Help me think through next plan for 5 yr old who finished K work in 4 months

[Hilltopmom]

Sorry this will be long- 

I homeschooled my grown kids and am a public school teacher now. My 2 little ones are homeschooling this year (& possibly next year) due to Covid. They go to my parents house while I’m at work. (I’m currently teaching remote though & have the kids home with me)

With my parents they do a lot of academic stuff and go hiking most days in the afternoon- they are all having a blast. They do: journaling, spelling, math “homework”, fact practice, games, read alouds, phonics, HWOT, sight word work, watch documentaries, etc. I did not want my parents to feel like they had to teach new content so I teach and then they do practice/ review work.

A few evenings a week and on weekends/ breaks, I do their actual reading/ math/ science curriculum with them. I’m using what they would use at school because I plan to have them go back and wanted the consistency in math programs, sight words each year, etc.

I unschooled my big kids so doing actual “school” work everyday with little kids was new for me. I did not want to unschool again since they are going back to public school.

Here’s where I’m unsure of what to do next- this is K year for ds. He turns 6 in Jan and we started schoolwork mid July this year. He is done with his K curriculum- all of it. I use Dancing Bears (which he does not like but it works) & GoMath. He’s reading all the BOB books but isn’t interested in tackling easy chapter books yet. I’m going to start him on Little Bear tonight. He’s mastered reading and writing all the K sight words. He enjoys listening to read alouds- Ramona, Flat Stanley..

I have never taught a kid who picked up on things fast. All my other kids have learning disabilities and I’m a special Ed teacher so all of my students have always struggled too.

I have the next grade for GoMath and Dancing Bears plus all the sight word and spelling work for the next grade from school. We may switch to Explode the Code for awhile instead of Dancing Bears because I don’t want him complaining about Dancing Bears & not enjoying reading lessons. 

Fine motor wise I would say he’s not ready for first grade level of writing expected in the word work but he can learn to read the words.  But not write first grade sentences yet. He likes doing cutting practice books, lego, etc so he is maturing with his skills.

I’m trying to decide if I should just start all of the first grade curriculum with him now. He will probably finish by August. If I put him in school next year I do not want him bored- he’s very active and active plus bored would be a bad combo. Homeschooling for years is not going to happen- it’s temporary due to Covid while my parents agree to watch them.

My other thought is to slow him down by spending the next month just playing games, playing with place value blocks, practicing math facts, & reading books- him to me and us to him. (Plus Mystery Science- everyone loves that)

So take a curriculum break and then restart with the First Grade stuff, but go light on the writing tasks. I don’t want to stop moving forward when he’s picking things up so easily. I don’t want to just wait until next year to have him Start that material since he’s ready for it.

 
His sister needs remedial work so she can’t stop so I don’t want to give him too much time “off”. (It wouldn’t be off- I’d still have him come to the table for “school”, we would just do different things- card and dice games, books instead of curriculum).

Any thoughts? Thanks so much! I can’t believe I’m even asking for this advice.

eta- This is a tough year for me, teaching hybrid is exhausting and I also have a senior with an iep who needs a lot of my supervision to get through her work. That’s why I chose to stick with mainly open & go curriculum instead of piecing together my own thing.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Hilltopmom

[Clemsondana]

If your plan is for your student to go back to public school for first, then I wouldn't give them anything that looks like the public school first grade program in K.  In my experience precocious kids are often bored in school, and I would think that repeating the same material would make it worse.  Maybe try a fun approach to math like Life of Fred?  Games would also be good, or maybe word problems that involve a bit of thinking.  Or you could introduce simple probability - Not a Number has posted about doing it with her daughter as written/drawn problems, and I know that we did bits of it orally with cube blocks before my older was writing well.  I remember at one point giving my kid some football scores and asking him to figure out how they could have gotten those scores.  For instance, 14 points could be 2 touchdowns with extra points, or 4 field goals plus a safety, or...  You may not be football fans, but something like that would let a kid practice math facts as more of a puzzle.  I have some old books - one called Family Math that I bought and another called Teddy Bear Math that I inherited from a retired teacher - that have some hands on math ideas. You might be able to find a copy of something like that to play around with.  

I'd probably let reading proceed at its own pace with books with good illustrations.   We used Hirsh's Core Knowledge plan as a guide, and based on it we read fables and poems, both of which I wouldn't have thought to choose but both of which were popular with the kids.  So, I'd say rather than having your student read more difficult books than he's comfortable with, read out loud classic books for him.  We aren't a big read aloud family like many on here are, but In K I read the complete Winnie the Pooh in addition to many fables.  One kid also loved Kipling's Just So stories. 

I'd also explore lots of content that isn't covered well in school.  One of mine loved maps, so we looked at continents, learned about countries and food, tried new recipes, carryout, and tasted items from the international aisle at the grocery store. 

And, you're probably right about not being able to do first grade output.  Neither of my kids could have skipped ahead as far as output was concerned, even though they were often working one (or several) years ahead in content.  

[Hilltopmom]

Oh I like the idea of moving forward in math but doing it without the curriculum. We could just explore all the concepts with games & manipulatives and skip the workbook his school uses. He’s going to pick right up on it. But more planning for me than just working through a workbook program

He might be ready for SOTW as a read aloud too.

Hmmm... we could do more science/ social stuff that he won’t earn in school- I like that

Edited December 12, 2020 by Hilltopmom

[Rosie_0801]

You could have a look at CSMP for maths. It'd be a different style to what he'd done before, but good reinforcement. It's also free online. You could do that with him and have his grandparents play the board games.

 

[Not_a_Number]

6 hours ago, Clemsondana said:

Or you could introduce simple probability - Not a Number has posted about doing it with her daughter as written/drawn problems, and I know that we did bits of it orally with cube blocks before my older was writing well. 

We didn't exactly do probability, but yeah, we did combinatorics 🙂 . It's a fun thing to work on, and shamefully neglected in school. (And it does get used for probability, so you're not wrong -- just clarifying.) Let me know if you're interested, OP -- I can show you some of the work we did! 

As to the original question, I am mixed on this one. I tend to want to let kids go forward if they are able, even if it does lead to boredom in school. But of course, we wound up pulling out DD8 out of school after kindergarten because she WAS so bored. On the other hand, I think she would have gotten bored whatever I did, she'd have just been taught badly first... As is, I wound up having to unteach a concept she learned in kindergarten during our homeschooling, and that's despite the fact that she had seen 99% of the things she wound "learning" in kindergarten before. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Not_a_Number

[PeterPan]

My ds enjoyed the Popular Mechanics for Kids videos, which at that time were free on Prime. Would he like to take apart things? Could he do Kumon workbooks on money, mazes, scissor skills, easy origami, etc.? 

Teacher Created Resources has great workbooks for that age. They have several cut and paste (math, science, etc. topics) also graphing art. My ds did them around that age and enjoyed them.

 

[Hilltopmom]

Hmm when looking at CSMP, I remembered I still have the MUS blocks... maybe we will do a level of MUS next- will cover the same concepts but different style than the public school books- yet still open and go and easy to follow for me. Very hands on which he will like and will solidify his facts, numeracy,  and place value understanding.

ETA- think I’ve got a plan:

MUS 

ETC

easy readers/ read alouds (go back to Dancing Bears next book after a break to just read since he’s not enjoying it anymore)

Continue Mystery Science 

unit studies for history/ read alouds/ SOTW

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Hilltopmom