Is this too much for K/1?

[shinyhappypeople]

My "going on 5" DD will be starting Kindergarten this fall, her 6 yo sister will be in 1st grade. They are both extremely bright, motivated people. This will be our first year homeschooling, so I could use some input.

 

My goal is for it to be gentle and developmentally-appropriate but still give them a strong foundation. Also, I want to teach them TOGETHER as much as possible. They're only 15 mos. apart.

 

It's not "by the book" WTM, though I've been heavily influenced by it (esp. the focus on mastering the 3 R's in the early years) Anyway, here's the plan thus far:

 

Daily

 

Pathway Readers and "read alone" library books, with narration.

 

Five in a Row - with a narration activity added in.

 

Math: MEP 1a (DD2) and 1b/2 (DD1)

 

 

M/W/F

 

Spanish: La Clase Divertida 1

 

Handwriting: Queen's Cursive (DD1) and HWT Letters & Numbers for Me (DD2)

 

Once or twice a week:

 

Science: Rod & Staff Patterns in Nature (read aloud, answer wkbk questions orally, so DD2 can participate too), read related library books and do experiments in More Mudpies to Magnets as much or little as they want.

 

History: "Ancient World Cultures", discussing the cultural/religious/political highlights of the best known ones, e.g. Egypt (mummies, pyramids, King Tut, etc.), Rome, China, and so on. Lots of craft projects because we all love doing them :) and use picture-rich books from the library books.

 

Thoughts? Feedback?

Edited June 17, 2009 by shinyhappypeople

[Chris in VA]

Sounds good to me. I love the Pathway readers--there's something so attractive about those little hardbacks! Are you going to do a phonics program also? I'd encourage you to start your littlest on Phonics Pathways (name is similar, but not the same company as the Pathway Readers) until she has a good foundation, as the Pathway Readers have a lot of sight words in them.

 

Are you going to use SOTW for Ancients? Love the AG, and it's easily supplemented with picture books.

[Aurelia]

It looks pretty similar to what we did for my DD who turned 5 in April. She enjoyed it and didn't have any trouble.

[shinyhappypeople]

Helpful input... thank you. I totally spaced on phonics. Duh! :blushing: I am wide open to more feedback :)

[shinyhappypeople]

It looks fine to me, but I might add a very small amount of handwriting practice every day (unless you are lucky enough to have children who take to handwriting very easily).

 

How long do you think handwriting practice would take?

 

Would handwriting practice take more than 5 or 10 minutes, you think?

 

I'm concerned about making their days too long. They're smart, but YOUNG, kwim? My goal is to keep the total time for academic work to around 1-1/2 hrs (2 hrs MAX) a day, some in the morning, some in the afternoon.

[ElizabethB]

I have a lot of phonics recommendations for you!

 

Working with 2, I think Webster's Speller is your best choice. You can start them both with the syllabary, and then they each move ahead at their own pace, you review a bit of the syllabary daily with them both. Since the later 2+ syllable words are based on the syllabary, they will be able to gain from the other child's lesson, instant preview and review!

 

There is a short explanation on how to use Webster's Speller in my link below, which includes a link to a movie of it being used, and this thread here has more information about how to use it:

 

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70153

 

I also like Phonics Pathways or The Ordinary Parents Guide, taught from a white board, that's the best way to hold their attention at that age, and also allows you to write larger, very important for a young child.

 

Here's my basic recommendations for how to teach a beginning reader, with a link to a fun game you can make and ideas for games with magnetic letters:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/newstudents.html

[shinyhappypeople]

Thanks ElizabethB, I'll check those links out. I've never heard of Webster's Speller before.

[Caroline4kids]

I would just add to go very light on the narration. It is a hard thing to do when it is new and can be frustrating initially. My daugher is almost five and I don't require any narration from her, but she will narrate on her own if she likes the story. Five in a Row is wonderful for that. FIAR remains one of our best memories.:)

 

Don't be frustrated if things go more slowly than you may desire. I only say this because it is hard to gage expectations the first year. The pathway readers are wonderful and all my kids loved them. We started with the red book at six years of age.

[Aurelia]

Helpful input... thank you. I totally spaced on phonics. Duh! :blushing: I am wide open to more feedback :)

 

 

We liked ABeCeDarian for learning to read, which is a workbook and TM. It teaches by sound, so at level B, in one lesson (which takes about 5 days) the student learns all the "long E" spellings like ea, ee, e_e, etc.

 

For handwriting, on days you don't work in the workbook, you might get one of those wipe-off handwriting practice pads. It worked well when I wanted to focus on practicing just one letter. Once she had mastered all the letters to my satisfaction, I had her work in her copywork book. (We used Beatrix Potter for Beginners because it was cute, secular, and progressed from tracing the letters to copying full sentences.) Practice doesn't take more than 5 minutes, but I insist that it has to be her best effort. If that means she can only write the letter "a" 3 times, then so be it. At least they are 3 letters well done.

[Jayne J]

I did something very similar for ds(5) this year, and all went very well.

 

Handwriting only takes us 5-10 minutes a day (if everyone cooperates;)). I just choose a sentence, verse etc. for copying and write it on a whiteboard, from which he copies. Maybe on "off" days (T,Th) have them do this kind of copywork.

 

The only thing we ended up dropping from our schedule was Spanish. We were using a very informal system to begin with and we all got weary of it.

 

I want to second ElizabethB's recommendation of the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading for phonics. I bought it, thought it was too boring (without trying it) and sent it back, only to re-buy it a year later and love it. I must give a hats off to ElizabethB, whose recommendation to use a whiteboard saved the day. :thumbup: We really love it now!

[shinyhappypeople]

For those who used FIAR, how long did you take to get through a book? Five days in a row or five days stretched out over a couple of weeks?

[Satori]

We're doing something very similar for my soon-to-be-5 dd this fall. Actually we started early this spring.

 

Five in a Row can go as slow or as fast as you want. I call it 3 or 4 in a row, as that's how many times I can read the book before my dd stops listening, hehe. You can certainly finish one book every week. I guess I took about two weeks per book, as we did lots of activities, extras, field trips and read-alongs for most of our books we've done. :) I think I overdid the FIAR, so we're only going to row a book once a month or so.

[ElizabethB]

Thanks ElizabethB, I'll check those links out. I've never heard of Webster's Speller before.

 

Well, it was at it's height of popularity in the late 1700's and early 1800's!

 

It was written by Noah Webster to teach children to read and spell. Since he wrote a dictionary and was a teacher for several years, I thought I would give it a try. He was a genius!

 

I like it for both a young student and my remedial students.

 

You learn syllables first, then later after you learn some simple 3 and 4 letter words, you learn 2+ syllable words broken up into those syllables.

 

ab, eb, ib, ob, ub; ba, be, bi, bo, bu, by (the last set pronounced bay, bee, by, boe, bew, by)

 

Then, these syllables are used to make words like ab-stract and ba-ker.

 

It's also easiest to learn to blend 2 letters, and the 2 letter blends in the syllabary (table of syllables) are directly useful for later long words.

 

Edit: You may have heard of it as "The Blue Backed Speller," or "The American Spelling Book," it was also known by these names.

Edited June 17, 2009 by ElizabethB