How many workbook pages a day for K4?

[ALB]

I'm starting to feel like we're swimming in "great" workbooks, and that is NOT how I imagined our hs looking like (and we're only doing K4!). We've been consistently doing the ETC primers and the HWT pre K book. I had purchased the R&S A-F series, and then someone gave me the Developing the Early Learner set. They all seem so great and are slightly different, but I don't want us to spend all our school time doing worksheets. If I spread these out, what should I keep as the main focus? For example, is it okay to only do handwriting 2-3 times a week, or does that need daily practice? Does anyone have experience with both R&S and DEL, and could you tell if there is one that is easier/ better to do before the other?

[2_girls_mommy]

When both of my girls were preK age 4, we never did more than 2 wksheets a day and then only 2 or 3 days a week. One dd who was ready was reading and writing before K age and jumped into 1st grade math.

 

The other dd did not really like workbooks. She did a couple of pgs of the R&S ABC wkbks a week. The rest of the time we worked on letters doing LOTW activities, with no writing.

 

By the time she started K she liked the R&S wkbks and was doing 2-3 pgs a day of those 4 days a week for the 1st semester. So we start very slowly, but do what they can handle and want at that age.

[kathkath]

I wouldn't bother with the handwriting. THe most important thing at this stage is a proper grip, and you can work on that when they're drawing.

[Dmmetler]

If you're doing HWT Pre-K by the book, you should only be doing one workbook page a WEEK-everything else is multisensory, with the letter pieces, on the slate, air writing, playdough, stamp and see, and so on.

 

I did the teacher training for HWT, and it was stressed that the workbook was the smallest component of the program, and that there are only two reasons it exists

1) Schools wouldn't purchase a handwriting curriculum without a paper component

 

and

 

2) Since the other materials are reusable, if they didn't sell workbooks, the company wouldn't survive financially.

 

It was stressed that it was OK to not do all the pages, not finish the workbook, or even send the book home for practice so parents know what you're doing, but to work off the book in class.

 

So, given that this is what they're telling pre-K teachers, don't feel at ALL guilty for not doing the workbook daily at home!

 

I'd also look at the other curriculum materials and see what is really necessary and what can be done in other ways. I'm not familiar with the curricula you're using, but many good preschools follow Montessori or Reggio Emilia or High/Scope and use no worksheets whatsoever (in High/Scope, you can't even xerox an outline for children to practice cutting out shapes), so it's very doable to adapt curricula to a non-worksheet system.

[ALB]

I don't have the TM for HWT, so maybe I have been doing it wrong. My dd writes ALL the time, just for fun. She forms most letters correctly, but some are completely wrong. I guess I thought having her do structured practice everyday would prevent bad habits. Maybe just doing more hands on activities (like the play dough letters) would accomplish the same goal...?

[Dmmetler]

You can certainly accomplish the goal without necessarily writing all the time. The teacher's manual is well worth getting, especially for pre-K. Some of the activities are group based, but since the program was written (and is used) by occupational therapists, many are well suited for 1-1, too. I think you can get the templates for the letter pieces and some of the activity suggestions on the website, but I don't know whether they're in the public section or the one that you get access to when you buy the TM.

[Suzannah]

My DD was a worksheet FIEND! She loved doing worksheets so I printed out a variety from http://www.learningpage.com for free. I used them with DS too when he was little but my only criteria for how many he might do each day was that he needed to do something with numbers and something with letters. Worksheets are one means to that end, but we skip-counted on the stairs (post-it note numbers along the wall) and plalyed with foam letters and numbers in the bathtub and magnetic letters on the fridge or on cookie sheets and sing the "Alphabet Song" and "Ten Little Indians." By K I guess it was closer to 2 worksheets per day, along with Five in a Row activities, phonics and for DD, listening in on science and history with her brother. I use Kindergarten to set the stage for 1st grade. But before that, it's all just fun.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Suzannah

[Stellalarella]

With my young children we read, read, and read. We do a page or two of HWT every now and then. With the 4, just turned 5 ds, we sit together for a few minutes and do our Phonics Pathways book--which does not include doing worksheets.

[johnandtinagilbert]

I wouldn't bother with the handwriting. THe most important thing at this stage is a proper grip, and you can work on that when they're drawing.

:iagree: Large motor skills make for great discovery time in drawing, painting (finger and brush), sand and water play.

