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help preparing for CM education please
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Hello Everyone!
I could use some perspective on preparing and planning. I am new to both homeschooling and CM. I have been reading about homeschooling and just finished “For the Children’s Sake”. I have two children, DS age 4 1/2 and DD almost 2. I have two questions:
1) Is it pushing DS too much to teach him to read at 4 1/2? My son is bored and I feel ready to learn some new things. We’ve always read aloud – a lot. We spend time outside and I re-arragned my day to allow them both more time outdoors – I’m already seeing benefits from this! While I do not want to overwhelm my curious, excited, and bright little boy with schoolwork, I feel intelluctlay he’s ready to learn more. My husband and I decieded a long time ago that wether he went to public school or we homeschooled him he would not start until he was 6. I’m planning to stick to this, but need some perspective… can I start teaching him to read? or is this pushing him to much?
2) Maybe this is a dumb question, but I’m going to ask anyway… how much flexibilty is there with CM? When I first started looking into homeschooling I wanted to do unit studies (tried it a bit by checking out our read aloud books all on one subject) but while I like the idea of diving into a topic, I was relieved to learn that CM isn’t a unit study – it was just way too much work and I wasn’t even preparing a circiclum it was just for read aloud time. I just found out about Sonlight, and loved the catalog. But because we need to put a new roof on our house did not buy anything. Maybe this was a good thing. I don’t know. I love books, which is probably why I like Sonlight and the fact that while I do a good engouh job at planning, I honestly don’t have the time. So, how flexible is a CM education anyway? I read on Ambelside ONline that the closer you stick to CM the better the results. Could I attempt to use Sonlight for Kindergarten/First Grade or would the IG’s be a complete waste of money? Am I better off following the CM guides? How much time is this all going to take anyway?
P.S. I am planning to buy Sonya’s planning book and Laying Down the Rails. Don’t know if I need the seminar or not.
Thanks for any help – I REALLY appreciate it!
Elisabeth
Elisabeth,
You sound like me a year ago. My dd has learned to read, but I am sitting on my hands waiting until she turns six to start again. We did P4/5 last year (with P3/4 books too). The IG was frustrating to me because you would read very small amounts of several books each day. Some people like this, I don’t. I can’t recommend the All-Day Seminar DVD enough. It really helped me to breathe, understand Charlotte’s methods and the *whys* of waiting. Having your kids outside is awesome. We’ve been taking advantage of the local storytime at the zoo and libary every week. We found tadpoles today and are going to follow their lifecycle over the next couple of weeks.
What we are doing this year for “school” is her reader books, Queen’s Language Lessons (she loves these compared to SL’s LAs), and her Math. Other than that, it’s outside, imaginative play, playdoh, etc. No television except one or two shows on Saturday.
HTH!
~Cindie
Hi Elisabeth
As for the waiting, you will have to be the best judge of that. My first son demanded to learn to read at 41/2, the other two boys didn’t read til they were 9! Reading aloud is something that never need stop and you will be blessed by everything you do. Remember, CM is much more a philosophy, a way of life, than it is a curriculum- so it can be as flexible as you want/need it to be. I am two weeks away from leaving with my family for 2 months on board a 50′ fishing boat in Alaska. If it weren’t for the Cm philiosophy of education I would believe it couldn’t be done there:) But I know it can! I can’t recommend the seminar enough! If you are lucky enough to have any other like minded moms near you get them together, buy it together and watch it together! There is no part of it that is not a blessing, and helpful in SO many ways. The planner is helpful too, but the seminar is a great place to begin.
Heidi
I am finding CM to be very flexible, but that could be the way we set up our day too. I have an unpredictible job (labor doula) and it is so nice to help a client during labor and then come back and pick up the next day. Or if we need to run errands or go to a meeting, I bring the kids independent work with us and then we do family work in the evening. If something we’ve read sparks greater interest we run with it and come back to the rest later. Most days the kids demand more time for “school”–pleaaasseeeee can we read one more, do one more, etc.
I love the online planner, my only complaint is that if I skip an assignment I can’t go back and do it later.
Olivia
Ellizabeth,
Cm is very flexible, first of all.
Secondly, my son also learned to read early. How you can gently introduce him to sounds is while you’re reading, help him sound out a word, the 3 letter, short vowel ones. Also, frequently through the week have him use a wooden letter puzzle and everytime he finds a letter, have him repeat the sound to you. Remember not to add the “ah” sound to the end of consonants, though. Make the consonant sounds very succinct, if you know what I mean.
For example: “B” sound is not ‘bah’, it’s simply ‘b’.
Also, if your puzzle has capitals and lower case (ours did), you can start distinguishing between capital (or big) letters and lower (small) letters. He doesn’t need to know why, just to know what they are.
Two great phonics resources that are fun is Jim Weiss’s “Abbadabba Alphabet” by Jim Weiss. It is a cd that comes with a rhyming book, and “Speechercise” CD by Twin Sisters, level 1 for 3-6 yr. olds., which can be found at Amazon.
My dd liked both of these. Very gentle ways of introducing sounds to him, stimulating his mind and, combined with your many read-alouds, begins instilling a love of language.
Rachel
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