so ppl....what do u do with your 4-5 year old kids? Our daughter wants to learn how to write and read so we do that a lot and the rest is more 'during the day' but can u give me some ideas about what you do?? what about crafts? Nature? Science? And so on.... What do you do???
We do a lot of child led learning. If he wants to learn about space, then we learn about space. If he wants to play a counting game, then that's what we do. We do 'book work' for about 2 hours a day, but he LOVES it. Matter of fact, he asked me today if he could do just one more worksheet before we got out the playdough (strange kid, I know...lol). Super Why has inspired him to want to learn to read, so we're working through a book I have (The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading). But only because he wants to, iykwim.
lol.. I lock mine in the closet! no not really.. just had to be funny, your title opened it right up there! We never focused on science and social studies at that age. He learned math in the form of just counting, and shapes and colors and patterns. By the age of 4 he was able to read just because we read to him and taught him to sound out words. He could read way before he could write.. but then again at 8 he still has horrible handwriting. The "other things" science, social studies etc just came along with the reading by selecting books from the library. And crafty things went along with them, or with the holidays etc.
Ditto. . .we do whatever they are so inclined to do and I try really, really hard to make it relate to something the older ones are doing.
For reading we use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons (when he wants to), he watches SuperWhy, Betweeen the Lions, Word World, and the Leap Frog videos (not all of them every day), and we read a lot of books together. When we're reading together, I'll have him read some of the words to me, but I usually do most of the reading. We're not working on writing, yet. He'll be 4 in Dec. & doesn't really have the skills to write. He does sit & try to write letters & draw shapes, but that's because he wants to. For math we play games that involve counting, patterns & sequences, shapes, etc. He's learned some addition & subtraction from the Leap Frog Math video, but we aren't focusing much on that. I'm more focused on getting him to count to & recognize numbers to 100 (right now we're focusing on getting to 30, I go ten numbers at a time). Since we're working on numbers to 30, I've introduced him to calendars. He like to tell me what what day of the week it is, what month, and the date. He tries to tell time & does recognize certain times on the clock (when certain shows are on, nap time, bed time, dinner time etc.) For other stuff, it's child-led. While reading a Magic School Bus book, he might decide he wants to learn about the human body. So we'll do crafts, draw pictures, read books, maybe watch an Eyewitness video, stuff like that. He learned the names & order of the planets from a floor puzzle. If my I'm doing an experiment or project with my dd, we try to involve him. He usually sits & watches what we're doing while he draws or plays with his Leap Pad.
Actress dancer, I am ROFL practically peeing my pants. Thank you for the best laugh I have had in a while! :lol::lol::lol::lol:
Eli is 5 1/2. I didn't buy a kindergarten curriculum for him. He's also one of the "weird" ones that enjoys workbooks and worksheets. He was in pre-K last year, and they did "letter of the week". We've been doing letter of the day instead. He has Spiderman and Disney workbooks we got at Dollar Tree, and generally does a page or two in them each day to practice writing. We focus more on the sounds of the letters than anything else. And of course, we read a lot. I'm finding that my $20 subscription to enchantedlearning.com is paying off. Eli loves making the little books they have, and the seasonal crafts, games and worksheets. We count a lot. We have a wooden magnetic "Melissa and Doug" brand calendar that we update each day with the weather, and he has become quite good at finding the date and counting to 31. I made a counting tray by writing numbers on the bottom of an old ice cube tray, then he counts out the correct number of dry popcorn kernals or beans into the cups. He listens in on his big brother's science and history lessons, and usually wants to be right in the middle of any experiments or crafts! Two of my boys' favorite games are pretty simple. We call them "Towers" and "Ball Math". For the towers game, you divide up a set of basic wooden blocks so that each child has the same number. Then you drill them, and they get to add a block to their tower for each correct answer. The object of the game is to build the highest tower. If it falls over, they have to start all over again. When we play this, Zach (my 4th grader) either spells his words for the week or I hold up a multiplication flash card for him to answer. Eli (the 5 y.o.) does number and letter recognition with flash cards, or I draw the letter on a small blackboard. He is just starting to read the -at family words, so next week we'll play with those words. Ball math is really simple. You just sit across from each other on the floor and pass a ball between each other as you count. You say one and roll it, he says two as he rolls it back, and so forth. Eli loves this! Zach and I do it with his times tables. As they master it, it's fun to go faster and faster. Zach LOVES it when we're going fast and I stumble over a multiplication problem! :lol:
We do Bible story with coloring every school day (3 days/wk yr around) Then we do reading, I use Scaredy Cat reading system. We do writing just on dry erase board or scraps of paper, or a practice workbook. He picks the letters and practices it. We practice our Bible memory verse. Usually a verse a week or so. I love science so I do alot of this. We are doing astronomy right now. I also have done health science and nature science and animal science type of stuff with him I am not really big on history- I like history I am just very weak in history so I dont do a lot except Bible stories as history. We do Geography for social studies. I do Math u see for math. I also do some character traits stuff too. We do experiments and crafts and other things as they come up. Scaredy Cat reading system has us play alot of games so we do that with flash cards and stuff a lot. Jill
We play! Lots of cards, memory, go fish, war, crazy eights. Today he made suncatchers. We bake alot, play board games. I read to him for about an hour a day, he reads me one book a day for Book-It. We play bingo, board games, tic tac toe, go to story time at the library, swimming almost every week, the zoo as much as we can. We don't do anything too structured, and at this rate I don't know how structured we'll be next year for 1st either. He's learning a tremendous amount doing what we're doing!
