Starting Kindergarten core in February?

[Lili8484]

Hello all,

I’ll try to be brief in my post, but I feel I need to provide background. I am brand new to MP. I just ordered the entire Kindergarten core package. My son is 5.5. He is my oldest of 3. (Also have 3.5 y/o and and 2 y/o). This was my first year attempting to homeschool. For 3K & 4K he went to a 2 day a week hybrid homeschool program. He was supposed to go for 5K but he was absolutely not ready for the pace or curricula they used back at the beginning of August. My son has a speech delay. He’s getting very close to “graduating” from speech therapy after 3.5 years, but he’s not all the way there yet. I mention the speech delay because even in 4K he wasn’t at the same place most of his classmates were according to his teacher.

I tried piecing together this and that for the year over the past 6 months. I watched a lot of YouTube homeschoolers who are “eclectic” and piece so many different brands together. Needless to say it has been a gigantic flop for us. First of all, my son had no interest in learning the alphabet at the beginning of the school year and would get upset when I tried to “do school” with him. So I took several months “off” because I felt he needed a few more months to mature. He is now interested in lessons and I’m using what I have to do VERY short lessons with him daily. He sometimes tells me “this is boooorrrring” but will participate.

The other reason the romanticized piecing together of curriculum wasn’t working is me. I am lazy by nature and having so many different things by so many different publishers with no central guide made it easy to do...nothing. I am trying to become more disciplined for the sake of my children. I’m a work in progress. But I realized I need structure and that homeschool looking like “real school” isn’t the awful thing so many make it out to be.

If you read all that, bless you! That wasn’t brief. Lol. My question is, do you all think it’s crazy for me to begin using the K program when it arrives soon? I don’t really want to wait until fall. Is the guide set up to only work on a traditional school year calendar? Tips and encouragement greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

[Hahcook]

Take heart. I just started my 5.5yr old in K after our Christmas break. I had tried to begin with my other children in September and it wasn’t working for anyone! He wasn’t ready and I was trying to get my older kids set in a schedule. This later start has been so much better...he is finally interested in learning and much more capable of sitting for lesson time.
A real blessing to homeschool that it can work for your family.

[Colomama]

I think you're doing awesome.

It's totally okay to start right now. It's totally okay to wait too.

If you start right now, please give both him and you some grace. Resist the urge to 'catch up'. I would take 2 to 3 weeks to do the first week of lessons. Just ease into this. If he's ready to move quicker, speed up, but given your background don't do more than a week of school in a week.

Keep in mind if you start now, he will be off of a traditional start and stop plan. Not the end of the world, plenty of people do this. Resist the urge to work through the summer in order to start first 'on time'.

The schedule does follow a traditional northern hemisphere seasonal schedule within the enrichment section. You can totally manage this. I think we're on week 20ish with school. So, find Easter in the schedule and work your way backwards to whenever you start. Put a paperclip in there. This only applies to enrichment, every other subject should start from week 1.

[jen1134]

We're starting K in March with my just-turned 6yo. And some families purposely start their new school year in January. You're just fine!

[Lili8484]

Thank you so much, ladies! I feel so much better about this. We will just start this as the “beginning of Kindergarten” and work for the rest of 2021 as his Kindergarten year. All along I have really wanted to “red shirt him” and have him do K as a 6 year old. But since he has a very late May birthday, I felt bad doing so. I think it comes from us being the only people to homeschool in our families and feeling pressured to “prove” he’s doing well.

[enbateau]

We also started off-season in May (vs. late August) with my 6yo. I did rearrange a few of the more holiday-themed read-alouds from Enrichment. In retrospect, it was hardly necessary. A child can get just as much enjoyment out of the delight of snow in the summer (or in the South where snow isn't likely even in winter). Pay attention to the Language Lesson if rearranging an Enrichment week: some of the later weeks will include directions to identify words with a silent e and read them, and this will not have been taught until the 26th week of Phonics.

Many of us mamas have had incredible success teaching our kids with speech delay by waiting, like you have, until readiness is shown. If you find that it's still a little too much too fast, come visit us on the Simply Classical section of the forum. Simply Classical C will take your child through the Alphabet Books (Part 1 and 2) and shore up skills such as aural discrimination, letter recognition and number and letter formation through engaging children's literature, vocabulary building and a more tactile/kinesthetic approach to the alphabet's first phonetic sounds.

[RHoffman]

I didn’t read the other comments, so I apologize if this is redundant, but I think starting anytime he is ready would be just fine, you will just want to flip around some of the enrichment weeks so you aren’t doing Christmas in July ☺️