3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: TEACHING FOREIGN LANGUAGES

As you know, we are a bilingual family. I am a native French speaker (from France), but my husband does not speak French, so we basically use the 'one person, one language approach', and for the most part, we speak English when we are altogether, except for when I need a 'secret' language to give Joey a stern warning of things to come when he does not behave... So essentially, Joey has received 'immersion instruction' for French, but only from me, until we were able to get him into a weekly class at the French Alliance, which has been wonderful to expose him to other native speakers. This has been a good start, but of course, this is not sufficient for him to become proficient in French to the same level he will be in English. Since birth, I have been getting him reading material in English and French, and when it is my turn to read to him at night, I only read the French books. Interestingly, as I related in a previous post, Joey picked up phonics in French completely on his own, at the same time he was figuring them out in English. 

So what kind of books did I get? As usual, once we were past the basics, I tried to pick educational topics rather than just fiction (not that there is anything wrong with that, but I like to kill two birds with one stone). To start, I got him Mon Bébé Sait Lire and Little Pim (French). Then, I started ordering a lots of books  from Amazon France: Babar; books by Catherine Dolto (which deal with life issues from the point of view of a young child); books from the 'Aïe!' series, which teaches about various dangers and how to avoid them by obeying your parents; 'Ça sert à quoi ?' series ('What is this for?'); La Petite Princesse series (life from the point of view of a three year old); books from La petite encyclopédie and Ma première encyclopédie series; Richard Scarry books in French; and more videos: Le Muppet Show (I remember these episodes from my childhood!); videos from la 'C'Est Pas Sorcier' series, which deals with scientific  concepts at the lay level. It is not cheap to order things from a foreign country... many times the shipping is as much as the books... but the fact that the French Alliance has a great library we can borrow from has alleviated this problem.  But what next?? I have started to look at more structured ways of teaching him French. Someone suggested that I just got him French classroom books, and this certainly seems like a good way to go. So I ordered a few books from France for KD-1st grade, but I am still not sure this is the way to go because it may not be engaging enough at Joey's age outside of a typical classroom environment. 

I looked into the Rosetta Stone Homeschool French program, but first of all, it ticked me off that they do not have direct downloads like they do for other versions of their language programs (so you have to order a CD, and Joey's Peewee PC did not come with a CD drive); and it is an 'immersion' program: in other words, unless you make a special effort to work on word lists and conjugations, it basically does not happen. You might say that Joey is so young, he can still acquire the language by just immersion. To which I will respond, yes, he can, and he already did this.. I was the 'immersion program'. But immersion does not replace the work you still have to do to learn proper grammar. There is just no way around sitting down and memorizing rules to really take language proficiency to the next level. 

SO a possible solution could be to go ahead with the Rosetta Stone program, but supplemented with more conventional instruction. For this purpose, I am thinking about using the Bescherelle Ecole : Regles / Grammaire / Orthographe / Conjugaison / Vocabulaire and the Petit Larousse Illustre 2013, both well-known reference tools for grammar and vocabulary used in France for generations. If this works, we could start using a similar system for Hebrew the following year, with the caveat that we would not be able to use 'native' books for grammar, so we would have to think about some other solutions... 

Update (October 2013): as we are winding down with the math work that involves manipulables (the Learning Palette,  2-3rd grade Folder Game Library from Lakeshore Learning,  and Common Core Math Standards Learning Center,  also from Lakeshore Learning), I am planning to start with French toward the end of December. After much hesitation, I went ahead and ordered the Rosetta Stone Program (level 1 to start) and a CD drive to install it on Joey's computer. I have to say the program is engaging and well organized. Level 1 is divided into four different units: each unit is divided into five lessons, and each lesson is further divided into a core lesson, and then emphasis on different concepts covered (vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, listening, speaking, review). The homeschool version also has worksheets (with translated instructions and solutions for home teachers who do not speak French, quizzes, and tests). So it strikes me as a good product so far, as long as vocabulary and grammar concepts are properly reinforced outside of the program. I also ordered the Bescherelle Ecole and the Petit Larousse Illustre 2013, but after trying to figure out how to translate the grammar lessons for our nanny, I decided to keep the Bescherelle for reference and instead get a French grammar book in English. After looking at the reviews, I decided on Tex's French Grammar, a well-organized web-site that non-native speakers can use, and conjugationfr.com to conjugate specific verbs. This is what the prep and instructions for our nanny look like for Unit 1, Lesson 1 looks like, aiming for 30 minutes of work per day: 

