easier to convince the school to put the kid in the grade you're already reporting as, than to argue about putting him a grade higher or lower than you're reporting (although lower would probably be easier to do than higher).
My 7.5yo has a mid-August birthday and is currently in 2nd grade in PS. We moved in the middle of K, and his new teacher, after knowing him for only a few weeks, mentioned something about holding him back. So I thought about it, researched it, etc, and then when I talked to her about it again a month later or so she was like "I didn't say anything about him repeating K. He definitely should go to 1st grade next year". Argh. Her reasoning was that he's immature in some ways (he has an ASD and a 1-1 aide), but that academically he needed 1st grade level material. He's young and short for his age at that, but his classmates just think he's adorable (not sure how long that's going to work for him, but w/e).
I won't yet have to report my 4yo (who'll turn 5 in November - cutoff for K is Dec 1st), but if I had to, I'd probably report him as 1st grade. He goes to daycare one day a week (for my sanity) and the preschool teachers there agree that he's academically ready for 1st grade, and when they asked me what I was planning to do and I said "homeschool" they thought that was an awesome idea for him. Because boys who are bored out of their minds in a classroom can often start acting out, even if they're normally great kids.
I've seen a study where it turned out that kids with IQs over 150 did better, socially, if they skipped 2+ grades. Yes, they're smaller, etc... but they won't have any peers in a classroom with same-age kids either. They have a better opportunity of practicing social skills if the other kids are more or less at the same intellectual level. Not saying that your son has an IQ of 150+. Just that if a kid is ahead academically, I wouldn't be inclined to hold them back for social reasons.
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I just started 4yo on Apples. One chapter at a time and then the end of chapter questions. Too soon to say much more about it. We have been doing and will continue to do math apps on my phone, playing with cm cubes/hundred charts, adding up while playing dominoes, etc.
I did some of Apples, Butterflies and Cats with my now 7.5yo last spring/summer, I think. He's in public school or I would have done more. It was a way to sneak more story into him. He loves math and is great at it.
I've been lending my books to a friend in homeschool swim&gym. Her youngest is 11 and struggling a little with math, and I suggested Life of Fred, but also told her she should not spend money on the first books, since they're at a 1st grade level or so. But that her kids might enjoy LoF and that reading them from Apples on might help fill in any gaps. So, they've been reading my books, starting at Apples. She said she ordered Kidneys and up for them, which turns out great, since I have Apples-Jellybean. And now I have first dibs on used Kidneys etc. :)
ETA: you can find the author's advice on where to start on the author's website.
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I can't even imagine. Here kids of any age can get cards with a 50 item limit, plus my adult 50 item limit card, plus I have a professional educator/Homeschool card with a 100 item limit. We never come close to maxing it out, but that is sort of the point... why limit it.
I'm not sure what my current limit is. I think 100? The max I've had checked out is about 36, and I'm trying to cut down on that, especially since winter is over and it's not such an inconvenience to go, well, anywhere. My car windows fog up in the winter. I've had to scrape the *inside* front windshield too many times this past winter, which is hard to do because it's slightly concave. The heater takes too long to warm the car up.
In Richardson, TX, the public library didn't have a checkout limit. When I asked the librarian about it, she was like "well, if you want to rent a few trucks and spend hours upon hours checking out all the books, go ahead. As long as you pay the fines if you don't return them on time".
I can understand a checkout limit in *small* libraries though. Like the library in a town of about 2000 people where the books were in roughly the space of my living room (okay, maybe a bit bigger, but still - my living room is pretty small).
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Hermione-type parents
What are Hermione-type parents? (I have not read Harry Potter, which I assume this is referring to?)
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I've left my 4yo and my 7.5yo alone in similar situations without issue, even when I asked. Not everywhere... there definitely are places where they don't want a 4yo or even a 7.5yo to be alone. But there are enough places where they don't mind at all.
Dentist: dentist would be okay with me and 7.5yo having appt at same time, which would mean he might be done sooner than I am. 7.5yo prefers I stay with him though, so haven't done that. I had the 4yo and 7.5yo's appts sequentially the other day, and I was in with the 4yo while 7.5yo did his homework in the waiting area. That said, I could see him from the exam room, so it doesn't really count.
My psychiatrist's office has been okay with leaving 4yo in waiting area or both 4yo and 7.5yo in waiting area (which seems more like a recipe for misbehaving to me). I try to plan appts without them though, so I haven't had the opportunity to ask every place.
My local library has a sign on the children's area that says: "Please don't leave children under 6 unattended in children's area". I'm not entirely sure what they mean by that. I'll walk around the children's area browsing the shelves all the time while my 4yo or both kids play with the toys or are on the computer. No, I can't see them, but I can definitely hear them if they exceed my perception of what's acceptable in a library, and I'd also be there in a couple of seconds if they get to loud. They also conveniently put the computers with the catalogs on the other side of the library, so I've started to walk back and forth there while leaving 4yo in children's area 'unattended'. Straight line of sight though, and not long. My most recent addition to stretching the rule is to very briefly browse in the adult area. No line of sight, but very brief. I'm pretty sure that that's something they don't want, but they haven't commented. In the past I'd drag my kids out of the children's area along with me when I browse the adult area, and they get noisy and whiny because they don't like it. So, I'm pretending that "Please don't leave children under 6 unattended in children's area" means to not leave the building while I have a kid under 6 in the children's area (which of course would be a big no-no). Maybe that *is* what it means, but I suspect they don't want people leaving their kids while browsing. I'm not going to ask for clarification. I'm sure they'll let me know if I'm going too far.
Taekwondo is okay with kids being dropped off and have a rule you can't be more than 15 min late to pick them up. They start at 3yo, but classes for that age are 30 min. At 4yo my son's class is 45 min, which is still not enough time to go somewhere really.
Our state doesn't have laws about what age you can leave a child home alone. I leave my 7.5yo home alone sometimes, which he loves (I give him the iPad while I'm gone). Of course, that's not for hours or anything.
ETA: I left my 4yo in the school's front office during my older's son's IEP meeting. I asked first, they said okay, I handed him my phone, and he was very well behaved according to the staff (well duh, he had a phone with games on it - sound off).
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Driving in the car with 4yo today, waiting at a traffic light. 4yo (reading street sign): "We're turning onto Sheridan doctor. Or drive."
Regretting now that we're not catholic. I'm sure you could come up with some fun saints. Or streets. Less fun when he asks me what road we're on, I answer, and he insists on correcting me by adding "avenue" (most roads around here are avenues - I can think of only one street at all in the area).
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Slapping a child in the face is WRONG.
I'm curious. Why is slapping in the face more wrong than, say, spanking? I'm not trying to argue about what is or isn't wrong, just wanting to know why it's 'more' wrong, as most people seem to think that it's worse somehow (whether they think spanking is wrong or not). Keeping in mind that this was about a slap from a couple of inches away, not a full-out slap-as-hard-as-you-can-slap.
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I actually will even wear shorts out and about without shaving. Although not often, since I'm not a big fan of shorts. Capri leggings a bit more often. I'm all for the whole emancipation thing. If men can wear shorts without shaving their legs, so can I.
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What to do next with advanced 4YO in Reading/Spelling/Writing?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
My 4yo (November kid) liked tracing in books like Kumon and similar from the dollar store. We haven't done them recently (he's been having some medical issues the past couple of months), but I'd say that until the letters are looking good, frequent tracing is probably a good idea.