Katharine Wise

Hi Candy,

There are few things in life (especially in parenting) that I am 100% confident in, but your post happened to hit on a couple of them:-)

You said that you have been stressed out about teaching your 4yo as well as your 6yo. I don't think that teachers speak with more authority than parents, but I think sometimes it's reassuring to hear that what we're doing is best even from a teacher's perspective, so I hope I'll be forgiven if I speak as a former nursery school teacher here. A *good* nursery school is basically unschooling in a group setting. It's "preparing the environment" to allow children to discover and learn on their own. Basically it's "strewing". Having blocks, dress-ups, playdo, paints, arts and crafts, puzzles, sand and water, wood-working tools, small toys, etc. available for children to help themselves. Reading stories and providing props if the children want to act them out. Helping them solve conflicts. Showing them new and novel things. Pointing out the caterpillars, spiderwebs, footprints in the snow, etc. No worksheets. No sitting in a group for more than 10 minutes. No
requiring everybody to do the craft every day. Somehow "doing the calendar" and counting the days school's been in session have dribbled down from 2nd grade to pre-K, but they're not really developmentally appropriate -- unless *your* child is asking about them. (You can spend 30 hours teaching 4 or 5 year olds "the calendar"... or you can explain it to an 8yo in 5 minutes.) These are National Association for the Education of Young Children's guidelines, although plenty of pre-schools succomb to (often) parental pressure to "teach" reading and math skills or do paper work. My point is that not only do experienced unschoolers say to trust your young child, provide a rich environment, and know that they are always learning, but those who specialize in "schooling" young children actually say the same things!

Maybe it would help you to make a list of the things your children do know and think about how they learned those things?

The other thing in your post that really stood out for me was your concern that your 6yo's reading isn't perfect yet. I'm sure others have similar stories, and I'm not going to go into detail on mine now, but I really believe the reading will come in time. My two older boys, 3.5 years apart in age, learned to read at *exactly* the same time. They fell in love with Tintin comic books, spent hours studying the pictures and words, until they taught themselves to read. My younger was 6 and my older was 9.5yo. He was not reading at all prior to that. Now he reads like a normal 5th grader.

Hope some of this helps,
Katharine





----- Original Message ----
From: Candy Drake <angeljjck@...>













Hi Every one I need help please, My son Jordan is 6 and I started " Homeschooling " him last year in kindergarten with arizona virtual academy an online charter school and im telling you it has really burned us both out , its so much stuff and he is creative and artistic and loves to do that stuff and I have been really researching and wanting to find a better way to teach my son school and i have a 4 year old too who I have been stressed about teaching him too.










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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Candy Drake

Thank you for your advice , it is really helpful !!
Sincerly Candy

Katharine Wise <katharinewise@...> wrote:
Hi Candy,

There are few things in life (especially in parenting) that I am 100% confident in, but your post happened to hit on a couple of them:-)

You said that you have been stressed out about teaching your 4yo as well as your 6yo. I don't think that teachers speak with more authority than parents, but I think sometimes it's reassuring to hear that what we're doing is best even from a teacher's perspective, so I hope I'll be forgiven if I speak as a former nursery school teacher here. A *good* nursery school is basically unschooling in a group setting. It's "preparing the environment" to allow children to discover and learn on their own. Basically it's "strewing". Having blocks, dress-ups, playdo, paints, arts and crafts, puzzles, sand and water, wood-working tools, small toys, etc. available for children to help themselves. Reading stories and providing props if the children want to act them out. Helping them solve conflicts. Showing them new and novel things. Pointing out the caterpillars, spiderwebs, footprints in the snow, etc. No worksheets. No sitting in a group for more than 10 minutes. No
requiring everybody to do the craft every day. Somehow "doing the calendar" and counting the days school's been in session have dribbled down from 2nd grade to pre-K, but they're not really developmentally appropriate -- unless *your* child is asking about them. (You can spend 30 hours teaching 4 or 5 year olds "the calendar"... or you can explain it to an 8yo in 5 minutes.) These are National Association for the Education of Young Children's guidelines, although plenty of pre-schools succomb to (often) parental pressure to "teach" reading and math skills or do paper work. My point is that not only do experienced unschoolers say to trust your young child, provide a rich environment, and know that they are always learning, but those who specialize in "schooling" young children actually say the same things!

Maybe it would help you to make a list of the things your children do know and think about how they learned those things?

The other thing in your post that really stood out for me was your concern that your 6yo's reading isn't perfect yet. I'm sure others have similar stories, and I'm not going to go into detail on mine now, but I really believe the reading will come in time. My two older boys, 3.5 years apart in age, learned to read at *exactly* the same time. They fell in love with Tintin comic books, spent hours studying the pictures and words, until they taught themselves to read. My younger was 6 and my older was 9.5yo. He was not reading at all prior to that. Now he reads like a normal 5th grader.

Hope some of this helps,
Katharine

----- Original Message ----
From: Candy Drake <angeljjck@...>

Hi Every one I need help please, My son Jordan is 6 and I started " Homeschooling " him last year in kindergarten with arizona virtual academy an online charter school and im telling you it has really burned us both out , its so much stuff and he is creative and artistic and loves to do that stuff and I have been really researching and wanting to find a better way to teach my son school and i have a 4 year old too who I have been stressed about teaching him too.

__________________________________________________________
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.
http://autos.yahoo.com/new_cars.html

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]






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