heartofdakota.com

This is our first year of "formal" homschooling my 3 and 5 year old boys. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our curriculum we got from HOD. We decided on the Little Hands to Heaven guide for both of them adding, how to read in 100 easy lessons, Do it Carefully and Handwriting (the italics one) From Little Hearts for my 5 year old. When we go to do school my five year old cries and carries on about how boring it is and how he wants to keep playing. I'm wondering if I should just get the rest of Little Hearts and just do both guides the Hands one for my 3 year old and the Hearts for my 5 year old. My 5 year old is reading at a 2nd grade level and is very good at math and loves it! He is also very energetic and hates to sit down I'm just wondering if maybe little hands is to easy???? Suggestions?

Also we are only on Unit 6 we don't do full weeks of school just a couple days a week and with how hard it is to get them to enjoy it I've been doing less and less schooling, everything the know they have learned through "learning through play." If I do get the rest of the little hearts guide do I try to catch up? or just jump in at unit 6 so both the kids are on the same unit or does it not matter? Just have my eldest on unit 1 while my 3 year old is in unit 6?

I'm not too very stressed since we have a few years before they are at school age in our state but I do want to get a hang of schooling before then.

PLEASE HELP!

I don't think that changing curriculum will change the "boredom" necessarily. Little Hearts would be more time that he is not playing. He is just bucking the system more than likely. Lots of children go through the hard change of everything not being fun and play. He needs to be disciplined for complaining and saying it's boring. (In some way)

If he gets his attitude adjusted, and you then feel like he would place better in Little Hearts, then make the switch. I would never let my children think that I stopped doing something or changed things based on their complaining. If you end up switching, just start him on unit 1. It doesn't matter where someone else is in their guide. Down the road, stagger starting guides is much easier anyway. The start of a new guide is when everyone is learning the ropes and it's takes a little longer than once you are into the guide a few units.

So glad you like HOD! I love it more and more every year.

I agree that changing curriculum won't help. My almost 7 (in Beyond) has days where she says that exact same thing. I think it is just their age. And I think it is a time to train them and mold them. Yes, we would all love to play all day. But we have to work. Our kids' work is school. With my daughter, knowing what is expected really helps. Days that I have listed out what we have to get done go a lot smoother than days where I don't let her know the "plan."

I think the devotional in LHTH is definitely enough for a 5yo, and the Bible can very easily be modified for an advanced 5yo if necessary. He could read the Bible to the 3yo (with your supervision), or you would use a more advanced Bible when possible. Any time the activities in LHTH are about simple math and letters, you could skip those, having the 5yo do his handwriting, Rod and Staff books, etc.

So you say he reads at a 2nd grade level and loves math and does well with it. So does he complain about doing those things? Or is there no formal time for doing them? I think with a child so young who is obviously smart there is a very fine line to walk between challenging them with school work that is at their level and pushing them too hard for such a young age. Children that age DO need to play and really don't need to be doing an hour or more of school each day.

One thing though that would cut down the amount of complaining is to have a daily routine that becomes such a habit. My kids don't really "complain" about school even though I know they would rather not do it because it is not really optional. I have built a lot of things like that in that are just routine and therefore I think they resist it less. Charlotte Mason wrote a lot about this. It is a discipline that they submit to because they don't see it as optional. Since that so far has not been the case it will be difficult if you DO decide to implement more of a routine where school is either daily, or where it is always done on certain days and is not optional (and have something else specific you do on the other days like chores or activities you do together).

LHTH can be very age appropriate for a 5YO and even if he finds it childish or boring, all of the activities within have a purpose and are helpful to growth. I won't say I never ever skipped anything but I have tried to make skipping anything the exception rather than the rule because there is so much written in there that I myself do not understand, and that will help them grow up to the next level. Now I would do the reading, math, and writing/FMS at his level and make sure to keep those short and interesting (Do it Carefully and Finding the Answers are so good for this). That with LHTH is plenty enough for a 5YO to do. I also wouldn't fault you for backing off for a little while, realizing that it could end up one of two ways. Either your son will mature and start enjoying school more once you start it again, or he will continue to resist and complain and feel he can have "victory" by doing so. One would obviously be ideal and the other would obviously be difficult but if you don't feel you want to fight the battle now, it's not really necessary to do so. He is still very young and is obviously learning many things just by doing it his own way.

If it makes you feel any better, all of my kids had an attitude about school right about the time they turned 6. At first, school was fun (for about the first week). After that, they didn't want me to tell them what to do. My youngest still struggles sometimes with her attitude and not wanting to do stuff. She will be 7 in February. But once my kids realize that they aren't going to get their way or get to do what they want because of their attitudes, it does change. I do think that because I have persevered and not given into my kids attitudes, once they get past this stage, they don't complain nearly as much. My oldest and middle child rarely complain now. If they do, it is straight to the wall for you LOL. Seriously though, school could be WAY more boring! My kids unfortunately know it too. We only started using HOD last year and before that, I had come from Abeka, which was definitely no fun. We had used other things to try and make school more interesting and I had succeeded but hadn't really found a great open and go curriculum that was both highly education and fun at the same time, that is until we found HOD I personally think your son is rebelling against wanting to school no matter what you have chosen for him. Just stick with it, don't give in, and his attitude will change. I will also say that this time you having is tough one. It is NO fun listening to this or being the grown up and having to train your child up in this area. I promise that it will pass as long as you don't give in.

The only other thing I would do is check the placement chart to make sure he is appropriately placed. Many people I know want to combine their kids. I always thought combing was the way to go too. My kids are all 18 months apart. They are the perfect ages to combine. However, combine is not for us. My oldest is much more academically advanced that my middle child. My middle child and youngest are actually fairly similar academically, however, my son will always compare himself with his sister. It just isn't a healthy fit for us. So my kids are all totally separate and it works for us. Maybe having time you spend only with the 5 year old would work better for you than trying to do school together. It will also challenge him a bit more if he feels like Little Hands is too easy for him.

Thank you so much for the advice! reading through I tend to agree with all of you. I think you are right we CAN "beef up" the curriculum to be more challenging and I agree that some discipline in the area of complaining is necessary. I feel if I discipline for complaining that means I need to be very mindful of complaining myself! Also a routin is something we are lacking...I will be trying all of these...not sure if too much change right now with the Christmas being so close is a good idea but I will be putting all of this into action steadily and then in full throttle in January.

THank you THANK YOU!

And in reading your response, there are only 3 weeks of school left before Christmas week. Did you start back up yet from after Thanksgiving. If it were me, I might just take off the month of December and then start everything back up in January but start it up with a routine and an expectation that you will get done a set amount you plan to complete each week. This way, your son can have some much needed play time before the storm hits in January

Hi, i may be too late.
I do think that if your 5 y.o.is a good reader, it may be a good idea to beef up the program with using some of the LHFHG guide. Because LHFH still teaches letters, but he already reads. U can start with using LHFHG only for reading part, OR EVEN TRY TO USE BLHFHG which is the next level if he is able to read very well. May be start handwriting programm for LHFHG. i do think you still can use other parts of the learning from LHTH.
I use two guides for my only son, because he is advanced in reading. LHFHG IS TOO EASY for him when we speak about reading and math . He is 7 y.o.