Cursive
School went great today, just like yesterday. We're still trying to figure things out and trying to get the schedule to be smooth, but I figure that'll take time and then it'll just be second nature. I can already see she has a hard time getting back into it after break time, so I'm going to have to work in something that gets her settled and ready to learn some more - maybe coloring.
Everyone had the most comments (here on my blog and on facebook) about cursive, so I thought I'd talk about it. :-) Whether people thought I was crazy or were generally wondering why we're not doing what's "normal", I thought I'd explain how we got here. The Abeka curriculum believes it's more natural to teach kids cursive first, rather than print. They believe the loops and curls, connected letters for the entire word, are easier to teach first. They do, however, have separate books if you don't want to teach your kids cursive - at least not yet. I initially thought - that's me! We're not doing cursive yet. She's way too young and it's way too hard. That's weird. I looked into it, talked it over with other home school parents, other parents, my teacher friends, and Kara, and we decided to go ahead and dive in. Lol!
* Kara was super excited about it.
* My home school mommy friends taught their kids, and they thought it went well.
* My friend who's taught second and third grade told me kids have been learning cursive in her class and she thought it was too late. She said they seemed to resent her for trying to teach them another way to write when print was working just fine for them all those years.
* I think learning most anything is easier when you're younger, rather than later, so that made sense to me!
Just like with print, numbers, drawing, etc, Kara's cursive is not perfect, but it's pretty good! Yesterday we did lower case "e"s and today we did "i"s and "t"s. She also connected them in all different combinations. I had her circle her best ones, and we determined together that they looked "like a grown up had written them." :-)
Something else I've decided to teach this year, is Spanish. My Dad feels really passionate about it and advised me to think about it, and we've been talking about moving to Florida in the future for years now, AND I used to be fluent, so it all adds up to praying about it and deciding to do that too. She will NOT be fluent by the end of this year, nor will she even hear me use the word "conjugate," but I hope she knows numbers, colors, days of the week, common household/nature/food items (chair, table, tree, apple, etc.), and maybe even a few verbs!
The beauty of home school is teaching what is necessary (english, math, science, social studies, art, music, etc.), along with whatever else we want. In our case, because I know my daughter and know her capabilities, I chose to also teach her Bible, cursive, and Spanish. We also plan to do LOTS of science experiments. :-)
Everyone had the most comments (here on my blog and on facebook) about cursive, so I thought I'd talk about it. :-) Whether people thought I was crazy or were generally wondering why we're not doing what's "normal", I thought I'd explain how we got here. The Abeka curriculum believes it's more natural to teach kids cursive first, rather than print. They believe the loops and curls, connected letters for the entire word, are easier to teach first. They do, however, have separate books if you don't want to teach your kids cursive - at least not yet. I initially thought - that's me! We're not doing cursive yet. She's way too young and it's way too hard. That's weird. I looked into it, talked it over with other home school parents, other parents, my teacher friends, and Kara, and we decided to go ahead and dive in. Lol!
* Kara was super excited about it.
* My home school mommy friends taught their kids, and they thought it went well.
* My friend who's taught second and third grade told me kids have been learning cursive in her class and she thought it was too late. She said they seemed to resent her for trying to teach them another way to write when print was working just fine for them all those years.
* I think learning most anything is easier when you're younger, rather than later, so that made sense to me!
Just like with print, numbers, drawing, etc, Kara's cursive is not perfect, but it's pretty good! Yesterday we did lower case "e"s and today we did "i"s and "t"s. She also connected them in all different combinations. I had her circle her best ones, and we determined together that they looked "like a grown up had written them." :-)
Something else I've decided to teach this year, is Spanish. My Dad feels really passionate about it and advised me to think about it, and we've been talking about moving to Florida in the future for years now, AND I used to be fluent, so it all adds up to praying about it and deciding to do that too. She will NOT be fluent by the end of this year, nor will she even hear me use the word "conjugate," but I hope she knows numbers, colors, days of the week, common household/nature/food items (chair, table, tree, apple, etc.), and maybe even a few verbs!
The beauty of home school is teaching what is necessary (english, math, science, social studies, art, music, etc.), along with whatever else we want. In our case, because I know my daughter and know her capabilities, I chose to also teach her Bible, cursive, and Spanish. We also plan to do LOTS of science experiments. :-)
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