recommendations, please Girl. Struggles with almost everything. Thanks!! (This will be the second time I had a Ker, but Ker #1 was reading by 3 so we started in 1st grade.)
I rather like the ABC (DEF, GHI) series from Rod & Staff. And www.starfall.com. And just reading lots of books on the couch, letting her "help" with things around the house, learning to cut and paste, trace and copy, color, count, build with wooden blocks, sort things by color, size, use, material it's made of. Word World and Sid the Science Kid on the PBS station. Don't expect her to match up to the older child because she's a unique person. She'll come along in her own time.
We are going with Five In A Row this year and can hardly wait. We will also be using either Happy Phonics or McRuffy Phoncis and McRuffy for math. Let me know if you have any questions about these and I'll see what I can answer, seeing as how I haven't used them yet.
We focus on basic phonics/reading and math, the other stuff is just fluff. For phonics we use LeapFrog, Starfall.com, Between the Lions, and readers (we have the HOP K books and also the books from Sonlight's grade 1 Readers), I also REALLY love the Readinga-z.com phonics program, and sometimes use their readers and worksheets. For math we learn it mostly in real life, playing games, using manipulatives, we have the entire Funtastic Frogs series of books and boat loads of frogs, logs and a balance scale. We are also using the Core Knowledge What Your Kindergartener Needs To Know (mostly for the fluff) along with other things that fit into their reccomended Sequence, and interest lead learning (as that is my kids best way to learn).
PS.. if you want a workbook approach and want things laid out for you, McRuffy is awesome!!! (I was kind of crushed when I realized it wasn't a good fit for us )
I tried the Rod and Staff ABC books this year, and they were way hard for her. Maybe I should pull those out again??? I have heard of Five In a Row, but have never seen it. Is it expensive? Hard to figure out? McFluffy? That one is totally new to me.
Just take the R&S at a couple/few pages a day, at her speed. I think they said McRuffy, not McFluffy!!! >teehee<
We used MFW K & 1st for my son and loved it. The K curriculum was pretty slow and allowed him to get a handle on each letter and sound before we moved on to the next one. We supplemented with LOTS of library books
Just thought of one for a Ker that needs things to go slow and gentle!!! Oak Meadow!!! I have drooled over it for so long, but haven't been able to pull the money together for it (we live on a very very tight budget).
I am just finishing up Kinder with my youngest. What a fun year we had! She started the year reading thanks to www.starfall.com, so I didn't spend a lot of time teaching her to read...but did let her continue to play on starfall and call it "school". I used the www.spellingcity.com spelling lists, I started with the phonics lists, and worked with her. She loved playing on spelling city, and still does. I kinda let her take these at her pace. She spent most of her time playing the games, and towards the end I had her doing the handwriting them, but some of the other worksheet types were too advanced for her. For Science we read the Christian Liberty Press Nature Reader Grade K. there are 26 lessons. I'd read one lesson every day for a week. She would draw me a picture of the animal that she learned about...and by the end she was writing the name of the animal on the picture - copying from the book for spelling. We'd also sit together and look at images on google for the animal and try to find out more info about them. Although we never wrote anything down about that. For Math we used Horizon's K. This is a fairly gentle math to start - but then starts to move really quickly. Of course, my youngest did 2 lessons a day instead of one, so halfway through the year she was done and we had to move onto 1st Grade. Once we got through all the reviewe, though, she slowed back down to 1 lesson a day. Thankfully!!! If you want gentle for math, I've heard that Math U See is excellent b/c it does not overwhelm with many topics at one time. For her reading, and her practicing reading, we used Rocket Readers (the ones by David C. Cook). We would read every day or every other day. For Handwriting we used A Reason for Handwriting. She really liked that. IT was based on animals, too. So, she's an animal lover! LOL She also did some of the stuff my elder kids did from MFW. She liked the bible coloring pages they got to do. She also liked the mapwork stuff and geography pictures they drew, so she tried to do that too (MFW stands for My Father's World). I'm looking forward to her first grade year! EEEEK!!!!
Five in a Row is awesome, and if you have a well stocked library at your disposal it isn't expensive at all. We only had to buy the books we especially liked and wanted to add to our collection here at home. For phonics I have to say that I never did find exactly what I was looking for in a phonics program so I just kinda made it up as I went along using ABC Teach, other online printables, Starfall.com, early readers, and clicknkids phonics. For math I love MUS, though Saxon would be my second choice depending on if you prefer a mastery or spiral based curriculum.
Was definately going to use MFW, but decided instead to use some workbooks I found at Borders, Starfall.com, lots of reading reading reading, and household chores. I also do a bible course from a book I had when I was his age. Great book. Has small stories with questions for each story to see if they understood or not.
I bought my FIAR Vol. 1-3 used from HSC. If you watch and have time to wait, you can get them at a pretty good price. I paid 25.00 for each vol. and got about 4 books w/each Vol. The books that go along w/FIAR you can get at the Library or buy them used. There is FIAR stuff added to HSC everyday almost. Let me know if you have any more questions. FIAR also has a forum where you can ask all your questions. http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/ http://www.fiveinarow.com/forum/index.php
She does starfall now, and does okay with it. We do A Reason for Handwriting, but I didn't realize they had a K book. I love the Christian Liberty Press stuff I've used. I will definitely look into that for science. Ds is the same way with Horizon's. He's done 2 years of bookwork for every year of school, but that will completely overwhelm her. I'm hesitant to start MUS. Does anyone have a math suggestion with a more traditional scope/sequence??? Thank you all so much for all the help!!
I like CLE math. It starts out at K level, but quickly (but gently) moves into first grade. You might want to look at R&S math for first grade - it has visuals for math facts (not just flash cards). You can take either of these as slowly as your child needs to. Neither is colorful.
Math - Target workbooks Writing - Target workbooks Phonics - Starfall History - library Science - library Literature/reading - Sonlight lists (from library) and readers Spanish - la Clase Divertida level 1 Music - monthly music program and piano lessons Art - science, history, and bible related crafts Bible - AWANAs
I haven't made a definitive decision yet. I am looking at MP K curriculum and a couple others. I keep coming back to MP K tho.