PREP WORK FOR ME
1. Make list of ALL words in the lesson
2. Identify the grammar concepts to go over
3. Print relevant grammar sections, including answers to online exercises
4. Add links to grammar on Joey’s computer
5. When you get to conjugation, make sure you go back and ask to conjugate verbs that have been covered in vocabulary

LESSON PLAN

Unit 1, Lesson 1: 
Nouns: homme, femme, garcon, fille
Determiners: un, une, la, le, les,
Pronouns: il, elle, ils, elles
Verbs: lire, boire, manger, courir, nager, cuisiner
Other: Bonjour, Au Revoir

Lesson 1 DAY 1: Core Lesson on Computer (30 min)

Lesson 1 DAY 2: 
a.Pronunciation on Computer (10 min)
b.Nouns: Look up in dictionary; have Joey read definition; practice writing by hand (ask: How do you say: X?)

Lesson 1 DAY 3: 
a.Vocabulary on Computer (5 min)
b.Verbs: Look up in dictionary; have Joey read definition; practice writing by hand (ask: How do you say: X?)

Lesson 1 DAY 4: 
a. Grammar on Computer (10 min)
b.“Introduction to Nouns” (handout). 

Lesson 1 DAY 5: 
a.Reading on Computer (10 min)
b.“Introduction to Determiners” (handout). 

Lesson 1 DAY 6: 
a.Writing on Computer (5 min)
b.“Introduction to Pronouns” (handout)

Lesson 1 DAY 7: 
a. Listening on Computer (10 min)
b.“Introduction to Verbs” (handout)

Lesson 1 DAY 8: 
a.Listening and Reading (15 min)
b.“Numbers (Singular, Plural)” (handout)

Lesson 1 DAY 9: 
a.Speaking (10 min)
b.“Numbers (Singular, Plural)” (online)

Lesson 1 DAY 10: 
a.Review (5 min)
b.“Er- verbs (regular) present tense” (handout)

Lesson 1 Day 11: 
a.Rosetta Workbook 1.1 and 1.2.
b.“Er- verbs (regular) present tense” (online)

Lesson 1 Day 12: 
a.Rosetta Workbook 1.3 and 1.4. 
b.“Er- verbs (regular) present tense” (conjugations: manger, nager, cuisiner)

Lesson 1 Day 13: Rosetta Workbook quiz and test. 
            
_____________________________________________________

Lesson 1 Material Rosetta Review (exercises in Tex’s French Grammar + conjugation of 5 other verbs) to be reviewed after lesson 2, after lesson 5 (the end of unit 1), and at the end of Level 1


Tex’ French Grammar Instructions

Working with handouts
• Read explanations to Joey in English on handout (let him follow along) BUT have Joey read ALL the French words and sentences. In the case of lists of words, make sure you translate for each word after Joey reads it (for instance in ‘Introduction to Pronouns’, have Joey read “Je”, then translate with “I”). 
• Have Joey do the exercise by hand (you will have an answer key, but if he gets it wrong, point to the relevant grammar rule). He needs to write the full sentences, not just the parts missing and make sure he pays attention to accents. 

Working with online version
•Read explanations to Joey in English on handout (let him follow along) BUT have Joey read ALL the French words and sentences. In the case of lists of words, make sure you translate for each word after Joey reads it (for instance in ‘Introduction to Pronouns’, have Joey read “Je”, then translate with “I”). 
•When mp3s are available, have Joey listen to them on computer (no headphones) sequentially. Point the words to him as the lady speaks them
•Have Joey repeat exercises on the screen. He can check his answers by clicking the relevant button

Working with conjugations
•Read explanations to Joey in English on handout (let him follow along) BUT have Joey read ALL the French words and sentences. In the case of lists of words, make sure you translate for each word after Joey reads it (for instance in ‘Introduction to Pronouns’, have Joey read “Je”, then translate with “I”). 
•Have Joey write out conjugations by hand for listed verbs (you will have a key)

3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

I think it is important for a child to have extra-curricular activities, but not too many at a time, and they should enhance, rather than detract from, what you are trying to accomplish overall. For example, I am not particularly interested in Joey becoming a 'jock' or getting his precious brain injured, so I will not allow participation in football, for instance, or soccer. That does not mean he should not be physically active, on the contrary, but there are other sports (swimming, running, tennis, crew, even basketball) that provide exercise and in some cases and even teach teamwork without the high potential for injury and without encouraging what I feel is aggressive behavior (like football). 

