5 YO Hates to Cut and Color

[Jaimejac]

My littlest guy is a young 5 (December birthday) and doing his second time through Little Hands. I contemplated starting LHFHG with him at half-speed, but he is definitely not ready. He does not like cutting, especially if the lines are thin. I’ve tried the color activities in Little Hands where he is supposed to cut pictures out of magazines and I circle the item in bold marker but he groans and complains about it. Same with any coloring, he groans that it’s “too much”. My other two loved to cut and had solidly mastered this skill by 5 yo. I thought this was a skill that most kids were pretty good at by this age. I’ve tried the K R & S workbooks with him but he doesn’t seem interested in doing his best work in tracing lines or letters. He definitely has a shorter attention span then my other two at this age. Any advice to how to motivate him and get him to practice these basic skills?

[StephanieU]

How is he at other fine motor skills?

I first had always hated coloring. She wasn't great at other fine motor skills, but she would try to write letters, etc. And she was fine with things like mazes and connect the dots. So I realized it was just something she wasn't interested in. Now, at 15, she still doesn't live to color but can draw fairly well. So I just pick my battles.

Also, note that kids aren't always at the same level for everything. My first was advanced in phonics, on level or ahead in math, but not as advanced as fine motor skills. I didn't hold her back from the others until she caught up on FMS. If I had, she would likely still be in elementary school. My second has always excelled at fine motor skills, and he is advanced in math. But phonics has been a challenge. Each kid is different!

[Jaimejac]

He has never been interested in lacing. Does ok with playdough. Not into dot-to-dots or anything like that. He can write his own name pretty well, but when it comes to tracing things he doesn't want to stay on the line. He wants to doodle all over the page. I've known he was different from my other two for a long time - for example, I've been saying he's not interested in learning his letters, but he can tell you the name of every piece of farm equipment in the field! He loves anything to do with construction, loves to work with grandpa on the farm. He says he likes school and he wants to learn to read, but he is definitely not as "bookish" as my other two. Just the other day he asked "what's that shape with the three sides again?" I know I shouldn't compare, but it concerns me a little that he didn't know what a triangle is yet. I'm feeling a little guilty and wondering if I haven't been working with him the way he needs. That perhaps I've focused too much on the other two as we started HOD a little over a year ago with Preparing/LHFHG/LHTH and are now in CTC/Beyond/LHTH. And while I know in my head that every kid is different - and that's part of the beauty of homeschooling, for some reason, I'm only now starting to realize how I may need to adapt my teaching to his particular learning style.

[Rice]

My third, also a farm boy, hated coloring and drawing, too! I didn't do anything formal with him till 1st. By then he knew how to read. (How he learned will always be a mystery, lol.) We did cursive when he was in first (before officially learning manuscript, though he'd picked up most letters by then). We didn't use HOD back then, but by the time we switched he was in 4th and didn't struggle with the writing, though he did still struggle with the creative/drawing projects. I did let him skip a few, but he did most of them. By the time he hit WG, he actuallly did really well with the Drawing the World through Art curriculum.

You've definitely made a wise choice holding off on starting LHFHG with him. I do find it fits my boys best for 1st; if you've had another (especially boy) use it for K and continue at a guide per year, then, IMO, that's the exception rather than the rule.

I do understand that the comparison trap is a hard one to avoid, but be reassured that your son is not "behind" at all.

As for developing fine motor skills, tracing and practicing with pencil is definitely not the only way to work on those, and his enoyment of tracing/printing and eventually copy work can be greatly influenced by having those fine motor skills developed through play first. Stringing beads or Cheerios on a string, playing with Lego, using a hole punch or tweezers, play doh, and many more things can work on fine motor skills without touching a pencil. (A quick Google search can yeild many more ideas.) And also don't forget that gross motor skills (lots of time running and climbing, rolling and jumping) are needed for fine motor skills to develop, too.

In our house, K is officialy only Storytime with mom in the morning, as many boxes of LHTH as we have time/attention for (and, to be honest, most days that isn't any), and lots of time for play. We start phonics around their 6th birthday (so 2 more months for my current 5yo), and then LHFHG for 1st. However, for my late birthday boys (2 are born in November), we did K the year they turned 6 and LHFHG the school year they turn 7! So, if your son still doesn't seem ready for all LHFHG entails by next fall, he won't be behind to wait yet another year!

Blessings,

[Jaimejac]

Oh Rice! I feel like I know yo, I've read so many of your posts! When I first found HOD a year and a half ago, before ordering, I scoured the message board so I know you have been with HOD for many years and are full of experience and wisdom about it. I'm not on social media, so I really appreciate the ladies who still respond here on the message board.

Anyways, I DO have one of those exceptions! A 6 yo boy flying through Beyond for 1st grade. But he's always been an exception. At 19 months he was lacing small holes, at 4, I read aloud the original Bambi and that was the first time I noticed that he had an exceptional attention span for read-alouds and literature. He was also walking around doing addition problems out loud, so I started him on a Kindergarten math program which he finished at 5. He finished a first grade math program while we were doing LHFHG so I did Singapore 1B with him just to make sure he had the skills to start 2A. Now at 6 1/2 he's almost finished with 2A and doing the 3's multiplication tables (thanks Skip Count Kids!) He is doing cursive too.

