CHEWV

Category: Early Education

  • Kinesthetic Academics for Children Four to Six

    Kinesthetic Academics for Children Four to Six

    Science:

    • Daily “calendar” time with date, day of the week, weather, and season.
    • Playground time – giving them active experiences with
      • fulcrums: see saw
      • lever arms: see saw
      • centrifugal force: merry-go-round
      • pendulum: swing
      • inclined plane: sliding board
    • Zoology at the zoo or in nature: birds, ants, squirrels, deer, pets, chickens, etc.
    • Botany via a garden – yours, Grandma’s, or the neighbor’s; at the arboretum or a local botanical garden; or when the leaves fall in winter (deciduous trees), as wild flowers emerge throughout spring and summer, and while planting/observing/caring for house plants.  Learn to observe, identify, water, and prune.  Teach them not to pick wild plants so that they can proliferate.  

    Health via healthy habits:

    • tooth brushing
    • hand washing
    • bathing
    • clothing care
    • precautions in public places, especially restrooms
    • nutrition via healthy eating, understanding the food groups, and hydrating

    Math:

    • Patterns—with laundry sorting, table settings, and putting toys away
    • Order—by completing a short list of chores
    • Identifying shapes—through signs while driving, dishes while setting the table, by playing I Spy (“I spy a circle on the table”), or by reading shape books from the library
    • Counting money—in the piggy bank, in their play store, or when receiving money for their birthday
    • Understanding time by setting a timer for activities—like “Let’s pick up the living room for three minutes!” or “See if we can beat our last time record for putting the blocks away!”
    • Direction sense—by talking briefly about heading north on the interstate or going south to visit Grandma.  Provide a simple map to color.
    • Comparisons—by talking about things that are larger/smaller/taller/shorter than other things or measuring with rulers: “This is about two rulers tall.”
    • Use a simple map to together trace the path of the Ingalls family while reading the Little House books aloud.
    • Make a simple column graph with increments representing dollars. Color further up the column as they make deposits in their piggy bank or real bank.
    • Open up a savings account together at the local bank.  Make a child-friendly savings book and help them record periodic deposits, perhaps with a column chart as described above.
    • Play games like Sorry or Trouble.  Patiently teach them to wait their turn, finish what’s started, move in the proper direction, recognize the numbers, count the spaces, and cheer for the other players (good sportsmanship).  You can even use the cards for flash cards a few weeks before playing.  Or limit the cards to numbers they know.

    Social studies:

    • See map overlap in the math section above.
    • Arrange a fun visit to the fire station, police department, and nursing home.
    • Visit child-friendly museums and historical locations.
    • Visit state parks.
    • Visit grandparents and briefly talk about when they were born, adding in a few historical details like the first landing on the moon when Grandma was little.  Make a picture time line to note these occasions in order.
    • Watch historical movies that are preschool-friendly to link simple history to a time line.  For example, the Little House movie, Sarah Plain and Tall, Miracle on 34th Street, or the American Girl movies.  Cut out pictures from each movie (found online) and play a game where they put the pictures in chronological order.  Add pictures of parents and grandparents if you want, or even other historical events.  You can also do this with historical fiction characters from books you are reading aloud.
    • Celebrate holidays like Veterans Day and the 4th of July.  Help children understand the significance in child-friendly ways—like putting up a flag, coloring a flag, going to a Veteran’s parade and having their pictures made with veterans.  
    • Go to Home School Day at the Capitol.  Take the tours.  Prepare home-made cards to take to legislator’s offices.  Practice manners for the secretaries and staff (friendly smiles, eye contact, and “It’s nice to meet you”).  
    • Point out and discuss road signs like ‘yield,’ brown landmark signs along the interstate, white historical signs on older roads, ‘stop,’ speed limit signs, and the like.  
    • Take your children to visit someone in the hospital.  Discuss the purpose of a hospital, how germs spread and how we can take precautions, and how to be pleasant to someone who is not feeling well.  Notice the doctors, nurses and other staff.  Be polite to all.
    • Teach courtesy to older folks—church is a good setting to practice.  Teach them to be physically careful around older people to prevent falls, but also to greet them to help them feel valued. 
    • Introduce a map with the continents. Post on the fridge and identify a different continent every week.  