ROFL!!! I had to call Carl in to look. He's one of those guys that if he ever quit his job, we could make millions on his selling duct tape!
My husband has always asked if we would get in trouble if we just locked the kids (2, and 3) in the pen with the dogs. I bet he would love the duct tape idea...rofl... I almost woke up the kids laughing to so hard. Really we use 100 easy lesson to read. My ds 3 is half way though it. We do the writing lessons that it has in it and he has learned to write words as well. We write thank you notes, and such to family members and mail them all the time he loves that. He writes the big words (thanks, love you, etc) and then draws a picture and tells me what to write for the description. My dd who is 2 is learning the sounds as ds learns them, with the abc's Both love starfall too. We "play math" we use a deck of cards with just the numbers and play all kinds of card games ( I just make up the rules) to learn number recognition, easy addition etc. We count everything in sight, play hide and seek changing the number we count to. We are working on number ID. He has learned to use a tape measure, and measuring cups (fractions etc) by working with dh and I. That is also how we are learning shapes. We string noodles and count them, count beans, glue beans to paper in number groups. We learn a new bible verse each week, or there about. I would like to find other things he can memorize and use later because his ablilty to pick up and memorize is amazing. We do oodles of art stuff playdough, painting, gluing, cutting, we have an abeka art book that we got at a garage sale for a $1 etc. I am working on a lap book about him to help him learn things about him. His address, phone number, my name, etc. it will be my first lapbook. We read books like the magic school bus and learn more about those topics. He has learned his planets and such like that. I think the most important thing at this age is that we answer his questions. He is really intrestest in how things are made. So we answer in detail howthey are made or show him if we can. If he ask how bread is made we make it, or how trees grow we plant seeds etc. Aggie
Lol!!!! Love the photo ...and this thread! My ds who will be four in Nov. wants to do school. He is writing his letters and reading the three letter short vowel sounds...I didn't want to official start him untill K age... Thanks for the ideas of other things to do. You would think I'd be ready for this, hi is child #4!
Don't forget the hopping on one foot, skipping, walking on a line DUCT TAPED to the floor, jumping jacks, etc. All these help with balance and coordination, which help their mental processes as well! My oldest ds and my dd were also ones that LOVED workbooks and things like that, especially dd! When we gave her worksheets and paper to write numbers and letters on, she would be in heaven! Then she'd ask for more! When she was 3 she brought me a paper with some numbers and letters (and scribbles) on it. She very seriously said, "Mommy, I'm done with my spelling test. Can you grade it for me please?" So I checked it over, put 100% and a big smiley face on top and said, "Wow, you got 100%!" She knew that was good, cuz she'd heard us use that with the boys, and they were always happy when we said that. So she pumped her fist in the air, yelled "YESSSSS!", and jumped up and down! :lol: That is a very special memory that I am glad I got to witness! My second ds wasn't interested in that stuff AT ALL. So we didn't do it! I never tried to push him to do those things. With him we did more walks and nature type stuff, which he did like. He was 6 or 7 before he suddenly became interested in reading and doing schoolwork. Then he couldn't get enough! He was reading within a couple of weeks, and flying through all the math we could give him! I love homeschooling for the reason that you can go at their pace. One child may read at 4, and another at 7 or 8. It really doesn't matter! They WILL learn, and pushing it may cause them to hate it as they get older! I like how many women said, "....because they WANT to"! That's the key. At those ages, going with their flow is what they need. Trust me, they DO pick up on things and learn so much!