So now I have my third who is more on the average, or perhaps normal is a better word, side. This is just a big change for me since my daughter was on the advanced side too. And with only three children, I haven't had to adapt my teaching to any other kids, so this is new for me. I know CM advocates not starting formal schooling until 6 but I have just thought that would not behoove my first two, now with this guy, I'm seeing why she would say that and why you would wait to start LHFHG too. I've had enough experience with doing things too early that my children don't remember later and I wonder why I did it at all. I want him to retain what he learns and not feel like it was a wasted year because I pushed it too early.

As for those fine motor skills, up to now, I guess I've just thought he just had different interests, not just different skills than my other two. He just wasn't interested in lacing or stickers or cutting. But now I'm starting to wonder if it is more than that. This is probably a blessing that we are waiting on anything more formal than LHTH so I can spend more focused time with him in developing those skills, including the skill of attention, before we start LHFHG.

It's interesting to hear that you don't even start your K until the year they turn 6 for your late birthdays and they don't start LHFHG until close to 7. That may end up being the right path for my little guy. Although I do know a lot of skills can be developed in 6-8 months, so I will just have to see where he is at in the fall.

[Rice]

So now I have my third who is more on the average, or perhaps normal is a better word, side. This is just a big change for me since my daughter was on the advanced side too.

I think that's got to be the hardest part. My homeschooling journey was the opposite - two who seemed normal/average, but when we got to HOD they could NOT keep up. After 10 units of struggle, our 12yo moved down to Preparing for 7th! Our DD used Bigger (with completely different LA) in 6th! They graduated after WG and WH respectively after being a guide behind younger brother for all of high school. That first year, our 9yo thrived in CTC for 4th! He did all the guides first and, poor guinea pig, was required to do everything as written. I only learned later, after counting how long everything took and being forced to modify or cut things out for my older 2, how very much I had expected of him - probablly honors level courses in English and History, at the youngest suggested age! Thankfully he handled it well, but the mental switch between those three was a huge emotional hurdle. All 3 are living on their own and dealing fairly well with "adulting" now, so there is much peace and reassurance in that, but it was really hard in the trenches to let each one be their own learner, to let tthem learn at theri own pace, to adapt the timing and materials to be appropriate (recognizing that I wasn't hurting them or short changing them to do things at the oldest suggested age or to drop sections to make their courseload manageable for their skill level). They were learning MORE being in the right guides (even if in the Extension range) than they would have if I had placed them where they "should be" according to my own mental time table or according to their brother's abilities.

I know CM advocates not starting formal schooling until 6 but I have just thought that would not behoove my first two, now with this guy, I'm seeing why she would say that and why you would wait to start LHFHG too. I've had enough experience with doing things too early that my children don't remember later and I wonder why I did it at all. I want him to retain what he learns and not feel like it was a wasted year because I pushed it too early.

As for those fine motor skills, up to now, I guess I've just thought he just had different interests, not just different skills than my other two. He just wasn't interested in lacing or stickers or cutting. But now I'm starting to wonder if it is more than that. This is probably a blessing that we are waiting on anything more formal than LHTH so I can spend more focused time with him in developing those skills, including the skill of attention, before we start LHFHG.

It's interesting to hear that you don't even start your K until the year they turn 6 for your late birthdays and they don't start LHFHG until close to 7. That may end up being the right path for my little guy. Although I do know a lot of skills can be developed in 6-8 months, so I will just have to see where he is at in the fall.

Exactly. And don't forget the other option: to start slowly and focus on phonics and Storytime (finding other books to add in, as necessary), then doing as many other boxes as his attention span can handle each day, intentionally allowing LHFHG to take longer than a year. That way, as his attention span (and your time available, considering you have 2 older ones) grows, you can speed up to challenge him as appropriate, but if it proves challenging, then 3Rs and Storytime and only one or two boxes a day for a year or more is just fine, too.

We just finished Preparing over 16 months with my (at the start of the guide) "too young" DD and DS with reading challenges due to vision therapy. It was perfect. The first year was full of therapy appointments and half speed was perfect for all of us. This year they got up to full speed within 3 weeks and finished the guide strong. We're just finishing Unit 1 of CTC at half speed and it was almost hard for us to do ONLY half a day each day. They are ready to do more. I was willing to spend at least half a year in CTC going half speed again, if they needed it, but I don't think we will. We'll do 5 day units (4 days plus a "catch up") for a little while yet, but I'm excited how much they've grown through Preparing and are ready for what comes next.

(And that's one thing you could consider having your son checked for: vision issues. While he may not have any issues, if he does, they can affect reading, writing, and all those fine motor things you mention, as they would not be easy for him. Sometimes their vision can do funny things, but because they don't know any differently, they don't know to tell you or even how to, if they could. Finding an optometrist trained in vision therapy or a developmental/pediatric ophthalmologist to assess him might lead to breakthroughs in not only his skill acquisition, but his lifelong enjoyment of reading and writing and even things requiring balance. Our now 11yo was stuck mid-ERs for 2 years and now, almost a year after therapy was completed, is reading at grade level and even reading for enjoyment! He can also handle the written work expected of him and has much neater work, too!)

Blessings as you make decisions about when to move forward and at what speed. I pray that God will guide you and prepare your heart for each step that you take, allowing you to delight in who your youngest in rather than balking at or mourning what he isn't. You are not alone.