School time for a 3yo

[Dealea86]

I didn't want to hijack the "glutton for discouragement" thread, so I decided to make my own thread.

 

Below are all of the responses have me thinking about DD.

 

I'm not sure that I understand but what you said made me think of the way my oldest seems to not do very well with much unstructured and undirected time. He wants it but his character and behavior disintegrate quickly when it's given and it doesn't end up fun for him or anyone else. Breaks are never breaks around here unless they're short.

 

:grouphug:

 

It is hard. Button (now 6) needs rather a chunk of school to be well in himself, but he doesn't love it, so I'm in the very weird position of pushing schoolwork on a 6yo who is quite advanced. I have found that almost nobody understands these challenges, and so few people trust that I am doing the best thing for my child!

 

:grouphug:

 

My oldest is like this too. Has been since he was 3. He was into everything and giving me serious attitude if he didn't get 3 hours of formal teaching back then.

 

 

DD is 3yo. She has never done well with unstructured time. She whines, she wanders the house aimlessly, she dissolves into tantrums, etc. But on the other hand, I'm not sure how far to push her. She is a normal wiggly three-year-old... I feel like I should be giving her play time, but she never uses it.

 

She loves the idea of doing school. In fact, if she had her way we would spend all day long doing nothing but doing read-alouds, reading lessons, and other "school" things. But on the other hand, she strongly resists anything that stretches her. In other words, she'd be perfectly happy if we did the exact same math or phonics or reading lesson over and over again every single day.

 

For example, she loves the alphabetti books from progressive phonics and can pretty much read all the CVC words in them - even upside down - but she resists doing the phonics books because "they're too hard". But even when she's resisting school, she's a more pleasant child than when she has free play time.

 

Anyway, I guess I'm wondering how you handle school with a precocious (but certainly not PG, probably not even HG) young preschooler who doesn't do well with unstructured time? What does early school look like with a precocious preschooler? How closely do you follow the curriculum? How far do you push them?

[Chaos Coordinator]

Can you do themed art projects? Before fiar? MFW early preK manipulatives, hwt get set for school. Letter of the week? Montessori stuff

 

Itu. My son is "too young" for school, and yet is teaching himself to read, cannot handle boredom or free time, and has an insatiable hunger for novel stimuli.

[Dealea86]

Can you do themed art projects? Before fiar? MFW early preK manipulatives, hwt get set for school. Letter of the week? Montessori stuff

 

Itu. My son is "too young" for school, and yet is teaching himself to read, cannot handle boredom or free time, and has an insatiable hunger for novel stimuli.

 

Yes, yes, this describes her perfectly!

 

Art projects are a no-go in our family. She is too much of a perfectionist to enjoy them. She typically gives up on them and asks me to do them for her (which I usually don't do, because I don't think that's my job as her mom).

 

I looked at Before FIAR, MFW prek, and Letter of the Week, and to be honest I think those things would be too easy for her. Everything they 'teach' in those programs she learned a year or two ago: letters, letter sounds, colors, numbers, shapes, etc. It's a tough age, because she's past preschool level but not quite ready for kindergarten. She needs something like an advanced preschool or a low-key (but structured!) kindergarten.

 

Regular FIAR might work, though I don't know much about it. From the samples online, it looks like it would be a great fit for her, but it's geared towards K-2, right? Would that be too advanced? She might really love the structure it brings. Or maybe not. :tongue_smilie: Ugh, I hate to spend money on something we might not use. But getting one of the volumes used shouldn't be too expensive, provided my library has the books we don't have.

[craftyerin]

I am starting regular FIAR with mine this fall. My twins are just now 4. It will be totally OK for them. If Beatrix Potter is your current read aloud and she hangs well with that, then I bet FIAR will be fine. The Tale of Peter Rabbit is one of the books in volume 2. I would suggest, though, that you get more than one volume, so that you can choose the more age appropriate books from each. Some are well within the reach of 3-5yos, and some have more mature themes and are better suited for the 5-7 crowd, IMO. I have volumes 1-3, and have chosen ~18 books to do this next year with my young ones, some from each volume.

[KAR120C]

we did "themes" -- first week-long and then month-long (and then it turned out we never dropped them so it was just everything all the time... lol)

 

So for one week (or month) it might be rockets, and then dinosaurs, and then trains, and then farm animals... you get the picture. It got us out of the house, made sure we were finding our way around the nonfiction section of the library, and kept it all interesting.

 

Train week, in a happy coincidence that I should have planned, started on the weekend that the local historic steam railroad club did an open house, so we got to ride an old steam train and hear all about them from enthusaists. Other stuff was just a kick in the pants to stop putting off opportunities that were always there.... airplane week we went to the to observation park by the airport and watched planes take off and land. Zoo animal week we went to the zoo. During rocket month we set off every kind of stomp rocket, water rocket, ballon rocket, or Estes rocket (with DH's help...) that we could get our hands on.

