No, we haven't changed our mind about public school, but I am currently venturing into the world of homeschooling our son while he is on summer break. Come August he will be enrolled in 1st grade at the same neighborhood school where he attended Kindergarten.
I have long been of the belief that in order for a child to get the most out of their education Mom & Dad need to be involved. Part of that involvement, in my opinion, is by enriching at home. After meeting with our son's Kindergarten teacher several times this year she has helped us to see areas where he is excelling and needs to be challenged beyond what I had expected to do with him at home
As a result of the conversations with his teacher, I'm "homeschooling" him this summer. My son is like me and he loves to learn and do workbooks. The balance we'll need to find this summer is between doing his enrichment stuff to keep him academically engaged, while still giving him a chance to have fun and have a summer break. Right now I'm planning on doing less than an hour of school a day.
I'm trying to cover every subject this summer so he's ready to hit the ground running in August. My son LOVES math and is very strong in it, so the math work we're doing is under the direction of his Kindergarten teacher. Since math is his favorite/strongest subject we're going to be doing math almost every day since the crazy kid thinks that's fun. (He OBVIOUSLY didn't get that from me!) When his teacher explained to us how strong he is in math, she suggested I work with him at home. I told her we had work books and she said, "No--he needs curriculum". Um . . . ok. I guess we're doing curriculum. In addition to the resources that have been recommended to me by my friends who homeschool full-time I have taken suggestions from his Kindergarten teacher and have borrowed resources from her. Because I was in my son's Kindergarten class about 2-3 (sometimes 4) times a month I know what type of work he is used to doing and what the 1st grade teachers at his school will be expecting he knows.
Through doing a Swagbucks search for other ideas this morning I found Peace, Love and First Grade which may become my new favorite website for finding ideas for my soon to be first grader! One thing I printed today from there will be his writing assignment tomorrow.
Two days in this is what our "school day" has looked like.
Day 1: 6 pages of Math-U-See worksheets, 10 minutes of reading to me, 10 minutes of me reading to him
Day 2: Math-U-See Beta video, 30 minutes of writing practice
I am NOT good at math and joke he's going to eclipse my math abilities by 4th grade, but fortunately the Math-U-See videos do the teaching and I just guide him through them. (Since he's working on adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers as well as multiplication of single digit numbers he hasn't passed me, yet. PHEW!!) We'll do some science experiements, too, but those intimidate me at least as much as math (if not more since I don't have the teacher on the video to guide me).
Part of why I don't think homeschooling will work for us is I know I'm not disciplined enough (or patient enough) to be my kids' only teacher, but I am enjoying this one on one time with my son while his sister has rest time in her room every day.
We are loving Math-U-See! And I just got the Beta teacher guide and DVD for $5 at a used curriculum sale yesterday. SCORE. (Unfortunately I also bought the Test book at another table for $5, because I didn't remember that it comes with the Student Workbook, which I have to buy new! Oh well.)
ReplyDeleteI just today signed up for a science site I'm excited about. It's http://thehappyscientist.com. I've only watched one of the videos but it was great and the kids were totally into it. It has informational videos but also experiments. It's $20 for a year subscription, but right now Homeschool Buyer's Co-Op has it for $10. That expires in another day or two. http://homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/
I'm really liking it, too. We started it a few months ago, while school was in session, but I decided it was too much so we shelved it until yesterday. I'd initially bought Gamma since his teacher specifically mentioned multiplication, but then backed up and went to Beta since he hasn't done adding and subtracting of 2 and 3 digit numbers. Depending on how fast we went through it I was going to see if you could use my handed down copy, but it sounds like you got an amazing deal (I got mine on ebay--better than full price, but not nearly what you got).
DeleteThanks for the tip on that science site! I'll have to check it out tomorrow (Thursday) and hope it's still on sale!
I had trouble finding good deals on ebay; it's so popular. And then I decided I wanted the updated version anyway, so I paid full price for Alpha. But when I saw Beta for such an incredible price, I very quickly realized I was okay with the dated version. ;)
DeleteMy husband and I say the same thing: by 4th grade we're all going to need tutors!! Have you ever used the Summer Bridge books? We get ours at KidStop at Scottsdale & Shea. If you finish the book by a certain date, your child gets either a free gift (up to a certain dollar value), or a percentage off purchase. A little incentive, I guess. But it's a fun program and keeps them on track.
ReplyDeleteI might have to check out KidStop next week! We don't have the Summer Bridge ones (but I'm thinking I should check them out because you're not the first person to suggest them to me), but mostly have Evan-Moore workbooks that I've found on sale over time.
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