My twins turned four a month ago. They can read slowly, and have a surprisingly HUGE mental library of sight words they know. Most recently they surprised me when they could both read "interesting" on sight. Huh? They can sound out any word that is basic, without the weird silent letters or the "ought" sounds. Crazy. I have done nothing but read to them and let them "read" to each other. Thank you LeapFrog dvd's! I know I need help teaching them to sound out new sounds and letter combinations, I hope Explode the Code can help with that. I'm going to attempt to keep writing, reading, and spelling separate until they are older - because I don't want one to hold another back.
The twins need direction. They are just DYING to be "at school" like their big brother. I have little workbooks people have given them, with worksheets about colors and counting and such, but they don't follow any real direction and most are just practice for them, they aren't learning anything from them. I have my pre-k curriculum I just love, but it is for the most part direction on "learning through play" and is things they already do daily. I'm still using it for things like ideas on changing their "school room" set up, games to play, songs and crafts, etc.
I decided about two months ago to start looking into kindergarten curriculum for them. I hate the idea of having "organized learning" for such young kids, but they are screaming for it. Weirdos.
Big Kid thrives on Saxon's math program, so I just assumed their elementary program would be amazing. It's not. It's colorless, and not exciting at all. For a 4 yr old it needs to be exciting! After reading reviews again and again and again, then driving to the nearest homeschool book store and touching all sorts of math curriculums I decided to go with BJU Press's Math 1. I know it's for first grade, but they could do every page I showed them in the K book, and I want to teach them not just review! Wow. Most of the reviews I read said BJU is awesome for K-2nd or 3rd grade, then it slows way down and it doesn't include much review. That scares me. So I am going to look at Saxon again whenever we finish with this BJU math book, to see if it looks more appealing by then. I strongly considered Singapore math, but since I couldn't pick it up and look at it anywhere I didn't go with it. I'm not about to buy something this important on the whim of a few reviewers!
I feel like parents are always teaching their children, even if they send them to public school - it's a little scary for me to now be the only official "teacher" in three children's lives... the pressure is ON!
No comments:
Post a Comment