 

It really was a ton of stuff.... and if I had more than the one kid it might have been too much (unless I had two with similar interests!) Also, it depended on a really pretty good area -- that steam train club, the zoo, the airport... It wouldn't be as easy if you don't have some resources around you, but on the other hand some stuff is everywhere. We did six different weeks on simple machines - not because he needed to identify levers and calculate forces, but because it's a lot of fun to launch jellybeans across the living room, or find a park with a see saw. It was more fun than any other curriculum we could have been using, and it kept the TV off.

 

DS does well with a schedule and always has... but more than that, I do well with a schedule. It doesn't have to be workbooky, but I do need to have a plan. Picnic at the airport and a weekly trip to the library with plenty of readloud time was perfect for me, and it was all really interesting stuff that we both enjoyed. So even though our days were full, we never really had any grumbling... There were some workbooks -- he really liked the early logic stuff from the Critical Thinking company and the Singapore Earlybird math books -- and he would sit and look through his picture books and alphabet books forever. But most of what I planned was outings and picnics and books from the library.

[LittleIzumi]

Mine loved Target workbooks and MFW K (which is really Pre-K).

[Chaos Coordinator]

I think as long as it's kid-led, eclectic, and in balanced with every day life, there's nothing wrong with doing kindy for a child who is hungry for it :)

[La Texican]

I was talking about my kid the other day and this other guy was saying, "yeah, you have to keep the kids busy other wise they sit around the house saying, "I'm bored.". Yeah. Only my guy doesn't say, "I'm bored" and sit around being bored. Either I find him something to do or he'll finds something to do that I don't like; and I mean literally putting stuff in my face or being in my hair literally playing in my hair. Yeah. I almost wish he'd sit around and complain about being bored.

 

I actually had to teach him how to play with his toys by himself and build up slowly. I also have magnetic mighty mind, operation without batteries, and a connect four they just like to put the checkers in that I ration. I keep them up on a shelf and put them on the kitchen table when I'm cooking dinner. I count the pieces when I take them back.

 

At 3 I put my son on the Hooked on phonics letter name cd rom on the laptop which has a touchpad. He was able to learn the point and click computer skills to get him through Reading Eggs and fiddle around PBS kids he learned that from HOP letters cd rom game. I did have to call hop customer support to learn how to run the disk in comparability mode.

[acurtis75]

At 3 dd was whiney and frustrated and insisted on being "played with" all day unless we did some structured things daily. Because dh and I have our own business and dd came to the office with me everyday I found doing some "lessons" together a few times per day made for a better day for both of us.

 

Here's what that looked like on an average day at age 3

 

When we arrived at the office around 9 am we spent 10-20 minutes doing handwriting & Bible. We did HWOT for a few minutes and then did a Bible curriculum which involved me reading her a story from a Bible story book, some corresponding scripture and then her practicing a memory verse. Her attention span was long for Bible story but short for handwriting which is why the time spent varied.

 

She would then play happily by herself for anywhere between 1 & 2 hours.

 

Around 11 we had lunch and did ETC and math for 15 or 20 minutes (at the time Horizon but we later switched to MUS and when I do it again with another child we'll use the Primer at this stage)

 

She would then play for an hour or two until she got sleepy.

 

 

After nap we did Song School Latin and eventually SOTW (I think we added history when she was about 4 1/2 but my memory is fuzzy since she's 7 now)

 

Eta: I would add 15 to 30 minutes of iPad educational game time if I had a 3 year old today. I used to be totally against screen time for young kids but I've kind of softened my view on the iPad because it is a cool fun tool for learning. Dd7 is currently spending all her allowed screen time (around 30 minutes) to play the dragonbox game on my iPad and has no idea she's learning algebra.

 

By the time she was 4 she was spending a good bit of her free time reading on her own in addition to schoolwork.

Edited July 7, 2012 by acurtis75@yahoo.com

[Barbara H]

I agree with the suggestion of themes. They can also be a way to get a kid motivated to explore some new stuff - so the kid who turns down painting generally might be excited to help paint the three foot high rocket during space week.

 

What sort of structure do you have to your days right now? One thing to try might be to have set times through the day for different activities - yoga, schoolwork, housework, sensory activities, going for a walk, dance/music time, game time, etc. Some kids really like the predictability of organized parental attention before they are really ready for formal academics. You could work with her to make a chart where she selects from these activities each day.

 

If she knows her numbers and colors she may be ready for games such as Uno or Ravensburger first games.

[laf919]

a few resources to consider for activities for a bright 3 year old:

1. RightStart Games Kit - this gives you what you need to teach basic arithmetic to a child without having to write much down - which makes it easier for a young child who is not writing much. If she's interested in more paper and pencil/worksheet work, you could also get the tutoring guide they have - which explains in more depth how to teach arithmetic concepts - and the corrosponding book of worksheets. I would stay away from the worksheets for now unless your child is begging for them - but they are there. Also, most of the worksheets in that book have only 10 problems. I used it with my oldest in kindergarten and found it enabled us to work through arithmetic at her pace (fast :auto: :D) More user friendly for me than a formal curriculum that I would have needed to compact greatly. Also means you can repeat things and go at your dd's pace and not worry about that.

