srp1997 - Those are great questions and thank you for reading all that.
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The thoughts about the math are a reflection of how quickly he picks up on things. Basically, what I meant is, he probably won't need my direct supervision or verbal guidance - he'll be capable of doing the problems entirely on his own unless I make the problems more difficult. Understand, I'm talking about problems that come with pictures of the objects being added and subtracted. One way I might "up the challenge" if he gets bored (which happens frequently) is by asking him to do problems without pictures (numbers only) or maybe by gently increasing the sums. I find that if he accomplishes a task very easily he quickly becomes bored and wants to do something else, if it's too hard he gets frustrated and wants to do something else, but if I keep it at a mildly to moderately challenging level, he remains interested and wants to do more.
He enjoys doing both teacher led and independent work. In fact, last night he was practicing his handwriting and he told me not to watch while he was writing (I peeked anyway to make sure he was doing it correctly) and then he wanted me to come look when he was done. Also, he will frequently complete worksheets, puzzles, and minimal mess art projects independently at the table while I prepare for the next part of our lesson. Sometimes he reads one of the BOB books he's already mastered while he waits. He will do independent work for anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour depending on what he's working on.
He definitely enjoys hands-on activities a bit more than pencil and paper stuff most days, but I think most kids are that way. He's equally good at completing both types of tasks.
As I mentioned before he will listen to read alouds as long as I am willing to read them most days. I think the longest straight reading session we've had was about 1 and a half hours (lil' bro was sleeping). The longest no picture story we've read was about 3 pages in length. I encourage him to close his eyes and use his imagination if there are no pictures, which he enjoys. Also, the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle stories only have 1-2 pictures per story, range from 6-19 pages long, and they are his favorite bedtime stories.
As for his general attitude toward learning, he LOVES it! We started school earlier than planned on because he was already learning school type stuff without my help. We took a long hiatus due to my health following the birth of his lil' brother and the entire time he was begging to do school on an almost daily basis. Every day that we do school I am the one to call a stop to the day while he asks to do more and more. I try to keep school between 1-3hrs most days, though, because I am afraid he'll burn out and I figure if he is still asking for more at the end of the school day then he'll be excited about doing more tomorrow. I have yet to have him say "I don't want to do school." or "I wanna be all done with school today." Now he
has said, "I wanna do something else." or "I wanna be done with this." when he is tired of a particular activity, but if I reply that that was the last activity of the day, he'll express disappointment. Everywhere we go he reads the signs as we drive by (mostly symbols - not too many word signs yet) and if he doesn't know what a sign means/says he'll ask me. Similar thing with the vehicles and buildings he sees- always wants to know their names and functions. His latest thing is trees. DH & I have discussed checking out a tree identification book from the library because he constantly wants to know the names of the trees he sees. Jacarandas are his favorite. He wants to know about everything we do in the kitchen (always want to make his own food). He asks about bugs and animals and why they do the things they do, where they live, what they eat, etc. He initiated his own education about telling time by constantly asking questions about the clocks in the house and "What day is it?" and "What are we going to do after that?" Basically, he can't get enough information and he's constantly wanting to learn more.
He follows verbal instructions well most days (at least stuff related to school). He carries out at
least three simple tasks or directions after being told once. He easily follows pictured instructions (like recipes or crafts) - he's done ones with as many as 12 steps so far without problem. He takes care of most of his own personal care (toilet, dressing, hair, teeth) except where I insist on more control (wiping, styling gel). He works & plays well with the kids in his Sunday School class and I'm often told he was the best behaved kid in the room. He's outgoing in that he makes friends easily and I constantly have to remind him not to talk to strangers and not to hug people without asking.
I am not sure what else I could tell you about his maturity level that would be relevant. If you have any other questions about his maturity, please feel free to ask.
BTW: As I've typed this, I've just been looking at the intro pages for LHFHG & BLHFHG. The only thing that has really stood out to me as a
possible problem with doing BLHFHG is the Math levels.
Regarding LHFHG: My son has already mastered math unit numbers 1-9. I'm not sure exactly what is meant by #10 but I think he's mastered that too if it's what I think it is. #11-13 he has started but not yet mastered. Everything past that is mostly a mix of "already touched on but not yet really studied" and/or "will be studied in the next 6 mths".
Regarding BLHFHG: I'm uncertain whether he'll be up to things like missing addends, cummutative properties, or multiplication... but he's surpassed my expectations in the past and the rest of the list looks reasonably doable for him if everything goes roughly as expected over the next 6mths.
Regarding Age:
I dislike judging children based on their age. I have nearly 20yrs of child care experience behind me that says kids don't mature or learn based solely on their age. While there are rules of thumb for most age groups, I strongly believe every child should be treated, judged, and educated based on who they are and what they can do (emotionally and mentally) as an individual. Though I am not a certified teacher, I have taught many different ages in many different forums and have found that students do their best when treated individually instead of lumped together by age. This is, in fact, one of the primary reasons we chose to homeschool. We want to give our children an education at
their level, pace, and interest - not the level, pace, and interest of other kids their age/grade. I honestly didn't think not giving his age would turn out to be such an issue here.
krismoose - I would be interested to know what you mean by "needed to mature a few months". What
specifically needed to change for your son to be mature enough for LHFHG? Perhaps that would give me a better idea of what you all are concerned about regarding maturity level.
Mom4Him - I am THRILLED by your suggestions! You make a good point about taking into consideration the extra subjects of Sign Language and French. (BTW - We're really approaching those in a very casual, just get him used to it, kind of way at this point.) Your ideas of combining the guides are exactly what I was sort of toying with in my mind but haven't talked to DH about yet because I had no idea how to go about it. I think combing them in some way just might be the best solution since I am worried he'll be bored with large sections of LHFHG and possibly frustrated with other sections of BLHFHG. Also, since we've got his little brother coming up later buying the LHFHG is something we would probably do eventually anyway even if we jumped right into BLHFHG with big brother, so if we by both now and wind up just using BLHFHG for the time being then we won't be too disappointed since LHFHG will get used later down the line anyway. And on the flip side, if BLHFHG turns out to be more difficult for him than I expect, we can set it aside and use it when we get there. I just have to figure out how to squeeze more blood from that rock, if you know what I mean.
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Seriously, your suggestions and advice are EXACTLY the kind of response I was hoping for. Thank You so much!
Kathleen
P.S. Sorry about the length. I'm a novelist, can you tell???
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