Home Schooling for K-4 For Dummies
Home schooling for K-4 grades is not as
difficult as you would imagine. First of all many states have attendance
requirements that do not start until age 7 (1st or 2nd grade). Therefore,
you can easily try homeschooling at the kindergarten level and if
you feel that it is not right for you, no damage has been done.
The advantages for home schooling at grades K-4 are many. Teaching
your child the basics without the pressure of traditional schools
is very beneficial to them. Many children when they first start reading
are hesitant to read aloud in front of others. In a traditional school
this is what they do.
Those that are timid or have difficulty are sometimes
teased by their peers. Also, children are grouped by reading ability.
No matter what the experts say or no matter how you labels the groups,
every child knows if they are not in the “advanced”
group.
Home school children do not have these issues
to deal with. They can learn to read at their own pace and will
become fluent readers without the unnecessary peer pressure. Not
every child learns at the same rate or in the same way. Some children
are visual learners. Others need to hear everything.
Still other are tactile learners. Home schooling
your K-4 child will allow them to learn at their own pace, in their
own way. Let’s take math for example. Children can all understand
1 + 2 = 3. It’s an easy concept for most children to grasp
because we can do it with pennies, counting bears, whatever.
What about multiplication and division?
These are more abstract concepts and they take
some time to understand. Not every child can learn their multiplication
tables by reciting them. Some children need to see how multiplication
works through the use of manipulatives like games. Others need to
learn skip counting songs.
Those visual learners need to see a movie or DVD
about math facts. This is where home schooling the K-4 child is
beneficial.What sort of programs are out there to help me homeschool
my K-4 child. There are many. The best place for homeschooling is
Homeschool World.
This is a great place for all sorts of information.
If you are looking for a great math program, you can try the Math-U-
See curriculum or Saxon Math Series. Both of these are wonderful
for all learners and they are geared toward home schools. Saxon
is also used in some private and charter schools so it adds credibility
to what you are doing.
Math is great but what about the other
K-4 subjects?
A wonderful language arts program is available
from Common Sense Press. There program Learning Language Arts Through
Literature is great. It combines spelling, grammar, reading, and
language arts into 1 program. The daily lessons are easy to prepare
for and they use real books instead of the typical readers.
Let’s face it; nobody has ever said that
their favorite childhood book was their first grade primer. See
Spot run, is only so exciting. This series combines poetry, short
stories and children’s books into a really good language arts
program.
For all in one homeschooling
programs, those that include everything, there are many. You
can go online to a cyber school. Another option for Christian homeschools
are Abeka and BJU Press.
As you can see if you are interested in home schooling
for K-4 children, there is a plethora of options. Choosing the program
the best suits you and your child is one of the reasons you decided
to home school in the first place.
References:
http://www.home-school.com
http://ww.mathusee.com
http://saxonhomeschool.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/saxonhomeschool.htm
http://www.abeka.com/
http://www.commonsensepress.com/
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