1st grade spelling questions

[Tbog]

Please humor me, this is my first year hs and I am sure I am making this harder than I need to. Crazily enough I am pretty confident about teaching my 12 and 16 yr old---its the 6 yr old dd I am driving myself crazy over.

I have been looking at a lot of the 1st grade stuff, and it honestly seems really really easy for her. I am not using any formal curriculum, simply because I really need to figure out where she fits before I spend. In looking at spelling lists for 1st grade, they are words that she knew in the middle of K. I went through as far as 4th grade words, and she was able to spell them all correctly, tell me what they were (noun, verb, etc) and was able to tell me the word in a sentence, as well as tell me what element they showed--like long o, silent e, etc.

Then there is math. According to the things listed here (http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum/grade1) , she has figured out about 90% of the things listed for 1st grade math. She was doing regrouping during the summer and has know what "times" was since middle of K when she asked her daddy what it was.

I really don't want to make her work on things that she obviously gets if she is capable of more, but is there some obvious element I am missing in why these things are taught to 1st graders? Is it ok to go past 1st grade and teach her at a higher level if she can show me she has mastered the concepts listed for 1st graders?

Like I said, I am sure I am making it harder than it has to be, but I want to be sure that it is ok to go past what is expected of 1st and teach her at a higher level if she is ready for it.

[Parrothead]

Like I said, I am sure I am making it harder than it has to be, but I want to be sure that it is ok to go past what is expected of 1st and teach her at a higher level if she is ready for it.
Yes, it is okay. Give her challenging, but not difficult work no mater what the grade level says.

[Elisabeth in IL]

I think that if your dd was mine, I would give her a couple of math placement tests before deciding on a level and publisher. For spelling I've heard that Spelling Power is good as you only work on the words that you don't already know. I'm not sure if it is really appropriate for a first grader though. Maybe someone else can give you more information on this.

[Dawn E]

Well, the beauty of homeschooling is being able to meet your daughter where she is. I agree with Elisabeth re: a placement test in math. Just because she may understand more complex parts of math, you do want to make sure her foundation is solid. Math builds on itself, so while you don't want her to be bored, you also don't want to skip so far ahead she will have trouble later.

Re: spelling, a first grader really doesn't need any formal spelling, and your daughter is so advanced she can probably do fine without it right now. But, if you do want to bring it in, I would recommend you look into Spell to Write and Read. Even if you don't use the whole program, it does a great job of presenting the reasons why words are spelled as they are.

[Tbog]

Thanks for the replies. Like I said, I was making it more difficult than I had to. Good idea about the placement tests--I will look into that this weekend. It honestly never crossed my mind to do them for her age. Sometimes the obvious isnt so obvious, lol.

[Sara in AZ]

For spelling I've heard that Spelling Power is good as you only work on the words that you don't already know. I'm not sure if it is really appropriate for a first grader though. Maybe someone else can give you more information on this.

I've just started Spelling Power with my 1st grader in a slightly modified format. She is already a pretty natural speller, but the great thing about Spelling Power is that is that the lists cover beginning spelling up till 12th grade, so you could easily test your daughter to find out where she is at and start from there.

[Tbog]

I looked at the website for Spelling Power but am kinda confused as to what is needed? What are you using for your 1st grader?

[jkwynn]

My 6 year old son is a naturally good speller, too.

We are doing Spelling Workout, but mainly to go through and get the 'rules' of spelling. At least that's what I'm hoping.

The words are ridiculously easy, though, right now. He's got cvc words, on lesson 9. (jog, fun, pig, etc.)

Since this is our first year, I'm just now getting in my groove - but we're about to look at the book again and FF to a little more of a challenge. Right now, it's more like handwriting practice than spelling practice, lol.