Seeking reassurance with a ridiculously young child

[Jackie]

My daughter will turn 4 in May. Here is how I would currently categorize her skills: reading at 3rd grade level, comprehension at 3rd grade level unless humor is involved, understanding of humor at kindy level. Math at 1st grade level, but much more interest in conceptual math than numbers (she is flying through Drabonbox and loves Penrose the Cat but struggles to count to 100). Fine motor skills are firmly preschool and she has just become interested in writing letters and numbers - and only on her own terms. Science nonfiction from the library is easily understood at any level from PK- 5th grade, with a big craving for more science information. We've done no history. She currently attends a play-based partial-Spanish immersion preschool two days a week and will continue to do so next year; she begs for more Spanish but already knows all the vocab taught in PK/early elementary programs and isn't ready for older programs.

 

I know the answer is "relax, she is young." But she is also intense. And I am a planner by nature, and she keeps killing my plans. I will totally flow with it, but my confidence is sometimes shaken when she kills my plans :)

 

My plans for the next while are:

- continue with her reading library books, slowly adding beginning chapter books and/or decreasing pictures as she is willing.

- continue AAS. She will wrap up level 1 very soon.

- she is starting to narrate and illustrate full picture books, so I will continue to take dictation and offer various formats that fit her for this.

- she is resisting any form of math question, so break from RightStart and use living math books (she is responding well to the Time Life I Live Math and MathStart series) until she is ready to go back to RightStart.

- do a mom-made pre-history year next year with a variety of resources, all meant to lead up to starting SOTW.

- science... This is my biggest question. I have an atrocious science background, and this is where she is drawn. Science currics seem destined to flop - she doesn't have the fine motor skills for a science journal, but she does understand many/most elementary science topics. We've pretty much covered all the Lets Read and Find Out books. She's done all the Magic School Bus. Next year, I have planned to go deeper into some of the MSB, get a better microscope, do a caterpillar/butterfly kit, and get the Lego Education Early Simple Machines kit. Please, please, help me here.

 

What would you suggest I consider?

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

Early Bird is in a very similar situation. I blog quite a bit about what you do. Start here. ;) Here's what we did when he was that age for science. He's done SOTW1 just fine. We also do FLL1, WWE1, just without requiring handwriting output.

[JenneinCA]

Hi

 

It is exhausting to remember that time when my oldest was three and doing many of the same things your little one is doing.

 

You seem to have a plan for math and English so I will skip talking about that.

 

You asked about science though. When mine was that age we would go to the library and pick a topic that seemed interesting and get a bunch of books. I got the easy reader books, the middle school books and some of the high school books. If I was having a particularly energetic week we got a book of experiments too. And then she read whichever of the books she wanted to and I read to her any of them that we got to and sometimes we did some experiments. A week later we would repeat the process.

 

Sometimes we picked up lots of books on lemurs and where they lived and everything about them. Other times it was how rainbows are made. Still other times it was all about apples. Or the planet mars. Or volcanoes. Or bridges.

 

I mostly didn't worry about being organized or sticking to any sort of program. I just picked what seemed interesting that week. Science is all about all the cool stuff that happens around us and figuring out why at that age and for several years more. If you can handle the lack of planning, then just go with the flow on it. You truly can't mess up science with a three year old. Really.

[lewelma]

We did science investigations.  At age four:

 

Older boy studied fungus.  We: 

made ginger beer with yeast,

did a mushroom print with different types of mushrooms

Studied mushroom reproduction,

went to a bioblitz and talked to the mushroom guy and saw his collections

Big investigation: surveyed our local woods and identified the different species, and drew a distribution graph, and identified which mushroom was the most common

 

Younger boy at age 4 studied weather.  We:

made an anemometer, rain gauge, barometer

collected weather data and graphed it

At age 5, we studied weather maps and how they worked

Big investigation: Learned the names of all the clouds, learned how to predict weather using clouds, ran a 2-week study where he predicted if it would rain tomorrow based on cloud formations, wrote down the weather forcast, and then recorded if it actually rained.  He beat the weatherman!

 

So basically, we picked a topic and followed rabbit trails where ever they led, but mostly hands on at age 4.  I did help them make posters to summarize their work. We took photos, I wrote while they narrated, and then they glued it all down.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

 

[quark]

I think I've recommended The Private Eye science/ nature curriculum here before. There's some suggested direction/ handholding for the parent but it can also be as delight-directed as you want it to be. I wish I had found it earlier.