    Pre-reading:

    • Take bi-weekly trips to the local library to check out 2-3 books.  Read these books aloud at special times.  Keep them in a basket by the door and return them promptly in good condition.
    • Start a small library of your own with a shelf of books that your child especially enjoys.  Give books for birthdays, Christmas, etc.  Learn to care for them by replacing them on the shelf, not creasing them, not throwing them, etc.  
    • Read aloud every day for a short period.  Include books that expand their academic horizon, such as books about historical time periods, animals, or such things as airplanes, trains or trucks.  Make it fun!
    • Demonstrate reading.  Let them see parents who enjoy reading and studying.  If your own father or grandfather has a library, let them visit and talk to him about his favorite books.  Talk with other readers about their favorites – especially their favorites at your child’s age.  Borrow those books from the library!  
    • Color pictures that have to do with events.  Dover coloring books are good choices!
    • Provide a variety of dress-up clothes to encourage play-acting of historical periods, e.g. sunbonnets for Little House or squirrel tail caps for Daniel Boone.  This will be fodder for writing stories later on.
    • Write for them.  Encourage them to think of what to say to Grandma while you write it down for them on a card.  Have them sign their name, stamp the envelope, and mail it at the post office themselves.  
    • Listen to audio stories or audio books.  (Audio encourages them to imagine the scene in their heads – opposed to videos where it’s all passive.)

    Brain development:

    Research indicates that active play in the preschool years is essential for good brain development!  Rolling down the hill, sled-riding, playing outside, swinging, turning circles (Ring around the Rosy?), playground play, and other active play helps prepare children for later academics!  

    It’s also important to provide a learning environment, but not overly direct the activities. Remember, you want to feed their imagination, yet welcome “play.”  Above all, you want learning to be fun.  Play should merge with learning seamlessly!  

    Other learning toys:

    • play store
    • blocks/Lincoln logs
    • play rakes, brooms, shovels, etc
    • historical paper dolls
    • scissors, scrap paper, and other easy crafting supplies
    • lacing cards
    • Candy Land and other preschool-level games

    Don’t forget shelves and bins to house all the toys and supplies.  Cleaning up after each use is also valuable learning! 

    Enjoy!  These years are a short season of wonder and fun—and essential brain development through active “play!”

  • Is Your Kindergartner Struggling…

    Is Your Kindergartner Struggling…

    …With Reading?

    Many parents find that their five or even six-year-old child experiences difficulty in learning to read.  After exhausting multiple educational approaches and curricula without success, they may worry they aren’t capable of homeschooling effectively, or wonder why their child isn’t progressing “normally.” What’s a parent to do? 

    Parent and child may not be the problem—the expectation that children should learn to read proficiently by age six is.

    As recently as the 1980’s, reading was not regularly taught in WV kindergartens.  Kindergarten was an entry-level program, a mere half day of school, that served to transition students into the classroom and help them to love being at school.  Several veteran kindergarten teachers share that their goal was for their students to love learning and feel successful in their progress.  Although early concepts were introduced, basic reading skills weren’t taught, or expected, until first grade.  Further, proficient reading wasn’t expected until second grade.

    A piano teacher with over 40 years of experience reports that while only a handful of students are visually ready to distinguish written symbols before age 7, nearly all children benefit from waiting until that process is no longer tedious.  While a younger child may be able to progress before age 7, it’s only after age 7 that their progress becomes faster and much more enjoyable.  

    As reported in this article, the left brain, whose functions include language, numeracy and literacy, doesn’t fully come online until seven years of age.  While society is left-brain dominant, children at young ages are not.

    Experts agree that pushing children to read early often causes long-lasting feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and confusion.  Merely waiting until they are more ready can provide them with confidence for a lifetime!  

    So why do we push our children when they are only four or five?  We have bought into the lie that if our children aren’t good readers by age 6, they are somehow deficient.  This just isn’t true.  

