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10 yr old, fifth grader (and us!) is new to homeschooling this year! HELP!


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A close friend has decided to start home schooling her fifth grade, ten year old son. He has been in Pennsylvania public school, to this point… I have agreed to help out, and it continues to increase.

My research has brought me to a classical education method. We ordered A and O complete LifePaks for Math, Bible, Science, Language Arts, and History and Geography. We also ordered some handwriting helps for both print and cursive. I also ordered Prima Latina for beginning Latin.

Im nervous and concerned at starting him in fifth grade as we’ve missed the grammar years

Any tips?

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It sounds like you are getting all ready! My big lesson learned is to stay focused on the kid you have. Avoid acting out of fear, and let the resources you've gathered serve the kid's development. 

There is a learning curve to homeschooling, and you will get better at seeing what is needed with practice.  

Welcome!

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Welcome!

Concerning the LifePacs, let your dc (dear child) work on them at the kitchen table or any other place that's out in the open--IOW, not alone in his room. It would be easy for him to be isolated if he works alone on all those identical little workbooks, and that's no fun. 🙂

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15 hours ago, Sean David said:

Im nervous and concerned at starting him in fifth grade as we’ve missed the grammar years

Any tips?

The one nice thing about the classical method is that it just breaks down the steps in learning that we all take, at any age, to acquire new information.  When you look at the goal of the grammar stage, it's mostly learning basic information, right?  The logic stage is learning to work with that information and connect dots, and the rhetoric stage is developing your own ideas, expanding beyond the logic stage, and working at a higher level with material.

That's the very basic idea, but you can see how it applies no matter how old a person is.  Even a college class will go through the steps, condensing the first and focusing on the second or third.

 

Now, that out of the way, here are a few things that I wish someone would have told me years ago.

1. The child did not come in the box, the materials did.  If the materials don't fit the child out of the box, that's normal and okay.   You can work with the materials (focusing on the objectives and finding other ways to meet them) or you can scrap them (and find something that fits better), but those are the choices because you can't scrap the kid.

2. Grade levels are arbitrary in curricula.  There are no set goals across the board and 5th grade in one program might look like 4th or 6th in another.

3. February is rough.

 

That's all.  Enjoy your year!

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Welcome to the boards! 

I suggest lots of reading here, lots of flexibility, and not expecting it to be easy or go smoothly. 

If you post specifics about the student and his needs, the home educators, the motivations for this change, etc., you might get more feedback. 

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