Nervous about schooling my (almost) 5 year old for kinder.

[TyraTooters]

Currently he is in pre-k with other three and four year olds. He has a late birthday so he's always one of the oldest in his class. Which I think is good for a late birthday child! Anyhoo, he turns five on Wednesday and come January I think we will be pulling him from the ps. Right now his brother (age 6.5) is schooled at home while he is in pre-k during the morning but with field trips and the co-op starting up in January it's just going to be hard keeping him in public school with him getting out at 11:30 while we are in the middle of a homeschool activity. We plan to hs him as well just thought we would finish up the pre-k year. But seriously considering pulling early. 

 

Anyhow, he is my hyper one. The one who is very random. Loves to climb on people, climb on furniture...you get the idea. When talking to him he will say things that are just crazy. Sometimes it's just so random it's crazy and other times it's totally made up and doesn't even make any sense. I can't tell if he's being serious when he makes things up and that maybe he's NOT making them up or if he's doing it on purpose. 

 

Today he stayed home from school with a head cold. We did a bit of work on the letter A. I told him the sound it makes, we did a few lines of capitol letter A tracing (that was rough getting him to follow the arrows!), made a little craft (his favorite part!) and talked more about other words that start with A and repeated the sound. He would do good for about four words and then say things like, 'potato starts with A. P, p, p (sounding out the P sound) potato. See, it starts with A!' This isn't the first time we've talked letter sounds and not the first time he's said stuff like that before. When I correct him he gets all sad. Some of it is a show, the sadness, but at the same time I can't help but wonder if he really has no idea what I'm saying or if he's just being silly. 

 

I have no idea how to keep him from climbing the walls during lessons or how to get him to understand much of anything before he goes all random-kid on me! 

 

He says he really wants to learn how to read but I have NO idea how that's going to go!! 

 

Anyone else have a challenging one on their hands? 

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

The LeapFrog dvds are fantastic and most parents who use them will swear by them.

[Rosie_0801]

Ha. That's why our homeschool is called Couchtop College. I didn't think I'd ever get them down to ground level to teach them.

I vote with a dvd, Leapfrog if that's your dvd of choice and pair it with a craft since he likes them, and a modified version of ElizabethB's phonics lessons: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/208407-k-websters-speller-to-teach-reading-weekly-schedule/

Start with the syllables that are also words, so he can be happy he can read some, and can pick them out of real books. For example, be, me, the.

[mathmarm]

My advice for hyper, high-energy children: start each day with plenty of outdoor physical exercise--stretches, foot races, bikes, scooters, laps, chase, jump rope, push ups, dancing, call and response games, hand-clapping rhythm games, 15-minute ball games, play physical learning games also if it makes you feel better, then take a short 10 minute walk to cool down, stretch and transition to calmer activities, even if you are just walking around your yard or up and down your block. Let that part of the day be mandatory so that you don't skip it. Call it "Morning warm-up" and put it on the schedule, never skip it unless there is some drastic circumstance that causes you to. Schedule two rigorous physical time blocks into each school day, one in the early morning. One in late morning, early afternoon. These periods are school-time. Don't substitute for quiet indoor play, or sedentary activity--take them outdoors and make them be active. Outdoors. Consider it gross motor development and good because they are following instructions, whatever. The second session can have a slightly more academic feel to some of the games, but just keep it physical first.

 

Establish and enforce house rules for indoor behavior. Be consistent. Children need outlets but they also need structure. There is no real reason that 4yo can't learn to stop doing something like climbing on inappropriate structure.

[boscopup]

I agree with Leapfrog Letter Factory DVDs. Even my quirky late bloomer learned his letter sounds in 3 days with that DVD. It was amazing. :)

 

As far as school goes... said quirky late bloomer is my fun one. Handwriting lessons often had me shaking my head, as he made a "scary C eating a scary A". :lol: Just know that it does get better. I really couldn't do *real* handwriting lessons with him until he was 6. We started earnestly practicing in January of his K year, after he had turned 6 in November. This year in 1st grade, we're still working on the handwriting, but it's coming along fine, and I have no worries about that. He's able to do the written work in his R&S Reading and Phonics programs, so it's all good. :) He also does all the writing in his math (for some reason, my kids usually find numbers easier than letters).

 

Some things I have had to do with this child:

 

1) Keep lessons VERY short, sticking to the bare necessities. For K, that meant math, phonics, handwriting, read-alouds. That's all he did in K. In 1st grade, we're doing math, reading, phonics, and he's tagging along with older brother in history and science, plus read-alouds. His seatwork is minimal.

 

2) Be consistent about when and where you do school each day. It's fine to start at 10am, but do so every day. We start school right after breakfast, because I find that once my kids start playing, it's impossible to rein them back in. My 1st grader has math and reading right after breakfast, then we do history/science all together, then play break, then lunch. After lunch, we do phonics right away. Then he's done for the day and can go play again.

 

3) I expect him to treat me with respect when I am teaching him. He is in Bible class at church, and I know he is very well behaved there. So I will say, "Do you do xyz for Mrs. B.? No? Then you don't do that for me either." That goes for sitting properly in his chair, focusing on his work, not playing around or climbing on things. Since your child has been in preschool, you can ask if the preschool teacher let him do certain things. I used that with my oldest when he came home from 1st grade at a private school. "Did Mrs. S. let you run around the classroom during math? Then don't do it here either." Laying down some ground rules and being strict with them at first is very helpful. I don't do "school at home", but I do expect them to be respectful of me as I am teaching them. If they wouldn't treat an outside teacher that way, they shouldn't treat me, their mother, that way either.

 

4) I find that doing physical chores before school work can be helpful. Summer before last, we would go out and weed the flower bed for a bit (it was really bad - 10-15 minutes a day got us about 10 feet by the end of the week), then come in and fold laundry together, then start our school work. My then-K'er focused a lot better when we did that (so maybe I should start that up again :tongue_smilie:). Play time does NOT have the same affect here, because play time has their minds running wild. But focused physical chores will have them thinking about work, and then we move to the less physical school work. :)

 

Now that my son is 6, about to turn 7, it's a whole lot easier to do school with him. He still gets silly sometimes, but usually if I keep the work at the right level and keep it short and efficient, he's fine.

[xixstar]

For your high energy boy, i read this post recently and love the approach and philosophy. Good advice above too.

 

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2013/09/blessed-with-boundless-energy/

[lea_lpz]

We used mfw for my dd who is very active and needed a lot of hands on, multisensory learning. It's also short and sweet keeping seat work to a minimum and easy to complete in an hour to hour and half. If you are homeschooling older kids you could easily pare it down to be done in one hour since your youngest will likely be getting a lot of the extras with your oldest.

 

We really loved it and found it be a great fit for our family. I am looking forward to doing k again with my son next year.

[Starr]

Stop often and run laps around the house, really. He's only turning five, you don't need to worry. If he plays legos while your other ds does school work that's fine.