Trying to determine his level?

[naturegirl7]

My son is officially a Kindy student, but I think we are basically doing 1st grade work. Some of it still bores him to tears though.... I am struggling to figure out where he is and what I should be teaching him....We basically unschooled until this year. He is a sponge and just soaks it all up. We are still rather child led, but with a distinct Classical flare. I am just frustrated. I feel like I get stuff, and it bores him. I am afraid to move too fast or too far ahead since he is only 5 - but I hate to have him bored...or frustrated. he get frustrated and restless so easily - both from boredom and from his perfectionism kicking in.

And I am just so incredibly frustrated at the moment. Adding curricula has seriously complicated things - but at the same time, it is good to have stuff all compiled for me already to springboard off of with him. I just can't figure out what level he is for things - or whether he is physically/emotionally capable of doing certain curricula levels....I just want to dash outside and run around the yard screaming AHHHHHHHHH!

 

 

 

So here is what I am working with - any suggestions would be LOVELY!

 

He is a STRONG reader. Taught himself at 2.5 before we realized he was really reading, not just had memorized his favorite books. He is independently reading just about anything from chapter books, to his Usborne history encyclopedias, to his Daddy's college A&P texts. He is really resistive to phonics and is struggling with spelling/writing. He dislike phonics cz it is slow, repetitive, and "babyish" - he can read so why does he need to do it? he asks. Even the computer games I have bought are major flops.

He hates the act of writing cuz his little hands can't keep up with his brain and the letters aren't perfect. Oh yes, already the perfectionism is rearing its ugly head.... I got Phonics Pathways recently and am reading thru it still inthe hopes *this* one will work. He is excited to "decode" words and to figure out how to spell - so lets hope it works out well once we start it....He loves learning about Grammar and labeling the various sentence structures - just trying to find something that teaches basic grammar and isn't writing intensive is so hard! I am trying not to stress over the writing since he is only 5. We do everything on the dry erase board cuz that seems easier for him.

 

We have bounced a bit, but finally settled on something that is working well. Singapore 1 and Miquon Orange are a good fit for math right now (his weakest area). Finally have him enjoying math again. Frustrating cuz he wants to jump ahead without mastering any sort of basic level math....Sometimes I wonder if he does know it (basic addition), but is just not willing to DO the work to show me he knows it....IE ask him what 3+5= and it is a huge ordeal. Tell him I have 5 cookies and he has 3, how many do we have to share - he knows instantly it is 8, and that we each get 4!

 

We are doing our own Ancient history studies with a little inspiration from SOTW and HO (using the Usborne Encyclopedias as spine cuz he LOVES them). He love love loves Ancient history and mythology and has been studying it for over a year on his own now....he made Daddy be Perseus for Halloween. And creates these elaborate play scenes to act out various myths - I swear he knows it all better than I do! While the curricula aren't perfect - it is definitely working well and easy to modify for him.

 

Science - this is another really hard one!! HE LOVES anything A&P related, and has an amazing knowledge of the human body and its systems. All teh kid stuff we are finding is so "baby-ish" compared to what he is reading/watching/talking about... Same thing with Life Science/Biology - he knows so much already and is looking for really in depth info but everything we look at for curricula just seems to graze the surface....Or it is in depth but super writing intensive since it is geared towards older kids...

I have tried REAL SO Life Science, but it seems so basic and he is bored. He wants MORE. He is getting a microscope for Xmas (it was at the very top of his list!) and I want to incoporate it into our learning. Right now I find I am just winging it and drawing stuff together from a bunch of different places - it is exhausting! Any ideas??

 

And now he is begging to learn Latin and Mandarin too. My head is spinning. I just don't know how in the world to keep up with him - and he is only in Kindy!!! What happens in a few more years?! How do I balance challenging him and reining him in??

[Gratia271]

What advice in particular are you looking for?

[MaMa2005]

You sound like me, only it happened last year when DS was 4. We had no idea he was PG (adopted at 27 months and totally non-verbal)) until I decided to take things nice and slow and teach him to read. That took 2 months. So I added math. He went through Horizons K, 1, 2, 3 in five months. You get the picture.

 

This year, I purposefully set about finding curriculum that was a good bit above his functioning level. (We just don't have the money to keep buying curriculum with DS buzz sawing through it.) You can see in my siggy what we are doing. It is working out beautifully!

 

The other thing that helped me this year was HST+. I was able to really schedule things and it let me know that we will finish many things in just half of the school year. Some things we will move on to the next level (math, WWE, etc.) while others will be reviewed to make sure the concepts are really cemented.

