I need feedback: my K4 plan for next year

[908874]

My oldest son is four years old.  This past year we used Before Five in a Row and he played with Starfall and ABCmouse. He knows the basics although I am sure he can use reinforcement.

 

My plan for his "k4" year is to use Saxon Math K, Five in a Row (volume 1) and The ordinary  Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading.  I don't believe my son is ready for a writing curriculum at this time. However, I think it will be good to work on learning to write his name. For this I could just print out pages with his name on them to trace.

 

I understand that most experts do writing and reading together. Should I get him the Abeka k4 workbooks anyway?  If so, should I go with cursive? Or should I use Handwriting without tears? If we do writing, should we do it  twice a week or every day? 

 

Also, I would like to keep school time to a minimum. I have heard so many conflicting ideas though. My plan is to do one hour of "focused" time after breakfast with the apparently fun Saxon manipulatives and a short phonics lesson. Five in a Row never feels like school and we can do that after lunch. My guess is that Five in a row  will take anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour each day. For a total of about an hour to an hour a half of work per day.

 

Another idea is that since Five in a Row Volume 1 is 19 weeks long it will end near December. Then, next January I could start him on a writing curriculum instead of the second volume of Five in a Row.

 

I would like to know if anyone here has some feedback. Are these realistic aims for the year? 

[Eagle]

Welcome! What you have planned sounds good. At 4, my son was not ready for formal printing, but loved our set of dry-erase Kumon books with letters and numbers. He could trace them over and over and thought it was great fun. He also enjoyed the one that had him connect dots, do beginner mazes, and draw shapes. I would let him do them when he wanted, not a set number of days per week.

 

I would ensure you left plenty of time for you to read him lots and lots of lovely books.

[desertflower]

Sounds good! I don't know about teaching cursive before print though......

 

If u get a chance throw in a science experiment or two. :p

 

Have fun!

[908874]

I will look into Kumon books. Thank you for that suggestion.

 

I agree about experiments as we do experiments all the time! I have a science background so I find myself constantly talking about leaves using the sun for energy and roots drinking water as we weed our garden (we also note that grass is different from weeds and so on so he actually helps me), how he is mommy's little human and we look up what is inside his head online lol. We do experiments all the time too (including scrambling an egg and cooking it). I have lots of fun. He is in fact growing a sunflower right now. I guess that is unschooling? Lol not sure. Soon when he understands measuring I will have him measure the sunflower and whatever else he plants and I will graph it for him. Can't wait.

 

Oh and about the print and cursive. I listened to a podcast interview with the author of "Cursive first" (link: http://www.swrtraining.com/id17.html) and if anything she confused me as I always assumed print comes first. Like anything, my guess is that there is no consensus on the matter. And then I saw that Abeka K4 packages online feature the cursive workbooks. 

[mmasc]

My young K'er (had just turned 5) didn't have any interest in handwriting at all. I got the Handwriting without Tears K book and it worked out really well for him. We started by writing the letters on the little chalkboard first as they suggest, and it really helped. By Christmas, he didn't even want to write them first on the board, he was able to go straight to the workbook. We also only did 5 minutes of handwriting a day.

[AimeeM]

I think it sounds fantastic. You'll get some science and social studies from FIAR; you have phonics and math down.

I would agree with some others that HWOT is a great option. My barely 5 year old struggles with writing. In the end, I moved away from HWOT, but that's my own issue (font).

[abba12]

HWOT has a sort of pre-writing curriculum doesn't it? I remember seeing something about it

 

edit: found it, 'my first school book' - http://shopping.hwtears.com/product/MFSB/handwriting

 

Also I second the Kumon suggestion, my DD loves it and it's helped to build up those muscles for writing, I can see a difference in her tracing/lines etc, they're more steady and she has more control despite not actually practicing those skills, but rather working on gluing, cutting, colouring etc. 

[908874]

Thank you for all your responses! I appreciate it. I will definitely add the Kumon books (and perhaps an extra one for my 2 year old who will surely want to do as her brother at some point).

 

I will check out HWT :) 

[AdventuresinHomeschooling]

Hi,

 

Your plans sound good.  We did Saxon K for preschool this year, and my son loved it.  Only thing he had difficulty with was counting dimes.  We did not do school every day.  In fact, Saxon K is only supposed to be 3 lessons a week or 12 lessons a month.  My biggest complaint was that getting off track messed up the meeting book a little, but we just picked back up where we were with a different month.  

 

My son also enjoyed some preschool basic workbooks I picked up, and we started with the first book of Sing, Spell, Read and Write.  We did one letter a week.  I was surprised that my 4 yo liked writing so much, but he loves to write his name and practice his letters.  I wouldn't push, but see what your child wants to do.  Some of the prewriting books are also good.  My son loved mazes and dot to dot, and that helps with pencil control without "writing.'  We also had an A Beka manuscript preschool book laying around from my older son, and he did some of the pages in it for fun when he wanted to crank out workbook pages.  Writing in salt or flour with his finger is a mother good exercise for forming letters without worrying about how to hold the pencil. Personally, I cannot the handwriting style of Handwriting Without Tears, but the pre-writing book isn't too bad.  It's up to you.  We do Pentime, and my oldest transitioned to cursive, and my preschooler is fascinated with Pentime and can't wait to start in kindergarten.  Who knew handwriting would be such a hit here, but they never complain about Pentime!

 

You can find lots of fun printables and activities on websites like pinterest, education.com, etc. as well. 

[908874]

I found a Saxon K and a Saxon Math 1 home study guides for $10 at a used book store (looks like nobody used them!) and was noticing that you only do "school" three times a week :) I like it and reading through the lessons it is definitely something I know my son will enjoy. My only issue is that it starts school in September and here we start in August. But I suppose it doesn't matter so much and I can probably just adjust it.

 

I will not push writing, but will definitely try!

 

 

[craftyerin]

We did FIAR at 4, along with HWT PK (mostly manipulatives and writing in sand, shaving cream, sidewalk chalk, etc).  We did all of that again, along with the orange workbook in K, and by the end of K had moved on to copywork across the curriculum for handwriting. We also did beginning phonics and math (although we choose different publishers than you have).  I think your plan looks good, and I would not add Abeka if I were you. 

[Walking-Iris]

Your plan looks good. I wouldn't add Abeka. You'll get plenty done with the FIAR and the math. I also plan on doing a "FIAR" inspired K4 year using Peak With Books. And I have Saxon K as well. It looks great for early math. Adding in some c-rod play--pre-Miquon.

 

I think you can do cursive first if you want. It doesn't really matter. I choose to use HWT at first. We use the wooden letters and write in a variety of sensory materials. I prefer to teach lowercase over a focus on capitals, so I use the ETC Get Ready Set Go books for that, and the HWT for capitals. I'm going to try to gently start her on some phonics.

 

Science is tag along with the older kids and nature study. I pull ideas out of the Mudpie to Magnets books (and various other resources). I'm not very sequential about it. I just pull out what looks interesting when the fancy strikes.

 

Same with any history or geography, just tag along. 

 

Art as well. My 4 year old has been used to tagging along with her brothers history/science/art activities for as long as she can remember. Other than that----lots and lots of read alouds and play time.

 

Sandpaper letters, HWT wooden letters, and movable alphabets are great for beginner writers. I download different activities from MontessoriPrintShop for my dd to play around with on her own time.