We have been doing early childhood education for a while but I am soon goin to be purchasing some homeschool curriculum. I have been doing some research on kindergarten and first grade standards for our state. My 3 year old has mastered some of the skills in first grade and surpassed kindergarten so I am wanting to buy some first grade material. I am just wanting to ask if there is anything I should avoid in the curriculum until later. I don’t want to overwhelm her so we are going to be taking it slow. Just do a few activities or workpages or whatever a few times a week. I don’t expect much structure at her age but I want to know what y’all think about this…
It’s been my experience that Kindergarten is often a waste of time and money, since many of the skills are done again in first grade or else can be learned during the 1st grade year without too big of a deal. I am sure that Kindergarten is just to get kids ready for the “school process.”
Anyway, try and avoid:
Over-crowded pages or pages that are too-wordy or too overwhelming in the student book.
Anything thing that can NOT be adapted for hands on play
Anything that takes more than 5-15 minutes to complete in segments
You should look for curriculum that is easy for teacher and parent. I for one really like The Reading Lesson for getting non-readers to a 2nd grade reading level. This process can go as fast or as slowly as you and your student would like. The first 2 chapters of the lesson are free to download. I will warn you, that it will look like simplex-twaddle or something, but by the time you get to the end your student will be a reader and the book will look more like a “book.”
You might like to do Before Five In a Row which is literature based integrated study, or you may be able to jump to the next main level of the series called Five In a Row (www.fiarhq.com) depending on your babies abilities and learning style…
Or else look into Unit Studies…
What do you want to cover?
You are the only person who can watch your child’s response while teaching. I would suggest a curricula that has hands on homeschool, but if your child’s reading level can be advanced them by all means concentrate on that. I have a 3 year old and he’s is in the same boat. If your child has passed up kindergarten like mine has then proceed slowly, on a time limit, and watch your child during this time, if things are to hard or frustrating then back off. Give the child time to play, some call it play school, remember if the child has not accomplished the life skills suggested for the age then that is where also to begin. Homeschooling isn’t just about academic levels but also life skills, and interacting in with his/her surroundings as well.
There are curriculums out there that test your child to see what level they are actually on with a simple eveluation test to get started into the curricula, such as ACE ministries, or switched on schoolhouse, they have tests to see what level your child is at, just remember to choose I would say first grade level.
You can purchase a first grade curricula that is if the life skills is as advanced as the academic level and modify the content, (that means crop it to fit the time limit) create a worksheet or lapbooks, or some hands on activity that was presented to the child in the past. Don’t be afraid to repeat activities from one year to the next, just make it more advanced then before. Take the first grade curricula and rearrange, omit, and repeat from the previous year.
I specialize in modifing content and once you get the hang of it you can take a 3rd grade curricula and modify it to fit a preschooler, i do all the time. And you can save the older curricula for when the child reaches that level as well.
I have some children who may be in 2nd grade but have a reading level of a preschooler, and a math level of a 3rd grader and a science level of a 5th grader. So we concentrate on one subject at a time, the weakest and then go from there to move the child up to his/her highest level.
Remember not to advance your child to high to fast, they may get bored with homeschooling and you may have a hard time finding curricula that advanced, however i do have a homeschooler that is graduating at the age of 15? and remember to stay within the state laws as well. Some states will not allow your child to legally graduate until 16-18.
There are tons of curricula out there that can fit your needs. If you want to create a free homeschooling curriculum via internet based then PM me and I can help you with that. We offer a Link Homeschool Curricula at our co-op so I have schedules already set up. let me know if I can help you.
here is what I would love to get for my co-op http://www.handsonhomeschooling.com/
Thank you Mom2Bee for the reccomendations and thngs to avoid. Exactly what I was asking about. I am researching some educational material to buy now. Just a few things to get us started. I am also wanting to buy Wink, but I think I’ll wait til next year for that. Kota is only 3 now.
Thank you mother of faith, I am big on unschooling and we always try to make everything we do fun! That’s why before I purchased some products I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. I am curious about those tests that evaluate “life skills”. How do they work? We spend most of our time playing because I know how important simple play is for children. Unfortunatly, we do not have Internet at home. So an Internet based curiculum would not be possible. I have Internet on my iPhone. Thanks so much for being so helpful
It is just a checklist of items that pertain to their age like for Kingdergarten;
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know full name and parents’ names
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know full address and phone number
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know age and birthday
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dress self, select clothing, tie shoes
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understands safety rules an dlocations
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understand nutritional and healthy eating
and the list goes on. each grade level has their own skills and activities that need to be mastered.
If you like hands on type learning I would suggest curriculums such as :
Sonlight
Five in a Row
Heart of Dakota
My Father’s World
(if your Catholic) Christian Heritage Curriculum
and tweak them where need be. Especially if your child is advanced in math and reading.
Go the library and pick out topics of interest. Honestly 3 is young, so now is a good time to explore things that they are interested in.
You may want to work on handwriting. I love the Rod and Staff workbooks. They are Christian workbooks , inexpensive and they get the job done. You can purchase them off of Christian Light Education ( www.clp.org). They say they are Preschool but they really are not. They are created by a Mennonite company and Mennonites do not have preschool they are considered late K/1st grade.
I also like Christian Light Education period. No twaddle, the pages are simple and three toned in color. They are not cluddered and they have the best Grammar and Math I have seen for elementary grades ( and I’ve used a lot of Curriculum).
Those are my thoughts. I’ve been an eclectic homeschooler. After 8yrs I’ve definitely learned what works and what doesn’t. I remember when I started out with my oldest daughter. I went a little nutsy I think and thought I had to do a lot. Now that I’m at my fourth child I’ve really become more relaxed in my approach to teaching. I’ve learned that when they are little the best thing to focus on is reading, handwriting and math as far as academics goes.
the best thing for a 3yr old is learning to tie their shoes, know how to write and recite their first name and last name, count to 100, their address and phone number, how to get along with other children, how to jump, skip , hop( all things I read that teachers in schools wished children knew coming into .Remember the rest is all gravy. P.s These are all my thoughts, you know your child the best. So just take it slow and easy.