2. Look into Montessori. There are lots of web resources now - try googling and you'll find places to start. Montessori introduces basic reading and constructing words and then writing to pre-school children. You might find it very useful to look at the language work in pre-school Montessori to find ideas for how to encourage her language growth. Montessori also encourages the repetition of activities as much as the child wants (until mastery) and encourages independent work - both of which might be useful to you even if you don't use much in the way of Montessori activities.

3. I want to say this gently - but have you thought of sending your child to pre-school? My 2 were also like yours - and I am not sure we would have made it through those years intact emotionally if I had not had the short break 2x a week of sending them to pre-school. A good play-based/developmental pre-school program will help a child like yours (and helped mine) develop social skills, learn to be more self-directed, and explore new ideas. I know many on these boards are opposed to pre-schools - and I don't want to push too hard - but I will say that the pre-school we used was wonderful for my kids and for me and my sanity. Parenting kids like this is emotionally and mentally exhausting - and if you don't want to do pre-school, seriously consider how you are going to regularly get breaks to keep yourself from burn-out. Remember - this whole parenting gig is a marathon, not a sprint.

Hope some of this helps! And remember - as I still remind myself sometimes hourly - they will grow up. Really. This stage shall pass. :grouphug:

[MomatHWTK]

I like the resources at Starfall.com, as well as Click N Read. I have an old version of Study Dog that my DS loves. He can't click, but likes to watch and have me select the answers- and it wears him out quicker than easier fare.

 

A magnetic whiteboard and LOTS of magnetic letters and numbers have been helpful here as well.

[OneLittleWindow]

Watching this thread. I'm starting to experiment with stuff to "school' my JUSt turned 3 year old also. I really want to start when he's 4-6... but he needs something. He doesn't play by himself, wants interaction and new stimulus all the time. He always has, it's just that it gets harder and harder to figure stuff out for him. He goes through stages also where he'll get really really grumpy and ornery... and it's usually when he's kinda learning something or adjusting to something. Once he's figured out whatever it is he's working on, he gets a bit easier.

 

I've tried just to structure our day - and Monday - Thursday in the morning have times where we try learning things. I've collected a bunch of different materials, he actually shows signs that he wants to learn to read, he knows all letter sounds and numbers and will try to sound things out. But then gets frustrated really easily too. But then if I encourage him and he gets something he's always just a happier kid. Ahh... it's just such a hard balance. He wants new things to do, and I think needs more structure, but he also resists the structure at the same time and I don't really want to force anything on him, and just follow his lead.

 

sorry to be long and steal your thread. But I feel your pain and am trying to work my way through also. My 6 month old is also deciding to try to crawl and between the two I need guidance! haha!

[Dealea86]

Just a little update. Three days into FIAR, and she definitely loves it. She asks every day to do it (though after only three days, that's not really saying much :tongue_smilie:). But it's not the magic pill - nor did I expect it to be. I do think I'll stick with it, though, at least for a while.

 

I think I'll also try to buy some cuisinaire rods soon and do some fun games with them. And, of course, we're still working on reading. She's at the point now where she tries to read words at times other than reading lessons, and she's trying to sound out more difficult words (women, for example), and words that she doesn't know the rules for (came, she, etc), so I feel like reading is going to have to be part of our days.

 

Anyway, thank you all for the input. :)

[Dealea86]

3. I want to say this gently - but have you thought of sending your child to pre-school? My 2 were also like yours - and I am not sure we would have made it through those years intact emotionally if I had not had the short break 2x a week of sending them to pre-school. A good play-based/developmental pre-school program will help a child like yours (and helped mine) develop social skills, learn to be more self-directed, and explore new ideas. I know many on these boards are opposed to pre-schools - and I don't want to push too hard - but I will say that the pre-school we used was wonderful for my kids and for me and my sanity. Parenting kids like this is emotionally and mentally exhausting - and if you don't want to do pre-school, seriously consider how you are going to regularly get breaks to keep yourself from burn-out. Remember - this whole parenting gig is a marathon, not a sprint.

 

I have considered this... but financially that's not really an option right now. Plus, DH really isn't that thrilled with the idea. (To be honest, neither am I. But I'm the one home with her all day, not him, so I think that makes me more open to the idea. :D) Anyway, for now I think we're just going to have to muddle through on our own.

[blondeviolin]

Some of my kids have been this way. Ellie is 3 in a little over a week and she is definitely like this. I am planning on doing the Core Knowledge PreK books with her. These things are so open and go (stickers and cut-outs)! I will also have her doing fun activities that my older kids can participate in too (play-doh, puzzles, lacing cards, etc) and they will both have time to go play with her.