My daughter is 7.5 years old and spoke Bengali till she was about 6 years old (we adopted her from India). We are part of a classical conversations community and I'm really amazed at my daughter's excitement over and ability to memorize all of this information. The classical education model included Latin. But, I'd love for my daughter to have the ability to speak a foreign language. During the grammar stage what should our goals for foreign language instruction include? Since she IS still learning English, and we are including English grammar, should I incorporate foreign langauge now or wait? What is expected out of grammar stage? Will a gentle focus on vocabulary and listening to music, songs, tvs and nursery rhymes in Bengali be enough for now? She has already forgotten all of her Bengali except for a few words we have incorporated into our daily language. I do not speak Bengali. So I feel this will hinder her some. I just purchased Memoria Press Prima Latina program and might start using this lightly since it does teach English grammar alongside Latin. Am I asking too much of her? We would not be making this a priority or heavy focus, but probably loop it in with other subjects.

I'm putting together a reading list for the next year. Of course won't be all inclusive, but I'd love to see what's on your list for your Pre-Schoolers and Kindergarteners.

So.....I'm sure this comes naturally to a lot of parents, but not me. I have a general idea of how to start a nature journal, but I'd love to hear how you did nature journals with your Kinders/pre-schoolers or be pointed to some resources. I want it to be something we can do throughout the year and can be connected to science activities - I'm primarily using "Science Play" and "Mudpies to Magnets" and "More Mudpies to Magnets" as resources for our science activities. Thanks!

Wow. Your child sounds a lot like our daughter. I've been trying to determine if what I see is a typical brain response to having experienced trauma or the impact of trauma on brain development thus causing some sort of issue. She has great handwriting, excellent fine motor skills - better than mine, actually - she learns very quickly, but doesn't seem to be able to answer any questions. If I read a story and ask her very simple questions about the story she is unable to answer any of them. If I try "yes/no" questions it might work. But the more questions I ask, the more it's a threat and she just shuts down. The girl can count to 100, count to 100 by tens, and the other day could not count to five. All on her own she was proudly counting by tens to 100 for Daddy, and I asked her to try it backwards. She got stuck at 50. So we asked "what comes before 5?" Could not answer. So I used puzzle pieces as manipulatives to essentially reteach her. With the manipulatives she could count to five. I removed the puzzle pieces and asked her to count to five and her responses were "100" "50" "10" It was alarming. I haven't been able to tell if she is playing us. She is still learning English (we adopted her 9 mo ago), which is why I can't really have her assessed yet. But there are times when she just blows me away by information she retains. I'll tell her a story, or teach her something thinking it's a waste of time as she isn't going to understand a word I say. Then weeks later she'll bring it back up. But, we also have circumstances too like your's when you said your son wrote "didn't want to go to Colorado. Why or why not." I'll ask her something or say something to her and she basically repeats what I said. And it's frustrating to communicate literally like that. I wish I had an example, but I can't think right now. We've done some kindergarten/pre-school work in the few months after she came home and she seemed to learn at a speed I was happy with. I don't have high expectations, but she's always exceeding them. We are officially starting Kindergarten next week. Now I don't know if this is something I really need to watch out for, or assume it's a normal progression of ELL/trauma brain.

My Kindergartener already has really good handwriting. We adopted her and apparently, good handwriting is a pre-requisite for entrance into many primary schools in India. The pre-school she was in worked with her on that. She does have a few bad habits we need to nail out. She was also obviously taught the ball-stick method - probably because that's how you do script writing. She can write very small, but she does have a very tight grip on her pencil and writes kind of hard. I do the same thing and have never grown out of it. I don't know if this matters. She has great fine motor skills. I'd like to choose a handwriting book for her to work through just to work through some of the bad habits and to continue to finesse her handwriting. Would it be too frustrating to switch her to D'Nealian? It's debatable as to whether or not we will force fluency in cursive if we continue to homeschool, although I plan to teach it. Public schools no longer teach cursive. I just simply like the way D'Nealian looks. Eventually, she'll develop her own style of handwriting, right? I just don't know what to do....

I saw the Tapestry of Grace Primer curriculum and would love to start this with my daughter only as an introduction to prepare her for SOTW or TOG 1 next year. She's still learning a lot of English. I feel she'll enjoy doing some of the activities and she'll probably only pick-up a little bit of info at a time. I think I'm OK with that. Or it means we should wait another year. But, what gets me is the amount of reading in each lesson. I read through the sample and holy cow, what's with all that reading? Am I supposed to do ALL of that each day? She loves to cuddle up and read, but she spaces out whenever I do read to her. I can't imagine reading all of those selections every day. Are they for once a week? Would you do this History curriculum for a six-year-old who is still learning English?

This is my first year homeschooling and not only that I've only been a mom for nine months. We plan to start school in mid-August. I'm struggling to design a solid morning routine that will lead into circle time for my six-year-old who is learning English. Our morning routine is very basic as we tend to need to "go with the flow" of how we both are feeling that day, but we will need more structure once the school year commences. I am also not sure what to do with circle time and if there is an even a need or if we should just jump right into math/language. Do you let your child choose which subjects they do first? I'd love to see what your mornings look like and what activities you do during circle time!

I am reviewing the Elemental Science "Exploring Science" and "Intro to Science" curriculum guides for six-year old who will start Kindergarten this fall. She is an ELL student and as such there are language delays. I like having a curriculum to create structure and basically give me all the tools I need to do school. However, it appears the lesson plans are based off the recommended books "More Mudpies to Magnets" or "Science Play" with a coloring page and a record/observation sheet. I haven't reviewed the two books to know if for an untrained new-to-homeschooling person as myself would still benefit from using them alone without the Elemental Science curriculum. I also noticed a few typos and just poorly edited sentences in the samples that make me wary of spending the money for this curriculum. What are your thoughts on this curriculum and are their other science curriculums you would recommend? I want something that is going to be fun and engaging to my daughter while gently introducing her to science concepts. She does not come from an academic background where she may have been introduced to science either through school, play or reading.

How old were your kids when you started them on PAL? Also...what is ETC? Sorry for my ignorance here.

Can the IEW PAL: Writing program stand alone with a different reading program? Or is it best used combined with the PAL: Reading program.

Can I combine AAR and the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading for a 6-year-old ELL kindergartner? I am also thinking about using the IEW PAL: Writing program. I know it is designed to accompany the PAL: Reading program (which can stand by itself). Does the PAL: writing program stand by itself? I don't want to overwhelm her in kindergartner. What else do I need if I use OPGTR and AAR besides a handwriting program?