Jr K program

[Blessedmom]

Would anyone who uses this program please tell me how much time you devote to this program daily? Is the program designed to be used weekly? It looked like it may be for 2 days per week. Could any of you who use the whole program tell me how you use it at home. I would like to use it with my four year old, but wanted to make sure I would have the time to devote to it.

[CelticaDea]

I've been using it since mid August. I usually take maybe about 1 -2 hours a day, depending on if we do a project and how long we take to talk about the reading book. I'm sure it could be faster if I knew what I doing! haha It's taken me til now to kinda figure out how I wanted to do this and now it's going faster.

The lesson plans are set up for 2 days/week but I usually do it in 4-5. Basically I do calendar/weather everyday, then alternate numbers/letters, reading/poetry, science (show&tell)/music, and project/game. We were having a hard time keeping all the recitation numbers straight so I've backed off that for a bit. Also we practice our own prayers at bedtime so I've not been doing the Prayers for Children part anymore.

Also, I'm having a better time keeping on track and moving through it now that I started writing the schedule of things to do for the day on my white board. My dd loves to put check marks next to the things we've done and is happy to keep going til we finish the tasks for the days (max 5 things per day). I finally realized that when she didn't know how much we were going to do, it was just too open ended in her mind. Of course, she can't read the list so she just puts checks next to the number I tell her to mark. It serves to keep us both on track.

Since she's only 4, if she's sick or tired or cranky or we're out and about, I may scrap it for the day or only do one or two things and just catch up over the next few days.

My biggest struggles have been trying to do the read-alouds without killing them by focusing too much on the questions. I still struggle a bit but have learned to just not do all the questions and read it through a few times before getting into the details. Some of the stories aren't normal 'stories' in a general sense, so for me I was finding that stopping repeatedly really killed whatever momentum was there. Also, I'm not the most artistic person in the world so much of the beauty of some of the books has been completely lost on me!

My other struggle has been with the science type activities (show & tell). They tell you what to do, kind of, but I need more hand-holding and referencing. I recently bought the Usborne Children's encyclopedia and Berenstain Bears big book of science to use as a reference for the topics as they come up.

Overall, I am very happy with the progress we've made over the year. I would add that at the beginning, she had a very hard time trying to do the writing involved so I went to just having her trace with her finger, then eventually practice on a white board or chalkboard and let her play all she wanted on her chalkboard. She is now doing great with the writing parts especially if I let her use her purple pen lol! She really wants to use her markers but they bleed through. For all she likes to use colored writing implements, she's not fond of coloring pictures so, unless they're vital to the lesson, I offer but don't require her to color them.

I also got her these pencil grippers so it's easier to hold on. She doesn't really need them anymore but she likes to use them sometimes. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001SN8HPI/ref=wms_ohs_product

Oh, I like the poetry list of the updated guide better so I downloaded that from another post and use it instead (my plans are linked to the Tomie DePaolo book where the new ones are linked to Richard Scarry).

ETA: This is my absolute first year hs'ing and JK was planned as an experiment to see if I could or would keep going. So far, so good!

[Blessedmom]

Jr K program

Thank you so much for your help! If I dedicated one hour daily for four days each week, do you think I could do enough of the program to warrant purchasing it?

[CelticaDea]

Oh definitely! I'm sure you could do almost everything in the lesson plans if you gave it a good hour 4x's/wk. Depending on your dc, you may want to split it up over the day but mine doesn't do as well if we try to come back to it after a long break in the day. The most we can manage is about 10 min of break (with a timer so I don't forget lol) and having it listed out for her keeps us moving along.

for music: between Wee Sing and the older Walt Disney Children's Favorites vol 1 & 2, we've been able to do find most of the songs. If we don't actually do it the scheduled week, we listen to the disney cd's in the car and get them eventually