I took my 5 year old ( will be 6 11/15) out of kindergarten last month. He’s surpassed most of the kindergarten learning books, can I move on to 1st grade in the areas he’s passed? If so what do recommend I use? Thanks! Also what k5 did you use?
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Of course you can - why repeat something he already knows. Learning should be fun, adventurous and just a bit challenging.
Some links for you - these have sample pages:
https://www.milestonebooks.com/list/Rod_and_Staff_Curriculum/
The teachers editions sample pages at Rod and Staff usually have topics covered or scope and sequence as part of the samples to look at.
https://www.homeschoolingbooks.com/
I have been using a sampling of items from both these links to fit the learning styles of a budding engineer type who is 7 and a budding artist, musician, dancer who will be 9 in November.
Take some time and enjoy shopping. Sometimes, you both will see something that works better or is easier to understand than what you are working through. So make the change. Our boys do have input into curriculum so we discuss frequently and sometimes we change midstream if need be to keep learning and being challenged, not frustrated, bored or overwhelmed.
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Thank you!!! You are always so very helpful and it’s truly appreciated!
Yes you can definitely move on. I also have a 5yo who is ahead of kindergarten. We were using CLE Learn to Read Grade 1 for reading when she was 4 and she learned how to write well (penmanship) from there, we are now doing All About Reading Level 1 and HOD Little Hearts for Him and will be adding in Grade 1 math, either Saxon or CLE Grade 1.
Have fun with whatever you pick. If it becomes too challenging you can always slow things down, they are ahead anyway. The perks of homeschool 
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Can I pick your brain @htfhilltopfarm?? I have a 9 year old engineer type and 11 year old artist/dancer/musician! What curriculum have you had success with? I am liking what I am using so far (1st year!) but I would love to hear your input. Thanks!
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Hi Lindsay,
Of course, you may pick my brain - I hope my explanations help.
My two are boys - my 7 year old is the engineer type and my 8 year old - 9 next month is my artist/dancer/musician.
I. too, liked what I used for the first year. During that first year, I started really seeing how my two could look at the same material and interpret it totally differently, or, at times, my engineer would not even comprehend a lesson. I was using reading, phonics, spelling, penmanship and arithmetic all from Liberty Press. I use science and history from Liberty Press as well. I have been tinkering with subjects to make positive changes.
What has evolved at our house is this:
Reading for my artist has become the McGuffey Readers - what I see with this change is that his artist’s eye is drawn to the pen and ink drawings, his ear to the writing style and use of wording and he loves reading through the very old cursive stories - again, an art form. Penmanship for my artist is Liberty Press’s series which is a modified Palmer method -ART! My engineer is liking it as well because it allows his mind to build letters from shapes, lines and curves and then put them together.
My engineer type has had more struggles with reading and sounding out whole words and learning to move beyond seeing just groups of letters and to make sense of the sounds the letters represent. The Liberty Press phonics was good, but used words that are too abstract for him to apply. This week, I changed to Rod and Staff Phonics, Level One, Units Two through Five. The examples use much more concrete concepts that appeal to his engineering and outdoor farm boy nature.
So far, I see improvement every day. My artist is using this phonics - Units 4 and 5 as well, because it presents prefixes, suffixes and syllables in a much easier to understand format. It also uses the standard dictionary pronunciation marks. He is really liking the sameness of the pronunciation marks.
Reading for my engineer is still a bit of a struggle and we haven’t completely resolved that one yet, but may go to the more concrete Rod and Staff stories. Time and some examples in the Teacher’s edition will help sort out the direction his reading takes.
Spelling was changed to Rod and Staff because it studies words that are actually used in the boys’ reading and writing. It also reinforces a specific part of phonics with each lesson. Liberty Press was too abstract for both of my boys to want to study and learn the list words - frustration level was high!! Now with the change to Rod and Staff, they are learning to love oral spelling practice and, so far, have not missed any words on their weekly tests.
Arithmetic - two vastly different ways that they understand concepts. My engineer needs to see the specific triplet parts of number families. Rod and Staff Arithmetic has a clover cut out with the sum in its center and bees that have the addend pairs on their wings. Visually, this has made a vast difference in my engineer’s understanding. We tried the counting/stacking cubes and other math manipulatives, but all that happened was some sort of structure was invented. My artist likes the oral math and story problems in this series. He is beginning to see/hear how math really works and is starting to do more in his head and less step by tedious step on paper.
Music at our house is fun. Both boys study violin with another homeschool mom who is a violinist and used to teach public school orchestra. I am teaching my artist piccolo (a bit of a stretch for this ex-military band tuba player, but we are having fun). I am teaching my engineer clarinet. I insist that they learn basic music theory and we are using “Let’s Learn Music” a three book series from Hayes School Publishing Co. We are studying books two (engineer) and three (artist). My artist/dancer/musician also dances ballet at the local dance studio. My engineer totally refuses to have anything to do with dance - he says he is “AUDIENCE ONLY!”
We study geography from an applied map skills point of view.
Health is Horizons and the boys love it - just enough detail and just enough music - it has several songs/hymns in each level.
Science is Liberty Press - for the Biblical viewpoint and to apply the Bible and Sunday School principles they are learning. We will venture off into more “scientific” approaches after 4th grade.
History is Liberty Press through third grade. 4th grade we will venture off into Wyoming history as do the public schools here in Wyoming. From 5th grade on, we will be more focused on alternately world and American History. Lots of resources for hands on American History are available through the National Park Service Sites that focus on American History. We will most likely book a “4th Grade School Tour” at Fort Laramie National Historic Site for next year which depending on the tour chosen is very hands on and lots of fun.
Isn’t it such a fun challenge to have two such vastly different learners! I enjoy the challenge of challenging them and seeing them learn.
Kris
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Thank you so much for your input!