Good morning all, I have a quick question I am hoping you experienced mom's can help with. For kinder we decided to have my 6 YO go to a charter instead of homeschooling. (It has to do with heath insurance reasons). I loved their curriculum because they use Spalding and Math in Focus for Language arts and math and my son enjoys science and they have it every day. Well the school is shut down for a while and my son was doing really well in math and I was wondering if there are any good math workbooks/games that we could do while he is out. I am not looking for online learning and that is what I am seeing on Facebook. It's not that I am completely against it, it's just he already gets SO MUCH screen time. I have the teachers manuals for math in focus K but none of the workbooks and honestly they look complex since they are meant for school. For reading we will continue with basic phonics and just a bunch of reading. (I have Logic of English A and B so we might do some of that.) I purchased that before we got into the charter. But I have no idea about math. I don't want him to loose what he is learned. To give you some ideas where they are he has learned about shapes, just started recognizing numbers to 100, basic single digit addition (number stories), and counting by 10. Any good resources? TIA! I really appreciate it!

I ordered LoE Foundations for my wiggly 5 YO. He has some hearing loss and i liked how they covered voice/unvoiced words, played with sounds, and started out w/compound words and segmenting. I was doing AAR Pre-Reading with him but he had this huge jump and needed the next level so i had to decide between AAR 1 and LoE. LoE also won because of all the movement activities. It was a hard choice but I am really liking the LoE for him. (I am glad i didn't have to decide between the new color version of AAR 1 and LoE. That would have made it even harder.) I have heard you can't go wrong with either of them. Also, LoE includes handwriting. We do the handwriting but we don't focus on it. He had some fine motor delays but it has really improved in the last year.

My DS will be 5 in Oct and is obsessed w/letters. So i am taking advantage when he is in the mood. We do AAR Pre Reading now. He loves Ziggy. If we get done with that and he is still interested we will probably do AAR 1 in the fall. I won't push him though. MEP Reception maybe MP Junior K Read Alouds and Book of Crafts for Junior K. Lots of Board Games Continue w/speech and feeding therapy if he needs it. I will say he is my first and i am LOVING this age. It is a lot of fun!

I didn't think to check my local homeschooling store. I will see what they have. Those activities are cute. THanks!

Oh i saw the kumon books on Amazon. I will take a closer look. Thanks!

Thank you for the lakeshore learning link! i think those are awesome. Ya.. i was only considering the HWOT because the OT recommended it. Thank you for reminding me that writing is a developmental milestone. Some times i need that when everyone tells me he should be "writing", coloring, attempting to color, draw circles, etc. I needed that. I know he is behind in fine motor, but that's one of the reason's we go to OT and to help w/his sensory stuff. I will stick w/the pre-writing stuff, and continue to help strengthen his hands. I will get the pre-reading since that will help him learn his letters and sounds. Right now he is obsessed w/the letter "x" so he is showing interest. :)

Random question... how do you color the shaving cream?? Is there something on pinterest for this?

Thank you all so much for replying. I am not necessarily wanting writing, although we do need to strengthen his hands. I actually really liked AAR pre because it had none of the fine motor stuff and we are struggling with just getting him to color at this point. I actually got him to "color/write" on a white erase board with colored markers so that is a start. :) And i love how he is interested in all his toys and books. I think i will hold off on the HWOT for now and keep with the playing w/play-dough. I really like the teasers and the pom pop ideas! Thank you for that idea and I will look at the lists that MerryatHope posted for the tactile letters and such. I guess i was just really second guessing myself since his fine motor skills are already so behind and such that maybe we needed the HWOT. And then of course if he goes to public K the writing that is required here is nuts but luckily we still have 2 years before we have to decide on that. But i think i will put it off another year and stick with my AAR Pre plan since he will be 4 just in OCT. The other option was some iPad games but we don't really do apps in our house. Thank you all! I will just order the AAR pre for the fall.

Hi... my LO is very interested in learning his letters and i was planning on getting him the All About Reading Pre-Reading for the fall. (He will be four in Oct and i figure he will like the puppet and such). He has some sensory issues (he's a seeker), speech, feeding, and fine motor skill delays and i was talking to his OT about it. She recommended for writing to get Handwriting w/out tears for pre-k due to the wood letters and such. I am definitely of the approach that a little goes a long way and i don't want to overload him. He wants to learn his letters and such and since they are working on fine motor skills i wonder if it would be good to get the Handwriting w/out tears instead or both. Both are huge investments... thoughts? Does Handwriting w/out tears pre-k help w/fine motor skills? He has retained reflexes so that doesn't help. We read aloud and play and play but since he was showing interest i thought i would get something more structured for him Also Handwriting w/out tears seems like a bigger investment then he all about reading... what do you really need?

Those are great ideas! Especially the ziplock bag ideas! Thanks! Thank you for these resources! They are great and i love the booklists. i can start getting some of those at the library. Thanks to all of you for the wonderful ideas.

No. He is my first. So i have no experience. :) My friend recommended pinterest but i have to say that i am not a crafty pinterest mom. :) Any recommendations on books i can read that talks about teaching a child to read?