 

Like you, I'm most stumped with science. We didn't do a lot of hands-on science at 4 years old but he did collect leaves and rocks and observed birds and tried to mimic their calls. We did this on "nature walks" while living in a busy apartment community in the middle of a busy city lol. When there's a will there's a way! He did a preschooler science class at the local community center involving colorful, slimy things, small kits about flight, seedlings, colors and so on. We tried categorizing the leaves and rocks and used dried leaves to "make collage art". He was reading quite fluently and started "collecting" intangible things he had read about. "Collected clouds", "collected planets and nebulas", "collected scientists". All in quotation marks because he would intensely "study" one then sort of mentally file it away and move on to the next thing. Then at about 4.5yo he was obsessed with death and diseases so he voraciously consumed info on the human body and names of diseases and tried diagnosing every little thing.

 

Around 5+, I gave him an old digital camera to continue our nature study and he had lots of fun taking blurry snaps of flowers and grass and butterflies. And we discovered The Happy Scientist videos. I searched high and low for curriculum, tried almost everything there was to try for his age and slightly older kids but the only ones that stuck (the only resources that felt right) were The Happy Scientist, his own "why" and "why not" questions, google/ documentaries and living science books. He re-read the same books and rewatched David Attenborough's Life Of series many, many times. And we talked a lot about science. I used to give him some basic info based on the little I knew, then he would question his dad for more details when dad was home. I also slowly taught him to google for answers himself. And basically, I just followed along and learned with him. I felt so lost with science then and convinced I was failing him, I was so so very desperate that I started an online group to share and learn about science resources (before I was a member here). All you have to do is ask for specific ideas here.

 

Our science was definitely not as well thought out as others! :) But I don't regret it one bit. I realize now that science isn't really that hard in the younger years because when you get really stumped, it's there, just outside your doorstep. You can teach them to observe carefully, and question and question the answers too and let them soak in the buffet of information available.

 

Oh, and you can learn science through inexpensive but super fun toys too (look up Arvind Gupta's Toys From Trash).

[EndOfOrdinary]

Thames and Kosmos science kits saved my butt when my son was that age. He did not have the fine motor to do them independently, but we would do many of them together and he was transfixed. Best if all, most are not consumable. Now he is going back through them himself, equally transfixed. There are a million and a half -slight exaggeration- topics. They can get spendy, but if you consider it a long term investment and a way to branch out at the library they are worth it.

[raptor_dad]

Since she wants to learn more spanish, I would look and see what spanish language kids books your library has. She could try reading Dr Seuss of "Henry and Mudge" or whatever in spanish. I would talk to the children's librarian about what they have available in your system.

[SKL]

Did you check out the offerings at the local science / natural history museums / zoo?  That might provide openings that could be further pursued through books and/or observing what is at the museum/park.

[sunnyday]

Interest-led investigations at the library, nature walks, and big juicy conversations. You could look at BFSU for ideas of things to talk about, and for explanations of phenomena.

[CrunchyGirl]

LegoMan was like that (although he was HUGE into numbers which was always entertaining). But the timing was bad, I was completely tapped out. I was dealing with a rough pregnancy, my business was growing rapidly, and I was preparing to move our home and warehouse 1500 miles once the baby was born. Consequently we managed to do very little with him. We had him read as much as he wanted, we occasionally did a RS-B lesson with him, we played math games as we could. But that was it. I felt so insanely guilty.

 

Once we were moved and settled, he was almost 5 1/2 and that's when we started actually "doing school". Fast forward to the present (12-16 months later depending on subject), he is now 6 1/2. He has beautiful cursive, he's working through 5th grade math, AAS5, LLTL3, and reads easily at a junior high level. So blew through 4 full grades of math in 16 months for example. Even if you do nothing with her now, she'll be ready and waiting for you.

 

Having said that, just meet her where she is at each day. Don't worry about whether or not she is making progress in any particular subject. She will move forward as she's ready and the main goal right now is to keep her appropriately challenged and not burn her out.

[acurtis75]

I won't say "relax she's young" because that's what people told me and it wasn't particularly helpful. I will suggest that you focus on planning only from the standpoint of what to do next not when. I wasted way too much time making plans for the next 6 months or the next 2 years which dd raced through or past.

