Ideas for 4 year old

[prairie rose]

So based on a description of my 4yo daughter that I gave in curriculum forum, I was told I might get some better responses here. I've never really considered that fact that she might be advanced but I guess she is ahead of a typical 4 year old academically. All 3 of her older siblings had learning issues that affected their academic development at her age so I just assumed I finally had one that was developing normally, since I haven't really had a typical 4 year old yet. Sigh, I guess now I get to see the other end of the spectrum instead of settling in the middle.

 

She is writing well, reading is coming along nicely... she is loving MEP year one math. I had only planned on doing MEP year 1 slowly with her, one or two days a week and just play math games and such on the other days during her "school time" but she loves MEP and asks for it everyday so I've been following her lead on that. I am using Five In A Row with her for just "fun school" but honestly she is soaking up information at a rate that I'm teaching her the same material I taught my older ones in 1st and 2nd grade. :001_huh: I'm also reading to her from the Ambleside Year 0 list. She tells everyone that Beatrix Potter is her favorite author. Someone suggested that I add memory work to her day. She loves to memorize and recite so it seemed like a good idea. I started with "The Caterpillar" by Rosetti today and she seems to enjoy it. I read it to her and have her repeat after me.

 

Now that you know at little of our history, here are my questions...

 

What else can I have her memorize besides poetry? She knows the typical K stuff, full name and spelling, address and phone number. What else?

 

She has letter formation down pat, writes her name perfectly first, middle and last, but her stamina isn't much yet but she is only 4. Should I begin copywork with her? Or wait? I have WWE workbooks 1 and 2 (was a huge flop with my older kids). Would that be a good place to start with her?

 

I don't have any more money to spend this year on curriculum, but what are some other things I can be looking into for her? Either free for this year or programs or books for next year if they cost money? MCT is already on my browse list...anything else? I've tried searching the board but only seemed to come up with MCT and EPGY.

 

TIA

[SnegurochkaL]

If she is easy to memorize poetry why don't you introduce her to one of the modern languages. Livemocha is a free resource.

http://www.livemocha.com/

[LittleIzumi]

We started cursive, too. Dd loves it.

[chai]

A big hit for us at that age was nature study. I chose a topic (birds, frogs, etc.) and then we got books out of the library for her to read, or that we read together. Then she made a page using stickers or drawings about that subject. I typed up her narration of the subject, but if you don't want to spend that much time on it, you could have her cut out or write info. When you put it all together, she'll have a nature journal.

[yellowperch]

Music. And a foreign language.

 

Some great advice I received: We all know gifted kids can move forward through the standard scope and sequences in various subject areas. And we know they actually NEED new material, information, skills, challenges, etc. But take some of their education sideways. Zig and Zag. Do lots of art. Learn showtunes. Learn songs in French. Learn violin and how to tie fishing knots. Do lots of sports. make scuptures. Play chess and do puzzles.

[prairie rose]

Thank you for the suggestions. She was born while we lived in Japan so she knows quite a bit of Japanese. I do need to focus more on that with her though since we don't live in Japan anymore so it's not as easy to practice. She also knows a handful of Spanish and French from Spanish and French speaking relatives. Music she gets a lot of because I was a music major. Nature study she does with my older kids. She does some of the writing and I do some of the writing for her. We can (and probably should) do more art around here for all the kids...art has just never been my thing so it often gets over looked. Sigh.

[MissKNG]

I'm not huge into art either so we are doing more "crafty" type projects for art class. Here is a site I recently found and have been enjoying:

 

http://www.firstpalette.com/

[Bird Girl]

I don't think you need to start MCT yet. (I don't use EPGY so I can't comment on that.) If you'd like to do copywork, you could begin with the first line or stanza (depending on how many words you want) of the poem that she is working to memorize.

 

I guess if I were going to plan to spend money, I might look into Rosetta Stone to keep the Japanese going. Perhaps there are less expensive Japanese resources. Young children do lose languages very quickly when they don't use them--a friend of ours adopted children from Russia, and within the first year, both girls were no longer really fluent--in their own mother tongue!

 

MCT is designed for gifted kids, so waiting until 7 or 8 to start that shouldn't make the curriculum too easy for her. We use and like Singapore math, which may be less expensive than EPGY.

[katilac]

I would definitely work on foreign languages; she has a wonderful advantage and it would be great to keep that going. Check your library for free resources: books, audio cds, and software. Almost all libraries now have some type of online language program that you can use from home. They aren't necessarily kid-oriented, but a straightforward presentation for pronunciation and practice is fine, imo. Also, check the foreign language options on any dvds you allow her to watch; you can often switch them.

 

I wouldn't do copywork beyond a word or two, if she's willing. Much better to have that one perfectly copied word than a sentence with mistakes, messiness, etc.

 

Again, the library is your friend! Even small children's sections are likely to have a lot of choices in the "learning" genre.

 

I would also make sure to give her plenty of time and space to do her own thing. Provide her with notebooks and pens, craft materials, good books, etc and let her go. We naturally want to guide and nourish any gifts our kids may have (especially when they are willing students!), but it is very easy to be tempted into over-guiding them. Don't direct everything. I always think it's sad to see a child who has no idea of what to do when left on his own.