 

If you're doing HWT Pre-K by the book, you should only be doing one workbook page a WEEK-everything else is multisensory, with the letter pieces, on the slate, air writing, playdough, stamp and see, and so on.

 

I did the teacher training for HWT, and it was stressed that the workbook was the smallest component of the program, and that there are only two reasons it exists

1) Schools wouldn't purchase a handwriting curriculum without a paper component

 

and

 

2) Since the other materials are reusable, if they didn't sell workbooks, the company wouldn't survive financially.

 

It was stressed that it was OK to not do all the pages, not finish the workbook, or even send the book home for practice so parents know what you're doing, but to work off the book in class.

 

So, given that this is what they're telling pre-K teachers, don't feel at ALL guilty for not doing the workbook daily at home!

 

I'd also look at the other curriculum materials and see what is really necessary and what can be done in other ways. I'm not familiar with the curricula you're using, but many good preschools follow Montessori or Reggio Emilia or High/Scope and use no worksheets whatsoever (in High/Scope, you can't even xerox an outline for children to practice cutting out shapes), so it's very doable to adapt curricula to a non-worksheet system.

:iagree: K4 should be activity driven, not paper or writing driven, imho.

 

Color, count, cut, write a wee bit....that's it for K4...read, read, read, explore, have fun. Keep in mind, although it's tough, early doesnt' mean better. Enjoy this time and use every day as a stepping stone to Loving Learning, not accomplishing tasks....just my honest opinion for those precious years.

[Dinsfamily]

I've done all of those except HWT at one time or another. The only wkbks I have planned for my ds4's next year are DEL 1 (and 2 if we get that far) and Singapore EM. We'll probably do 2 pages/day, 2-3 days/week. Other than that, his preschool year will be full of read-alouds and motor skill activities. I've found a saltbox to be much more effective and fun for preschoolers than paper for handwriting. We'll use the saltbox to learn proper letter formation because waiting until K was too late for my oldest ds. We'll work on his pencil grip during art projects. I also have a lot of other activities for him to better his motor skills like lacing cards/beads, legos, sidewalk chalk, etc. He also likes to cut out shapes that I've drawn onto a piece of paper.

 

While I did like the ETC primers and R&S ABC series, I'd prefer to keep him away from the table as much as possible this year so I had to cut them out of the schedule. He's already reading, so cutting ETC was a no-brainer.

[LauraQ]

My opinion: None. I just don't think 4 year old hands are developed enough to hold a pencil and use it to apply enough pressure to write on paper and control that pencil's movement in order to form letters and numbers to fill in worksheets daily. You could argue for use of markers, whiteboards, crayons, etc. instead, and that's fine. In fact, I think 4 year olds are great with crayons, paints & markers and should be encouraged to use these often. Even pre-writing activities like circling, Xing, tracing, coloring, etc. can be encouraged, but only to the extent that they are fun and not tiring for pre-schoolers. They have many years of hard academics ahead of them: 12 years plus K, then likely another 4 years or more of college.

 

Do they *really* need to do these things now? Will they be "behind" in Kindergarten or 1st grade because they hadn't already learned to write neat letters as a 4 year old? No. In fact, when it comes to writing numbers and letters, what takes you a year to teach a 4 year old can take a month to teach a 5 year old, and can be taught to a 6 year old in a couple of days, maybe a week on the outside. So, any notions of being "behind" are silly as a child can "catch up" in a very short time.

 

I realize there are children who LOVE workbooks and even BEG for them. I recognize this is especially true for children who see their older siblings "doing school" and want to do "big-kid" activities like workbooks, too! And that's fine, as long as it's the kid's idea, and is only done at the kid's prompting. But I would not *require* a 4 year old to do ANY workbook pages any day, but would willingly follow their lead. Also, workbook pages are useful for drill & review for older children, but have only limited usefulness in helping 4 year olds learn anything since they are usually still very concrete thinkers.

 

Of infinitely greater use are activities like being read to, giving and getting hugs, helping to cook, going on errands with parents, taking care of pets, making messy art projects, growing plants from seeds (or even just watering plants you already have), talking with mom, make-believe play, puzzles, pre-schooler board games and outdoor games, swinging on swings and sliding down slides, learning to jump, trying to catch fire flies, snuggling on the couch, and things of that sort.