 

Specific suggestions:

 

Don't be afraid to move through AAS quickly and\or move on. I changed spelling programs about 6 times before realizing dd didn't really need a program and we just moved on to Latin studies, spelling bee practice, word roots and vocabulary. DD always spelled everything right on every elementary spelling pre-test we ever tried. For several years I made her do pointless worksheets anyway. 

 

For math I have been happy with MUS. The primer is a very gentle introduction to math that could be done without ever doing the worksheets. DD did a year of Horizon at 4 and was way happier with MUS. They didn't have the Primer when we started or that would have been perfect. I didn't start researching and add living math books until she was about 7 and the change after we started in her enthusiasm for math was drastic. If your daughter loves stories you should consider Life of Fred as well. If you were going to do one or the other I would say LOF would be your best bet.

 

For history: Unless you really just want to make your own pre-history curriculum I would say just start SOTW 1. We did it at that age and it was and is one of dd's favorite subjects. She still reads SOTW1 over and over again for fun. We cleaned and organized some bookshelves recently and she enjoyed looking through her family tree notebook she made during that time. We spent lots of time reading library books about mythology and science related subjects that came up during that first year. We also did a lot of stuff in the study guide. If you are concerned about getting to more intense history studies too soon you can always take longer on each chapter by doing all the activities and reading more library books on each subject. 

[Jackie]

Thank you all. I'm planning to spend some time over the next several days sorting through all the suggestions and discovering all these things.

 

It's amazing how many things I also just forget about when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. We have an amazing hands-on children's science museum and we don't utilize our membership there enough. I need to pay more attention when we're there to figure out what we can explore a bit deeper or use as a springboard for topics at home. I should ask them when the quieter times to visit are so that we can also snag a volunteer to explain how some of it works. Also, I had bought a shockproof/waterproof camera so she and I could both take pictures when we went to the beach, but somehow never thought to hand it to her for the backyard or to take pictures on a walk. She would love to do that and make collages or posters out of the pictures.

 

I need to utilize the library more. Really, I think I need to utilize the actual librarians more. I check out a huge stack of books every week, but talking to the librarians might save me a pile of time in searching out all the books myself. And I probably could relax about tv viewing a bit. I currently have her limited to no more than 30 minutes a day, but I suspect that she would really enjoy documentaries.

[kbutton]

I won't say "relax she's young" because that's what people told me and it wasn't particularly helpful. I will suggest that you focus on planning only from the standpoint of what to do next not when. I wasted way too much time making plans for the next 6 months or the next 2 years which dd raced through or past.

 

For math I have been happy with MUS. The primer is a very gentle introduction to math that could be done without ever doing the worksheets.  

 

:iagree: My kids are inconsistent performers with uneven progress, and they craved information at a young age. Just keep it fun and not high stakes.

 

We used MUS Primer (borrowed the DVD and the teacher book). We did most of it orally and extended the activities easily--a few well-placed questions, and children who are ready can understand and demonstrate regrouping (carry/borrow) even if they are not ready for it on paper. If you don't want to use MUS blocks, you can use cuisinaire rods and base ten flats, but you'll need to modify a few little things because the templates you place the rods on are sized for MUS blocks (not every activity with a template will need to be replicated--you can use Education Unboxed techniques to modify them and do them orally). You can use cm graph paper to make your own templates. We found Primer to be perfect for place value and telling time. After Primer, we moved on to Miquon and Education Unboxed. Miquon is very inexpensive, EU is free online (videos with activities). Miquon has places for writing, but you can continue orally for a lot of it. It's designed to require very minimal writing so that kids who have issues with writing wouldn't be overburdened and could continue on with math. Some people use number stamps or stickers to eliminate writing without having to scribe or do oral work all the time.

 

[acurtis75]

I need to utilize the library more. Really, I think I need to utilize the actual librarians more. I check out a huge stack of books every week, but talking to the librarians might save me a pile of time in searching out all the books myself. And I probably could relax about tv viewing a bit. I currently have her limited to no more than 30 minutes a day, but I suspect that she would really enjoy documentaries.

 

One of the primary benefits to SOTW for me was the activity guide with suggested fiction and non-fiction reading. Often, when I searched for the suggested books at our library, I would find tons of other stuff to use as well. Even if they didn't have the specific book SWB recommended it was a great starting point. Sometimes I would just go to the section containing the one we were looking for and grab several additional books. As a result, dd is pretty much an expert on fairy tales and mythology.

