BJU Press Blog

kindergarten

The Pressure of Preschool

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Preschool Playing“My son can already write his name!” says a proud mother. “My daughter is not quite four, and she has just learned to read!” says another. One mom shrinks back into her seat, wondering if she’s doing something wrong. Should her son or daughter be reading at age three or four? Should her two-year-old be learning to form the shapes of letters?

For decades, parents have felt the pressure to hurry their preschoolers’ learning. They don’t want their children to be left behind. For homeschool parents, the pressure is even greater. They may feel that the world is looking at them more critically, ready to point out any perceived underachievement. If you’re feeling the pressure to teach your child more aggressively or to start kindergarten early, consider these important factors.

Rates of Development

Babies learn to crawl, walk, and talk at different rates; there is no ideal timetable. It’s the same for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Some will learn to read quickly; others will catch on to math concepts; and others may simply be interested in movement and play. Trying to force a child to mature more quickly can lead to behavioral issues and a dislike of learning.

Freedom to Grow

Kids need time to invent, explore, and create. They need space to run, jump, and climb, especially during the formative preschool and kindergarten years. Giving them the freedom to experiment, discover, and move through their world builds their confidence and their ability to solve problems—things that will prove valuable when they begin their homeschool years.

Perceptions of Potential

If you stress reading too early, you might become frustrated and discouraged; you may even think that your child doesn’t have the potential to be a great reader. That’s not necessarily the case; he may simply be operating on his own schedule.  Instead of frustrating yourself and your child, wait until the time is right to begin a more organized style of homeschooling.

Statistical Proof

A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that delaying kindergarten for a year had remarkable benefits for children. Kids who were seven when they started formal instruction were measurably more attentive and less hyperactive at age eleven than kids who began kindergarten at the “normal” age of five or six. The kids who started kindergarten a year later had more time to learn self-control and mental focus before beginning their school career.

Preparation for Kindergarten

You can introduce your child to text and numbers in many age-appropriate ways. There are numbers on calendars, clocks, mile markers, your house, and store receipts. Words are everywhere—on cereal boxes, toys, storefronts, street signs, letters, and clothes.

When you read storybooks together, ask your little ones to show you the pictures and point to text. You are developing your child’s “print awareness” which is a prerequisite to phonics instruction. Where are the characters? What are they doing in the picture? What will happen next? It’s a fun way to engage with your children and start teaching them about story components and progression without getting too academic.

Maybe your little ones would enjoy dictating stories or letters for you to write down and read aloud. These activities emphasize the relationship of thought to oral and written language. And if those little bodies start to get wiggly, maybe it’s time to switch to another kind of education—learning through play.

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Rebecca is a work-at-home freelance writer, novelist, wife, and the mom of two bright-eyed little ones. She credits her success in writing and her love of books to her own mom, who homeschooled three kids from pre-K through high school.

Why Is the Sky Blue and Other Kindergarten Mysteries

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Hard Questions
If you have young children, you know that soon after they get over saying the word no, their favorite word quickly becomes why. Kindergarteners can ask an average of four hundred questions a day. They’re innately curious, and while their curiosity is healthy, some of their questions can throw you for a loop.

They might ask: Why is water wet? Where does the sky end? What happens if a man turns into a dinosaur while he’s being arrested?

How should you respond to your children’s questions? How do you answer when you know they won’t be able to fully understand? Keep the following points in mind when your children ask questions.

Opportunities for Learning Activities

Many of the questions your children ask could lead to activities that you can do together. Even though they may not understand the explanation, they will enjoy, and probably remember, the activity that goes along with that explanation.

If they ask why the sky is blue, they may not understand about wavelengths, the color spectrum, and how light scatters in the atmosphere, but they would have a lot of fun creating rainbows with water hoses.

If they ask how airplanes stay up, they may not fully realize the significance of thrust and lift, but they might enjoy making paper airplanes and watching how the shape changes the flight.

While these activities won’t completely answer the question, they’ll form a valuable foundation. Later, you will be able to refer back to it when your children can understand.

How Much Your Children Want to Know

A question is almost always a request to begin learning, but how much do your children want to learn? They may accept a short, concise answer that gives them a basic understanding of the concept. Or they may try to understand more complicated concepts by asking even more questions. Giving them a long explanation they didn’t want might make your children think that learning is boring.

So, if your children ask how fish breathe under water, telling them that they have gills might be enough. But you may also find yourself explaining how gills filter oxygen out of the water.

Taking Questions Seriously

It’s easy to brush off a complicated question with an empty explanation. For example, when I was little, my family liked to answer questions with “it’s magic.” For us, it was a code for “I don’t know, and you’re too young to understand anyway.”

How might children’s impressions of learning change if, every time adults didn’t know the answer, they responded with “I don’t know, but why don’t we see if we can find out together?”

By taking their questions seriously, you may instill in your children a willingness to find out, even about the simplest of questions, and you may catch them using your methods for finding out on their own.

There will never be enough time in a day to thoroughly answer all four hundred questions your kindergartners might ask. But by taking time to answer some of your children’s questions, you can foster their curiosity and love of learning. What kinds of unexpected or surprising questions have your children asked? How did you answer them?

Kindergarten Math Hands-On Activity (Printable)

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In my last post—One Thing Your Kids Need to Know to Excel at Math—I talked about how important it is for kids to master the concept of base ten at an early age (typically in kindergarten). Now it’s time to take those ideas and use them to break down numbers into groups of ones and tens to be ready for problem solving.

Let’s take apart the number 13.  Thirteen contains one group of ten and three ones. It can be helpful for kids to visualize this and manipulate the different groups of objects with their hands to gain real understanding.

