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Is this typical to start?
Tagged: kindergarten
- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 1 month ago by nancyg.
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- nerakrParticipant
Ds5 has the week off from preschool and I thought I’d do a “dry run” of kindergarten-the schedule, but mostly a review of what I know he knows. I had the books on the kitchen table and decided to wait until he noticed them to start. He noticed them around 8:40 or so this a.m. I set the timer, he climbed on my lap, and we read from the Read and Learn Bible for 10 minutes. I reset the timer and used his math workbook for ten minutes. (He pointed and counted what was on the page. I knew better than to try to get him to write the numbers or whatever). We reset the timer and worked on phonics flashcards for about five minutes. He wanted a snack, so we took a twenty minute break. After the break I set the timer for ten minutes, got out the MagnaDoodle, and told him to make an “A”. He wouldn’t, even after I drew one for him to copy. I tried a few more letters; all he wanted to do was scribble. I expected that; he doesn’t like to make his letters. Then we read nursery rhymes for five minutes and I called it a day. All of this took about an hour. Is this typical for a CM kindergarten, or did I not do enough? (When we start “officially,” I’ll lead up to narration techniques, art, and music, so this would add another 30 minutes to an hour).
MistyParticipantI will tell you what my 5 year old son is doing right now. Mind you we have 6 children and there for we do many things together. Turned 5 in February!
With mom:
Math (mathusee primer),
religion (which I read to him, and this is totally our catholic faith based),
copywork (from handwriting w/o tears)
Learn to read (learn to read in 100 easy lessons)
Art/Coloring (I rotate : one day he has to color a picture from a book the next he has to draw something which I usually give him a idea for)
Poetry (memorizing Psalm 23)
With siblings/family:
Picture study
Music study
Bible/History/Geo.
Literature
PE (Manditory LOL)
Learning to play w/ younger sibling (doing what they want)
That’s our days.. mind you the family time items are not the above everyday, some are daily others once a week. It usually is about 1 hour with just mom and 30 with family.
Good luck on starting out and don’t worry he’s only 5!
Misty
GemParticipantI have a DS5 also – but he is barely five. I think your schedule sounds great – if anything I would suggest remaining open to having an activity in between the sessions of bookwork, if necessary. You may have to assess this on a day to day basis LOL.
My son, too, is in the lap for all his work – we are at a table and he is in my lap, and I guide him over his shoulder.
Now as Misty said – if there are other older children there also working, he will likely be involved in that too. I wouldn’t be doing any bookwork at all with my son except that he wants to do the same thing as his older sister. He listens to all our read-alouds and picks up a surprising amount.
If anything, with your schedule, I might suggest more read aloud time – maybe this is just naturally incorporated into your day? My DS loves magic school bus ( this is the core of my 3rd grade science program LOL) – even though I question his understanding – it is a little over his head. But we take several days to get through a book. I will read a few pages and stop till tomorrow. This is how I stick to short lessons in this case.
I use a timer for lessons sometimes – I wish I had a silent timer, so that when it goes off if we need a few minutes to come to a logical conclusion of the lesson, it doesn’t feel like I am going over some arbitrary time limit. So I don’t use it as much as I wish I could – just to keep <me> on track.
I think you’ve got the idea! Your plan looks good.
nerakrParticipantWe do have read aloud time throughout the day. Ds5 and Dd1 know that if they bring me a book, more than likely I’ll drop everything and read to them. Today during our practice session I had to take a longer break because he lost interest for awhile, so we just now finished. If only I could stay as focused on dd; we’ve just started potty training (she’s 19.5 months) and so far all I’ve done is change wet training pants and mop up accidents.
nancygParticipantHave you ever had a chance to look over Ruth Beechick’s books for early learning? In my opinion they give many wonderful, gentle, common-sense ideas just made for teaching your little one at home, and are very CM friendly. They come as a set called The Three R’s which is quite inexpensive. The set is 3 bookets, A Home Start in Reading, An Easy Start in Arithmetic, and A Strong Start in Language. These ideas plus a strong read-aloud habit and lots of time outside seem to me to make a very happy and productive kindergarten. I hope the two of you have lots and lots of fun!!
Nancy G.
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