 

One thing I did that was extremely helpful for me was to start looking at the catalog and reserving the books from our library online ahead of time. It was much easier than trying to do it with dd while we were at the library. 

 

Another thought to consider is not discouraging the picture books. Especially things like well written and illustrated classic fairy tales. Often the writing in those is better than some of the current chapter books. DD is 9 and still selects some picture books for herself when we go to the library. I generally have a large number I selected & reserved and she gets to pick a biography, a few chapter books for herself (Nancy Drew, Boxcar children, etc) and 5 other books that can be anything she wants. Those are often picture books or graphic novels about history.

[Black-eyed Suzan]

We watch children's shows on youtube in our foreign language of choice. That way they are hearing native speakers and not my sad imitation. Even more fun is watching the same show/movie in English and the foreign language. :) For Spanish the library probably has DVDs, audio books, and/or on-line language learning programs, too. 

 

Other ways to learn vocabulary include sticking homemade word flashcards on the appropriate household object and reading picture dictionaries (also from the library?).

[Jackie]

Thank you again everyone for the ideas! I really appreciate all the thoughtful replies and I'm feeling much more comfortable already.

 

We spent about an hour this morning watching some of The Happy Scientist videos and discussing. I definitely see getting a subscription to those.

 

I'm curious about The Private Eye curriculum. The website doesn't have a ton of information (or I'm not looking in the right places). But DD loves using magnifying glasses and really wants a more user-friendly/child-friendly microscope and I think she might really take to discovery with the jeweler's loupe.

 

EndOfOrdinary or others using the Thames and Kosmos kits - which kits have you found most fun or interesting or useful? If anyone has used the chemistry sets, do you have an opinion on which one to get?

 

I love picture books; I didn't mean to say I was discouraging them. Just trying to look for opportunities to expand DD's comfort with longer books and books heavier on text as well.

 

We do get some children's books in Spanish from the library, though I'm not sure hearing them in my atrocious accent is helpful :) The Spanish section is very limited. I don't know if she is quite ready for DuoLingo (which I use for myself) but I've thought about trying it along with her so I could do the spelling for her. We do still use Salsa Spanish and Little Pim when she wants.

 

We use AAS because she asked me to teach her to spell. I spell by sight - if I've seen a word, I can spell it. I don't even know the spelling rules. Her brain doesn't work that way, but she can pretty easily apply the rules. We skip most the work in it - I teach her the rule using the tiles, we skip straight to the dictated phrases with her typing them on the iPad and I consider the step done. The only reason it is going slowly is because we only get it out when she requests it.

 

I'm excited about doing prehistory before SOTW. I'm using the opportunity presented by teaching her to immerse myself in the information as well. I will be happy to use the book suggestions in the AG and was also looking at History Odyssey. My plan is not to necessarily wait until she is older, but take our time working through hands-on projects and rabbit trails to stretch things out a bit.

 

Thanks for the good reviews on MUS. Her interest in numbers seems to come and go more than her interest is reading and science. She likes the stories in Life of Fred, but to her the math part is just getting in the way of the story! When her interest in basic numbers resurfaces, I'll figure out whether continuing on in RS-B is right for her or if we need to find another option.

[lewelma]

I just want to put a plug in for doing maths in real life rather than with printed materials.  We did a LOT of things like:

 

estimating the number of cars, or the distance to the tree, etc.  This creates very good numeracy skills and measurement.

 

Or mathematical story telling. Something like "Once there were 3 trolls who were eating 4 cakes each.  How many cakes did their servant fairy have to make each day? .... Suppose each one invited 2 friends over for dinner.  Now how many cakes would the fairy have to bake? .... If there were only 2 ovens and each one held only 3 cakes, in how many batches would you have to bake the cakes for the party?......  Then, I would have my son do the story telling and I had to give the answers.  Very very fun.

 

Playing store.  With prices, money, change, etc.

 

Playing "math war" card games.  Where instead of flipping over 1 card each, you flip over two and add them to see who wins.  Lots of other math games out there.

 

Playing with the abacus. Playing with shape blocks to make patterns.  Doing tangrams (these can be really hard)

 

Cooking. I always had him 1 1/2 the recipe instead of double it.  Kind of a mind bender when your original recipe needed 1 3/4 cup of flour. :001_smile:

 

I'm sure that others can give you ideas. 

