Wanted to Introduce Myself!

[Momma Crystal]

Hello!
My name is Crystal and I am the proud Momma of two sweet little boys. N is 2 1/2 and E is 8 months. In my life before babies I was a Special Education Preschool teacher with 6 years experience in public schools (writing my own curriculum). I have a degrees in Psycology, Early Childhood Education, and Special Education.

I just purchased Little Hands for my 2 year old. I'm a little nervous about it though because he already knows all of his letters, sounds, numbers, and that sort of thing. He has for several months now.

I'm thinking of picking up Little Hearts for him maybe near Christmas, after he turns 3. But I worry it'd be too much.

I've decided to purchase a curriculum for two reasons. First, I want a Christ centered learning experience for my children. And though I know I could create my own I love the ease of having it done for me! And second, I think it'll help me keep myself accountable and motivate me.

My son IS BEGGING me to learn to read! I honestly just want to keep him a little boy happy and PLAYING.

Both curriculums looked great for different reasons. I really felt he fit the older curriculum in so many ways EXCEPT his age.

Such a dilemna for me! LOL!

I figure if we whip through it I can always save it for my baby (and any other children the Lord may some day bless us with).

Anyway, that is my life story!
Pleased to meet you!

[holyhart]

Welcome!

[Melanie]

WELCOME CRYSTAL

I would wait on Little Hearts until at least five and just stretch Little Hands out for a few years. I will keep all my comments about teaching babies to read to myself!! (Susie will faint, I didn't say anything!)

We are very glad to have you here and know you are going to love Little Hands!
Mel

ps....there are many, many of us here with teaching degrees, so you will be right at home! I was a first grade teacher for 9 years and I always refer to that time as "my former life"!

[beandip71]

Hi and welcome Crystal!

Gina

[Jessi]

Welcome Crystal!

Perhaps you could stretch it out like Mel mentioned and combine other educational learning in that would encourage his natural drive while still allowing him to be a child for a bit longer.

There are some great websites to get a lot of great preschool information and online games.

I thought my Emma would be too told for LHTH for the same reasons as your son, although she is 2 years older than he is. But it is just right. We do other fun things to enhance the learning throughout the day. And the biggest thing I have come to realize is that they are small for a short time before they must begin formal education, so I want her to do most of her learning by play. There is such simplicity and joy in just being a kid.

My daughter wants to learn how to read too. We started LHTH a couple of weeks ago, so at the rate we are going we'll be done by January. My plan is to then spend Jan-May teaching her to read, some life skills, and nature walks where she draws pics and describe what she sees (to teach observation skills). Not to mention we'll live at the library We will then begin LHFHG in July. But that plan may change depending on if we double up LHTH in the fall as I am thinking about doing.

Good luck to you!!!

[MamaBear23Cubs]

I started Little Hands when my children were 2 and 3. I am going to re-do Little Hands one more year. I was serious thinking about pushing to do K this fall but I got that gut feeling to stay with Little Hands another year. If I wasn't schooling at home my son would be starting K until the '09-'10 year anyways. While I am sure he'd do okay with Little Hearts, there are a few things I want him to learn before moving ahead.
So this is my gameplan for when we offically start up again. I will be making mini books with the pages from Little Hands as the cover page. They both still need help in the hand-eye coorination (sp) so I have found a site with shapes and letters for them to trace. I am printing one set and will put them in a page protector and have them use the overhead pens to trace. I also have the Singapores Earlybird 1 a/b workbooks to go along with Little Hands. I don't have to but they want workbooks like their sister. I want them all using the same publisher but any math workbook would be fine. I also have 100EZ lessons that we are slowly going thru. Also I feel it's important to go over the bible activies again. I feel going over the stories again will help my son. He's gotten better about talking about the pictures but still doesn't talk about what is read to him. I know in Little Hearts you talk about the books and he's not quite there.
Who knows maybe we will go thru quicker. I went quicker halfway thru on some things like knowing is numbers, colors, abc's but still has a hard time figuring out the sounds, and visual numbers. LIke you give him 4 rocks but will still miss count. Yet I show him the number 4 on a card, he knows it.
Anyhoo this is my rough guide for next year. I am currenlty getting all my years ready now since I have the time and means to get all I want. I have Pre-K, K, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pretty much set. I just have to order math and handwriting workbooks when the time comes. It's nice having only that stuff to replace.
well time to offically get off here. Been doing this and that while trying to type this. My son is waiting for his turn on a computer.

