Motor Mouth is doing well in school. For the most part. And the part he's not doing well on is because of me. I was so busy in December, he barely got an education. Not good. Especially considering I set a goal of completing math, language arts and phonics by April so he could move ahead faster. The curriculum is already at a grade 1 level, when he is only in kindergarten.
Why finish early? You know, I started asking myself that this week. Why? Why does a Kindergartener need to start on double digit addition? Or division? Does he really need to be able to count to 1,000? Or is 100 enough? Like, seriously, when is my son going to be using the extra 900 numbers between now and September when school starts back again?
We were moseying along at our pace. Hitting the 'Exceeds Expectations' milestones. Then I talked to another mother in the school, who said that if he grasped the work in 2 hours, we should do the 5 hours the program requires so he can finish early and start on the next grade level. I didn't want to be holding him back. He is so smart, I wanted him to be challenged.
The competitive side of me decided to take up the challenge. I created a spreadsheet and figured out exactly what percentage MotorMouth mouth needed to hit each month to finish early. And we were headed there. We would be there right now, if it weren't for that 1 insane month before Christmas.
More and more, I'm thinking we don't need to do 5 hours of hard core schooling every day. If he exceeds expectations, with 2 hours, that is what we should be doing. The other time should be spent hanging out with the kids. Reintroducing our family fun nights and family fridays. Spending time building relationships with friends the kids' ages. That's my goal! Not fast-tracking through the curriculum.
3 comments:
I know nothing about homeschooling, obviously, but from a teacher's point of view, that sounds reasonable to me. If you want him to be challenged and engaged, do it with other enrichment activities. Kevin could teach him chess or go, for example, or I could teach him to play piano. That kind of thing.
Or we could take all the kids to the zoo. Or the butterfly museum. Or the arboretum. That'd be fun! Why don't we do that? I'm so lazy about taking Kavi out, but a scheduled expedition with other kids is much more likely to get me off my butt, and she would love it.
Hey there! I'm Melissa (used to go to school with Amanda) and a fellow homeschooling momma. You are doing GREAT! Don't stress over it. ;) At Kindergarten through 3rd grade 80-90% of their works should be hands on play/activities not workbooks in my opinion (and many others too). Everyone chooses to do differently and that's the awesome thing about homeschooling! I never stress about what we didn't get finished but focus on what we did and how they are advancing. We are very relaxed and just enjoy learning through everyday experiences (we have workbooks too). :) So have fun! ;)
Blessings to you and yours. It's great to find you in the great bloggin' world.
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