    In addition, we have devalued the many things that children usually learn at ages four, five and six. Many foundational experiences that we lump under the label “play” are actually essential learning opportunities.  We educationally deprive our children when we reduce their creative play time and instead sit them in front of screens or at desks, thinking that we’re helping them by providing computer games and early academics.

    Early academics can and are beneficial—if we define ‘academics’ very differently.  What if, instead of early reading expectations, we focused on developmentally appropriate, and equally essential, academics instead?  For a list of possibilities, click here.

  • Comparing With Finland’s 1st Graders

    Comparing With Finland’s 1st Graders

    According to the Stanford News, 65 countries/economies were ranked in the Program for International Student Assessment in 2009.  Finland ranked high: 6th in math, 2nd in science, and 3rd in reading.  In the same year, U.S. students ranked 30th, 23rd, and 17th, respectively.

    Clearly, Finnish students are out-performing American ones.  Is this because they are getting an earlier start? 

    Actually, no. Finnish children do not begin first grade until they turn 7.  Many Finnish first graders begin school without any formal reading instruction at all.  Yet they appear to excel beyond our students, despite our decades of HeadStart, preschool, and kindergarten.  While our first grade students are usually 6, theirs are 7. 

    According to this article, researchers at the University of Virginia analyzed survey responses from American kindergarten teachers between 1998 and 2010. “Almost every dimension that we examined,” noted the leading researcher, “had major shifts over this period towards a heightened focus on academics, and particularly a heightened focus on literacy, and within literacy, a focus on more advanced skills than what had been taught before.”

    Not so for 6-year-old Finnish kindergartners!  They spend the majority of their day playing!  Primarily exposed to just pre-reading, they learn through play, thus developing a love for learning.  And it works!

    While most Americans are scrambling to have fluent readers by age 5, homeschool parents have the freedom to teach their children differently – and to follow the example of Finland should they so choose.  They can use the early years to instill a love of learning!  Rather than studying butterflies, homeschooled preschoolers can observe them outdoors or in a conservatory.  Rather than studying about plants, they can help care for their own. They can be taught to notice the weather, the seasons, and the length of daylight throughout the year.  These are all science concepts – taught naturally through fun observation.  Delaying formal academics does not mean the absence of learning!  On the contrary, natural and relaxed learning has the potential to set a solid foundation for all the education to follow.

    For ideas about natural learning in the early years, including ideas for individual subjects, see our article here.

  • Speech Development – Preschool

    Speech Development – Preschool

    by Randi Horst, Speech Language Pathologist and Homeschool Mom

    Babble business is not just for babies! It takes two to communicate. How we react to our lil’ ones’ interests and babbling is the groundwork for brain growth and communication. A recent article describes in detail the importance of parents “talking-through” their day, creating a language-rich environment for their young children.  

    The surgeon highlighted in the article has researched the correlation between IQ and the words used in a home. His explanation of the impact parents have, and his mission to educate parents on their role in development, is encouraging to this homeschooling speech language pathologist!

    Talking to your new nugget from day one is a very important, powerful way to foster development beyond eye contact and smiles. When your infant is having time on a blanket and he doesn’t have his pacifier or bottle, he will be more likely to make a new sound. When he does, go to him and imitate him. By taking turns in this conversation, you’re helping to connect neurons in his rapidly growing brain. Talking and singing to your baby throughout the day might seem to go unnoticed, but his brain is responding and growing as you bond with that blessing.

    With an older baby or toddler, “talking through” your day would include explaining to her what you’re doing as you unload the dishwasher or fold clothes. For example, laundry time could sound like this: “Mommy’s shirt, sock … where is the other sock? Oh, there it is! Daddy’s pants, big sock, little sock, sock, sock, sock!” If your toddler starts to imitate those words and you’re having a hard time understanding him or her, don’t be alarmed; there’s a wide range of normal sound development for our new talkers. Consider that God made our mouths to help us eat as well as communicate, and we can build strength and coordination for speech sounds by encouraging mature eating and drinking. An easy strength builder is having your toddler drink from an open cup with assistance during meals. She’ll be excited about the “big girl” cup and won’t even know she’s building jaw strength and control, both necessary for tongue mobility used in those sounds you’d like to hear.

