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| Making a rocket to go with our moon lesson |
Before I started our journey this year, I was ambitious and wasn't sure what curriculum to choose from. I had bought from Sonlight and My Father's World in the past and loved both of their philosophies and teaching methods. However, I was still torn between the two. I decided to purchase both and see which one fit my son better.
As of this week, I'm changing up how we're doing school. If you are thinking about doing Sonlight P4/5 and My Father's World Kindergarten together, you could probably save some money and just do one. My son loves books but he would rather be doing something and creating something than listening to me read him a story, unless we're going to do an activity right away that relates to the story. This is why My Father's World is a better fit for him. I also bought the literary package to go along with MFW K and every book we've read that goes along with our theme he likes so far. He has starting fighting reading the Sonlight books in the morning. Although he still likes some of the stories, we have started reading them mostly at night before bed. The one thing I am so glad we did purchase from Sonlight is Developing the Early Learner, which Blue Rock really likes. It's only 1 to 2 pages a day and tests what your child's learning strengths and weaknesses are. There are 4 volumes, you can purchase them from Sonlight or Amazon. Also, there really are some great stories in the Sonlight P4/5 package, we just haven't gotten to some of them. I'm not saying it's not worth doing both if you have the means and want to try it. I'm just saying that if your child prefers hands-on activities then you could easily just do My Father's World Kindergarten and supplement with their literary package along with books you can get from the library.
I also bought Wordy Worm reading and planned to do this program with him as well. Sadly, I found it to be a waste of money. The ideas behind it are great and my son is picking up the phonograms and the extra sounds letters make. However, he really has no interest in following their pattern of teaching. The songs are neat and maybe with my next child I'll start her with Wordy Worm and it will be a different story. So for reading, we're really doing nothing extra right now. Rather than drill him with sight words at this point, I'm going to continue reading to him and building his foundation through activities in My Father's World. He often asks how to spell certain words. I'll ask him what a word starts with and see if he can figure out some of it. Then I'll help him and we'll spell it together.
I also bought Wordy Worm reading and planned to do this program with him as well. Sadly, I found it to be a waste of money. The ideas behind it are great and my son is picking up the phonograms and the extra sounds letters make. However, he really has no interest in following their pattern of teaching. The songs are neat and maybe with my next child I'll start her with Wordy Worm and it will be a different story. So for reading, we're really doing nothing extra right now. Rather than drill him with sight words at this point, I'm going to continue reading to him and building his foundation through activities in My Father's World. He often asks how to spell certain words. I'll ask him what a word starts with and see if he can figure out some of it. Then I'll help him and we'll spell it together.
Depending on what you want out of a kindergarten program, My Father's World Kindergarten may or may not be too easy for your child. My son is 4. However, he has known his letters and sounds since before he was 2. He can read small words and has a pretty big vocabulary. I contribute this to us reading to him, a lot. Originally I thought if My Father's World Kindergarten was too hard or he didn't like it, we could put it away and try again in 6 months or the following year. I think it's perfect for him. We skip over a lot of the sounding out words but do a lot of the word discrimination activities and all of the hands-on activities it suggests. I've seen a major improvement in my son's handwriting and coloring ability. He loves cutting, pasting, drawing, stapling, and creating things. He loves the experiments that go along with the lessons. It's a gentle program and perfect for Pre-K or someone who hasn't done any formal schooling until kindergarten and/or child doesn't know the alphabet. Or someone who just wants their child to have a very laid back kindergarten year. By doing one curriculum you'll leave plenty of time for play dates, field trips, and other fun activities. Children are only young once!
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| Sorting the leaves we dried . |
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| Making a moon cake |
Here are a few fun activities we've done recently that go along with My Father's World Kindergarten.
He also built a rocket and has made a mobile. He's collected leaves, shaded the leaves, made two leaf books, and has had fun just playing outside and being a kid.
My son asks to do school every day! This is something I want to foster in him, a love of school and learning. A few weeks ago he started resisting wanting to read the Sonlight books. He wanted to go straight to doing My Father's World activities at the table. I switched it up and now I'm struggling getting him to sit and lesson to the Sonlight books. So for now, I'm putting them aside and we're going to mainly do My Father's World and read the other books and stories that seem of interest to him at night.
My son asks to do school every day! This is something I want to foster in him, a love of school and learning. A few weeks ago he started resisting wanting to read the Sonlight books. He wanted to go straight to doing My Father's World activities at the table. I switched it up and now I'm struggling getting him to sit and lesson to the Sonlight books. So for now, I'm putting them aside and we're going to mainly do My Father's World and read the other books and stories that seem of interest to him at night.
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