Another 'am I doing too much/not enough" question

[ajjkt]

DD is 6 (her birthday is in November, so only just 6). In Australia, she would be considered to have just finished kindergarten. SHe does maths daily; a facts drill, MUS alpha lesson, RightStart B lesson.

We try and get to history and science once a week or more, and I think I am going to maybe try ambelside because this appears to be something that would suit.

For language arts we do: a phonics drill, SWR, grammar (Shurley English, minus the composition), Wordly Wise 3000, SSL and reading aloud to me, handwriting practice and dictation.

She does dance, drama, art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics as afterschool activities, but only two days a week as art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics are all on Fridays, and the tennis and drama are Monday evenings. She loves these and does not find them too much.

All this takes about three hours. Is this too much at 6? Is there something I should or shouldn't be doing at this age? It seems like a lot, she and DS7 do a similar load (I've posted the same about DS7) and I'm not sure how it would go having a big difference in what she does compared to DS7. She is not goal orientated like her brother, but still motivated.

Is there anything I can cut, or that I need to be doing? Please help me balance our day

[laughing lioness]

If she is enjoying what you are doing, keep it up. Again, I would add memory work and Latin. Prima Latina is a lot of fun. We have memorized the VP cards (timeline) as well as memorize Bible verses in Latin and English, Latin sayings, science facts, math facts, geography facts, etc. We are also doing Christian Studies from MP.
Living Memory has some great ideas for memory work in several catagories.

[Lovedtodeath]

Wow! That's a lot compared to us. We have MUS alpha and drill for math... plus we are adding FIAR which will incorporate it. We have FLL and HTTSpelling for LA (we add to HTTS with some other things, but basically we only do one phonics lesson a day, and FLL most days). At first glance I thought that the LA was way too much, and maybe overkill.

We just read together sporadically, nothing formal for that. I am dropping our geography when we start FIAR. Our science is seasonal so that is not a constant thing either, but she loves it and that is the important thing.

[OhElizabeth]

It's plenty, but it's mainly about how she responds to it. If she's thriving, great. If she acts like it's too much or seems tired or negative, I would dump some of the unnecessary. For instance she doesn't need that Wordly Wise on top of SWR. She doesn't need two math programs, not with RS B. And if it were me, I'd probably trim some of that duplication and put in more FUN stuff. She's so young, maybe she'd enjoy more SOTW and more hands-on? Kids are all different though. Some are the workbooky type. Mine sure isn't, lol. So if she's craving more hands-on or something different, I certainly wouldn't feel compelled to continue all that duplication. Me personally, I'd want to see that time more around 2 -2 1/2 hrs a day. (grade plus 1)

[Ellie]

It would have been crazy too much for my dc.:blink:

What seems like overkill to *me* is all the things you're using for English. If you did only SWR that would be plenty for a child so young.

[Lovedtodeath]

Definitely incorporate more fun! DD loves our geography and science studies... she begs for it. Do you have anything like that? And of course outside play and maybe nature walks. :)

[ajjkt]

After some of the replies here and to my other post about DS, I'm thinking I'll cut out handwriting and Wordly Wise. The phonics drill is part of SWR (sort of) but I really need to work out how to condense it as it takes longer than I want it to.

I'd like to put in more of the fun stuff, and it does feel like its a bit heavy to me, but she does well with it. She doesn't seem to have a problem doing it, its that I want her to be playing more but I don't want her to have any gaps in her basic skills either.

What could I condense/combine in language arts? Her handwriting is not great at all, would it be OK just to say she's doing enough handwriting anyway and drop it or should I keep going with it? she does a LOT of reversals.

I added in RS to MUS because MUS is going so slowly with waiting for mastery before we move on. It just seems like a drill now to me, so while I didn't want to drop it, I did want it to be more interesting before I killed her love of maths. MUS only takes about 5 - 10 minutes and it is essentially a drill.

Would ambelside be a good add on for fun? We often miss getting to the history and science because I feel like she's had enough and just want her to go and ride her bike or play.

[Aurelia]

If she were my child, I'd drop the grammar, vocab, phonics drill and one of the math programs (probably MUS since you said it's nearly all drill) and do more reading to each other. That should give her plenty of time to play and be a kid, but also give you more time to do "fun stuff" - which I think should be the focus of the younger grades anyway. You don't want to kill her love of learning before she gets to 3rd grade, and she may just be motivated to do everything you are giving her to please you, rather than truly enjoying it.