[catz]

I wouldn't look at MCT for at least a couple more years unless she is wildly excited about grammar and writing up to a paragraph or 2 comfortably. However, I am using MCT very sequentially. I started my highly accelerated 3rd grader (reading at HS level, writing at jr. high level at the time) in level one MCT last year and it went great with a little tweaking. He should be on course to do a level a year. There are other ways to approach it, so maybe some one else can comment on that. I just wouldn't be afraid of doing it "too late". This particular kid attended 2 years of PS and then had a very "unschooly" first year of homeschool as well so not much grammar background other than brief overview and playing mad libs. Doing read alouds of high quality books can be great set up with out being too structured.

 

One thing that was GREAT for my gifted kids as pre-K's was music lessons. It really gave them something to dig into when they weren't really ready for sit down work. And 2 and 4 years later, we're really seeing some big returns. And not just in musical ability. In their ability to be in front of a crowd, in their ability to focus on difficult tasks and approach them incrementally, accepting feedback from a mentor, etc etc. My son started piano at 5 and my daughter started violin at 4.

[kmacnchs]

What else can I have her memorize besides poetry? She knows the typical K stuff, full name and spelling, address and phone number. What else?

 

If you are Christians - SCRIPTURE!

 

She has letter formation down pat, writes her name perfectly first, middle and last, but her stamina isn't much yet but she is only 4. Should I begin copywork with her? Or wait? I have WWE workbooks 1 and 2 (was a huge flop with my older kids). Would that be a good place to start with her?

 

My dd4 (much like yours with writing) does Spelling, FLL, writes what she is memorizing, and writes for Math (Saxon). I could probably do a little more but some days, just that much writing tires her out. I would look in WTM and see what they recommend - but off the top of my head, if I were to add more, it would be to write more of what she is memorizing...

 

What my 4yo does probably would not be enough for yours as she seems to be asking for more and more school but you can look in my siggy to see...I know, I'm not much help...just getting new books from the library can occupy my 4yo all day!

[prairie rose]

Thanks for all the ideas. Sadly, we don't have money for music lessons but I have been trying to teach her piano myself. She's not terribly interested so we are just playing with it more than formal lessons. Also trying to make sure we use our Japanese more and brush up on it. I don't mind doing art projects with them when they are actual art projects, I despise crafts. :lol: I've been getting out the art tools more and letting her use the "big kid art supplies". I've noticed she is much more careful and meticulous that any of my other kids were at her age.

 

She is super focused on math at the moment. The MEP lessons are kind of camping out on number comparisons which she keeps telling me she doesn't like, she wants to add and subtract like the big kids so I made her and extra workbook page of addition sentences with pictures and spaces to write out the problem. We got about half way through that and she told that wasn't really what she wanted, she wanted a page with just numbers and no pictures. She's too big for pictures to count. :lol: So I made her a sheet with just numbers and she happily solved about half of them (8 - 10 or so) before deciding she wanted to save the rest for later. :lol:

 

She's also really caught on to blending so we are forging ahead with that. She's doing well with copying words and reading them so just following her lead. She doesn't care for memory work at all right now (after loving it initially :lol: ) so I'm just being creative and casual with it. We aren't Christians so memorizing scripture isn't something we really want to do but it did give me the idea to have her memorize short famous quotes and adages. Thank you for that. ;)

[MissKNG]

 

She is super focused on math at the moment. The MEP lessons are kind of camping out on number comparisons which she keeps telling me she doesn't like, . ;)

 

That's exactly what happened to us when we were using MEP 1!! My big girl was getting bored with the number comparisons so we just started SM 1a sooner than I planned. Here is a fun site to print out fun math worksheets too:

 

http://www.tlsbooks.com/firstgrademathworksheets.htm

[PentecostalMom]

http://www.tlsbooks.com/firstgrademathworksheets.htm

 

Thanks for this link, it is fabulous! My dd loves math and we are working on three different programs. I let her go at her own pace and do as many pages as she wants in a day. This is very helpful for "extra" work for her. She loves workbook pages, much like her brother did.

 

Thanks again!

[prairie rose]

That's exactly what happened to us when we were using MEP 1!! My big girl was getting bored with the number comparisons so we just started SM 1a sooner than I planned.

 

What we ended up doing was I purchased the Math Mammoth Addition 1 booklet and I forgot we had Singapore Math's Rainbow Rock CD. She LOVES Rainbow Rock. So now we are bouncing between MM and MEP and she plays Rainbow Rock for fun :lol: It's funny actually, I found the Rainbow Rock CD (and Wiggle Woods) while looking for our Earobics CD because I want her to work on segmenting and blending and I wanted something she could work on independently while I'm working with the older kids. Still haven't found that darn Earobics CD :lol:

[MissKNG]

Thanks for this link, it is fabulous! My dd loves math and we are working on three different programs. I let her go at her own pace and do as many pages as she wants in a day. This is very helpful for "extra" work for her. She loves workbook pages, much like her brother did.

 

Thanks again!

 

Glad you like the site! Some of the pages are so cute and fun! :D

[MissKNG]

What we ended up doing was I purchased the Math Mammoth Addition 1 booklet and I forgot we had Singapore Math's Rainbow Rock CD. She LOVES Rainbow Rock. So now we are bouncing between MM and MEP and she plays Rainbow Rock for fun :lol: It's funny actually, I found the Rainbow Rock CD (and Wiggle Woods) while looking for our Earobics CD because I want her to work on segmenting and blending and I wanted something she could work on independently while I'm working with the older kids. Still haven't found that darn Earobics CD :lol:

 

Cool, what is Rainbow Rock??

[prairie rose]

Cool, what is Rainbow Rock??

 

It's a computer game from Singapore Math.

 

Rainbow Rock

 

Vroot Vroom

 

Wiggle Woods