[water2wine]

Welcome Crystal. Glad you are here. I am doing LHFHG with a 4 year old and I want to just say that I really think it is way too much for a child as young as yours even if he is wanting to learn to read. I am with the camp that says let them be a kid it is not likely they will lose the desire to read later in life. But I think there are some things you can do to encourage and them and see how it goes. I think if you are really needing something I might look at The Reading Lesson but I would move at a snails pace.

I want to just assure you that if they start out with a love for learning they are not going to lose that especially if they are bright. It is part of who they are. I think in fact the only way that can be crushed is if they move faster than they are ready for. But I do understand the ones that want to go I started LHFHG with a 3.5 year old, very slowly. We will continue this year (she is now 4) in LHFHG. I think she will be fine but I am keeping a very close watch on it. If I need to hold her back I know from experience this will be OK since I had to do this with two other of my children and those two still love to learn.

So having said all that...Enjoy HOD as a teacher I know you can see that you found the good stuff right off the bat. Your children will love it and they will learn so much!

[Momma Crystal]

Thank you everyone! I guess I'm glad I went with Little Hands but I'm afraid it won't be enough. I have other resources. TONS of them! Seriously, my husband is trying to convince me to publish MY OWN curriculum. So he is supportive but very surprised I am BUYING curriculum. I didn't mention before but we do plan to homeschool probably through high school.

Until N came along I was all about PLAY for preschool years. Really through third grade. I hated the idea of anything formal before that. Children's work is play. You learn through play. Offer up a great learning environment and opportunities.

I wrote my honors thesis on this. I studied it carefully. My husband had a research paper published on something related to this. I ate and breathed PLAY PLAY PLAY!

I still believe in this to the depth of my soul.

But then, N was born. And then he took off like a rocket and I found myself trying to SLOW HIM DOWN.

He is UNBELIEVABLE to me. He learns everything in one passing. His ABC's for example. I did NOT teach them to him. I dumped a package of spongy letters into his bath tub. He asked me what each of them were. He had it in TWO days! That was 3 or 4 months ago. I thought that was great so then I started a little song about the sounds each letter makes. He has ALL the sounds. Then I got worried. I think it is nearly a sin to sit a two year old down and teach him to read. But my two year old is sitting ME down and DEMANDING it!

Now he runs around asking me what this word is, what that word is, etc. And if I won't tell him he sits down and tries to figure it out himself. He gets them half the time now too.

I picked up a friend's copy of Hands on Homeschooling for two year olds. We flew through the ENTIRE curriculum in about 3 months. He found anything that had to do with the letters totally boring. He was not ineterested in making letter books or the like.

The same friend also gave me 100 Lessons. My DH decided to do that with him when I was gone one day and they blew right through the first SEVERAL lessons. THen I spent a week my son following me around with the book telling me... "Mommy, I want to read again!" I HID the book from both him and my husband!

So... here we are. The queen of don't give your child flash cards or workbooks or anything like that EVER if you can avoid it and I have a child who is BEGGING for it.

My gut told me to buy Little Hearts because that is truly the level I think he is at. The playbased person in side of me would not allow it.

I think I just $100 on something he'll blow right through in no time flat. Then what?

Oy! Where did this kid COME from?

[6timeboymom]

Doesn't God have the best sense of humor?? I've had SO many of those, "I said I would never do XYZ with my kids and here they are, doing XYZ" moments as a parent!!
Little Hands is still play. Besides, like you said, if you start it and he's really more ready for Little Hearts, then you can always save it for the younger (s) that need it. I have had Little Hands for six? maybe? years now, and actually gave away my original copy to a friend and bought a new one! I've used it for my boys #4, 5, and now with 6. It's just a fun, fun curriculum.