To make this easier, I’d like to share a tool from our Math K5 curriculum called a ten frame, which is just a simple way to explore a not-so-simple concept. You can use items you have around the house as counters to fill the boxes in the frame. Pennies, dry beans, and cereal (yummy!) work well for this. Counters are grouped into tens and ones to visualize two-digit numbers.

Download your printable ten frame here.

Activity

Start with two ten frames. (Download yours here.) Fill one ten frame with counters. Have your children begin counting starting with 10. Have them circle the filled ten frame with a finger as they say “10” out loud. As they say each additional number (11, 12, 13), have them place one counter in a section on the second ten frame.

Finish with questions like these:

  • How many more than 10 is the number 13?
  • How many more counters do we need to make 14?
  • How many groups of 10 do you have?
  • How many ones?

You can repeat this activity with several ten frames to make even larger numbers.

I hope you find this activity helpful. It and many others are included in our Math K5 Teacher’s Edition.

 

One Thing Your Kids Need to Know to Excel at Math

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In this age of chip-card transactions and smartphone “tap and pay,” I don’t usually have a reason to carry much cash. When I do need some extra cash, I go to the ATM at my local bank. I usually have a specific item that I need cash for, so I know exactly how much I need down to the dollar. But the ATM lets me withdraw only in multiples of ten. It’s one of life’s minor frustrations.

Have you ever wondered why so many things are broken down by tens? Why is the number ten so important to our society? No one’s sure, but some historians theorize that it’s because humans have ten fingers.

Regardless of why, our number system based on ten is one of the most pervasive aspects of human society. Nearly all countries and cultures use the base-ten number system for everyday uses. As adults we take understanding it for granted, but base ten can be a difficult concept for kids to pick up, and learning it early is critical for math success.

What is base ten?

Base ten is the number system that we use every day that uses columns to show place value. When a number is written out, each digit is assigned a column to show its value. We can see from the graphic below, the value of the 5 is ten times greater than the 3, while the 6 is one-tenth its value. This pattern continues as you move left or right.

Why is base ten important?

Getting a firm grasp on base ten is key to understanding math. Once your child understands how base ten works, many new doors will be opened.

If children lack a good understanding of the base-ten number system, they’ll have a hard time counting or visualizing quantities. They may only be able to count by ones, instead of by tens or hundreds. Learning more advanced math concepts such as long division becomes nearly impossible.

If a child doesn’t understand that the 5 in 58 actually represents 50, then lots of calculation problems can begin to show up as you move into more complex concepts, leading to a lot of frustration for both parent and child.

How and when should I teach my kids base ten?

It’s important to start early. BJU Press Math introduces this concept in K5 and reinforces it throughout the early grades.

The key to mastering base ten is visualization. Separating groups of ten from groups of ones visually early on helps develop understanding. This can be accomplished using hands-on manipulatives such as Unifix cubes or pennies.

Take a look at page 81 of BJU Press Math K5 Worktext.

The worktext asks the child to circle the group of ten that is visually separate from the remaining items. It then asks the child to write the numeral below. The image groupings above correlate with the tens and ones columns below.

The important thing in teaching this concept is to stick with it. Don’t get frustrated if things don’t click at first.  Keep trying a variety of visualizations and hands-on manipulatives until you find something that your child relates to. Need some ideas? The BJU Press Math K5 Teacher’s Edition is packed full of teaching advice and strategies.

Learn more about BJU Press Math K5

Make Your Kindergarten Curriculum Work for You

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KindergartenStructure

Quite a few homeschoolers attend my church. Several months ago, I had nursery duty with three other homeschool moms. The topic of conversation? Homeschool curriculum. Even in that small group, everyone had an opinion about what curriculum worked best for certain types of learners.

There are a lot of curriculum choices out there, and each of them has different strengths. My school-age daughters have both used the BJU Press curriculum. My oldest daughter has used it for K4, K5, and first grade; and my middle daughter has used it for K4. They have very different learning styles, but one of the strengths of BJU Press curriculum is its flexibility.

The curriculum isn’t designed for one type of learner—it’s designed for all types of learners. In a lot of ways, the BJU Press curriculum is like a roadmap—the objective is the same for everyone, but you get to choose where you stop along the way and how long you linger at each place. Below are two examples of how you can customize the BJU Press kindergarten curriculum to fit your child’s needs. I’ve chosen to focus here on the kindergarten curriculum since I’ve had one child use it already and another child who will use it this fall.

Customizing Your Lessons

One way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by customizing individual lessons to fit the learning style of your child. You don’t have to do everything the Teacher’s Edition suggests. For example, the K5 curriculum includes a lot of songs that are designed to help kindergarteners remember challenging concepts (such as the difference between the hour hand and the minute hand on a clock).

My oldest daughter doesn’t remember songs well—the Lord hasn’t gifted her with that ability. I would have probably skipped over that part of the lesson. However, since my middle daughter loves music and singing really helps her learn, we will probably sing every song in the book multiple times.

Making Use of Optional Activities

Another way you can make BJU Press’s kindergarten curriculum work for you is by using some of the optional activities in the Teacher’s Resource CD to provide extra practice for your child if he or she is struggling with a concept. For example, BJU Press Math K5  introduces kindergarteners to the concept of fractions by teaching parts of a whole.

If my middle daughter struggles to understand that concept, I could pull out the Teacher’s Resource CD that’s attached to the inside back cover of the Teacher’s Edition. This CD contains an entire section of extended activities that are organized by chapter. Since I know that my daughter is a very kinesthetic learner, we would probably play the shape matching game that is explained in chapter 13.

You as the parent/teacher know your child best; you know your child’s strengths and weaknesses. So take advantage of the flexibility of the BJU Press curriculum and customize it to meet your child’s learning needs.