[Lovedtodeath]

My reply is in blue. After some of the replies here and to my other post about DS, I'm thinking I'll cut out handwriting and Wordly Wise. The phonics drill is part of SWR (sort of) but I really need to work out how to condense it as it takes longer than I want it to. I cut out handwriting as a separate subject because I don't think it is doing a lot of good b/c she will have to learn all over again for cursive anyway.

What could I condense/combine in language arts? Her handwriting is not great at all, would it be OK just to say she's doing enough handwriting anyway and drop it or should I keep going with it? she does a LOT of reversals.

I added in RS to MUS because MUS is going so slowly with waiting for mastery before we move on. It just seems like a drill now to me, so while I didn't want to drop it, I did want it to be more interesting before I killed her love of maths. MUS only takes about 5 - 10 minutes and it is essentially a drill.

Would ambelside be a good add on for fun? We often miss getting to the history and science because I feel like she's had enough and just want her to go and ride her bike or play. I haven't used ambleside. I don't know how fun it would be. It seems to me to be just a lot of reading.

I'd like to put in more of the fun stuff, and it does feel like its a bit heavy to me, but she does well with it. She doesn't seem to have a problem doing it, its that I want her to be playing more but I don't want her to have any gaps in her basic skills either. It seems to me that not having any fun school subjects is an imbalance and shows that you need to cut some things out, so that you can feel free to add them in.

DD is 6 (her birthday is in November, so only just 6). In Australia, she would be considered to have just finished kindergarten. SHe does maths daily; a facts drill, MUS alpha lesson, RightStart B lesson.

We try and get to history and science once a week or more, and I think I am going to maybe try ambelside because this appears to be something that would suit.

For language arts we do: a phonics drill, SWR, grammar (Shurley English, minus the composition), Wordly Wise 3000, SSL and reading aloud to me, handwriting practice and dictation. I would cut out the Shurley English and the Wordly Wise. I don't know anyone who starts vocab before 5th grade. It is generally not recommended. Shurley English is pretty heavy and I would not start that until 3rd grade. I don't know what SSL is... but SWR and handwriting is enough with reading. At this age they pick up on grammar and vocabulary informally through reading good books. This will be especially so if you do ambleside.

She does dance, drama, art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics as afterschool activities, but only two days a week as art, pottery, swimming and gymnastics are all on Fridays, and the tennis and drama are Monday evenings. She loves these and does not find them too much.

All this takes about three hours. Is this too much at 6? Is there something I should or shouldn't be doing at this age? It seems like a lot, she and DS7 do a similar load (I've posted the same about DS7) and I'm not sure how it would go having a big difference in what she does compared to DS7. She is not goal orientated like her brother, but still motivated.

Is there anything I can cut, or that I need to be doing? Please help me balance our day

She is not going to have gaps by cutting some basic skills out at this age. You need the three R's and fun. The rest can go out the window. School should take 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours at this age and that should include some fun projects, science experiments, etc. Though once again, keep in mind that TWTM has 3-5 hours on science and social studies TOTAL for the week, this would include notebooking, projects, and both subjects, so most curriculums that you would buy would take more time than this.


Many will use Latin to replace grammar and vocabulary, and it may be more fun and less time consuming... but TWTM has Latin start in 3rd grade, so it is good to keep that in mind.

HTH I am hoping this response will generate some more replies as well. :tongue_smilie:

[3blessingmom]

I would cut grammer and Wordly Wise. At 6yo, I would keep handwriting. It's fundamental imho.

You can't cut the phonics drill and still do SWR imho. To make it quicker, take out any phonograms that dd does not immediately recall. Choose 3 hard ones and drill those, and quickly review all the easy ones. As those 3 hard ones become automatic, move them to the quick review daily pile and choose more for the "3 hard ones" pile.

Ambleside is a lot of reading, but I think it's highly enoyable reading. I plan on using it, esp the literature:001_smile: At 6yo, I think it should feel more like "storytime" rather than "history lesson" kwim. Ambleside can certainly be the backbone for that.

You can spread some stuff out over your week too. Spelling dictation on one day, and a math lesson on another. As long as you keep a quick phonics drill and math facts drill daily, that might work better to give her more time to climb trees and ride her bike(which are very important things for a 6yo).
hth:001_smile:

[lovelearnandlive]

It would help to see how much time she spends on each of the curricula that you posted in a typical day. I'm planning on 3 hours a day for my dd when she is in first grade, but Fridays are for projects and field trips so our seat work will only be four days a week. At any rate, the amount of time doesn't seem like too much/little to me overall if your dd is enjoying it. But then again, I don't have any real experience with first grade yet. :D