Hello and questions regarding supplementing public school with MP

[EllasMama]

Hi all,

I have a DD who will begin kindergarten in 2015. I just ordered the JK program to supplement her preschool and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival!

I recently toured Highlands Latin School and am beyond impressed with it. However, I realize that it is fairly difficult to get into the school as applicants outweigh the available spots. Further, we live in an area with a high performing public school (K-8) which drives most of the real estate demand in our neighborhood.

My question is would it be possible to supplement my DD's education with MP materials? My husband was a Latin scholar in high school (he credits his strong background to full tuition scholarships all the way through medical school), and we had planned for him to teach her Latin. The wonderful folks at HLS suggested the materials here for that purpose. I have fallen in love with the curriculums, and think that they could help to enrich out my daughter's education. I am just not certain how to go about knowing what items I should get. For K, I am thinking the phonics materials, the art cards and the nature supplement.

I sincerely appreciate any advice! Thanks much!

[Michelle T]

Greetings!

Supplementing with our phonics and nature would be a great addition. The nature reader would be the most educational and can be read as she studies each letter of the alphabet. The Animal Alphabet book is basically a coloring book with detailed drawings which is good if you need extra fine-motor skill practice otherwise it is something that is not essential.

I am partial to our First Start Reading program as I have seen its success. There is a little more work involved so be sure to break it up as you don't want to have too much work for a child coming home from a full school day.

Instead of getting just the art cards, if you want a well-rounded supplement I suggest getting the Enrichment Guide with the art cards. It has a Read-Aloud selection with activities to accompany it, an art piece , a music piece and a poem all of which coordinate with that reading selection. In the guide it gives biographies of the artists, information about the art piece, biographies of composers, information about the music selection, biographies about the poet and information about the poems. The Read-Aloud books are classic literature that can be ordered as a set or found at the library (you may even have some on your bookshelf already). The music selections can be readily found on the internet (we are working on a more comprehensive music program but it is very tentative). We sell both poem books referenced in the guide but you can always find those on the internet as well.

If you have further questions, let me know!
Blessings,
Michelle T

[SaintJude7]

supplementing public school kindergarten

Two of my children attended a "Blue-Ribbon" public school (ranked a 10 by greatschools.org). But even there I could see the need for bringing in the true, the good, and the beautiful once they were home. Right now the schools are leaning heavily to STEM, computers in the classroom, and multiculturalism at the expense of the classics. In music the classes were heavy on singing folk and international style songs, absolutely no Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Stravinsky, etc... The art classes were mainly technique, again with a heavy bias toward non-western art. So I could definitely see using the Memoria Press enrichment guides as a supplement. The nature reader is also a good idea, to remind them that nature is not something that occurs in a textbook or in a carefully scripted experiment, but also the wondrous creation of a loving God. They definitely are not getting that aspect of it at a public school.
For phonics and grammar you might wait and see what materials the school is using and if you are happy with her progress, but continue to read-aloud with her each day to remind her that reading is not only about cracking a code, but also the sheer pleasure of enjoying the written word. Note that although the school may tell you that students are reading certain stories in class, they have been known to abridge or alter the stories. One example is a school district taking the Indian Cinderella story which is supposed to also be a story about why aspens quiver and altering the ending so that the cruel sisters are only changed into aspen trees temporarily instead of permanently. The original ending made sense, but was seen as being too negative, scary, etc...
Blessings,
Jude

dd 17
ds 14 (special needs)
ds 11
ds 9
dd 7
ds 5
dd 2

[EllasMama]

Michelle and Jude,

Thank you both so much for the thoughtful advice! I am very excited about MP's offerings, and appreciate your help in figuring out how to make it work for us.

Again, thank you!

[Lemonade]

Do it!

I supplemented my older 3 children's public education when they were that age and it is the best thing I could have done. (I didn't know about MP then). Grab ahold of the things the school is not doing (or doing poorly) and focus on that.For us, that meant nature study, phonics, math fact memorization. I even talked to the teacher in kindy to get a "pass" on her homework to instead do ours (hers was more whole language readers and I did phonics). We always had great read-alouds going nightly. Using MP for these things would be great!

[EllasMama]

Lemonade - thank you! I am planning on supplementing and am super thrilled with all of the advice. I am so glad to know that you had a great result! Our Jr Kindergarten materials arrived for this year, and I am so impressed by them. I am so excited about MP and so glad that I found out about when I did

Thanks again!