 

This is all I did with my older boy until he was 6 3/4 and he is now a bit of a maths whiz.  So either it really helped his math talent or at least did not hold him back.  And it was FUN!

 

Ruth in NZ

[Jackie]

Thanks Ruth! I've started working on estimating with her recently and it was hilarious to start - she really didn't want to estimate the number of steps to the table, insisting she just had to DO it to answer the question. We eventually got the communication down and she understood what I was asking.

 

We've definitely embraced card games. And patterning games like Qwirkle. We've barely touched on fractions and that's something I can definitely work in more when we're baking or during play.

 

We've played with pattern blocks, but I admit I don't really know what to "do" with them. We do have Mighty Mind and Super Mighty Mind, but haven't gotten them out in a while.

 

I love math. It was always my favorite subject and probably the one I actually feel most at home with. But I forget about all the things I can do with a younger child - math for me was much more memorable from algebra onward!

[kubiac]

My almost-4yo loves "Bill Guy the Science Guy" :) and the They Might Be Giants science video. I also like the Schoolhouse Rock science video, but I think my kid finds it less comprehensible than some other science stuff.

 

I've also been pleasantly surprised by the Cat in the Hat Learning Library books. Good vocabulary development in those. 

 

The DK Eye Wonder books also seem to be good for this age, although I wish they covered a richer array topics than, say, Cats and Dogs.

 

 

[ThoughtfulMama]

No real advice since mine is only 5.5 and will be starting K in the fall, so we are not ahead of you enough to be a voice of experience ;)

 

Just for a little different perspective, I'm following what someone told me a more of a Montessori approach at this age. I'm keeping resources around (and spending lots of time researching and finding them) but completely following his lead on what he is interested in and chooses to do. That means lots of books at lots of levels (fiction and non-fiction from board books up to 4th grade), lots of games (love Quirkle too, Math Dice), abacus, number balance, impromptu science experiments at the breakfast table to answer his questions, and basically lots and lots of intelligent discussions on whatever topics he chooses. Right now he is fascinated with scales and conversions (Celcius/Farenheight, inches/centimeters for example), so we talk about that daily.

 

And lots of building and creative toys (Legos, Gears!, Snap Circuits, Mag Formers, puzzles, playdoh, etc.).

[Korrale]

With the exception of Spanish, my son is pretty much word for word Exactly the same as your daughter. Including the humor issue. He did not understand Amelia Bedelia at all. He turned 4 in December.

Some of what we do is in my signature below. My blog is there too, but it is pretty meager.

 

I decided to make Jan 2014 to Dec 2014 my son's Kinder year. And our focus as been Americana.

We use The Complete Book of United States History for History. It is perfect! It is aimed at grade 3-5. But it reads easier, I think. And it had lots of pictures. It lacks maps, but I keep google maps handy on my iPad. We supplement with lots of library books and TV shows, clips, that I can find via our streaming options. Or what we can borrow from the library.

We have lightly been adding American Intelligo units too.

Geography has focused on knowing all the states, their capitals, a little fact and history. We are also making sure he is familar with rivers, mountains and other notable landmarks, natural and man made. Before we studied the broader american geography and history I made sure he knew local history and geography, he knew how to read maps, how the earth decides seasons and things like that.

 

For science I have played around with a lot of curriculum. And keep coming back to BFSU. we have been doing it on and off for the last few years. I study the lesson so I am familiar with it. Then my son reads lots of books and watches shows about the topic. And we spend a week discussing it. At the end of the week he dictates a journal entry about what he knows. I have a few lessons on my blog. The process works so smoothly. And he knows a lot of science. I highly recommend Peter Weatherall DVDs. We really don't do much with experiments. Certainly very few planned ones. However I am able to do impromptu experiments on the fly. One night I made red cabbage and while cooking dinner I showed him how to use the discarded water to learn about acids and bases. We also leant about acids and bases while cleaning with vinegar and baking soda. My son is always building his own contraptions out of things he finds around the house. He builds a lot of inclined planes and pulley systems. And he tells me about condensation after watching my glass drip water. Last year he got excited and wanted to make a video about it. I will add the YouTube link once I post this. We are always talking about the world around us, the seasons changing, the weather. BFSU helps make this possible! It gives me the tools to be confident while we discuss things.