HI all, My 3 YO LOVES books. He memorizes the ones that we read the most and when we read a new one then after we are done he takes it and wants to read it to me. He asks me to help him "say something" for each page if he doesn't have it memorized to "read" back to me. The other day he asked me to teach him how to read and say something. I am very much of the don't push it mentality and letting him play as much as possible. He loves to play but he again, has asked me to teach him to read. He watches Leap Frog letter factory and knows about 5 letters and can point them out. He can sit still when he wants. He is a little speech delayed but he has had his hearing aid know for over a year and making huge progress. So my DH and I were talking and he feels that we should "teach him to read" since he is asking and i'm like he doesn't know his alphabet yet! So i at least agreed to start teaching him his alphabet. If we start and he isn't interested i can put it away. So my question is more of, what are good tools to teach the alphabet and pre-reading skills. I have started to buy rhyming books too and his new favorite book is "Rhyming Dust Bunnies." I figure we can sit and learn the alphabet together and go from there and if he still wants to "learn to read" after that we will cross that bridge later. He knows the alphabet song too. Also, i need ideas for teaching it w/out writing. His fine motor skills are not there yet. Thoughts?? TIA. I looked at All About Reading pre reading but its a little expensive. We had also been doing Simply Classical A from MP and he had a huge leap. Now we just use the book list since he made that leap. I am just not sure he is ready for the fine motor skills in Simply Classical B and thinking i am not ready for a whole package yet either.

You guys are so awesome! Thank you for the discussion and all the encouragement. I really appreciate it!

That is a really interesting article. Thank you for pointing me in that direction. I will look at Rod and Staff too. I like MP Simply Classical. It gives me so many ideas and my son LOVES the books!

That's a good point about the special services. We are just transitioning from ECI to the school district. So my son is going to be tested for services in the fall. I didn't realize that he may be able to get services if we homeschool.

This is a good comparison. Is there something that combines the two? Conceptional and abstract w/memorization? I heard someone mention math mammoth. I want to make sure my son gets a good foundation.

I loved the Dewey Decimal System in school! I will have to take a look at my local library and look for the books. Thank you for the suggestion.

It's funny that you mention this. I was talking to my husband and i asked him how i was suppose to help our son with math homework when i don't even understand the way they are teaching. And he said, well we would have to figure it out! This is an excellent point. Thank you for this! I am going to look in to the math course that the other poster mentioned. I think it will help greatly and clarify things for me. Just because its different doesn't make it wrong. Its just unknown to me. :)

Scripted may be the way to go at first until I get use to it and it sounds nice that it uses tons of manipulatives. That may help my wiggly child. That makes since about the district. I am slowly learning more about my school district and it seems like a mixed bag. Every one is loving the classical charters that are popping up but since they are really good schools they are starting to get huge wait lists and its now a lottery. Thank you for the ideas! Everyone is so helpful!! The writing is a concern that is a great point. I didn't realize that kids were expected to write so much in K. I never did. In fact i was looking at my husbands report card from K, (My MIL kept it) and it has things like learning letters and writing letters and learning to share. Nothing about sentences but i was reading the district website and they are expected to read and write sentences. I am amazed. Thank you for this! This is a great idea and may go a long way to making me a little more comfortable. I will look it up. Doesn't she have a book about preschool math too? I thought i saw it. Thank you all for the ideas. It gives me more to research but its good to know there are a lot of options and help out there!

Thank you so much for replying. So if it depends on the implementation and teacher then all the more reason to homeschool. :) I see you use RightStart and I will research it. What do you like about it? I have not looked at that one.

HI All. I am new here but I lurk from time to time. I have an almost 3 year old and my husband and i are starting to research homeschool vs charter vs public vs private schools in Texas. Over the years we have heard about a ton of changes to math and how it was taught when we were in school. I am concerned because I hear that "K" is the new 1st grade and i think our greatest concern is math. I was good at math in school but for some reason it scares me to teach it. What's funny is i am not scared of possibly teaching him to read but our world is so math oriented know that i want to make sure he gets a good foundation. Right now my almost 3 year old is just learning to count and know his shapes and colors. We are also using Memoria Press's Simply Classical A very loosly because it its perfect for him, helps us build a library for him, and gives us great books to read. He LOVES for me to read to him. He loves our book time and that is working great. We also play play and play. He is a very energetic and curious toddler with hearing loss and speech delays and we have been told in no uncertain terms that a energetic toddler that could turn into an energetic k'er is not always a good "fit" for public school. We are also getting ready to switch to our local school district for services so that is also prompting some of this research. So that is a little background. Anyways, one of the private schools uses Saxon (I think in K they said they would use grade 1 of Saxon), another one uses Abeka, the charter school uses Math in Focus, and the public schools use Pearson Envision Texas 2.0. And i think if we homeschool we would have our choice since it appears that Texas is very open homeschooling and does not have many requirements. I was doing some reading a d found out that Texas switched to new TEKS standards and when we started looking at them even though TEKS is not common core it is pretty close and might as well be common core but that common core is illegal in Texas. We found a 1st grade math in focus student book on amazon used for 6.00 so i purchased it and realized that the way it is taught is NOTHING like i learned in school. Is MIF common core? What exactly is common core and just because it has a bad rap does it mean its actually bad? I was amazed at what the kids learn in K these days and it seems to be a lot. If we did homeschool, being that i am not familiar with it at all would i even be able to teach it and is math with memorization of facts even still a thing? I realize we have a few years to figure this out but some of the schools we were looking at has long waiting lists so we are starting our research now. Would any of those programs lay a good foundation? My brother is in high school currently and was not given a great foundation in public elementary and as a result is struggling. Also, i realize that even the word common core can cause a debate and i am not wanting to start one. I just want to learn and find out what it actually is. TIA. Sorry this is so long and sorry for all the questions!