Hi Dianna,Padavali wrote:I must start by saying that I am new here and I am really feeling pulled towards MFW as a curric. My daughter is 3 1/4 years old, she knows all of her alphabet, all of the sounds and we have started reading with Hooked On Phonics. She is keeping me on my toes with learning (we have been working with workbooks for months) and I was starting to think that starting in the New Year, I would start unit studies. Would doing MFW K be too much for a 3 year old? I am new to HomeSchooling, thinking of prolonging some lessons if Hannah needs more time to get a grasp. Also, what would her being further ahead in the L/A aspect of the K level mean for the work?
I should add, the only reason why I am wondering this is because I was looking at a Curric. Review site online and many mom's posted that MFWK would be fine as a PreK level curric. I would want to drag it out because, knowing my 3 year old, she won't sit for 1 hr to 1.5 hrs a day to do the lessons as well. Am I jumping the gun???
Thanks in advance for any help!
Dianna
Welcome to the board! I'd like to encourage you that in addition to all ideas that we share on here, you should consider calling the MFW office and seeking their ideas too. They enjoy helping on the phone with getting started.
to better understand my suggestions, here is a little bit about me. I have 3 children, 8th, 5th and 1st graders. We've homeschooled all along. I had early reading kids.
Based on my experiences, I would not use any company's Kindergarten program for a 3 year young child. I would find materials that are designed for 3 year olds to use even if they are early reading kids. I had children who were early readers too. But their main "school" was designed for developing more than just reading. What I found is that even though my children could read early, they still were the age that they were and there was lots to do with them. You never get these years back and the academics of reading/writing/math -- really can wait a while and not lose ground. Lots of us over here had children reading early, but still weren't ready for Kindy at age 3. And then they aren't going to be ready for first grade at age 4 either. So that's really where it comes from -- not burning out in a year from now.
I still used MFW K with 2 of my children who were already reading (but were still traditional Kindy age). We even "beefed up" the phonics to let it become handwriting and spelling. So even though they were ahead of the phonics in K, the program worked well. I personally do not agree that MFW K is designed as a preK program. Many of those reviews only take into account the first few weeks of MFW K. Most preK programs do not work on having children reading short vowel stories in PreK, nor writing sentences. The earliest part of MFW K starts gently into the year at the pace of the end of preK. But it does not stay preK all year.
The youngest child of the author of MFW was a very advanced reader by her 5th birthday (reading novels such as Chronicles of Narnia). But, they found that she still needed to be in a Kindergarten level program due to the length of day that is required. So, there is a balance to educating our preschoolers and not yet doing formal school. So you might ask to speak with David Hazell if you call the MFW office and get his experience on that. He is a wealth of information and experience. That youngest child is now in high school.
I would *not* encourage you to use MFW K right now with a 3 year old. How about working on crafts, cooking (and even meal planning), just reading to her, music learning, art appreciation, nature walks, pretend play and waiting a year or so to start MFW K at a pace for her age? Tell her Bible stories and learn Bible songs together. I know some of us on this forum have done MFW K with 4 year olds and taken 1.5 years to do it. But at 3? oohhh... I just have one of those tones in my voice that wants to gently and lovingly encourage you to wait.
MFW has a PreK set of developmental "toys" that helps us to not overlook all aspects of development for preschool aged children. 3 year old children still need to work on fine motor skills, thinking skills, listening skills, experimenting with art supplies. Enjoying good stories and doing unit studies around the stories to create crafts, etc.
anyway, you might consider ordering the book in the Kindy deluxe items -- For the Children's Sake, and begin to research into early years of educating.
So how about this idea since you're leaning toward wanting to use MFW?
*get the PreK developmental skills "toys" and the activity booklet with it -- your child will have lots of opportunity to work on fine motor skills and logical thinking skills and other skills with letters that she already knows.
*that includes getting the Bible songs CD too.
*get For The Children's Sake as a resource for you. (Kindy deluxe)
*consider to get from the 1st grade program, Honey for a Child's Heart -- to use as a reading list for you to read to your child. Go with younger books since she is only 3. Content will get to the point with older books that you just may not be ready to do with her age. (ask for more info on that if that wasn't clear)
*after reading a story -- do a craft based on the book, or let your child do something from the story (act it out, or retell the story....). If you aren't sure of any ideas, ask on this forum for some ideas to do with a specific story. For example, if you read your child the story Madeline -- you can play with toys and count them off in groups of 2's, or you can make get well cards for people at your church who are ill, or you can sit in bed and tell what designs you see on the ceiling. All of those things were from parts of the story.
*Get from the 1st grade deluxe -- the books, Come Look with Me --- those art appreciation books can be used with children younger than 1st grade and then used again and again and again.
and if I think of a good schedule to help pull it together on a daily basis.... I'll chime back in. But right now I need to log off the computer.
blessings,
-crystal
Focus on habits, behavior and developing the whole child ....fine motor, gross motor, etc and not just the mental......and it will payoff long term. If she learns to read before she reaches MFW K that will be awesome and there is plenty of info on this board on how to use MFW K with a reader. If she doesn't learn to read before she is MFW K age then she will have the habits and fine motor skills in place so she can get busy with the work of learning to read and write.
Just simply making a schedule (like Crystal's) really helps.