 

So, I would humbly suggest that you only allow your 4 year old to do those worksheets they *ask* you to do spontaneously, and to put lots of energy into keeping them so busy with activities like those in the previous paragraph that they have little time left over for or interest in workbooks. If that's 4 pages a day, fine. If that's zero pages a day most days, then occasionally 11 pages out of the blue, that's also fine.

[LauraQ]

I don't have the TM for HWT, so maybe I have been doing it wrong. My dd writes ALL the time, just for fun. She forms most letters correctly, but some are completely wrong. I guess I thought having her do structured practice everyday would prevent bad habits. Maybe just doing more hands on activities (like the play dough letters) would accomplish the same goal...?

Yes! Here's all the activities I did with my two when they were about that age and wanted to learn letters (I didn't know about HWT when dd was little):

 

1. Receive a foam-paper cut-out of the letter from mom to hold, touch, feel, bend, and play with all week long and beyond.

2. Make letters out of playdough. You can even write the letter Really Big on a piece of construction paper and have them lay clay snakes over your letter and then smoosh them together if they have trouble doing it free-hand.

3. Glue things onto a construction paper with the letter on it. We used macaroni for curves of the letter, pretzel sticks for the strait parts of the letters, and cheerios for round letters or parts like e c and o.This taught them to pay attention to how different parts of the letters had different shapes and moved different ways.

4. Trace mommy's BIG letters using BIG pieces of sidewalk chalk--out on the sidewalk! I didn't even tell them to, we'd just be playing with sidewalk chalk for fun (they thought--it was their idea) and I'd draw pictures, then draw a letter and say "Ooh, I wrote a "g" just like you're learning to write this week!" and they would want to trace it, or I'd suggest it, and they'd jump all over it. After a while, they'd ask me to write one so they could trace.

5. Erase mommy's letters. I write the letter on the marker board, then they erase it with something like a stiff bristled dry paint brush or a cotton ball or q-tip.

6. Lay out their clothes for the next day--in the shape of whatever letter they are learning.

 

There's many more, I'm sure I've forgotten most of them, but lots of things can be turned into letter play. They never traced anything less than 3 inches tall at age 4, and then only with tools that are big, thick, chunky, and move smoothly, which means pencils were out, but thick markers and dry-erase markers were okay. They often took it upon themselves to write letters now and then as part of their coloring pages they did just for fun, but only if they wanted, and since it was their idea, they weren't pushed to do something that was uncomfortable for their hands or a strain on their underdeveloped fine muscles.

 

We also had lots of little games that helped develop fine muscle skills. I would write a big bold line across a piece of paper with a sticker at one end, and they'd use scissors to cut through the line to the sticker. When they were done, they'd shred the rest of the paper, but they had to focus to stay on the line for that first cut, and that was all the exercise I was hoping for. They had little portion cups I'd fill with little things like beads, cheerios, macaroni, buttons, etc. and they would sort them by color, shape, type, etc. using a big pair of tweezers (the kind that you can rob from your first-aid kit or that stamp collectors use are great). They also had sheets of felt with numbers on them, and they could put little felt shapes (or felt-backed pictures) of various things on the board until they added up to the number. My kids LOVED when I pulled those games out, and when I gave them to younger ds to keep him occupied during big sister's school, 1st grader dd got all excited and wanted to use them all over again--gotta love 6 year old nostalgia! LOL! I also made these from cheap/free/recycled/salvaged bits and pieces and they cost me little or nothing. I stored each "game" in a gallon ziplock bag and pulled one out at a time, usually as a treat, or to occupy ds when dd started homeschooling in 2nd grade. Get creative, make one or two, and add more to your stash over time.

[FO4UR]

zero

 

Unless a 4yo is just begging for school I wouldn't even do 1 page, with the exception of coloring/cutting type activities.

 

My dd just turned 5yo, and is the kind to beg for school, and can handle a good deal of writing...I gave her ETC 1 and she does it for fun. I don't ever require it, yet she's worked her way through at a good clip. She has a book for handwriting...same deal, only she has to do it with me (even though I wait for her to ask). We do oral and hands-on math play...she will make her own math lab sheets with C rods (so cute:001_smile:).

 

I have a 3, almost 4yo ds. He loves the Kumon coloring/cutting/maze books. We read lots. I am more and more relaxed with each dc...