[Melanie]

Here's an idea for you....I did this with my kiddos for part of their K year and they still remember the things from the "list of attainments", esp. the birds. Go to the amblesideonline.com site and click on year 0. It is a wonderful list of books and a pretty meaty list of attainments for a child to reach before age 6. They also have loads of wonderful reading on the Charlotte Mason philosophy of education.

HTH, Mel

[Carrie]

Momma Crystal,

First of all, welcome to the board! I would agree with the ladies that Little Hands is the best placement for your little honey. This is because there is so much more to learning than the letter sounds and skills.

I understand your background and your research in the area of playing to learn, but I've found that it is a whole different thing to write about something and then to apply those theories and philosophies to your own kiddos! I am speaking from real experience here. I also was a classroom teacher for 11 years, prior to homeschooling for the last 8 years. I have my master's in education, and my sister and I used to teach some college level classes to other teachers. So, I understand fully what you are saying philosophy-wise.

It's so exciting that your little one is a sponge! Those years are precious, and I think with our first-born as moms we are so worried that we will miss this wonderful window of opportunity to jump start their learning. I will tell you from experience that even though your child is demanding to learn to read and is for all practical purposes looking like a prodigy child (which he may very well be), he will never regain these childhood years when his heart is tender and needs to be opened to the Bible stories and the heart issues that are spine of Little Hands.

I invite you to ask yourself, if you did not teach your child to read this year, would he be behind in the future? But, by the same token, if you focus on teaching skills over teaching the word of God, will you one day wish you could turn back the clock and instill a deeper love of God in your little one?

It is easy to add on academics, but it is hard to find a solid, Bible-based program. So, I would encourage to rethink how you categorize the purpose for Little Hands... in your home, and then see if it is a better fit for what is truly important for all eternity.

Blessings,
Carrie

[Momma Crystal]

Thank you everyone for your insight. I am glad I ordered Little Hands. I just hope everyone realizes I don't think I have a prodigy child. He is a very typical little boy in every way. Bright eyed, social, loving, and caring. He loves his brio trains, race cars, blocks and all that stuff. Digging in the dirt is also one of his FAVORITE pass times. I think he is doing a lot that of things sooner then I expected but I imagine he'll level out eventually.

What is happening is I'll kind of sort of half way show him something, mostly because he asks, and he SOAKS it up and then BEGS for more of it. I mean, we just can't keep up at this pace. I'm sure it is simply that he is drawn to novel things. Letters were novel, so he mastered it. Reading is novel now, so once he achieves what he wants out of that I'm sure he'll relax about it.

A big part of why I'm looking at curriculums is because our Bible time isn't enough for him right now. As a matter of fact he just asked me to read him his Bible for the FOURTH time today. So I do. I've also fielded about a million questions about God and Jesus. In between the repeated "what is this word, what is that word?"

I just can't give him information fast enough. And everything for his age group he blows through faster then lightening. Mostly because he knows the basic info and partly because he becomes so fastinated with whatever it is that he jams it down my throat until we're done with it.

Seriously, I had to hide the Hands on homeschooling binder because if we followed his pace of it we'd have been done in even less time.

Ah well, we'll see what happens. I know Little Hands is great. I just hope it lasts us a while.

[water2wine]

Thank you everyone for your insight. I am glad I ordered Little Hands. I just hope everyone realizes I don't think I have a prodigy child. He is a very typical little boy in every way.

Crystal it would be OK if he was We'd still like you. I think Carrie made a great statement.

But, by the same token, if you focus on teaching skills over teaching the word of God, will you one day wish you could turn back the clock and instill a deeper love of God in your little one?

Especially since you have a bright child I think in the end you will find cherishing these times just to be little and learn about The Lord is key. My husband and I were talking just the other night about how glad we were that we got that love in their heart early. Now as we see normal growing pains happening it is such a blessing to draw on that foundation. I know it can be done along side but what we focus on shows our children ultimately what really matters and what we also really value. And now we are able to take what we focused on while they were little and bring it to new light while knowing the base of it has really become who they are. That is huge for us with our kids, especially with the very bright ones. They get into more complicated things later on because they are so smart.

And I just want to say that having a very bright child is a blessing from the Lord. Truly it is. I can see that you know that as well. Enjoy your precious little one. It goes by so fast. And welcome again as a fellow HODie