Recently I did start buying science books. I have this amazing one written decades ago. I think it is called. Physics Experiments for Kids. I leave it lying around the house and my son reads the how and why. Sadly he has started educating me on why things work :o

 

For math we do a lot of curricula... Mostly in an attempt to broaden and slow him down. We are on target start second grade math next month.

 

For Language Arts, grammar, copy work, literature, we started LLTL. It is good. I had to extend it with adding narrations and vocabulary. It is extremely light, with the exception of the copy work, because his writing skills are subpar. Okay... Not subpar. They are 4 year old writing skills. :)

I have gone back to doing Draw Write Now more consistently. He likes it and is just tracing words but it is just enough work for him to do in one sitting.

 

For reading,l I don't teach reading anymore. He can read and understand pretty much anything I put in his hand. He isn't such a huge fan of chapter books unless we are buddy reading them. We have read about half a dozen chapter books completely. Those include Charlotte's Web. Sarah, Plain and Tall, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, My Father's Dragon (quite possibly the best first chapter book), and 2 of the Little House Books. There might be a few others.

But rather than pushing him to read chapter books I have made an effort to provide him with very high level picture books. Book by Virginia Lee Burton, James Herriot, and Robert McCloskey, just to name a few, apart higher reading text than many begining chapter books.

To also give him a challenge I do a three tier reading system. He is still in the repeated reading stage. You know when a kid likes to watch something over and over again? Well my son does that with books. I have about 40 Little a Golden books. All of been read almost on a daily basis for the last 3 months. The authors mentioned above are read daily also.

We are using Frozen currently in our three tier system. He reads the little golden book version of the movie, then the novel, and then he gets to watch the movie. And he has been listening to the soundtrack for months. He is most of the way through the novel for his independent reading. He is enjoying it, but getting to watch the movie is the big incentive. We are a limited TV family.

We did the tier system with The Secret Garden last month and he is currently reading landscape and gardening books while he is planning his garden that will be planted soon.

 

We try and have a Montessori Home, we have since my son was a baby. So we do a lot of Montessori stuff. James is super independent I think because of it. He cooks, he cleans, he does laundry, dishes etc.

He also plays a lot. He loves snap circuits. And games like Logik Street, Rush Hour, Mini LUK. He can play them by himself. He has recently started learning chess. And he wakes early some days to set up the chess board before I get out of bed. He is also a lego and model train fanatic thanks to his father.

 

Gosh! I wrote a lot. Hope some of this helps.

 

Edited to add: my son's impromptu science video that he wanted to make after looking at my wet glass. He came up with it all himself. I just held the camera. And did the post production editing.

[Jackie]

Including the humor issue. He did not understand Amelia Bedelia at all.

Somehow my daughter liked reading Amelia Bedelia even though she didn't understand a single joke in it. It doesn't help that some of the phrasing was so unfamiliar to her - she has never heard of someone "drawing drapes" or "changing towels" because around here we open curtains and wash towels. Your son's condensation video is awesome :)

 

I've been able to take so many of the ideas from this thread (you all have no idea how many times I've read all these posts!), implement, breathe, and calm myself again.

 

We've been watching The Happy Scientist videos and they are definitely a hit. I've started pulling one up at lunch for us to watch and discuss while we eat. I think I'll get both The Private Eye and BFSU. Even if I don't implement them as curriculum, they sound like good resources for me. Spring is just barely starting and DD really wants to garden this year, so we're learning together about gardening. And, as I've always done, I go to YouTube when she really wants to know something *right now* and I don't have an answer.

 

I realized that even though I reserve a pile of books at the library, I almost always exchange books at the drive-thru, so I hadn't actually taken DD to the library in a while. She was able to choose the books on her subjects of choice (frogs and gardening this week) instead of me doing the choosing, and even that made things much easier. A librarian helped us find a couple of fiction book series that we didn't know about. They're below her "level" but longer than she'll usually read and DD was excited about them and already flew through three of them this afternoon. Plus we signed her up for her own card, which effectively doubles our reserve limit!

 

I'm feeling much happier about where I am now. Again, thank you all for so much help!

[ofthevine]

We've really enjoyed Sonlight science this year.  I've heard complaints that it jumps around a lot, but at this age, I think it is more of a basic introduction.  It uses a lot of Usborne books and has hands-on experiments for each week.