 

Outside classes have also help a great deal. DS takes 3 hours of enrichment classes on Tuesdays and 4 hours on Fridays as well as a co-op every other Wednesday. Private Mandarin and piano lessons have been a godsend as DS can work as fast as he is capable.

 

Hope some of that helps. I truly know the feeling of not being able to get a handle on things.

[Embassy]

I basically did unschooling until age 5.5 with my oldest and our first year homeschooling was extremely frustrating and expensive for me. It took me the whole first year of homeschooling to get a handle on things. I didn't know his level and had problems with things being too easy or we ran into problems related to perfectionism. I bounced around trying to find something that worked well. For some things I switched to a different program and others I just skipped a portion of the curriculum.

 

I don't know if you will find one specific curriculum that will work for everything so you may have to pick and choose.

 

The good news is that in a few years you will have experience under your belt and you will likely not be so overwhelmed.

 

Some possible suggestions:

 

Try a rule-based spelling program. You can avoid the "babyish" phonics and still have your child encounter the phonics rules. All About Spelling is one program. Sequential Spelling doesn't use rules, but uses patterns. Depending on your child that may be a good fit.

 

Science - make up your own. While we did like Real Science 4 Kids it has been difficult to find a science program that gives enough information and is still visually appealing to a younger child. I put together a program tailored for each of my boys this year. I was able to go into depth and use resources with the right level of information and have lots of great pictures too. It has been so nice to use something that works well for them.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Wehomeschool

[Cera]

Growing with Grammar is a quick and easy grammar program that doesn't require much writing. My daughter likes it well enough. She did year one in Sept, year 2 will be finished by mid Nov and then we will start year 3. I expect we will go through 4 years this year but she is retaining the information and not frustrated by the pace.

 

For spelling/phonics maybe MCP? I wanted to make sure we went through a program and covered rules but it needed to be fast. Currently we are doing one lesson of spelling workout 4 days a week (through 1 1/2 books so far) and 5 or 6 pages of plaid phonics. We skip the phonics writing and sometimes she dictates since she doesn't have the writing (fine motor) skills an older child would. We have blown through 2 1/2 books of plaid phonics so far and will finish up and move on to word study around Thanksgiving.

 

The good thing about both of these is that they are under $15 a book so I don't feel bad about flying through them.

 

We don't do formal science so I can't help with that.

[In The Great White North]

Have you looked at MEP? It's a free, online math program that he can skip through as fast as he wants. If you do it on a whiteboard, you won't even have to print it out.

[femke]

:iagree:

MEP is AMAZING! I do recommend buying the textbooks (I know most people don't do that) but I've found that those are the real strength of the program. What we did was printing out some samples of the Reception year and year 1, just to see if he liked it. He loved it straight away! The problems are like little puzzles. We are using 2 levels now: The Reception and Year 1a book. For 2 days we're working in the Year 1 book (+/- 2 lessons a day) and on the third day we do reception (+/- 6 lessons). Even though it's not really challenging for him, I DO want him to learn all the basics instead of just rushing along. We actually found some things in the Reception year he didn't know...very simple things that just haven't come up in our daily life (e.g. horizontal and vertical lines) When he's done doing Reception, we'll move on to combining 1a and 1b. This way he has 2 days that are quite challenging and 1 day that is review. We did buy the other levels already: just in case he's making some leaps again.

 

Phonics- My son doesn't like it either but is reading as well. I let him do it for 5 minutes a day, we set a timer (most of the time we get a lesson done in that time anyway:lol: mommy wins!) It does help him, although he really can't see the use of it.

 

As for science/history/geography: we're not planning to do anything. Just buying loads of books and kits. I guess he can teach himself :tongue_smilie:Otherwise I'd keep buying curricula

[Storm Bay]

One way some of the former members of this forum used to use was to do standardized testing one grade at a time until our dc scores 50th percentile. I've never done that, but I can see the logic behind it.

 

I'd stick with trade books for science at that age. We like RS4K, particularly the Chemistry, but I'd get Level 1, not the one for grades 1-3, if you do go with that.

 

We like Singapore math, but MEP is also good. You can print the lessons for the teacher, too (at least you could in 2009) to see if you like it before buying the books.

 

You don't need to start spelling at 5 if he's resistant. You may wish to wait a few years and then try something like Spelling Power.

 

Ds loved The New How Things Work book at that age, plus we had a lot of other science books in the house. I generally read books at middle school level with lots of pictures to him (he didn't read early--vision issues, plus his eyes developed late) at that age. We had a book of experiments for kids we did, etc.

 

At 5, I'd keep it fun and let him set the pace. If he's bored, you'll lose him, so if he needs something more challenging, I'd go with that.