    In the meantime, continue to talk! Normal language development involves understanding what is heard around us before we use words ourselves, so don’t be discouraged if you’re the only one making noises or words. This is not a one-way business. Her little brain is responding, whether you can see it or not.

    Randi is a homeschool mom of 6 and speech pathologist in the Birth to Three early intervention program. She has a heart to help homeschool mamas who have speech questions.   

  • Getting Ready to Test: K, 1st & 2nd

    Getting Ready to Test: K, 1st & 2nd

    Aha! Testing time! Moms may worry about how their littles are going to do and so may head over to Barnes and Noble for the Test Prep workbook, but there are actually many (and perhaps even better) ways to prepare.

    In the earliest grades, many of the questions are read aloud and the choices are shown in picture form.  Exposure to many different environments and situations can actually help these students figure out what the picture choices represent.  Besides, these are good foundational learning experiences.

    For example, going to the library together and picking out books about animals, their habitats, and their young for read-aloud and discussion is a great way to learn and prepare. Measuring things (the length of a toy, the weight of the dog, the height of the doorway) and discussing how to do it and perhaps making a nice list of comparison sizes (dog versus elephant) can help. Which is longer? Heavier? Observe things in everyday life – how ice cubes are bigger than the water before it is frozen, or how it’s more difficult to walk uphill the steeper it is.

    Just gradually teaching your child to attend to his or her daily work is also a big help. Can they sit and follow directions for a couple hours? Usually that means that you’ve taken a few weeks to gradually increase the amount of time that they can sit and work. Start with ten minutes of read-aloud time with a couple questions afterward. Slowly increase that time, watching for their ability to attend. When their mind wanders, stop for the day. Then see if they can work for one or two additional minutes tomorrow.

    In these years, children are not well designed to sit for extended periods of time and usually do not yet have the ability to stay focused on book work for all that time. Even if they’ve been taught to sit politely and not cause trouble, that still doesn’t mean that they can keep their minds focused after two hours of testing. If you know your child is not developmentally ready to do that, perhaps you should consider private testing so you can lengthen administration over more days. Or, switch to a portfolio review until about 3rd grade. At the very least, you should hold the test scores lightly. And remember, a child who is unable to attend for that long at these ages is not a “bad” child nor necessarily a “slow”child. Perhaps he is just not developmentally ready for this type of testing environment. The experience may help him become more familiar with testing, but the scores may not accurately reflect his knowledge.

    To hold the test scores lightly, you and your spouse must put the scores in perspective. For instance, if the math score is lower than you would expect, you know that this may or may not actually reflect the math that your child knows. Therefore, it doesn’t necessarily reflect what you will see in later testing. Encourage your child to do his best, but don’t put undo pressure or value on testing, especially in these years.

    What should you tell your child about testing? We think it’s important to be firm about behavior expectations, but light about results. In other words, it may not be wise to talk about how they should do their best so that they won’t fail. It can be very counter-productive to say things such as if they don’t do well they might have to repeat a grade, or worse, flunk, or especially that they need to do well so that the county thinks they are doing okay. All of those types of statements put too much pressure on a young child – placing the responsibility for the success of his schooling on his testing performance. No wonder such a child might be nervous before testing, learn to dread it, and not then feel well enough to really do his best. Instead, put the emphasis on sitting quietly, listening carefully, and doing his best. “Sweetheart, you will have to work hard today to listen carefully to what the teacher says and do your best to follow the instructions.” Remind him that there will be questions that he does not know the answer to, and that it’s okay. A second-grader might be able to understand how to eliminate some answers and then guess between the ones left. But don’t stress if your child does not yet understand that concept.

    If testing time is not dreaded by your child, he or she will tend to do better. For our family, we calmly talked about how it would be nice to see our friends and we did not do additional school when we got home. Between those two things, it was a welcome break for everyone! In fact, we purposely did fun things in the afternoons after testing!

    Think of these years as setting a solid foundation for later testing. If your child learns to like testing and to be comfortable in testing situations, that will go a long way in helping him later on.

