Well its official my son is going off to school. To be honest it’s killing me, but in order for him to receive his therapies, it was one of the only options. I could have likely fought to get some funded homeschooling, but he really really REALLY wanted to go to school. So far his visits to the school have gone really well. His classmates are warm and welcoming and he is enjoying himself. But I can see already the material is TOO easy. They are learning to add up to 10’s and my son is currently learning to add hundreds and carry over. His reading level is also way above his peers. So its obvious to be that myself and his afterschool ABA tutors are going to have to work very hard to keep him challenged. So I’m looking to afterschool him.
Right now this is what I’m doing with him.
Reading Eggs(Map 10)
I See Sam Books (Level 4)
Handwriting With Out Tears (Just finishing Grade 1, starting Grade 2 soon) I have forgotten to ask his school if they teach cursive, so my hope is either way to work on the grade 2 printing and in the summer start A Beka cursive K5 program.
Reading him a chapter or two a night of a chapter book
Reading to him classical fairy tales. I always tend to read books we can read together, now I’m seeing the importance of me reading him books that are too advance for him to read, but not too hard to understand. This is the set we are using right now http://www.mphonline.com/books/nsearchdetails.aspx?&pcode=9781741842869
Wesley also attends Suzuki Violin once a week, but I’ll be the first to admit we don’t practice nearly enough.
I’m hoping once the baby comes, and my daycare closes I can include both children in a few things like Themes to Remember, more chapter book reading, etc.
Any ideas? I have so many resources but honestly don’t know what to do.
Just a quick idea, why don’t you just expand sideways what ever they are teaching at school. This won’t work with math( because it’s a very liniar learning) but if school does a topic on Canada teach him Canadian history and animals and weather and law… Stretch it out to depth of learning rather than height or grade levels. If they do the circus teach him to juggle and walk a tight rope. He will have a rich and exciting childhood and it won’t clash with his further education. Just something to consider I know it doenst always work but it’s a good option when it can be used.
How about a sport. There are some things that academics can’t teach that sport can. Like working together, teamenship, leadership, co-ordinationand other things. Your son may just want to form friendship groups and a sport will help this. Also what about Kumon after school? Or cubs/scouts all are good things.
I also like the idea oof going into more depth in the subjects by side way stepping like Mandaplus suggested.
We tried soccer last winter and the kids didnt care for it. And to be honest violin cost me about $700 a year. I can’t really afford to add anymore paid for activities. But this summer when I’m on maternity leave I’ll see if I can find anything like that. Maybe our leisure guide will have something affordable.
That is a great idea! His teacher is very open with their monthly lesson plans, so this might work well. Thank-you for the great idea.
You are welcome. This teaching sideways idea is what I do with my two girls (boy do I know alot about the circus! LOL ) It works really well and gives you alot of scope to teach. It also keeps the teachers happy, they dont feel like you are stepping on their toes! In Australia a lot of the gifted and talented programs aim for depth of knowledge rather than advancing studies.
Some ideas we have used succesfully
Insects unit: we found an insect for each letter of the alphabet, learnt body part names, drew dragon fly wings in detail, discussed the food chain, went to the museum to see the insects in amber…
Country of India Project: cooking (oh I loved this one lol ), dress ups, history, kite festival : amazingly there was one on in our home town at the time, decorating with plastic jewels, flag colouring, playing indian games, geography and animals.
Circus- OK the only really important bits were that we bought a unicycle and spent a week laughing our heads of trying to ride it and we had a go at the Trapeze! We even took the unicycle to school for the teacher to have a go… lol
As you can see its pretty easy to expand sideways. It is easy enough to find what you need in a google search, the trick is to keep it fun and educational at the same time.
And yes I fully understand how expensive all these afterschooling activites can be!
planing a calender for whole month.add some physical activities,like skating,gymnast and playing other outdoor games.after that you can add some art and craft activities like music or instrumental.add a topic for environment.like “create green” in your garden while he will experiments the :biggrin: BOTANY:the science of plants.
We use the idea of reinforcing what is taught in school as well with theme units. I like to get the scope and sequence from the schools along with borrowed copies of the text, it is sort of like reteaching at home what was taught as school for you see we don’t always agree with the teachings of secular content so we reinforce it with Biblical perspective at home. It isn’t reteaching but it reinforcing with a different view sort of speak. and ofcourse we jump ahead sometimes and then the child is ready for the next day feeling more confident.
There has been alot of good ideas in this thread. Thanks you all for commenting. But remember at school allday then school all night may tire the child, if can think about hands on projects to do at home for example for math cooking is always good. Sometimes children get overwhelmed with going to school then being schooled at home as well, so we like to theme units, hands on projects, etc. that reinforce the school days work.