    Below are a few developmental milestones and the usual ages that children attain them. Notice that several of these could affect test performance. Note, too, that although children usually progress through the same order of milestones, each child grows and gains skills at his own pace. Therefore, milestone ages (such as the ones given below) are just averages. At this age, being behind or ahead of these averages does not usually indicate anything about intelligence because normal rates of development vary so greatly.

    1. Uses future tense: 5 years old
    2. Speaks sentences with more than five words – 5 years old
    3. Better understands the concept of time – 5 years old
    4. Can ignore minor distractions and if alone, will focus on an interesting activity for 10-15 minutes or an assigned task for 4-6 minutes – 5 years old
    5. Personal interest is the most important motivation for a 5-year-old. It will double their attention span.
    6. A normal attention span is sometimes said to be 3-5 minutes per year of age.
    7. Directions should be given in chronological order. They can’t turn them around at age 5-6.
    8. Pictorial directions are better understood than verbal directions at age 5-6.
    9. By age 6 most children understand the concept of “10.” For example, they can count 10 objects (which is harder than rote, verbal counting to 10 or beyond).
    10. By around age 6, children are beginning to understand cause and effect relationships.
    11. By around age 6 they can read simple words and can describe a story.
    12. Can follow 2- to 3-part commands by around age 5. For instance, “Put your book down, brush your teeth and get in bed.”

    For more information about learning during the preschool years through about age 5, see our preschool section under “Helps.”

    For parents who want to use test prep materials, workbooks can be purchased at many bookstores such as Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million.  Or they can be purchased from our test distributor, BJU Press Testing, here.  Materials are also available from Amazon via our Amazon Smile (see right sidebar).  Once at Amazon, search for “standardized test practice.”

  • Too Soon to Test?

    Too Soon to Test?

    Rethinking Preschool, Kindergarten & a Push for Homeschool Testing

    How wonderful – and overwhelming – it can be to figure out what’s best for our littles! We can lose sight (or want to lose sight) of the fact that parenting is a full-time endeavor. Practically from the time they’re born, we’re warned not to keep them home too long! The assertion? By the time they are three or four, children need formal education and socialization that they just can’t get at home. While daycare still seems truly optional, preschool increasingly does not. An entire business was birthed to convince us of its necessity. Except it isn’t true.

    A recent article in Psychology Today confirms what so many other studies have found: early academic education can produce long-term harm. I highly recommend that article to parents who wish to give their children the best academic start. While preschool is the expected given these days, a combination of free and guided play is shown to be the better foundation. In fact, teaching that learning is fun may be the most important thing you can give your child in his early years. Learning just does not equal “school.”

    I hear parents decide to do preschool because they are very concerned about the social skills of their five-year-olds – as if they have little time left to develop social skills. Yet our children are not expected to be socially mature at age five, especially our boys. If we relax, they are likely to develop best given time plus good family-based opportunities.

    As a former pediatric physical therapist, I can’t recommend early play-based exercise and education highly enough. I’m not advocating that parents leave their children totally to their own devices, but rather to provide the best kind of early learning environment at home. I’m also old enough to remember the wonderful Focus on the Family interview between James Dobson and Dr. Raymond Moore, author of Better Late Than Early and advocate for developmentally-sensitive early education. The CHEWV website not only links to that interview – which, by the way, helped birth the homeschooling movement back in the 1980’s – but also provides practical help for early education.

    Finally, sometimes West Virginia homeschool parents push kindergarteners and first graders before they’re developmentally ready for one reason: the homeschool law’s assessment requirement. But that is neither a good nor necessary reason to get nervous about academics! Students actually do not have to be assessed prior to compulsory age, which doesn’t kick in until age six (unless a parent enrolls them in a public program early.) And certified teachers who understand early childhood development are available for portfolio help and review. So it could be wise to delay formal testing until 3rd grade or beyond rather than push a child too early in order to prepare for testing.

    When choosing a good academic start, perhaps we should start with the academic research! That will allow us to relax and learn what really works: parental involvement and developmentally appropriate activities specific to your child. First, listen to the interview with Dr. Moore. His findings are timeless. Then for practical help, start here.