So as far as physical exercise, Joey has swimming lessons once a week, and as you have seen from prior posts (see here and here), he started very young with Infant Swimming Resource. One of the reasons we decided on this program, apart from the fact that it was THE sport a baby could practice, was out of necessity. We lived in an area with a lot of pools and year-long hot weather at the time, and there was hardly a month without reports of a young child drowning. I though that for a baby, this was a great gross motor developmental exercise too, although Joey has never been behind in this regard. We started when he was 6 months old, and repeated the program when he was a little over a year old. Both times, he did very well, and I felt reassured that if he ever fell into a pool, we would have that extra minute (I wouldn't count on much more) to rescue him because he would have learned not to panic and go back to a back float (and as a toddler to paddle to reach the rim and even pull himself out). 

Once we were done with this great program, he started small group (one or two toddlers) lessons, and then because of scheduling challenges, he had private lessons for a good while. Joey picks up the skills very quickly and loved swimming. Even though he is now at an age when he could try other things to a limited extent, it is clear that we found a sport he enjoys, provides good exercise, and is pretty bump and bruises-free. I think that within the next two-three years, Joey will become a strong swimmer, and we can move on to another sport (like tennis) or stay with swimming. 

Music: Neither I or Joey's Dad benefited from music instruction when we were growing up, and this is something we would like to provide for Joey. Because of our cultural heritage, the violin is our instrument of choice, but prior to that, we got Joey a little toddler piano. Not expecting much, we started teaching him a few basic tunes (using the color-coded sheets since we ourselves cannot read music), and he actually remembered a few! See below..:




Then shortly after he turned three, I started investigating the Suzuki method to teach him violin. I first learned about it in Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and it seemed like the only choice to teach very young children music (traditional instruction starts as young as age five, but the Suzuki method can be used with children as young as two). The method is very regimented, and although anyone reading this blog can see that I love structure, it felt more like adopting another religion than a teaching method, and it is quite demanding on the parents and care-takers, and requires daily listening of the Suzuki CD 1 (Suzuki Violin School: Violin Part, Vol. 1), which is basically two hours of 'Twinkle, Twinkle' and other simple tunes. Still, I certainly understand the need for a lot of repetition in young children and of course the general principles of making small but continuous progress at such a young age. So I started looking for a teacher, and let me say that the average Suzuki teacher is rather peculiar, or perhaps all music teachers are like this. And just because the Suzuki method can be taught to very young children, it does not mean that every teacher will have the patience and experience to teach these young children and actually make measurable progress. So we did find a teacher, and for now I am reserving judgement. Joey is making progress, but not quite as fast as I got used to with his other endeavors. Still, I would like him to persevere (a very important life lesson) and eventually (sooner rather than later) learn to play Klezmer violin. 

October 2013 update on violin. I thought I would share this bit of good news: something happened this week that made me very happy: Joey started to understand the value of practice with violin and doesn't protest anymore when I make him repeat a music sentence (actually he does it on his own when he messes up). Joey is also starting to read real music, with minimal effort on our part, and starts practicing the next tune ahead in the book on his own volition (not well, but still).... He really seems to enjoy it and is making steady progress transitioning between notes. Now I can say that violin is here to stay!

There's a video of his recent progress (November 2013): 

And finally, we have chess. Chess for very young gifted children is interesting because it stretches not so much their intellectual capacities or memory (Joey understands and remembers how to move the pieces without any trouble), but their developmental readiness to play a game. What I mean by this is that the motivation to win, the give and take of a game is developmental, not cognitive, yet it is essential to progress in implement game strategies. We are fortunate to live in a city with a very famous chess center, and the teacher there gave me his curriculum at no cost, and this is what we are doing (actually, Joey's Dad is implementing this on the week-ends). Joey is making steady progress, and this is very exciting. I expect that when he reaches the minimum age (five years old) to go to chess classes, we will enroll him. To encourage his development, when it comes to playing board games, I got some other games, not very challenging ones, like Kosherland (the Jewish equivalent of Candy Land) and 'What Should you Do: A game of consequences'. Finally, as a special motivator, I ordered a beautiful custom chess set from Natural Chess. 

3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: LONG-RANGE PLANNING FOR ACCELERATION

So now that we are pretty sure that we want to homeschool Joey at least part of the time, we need to figure out exactly how and to what extent we would keep up and document his acceleration. It is clear from the data available regarding homeschoolers (see earlier post) that homeschooling often leads to acceleration, even for non-gifted children, and despite the fact that many homeschool curricula 'follow' rather than 'lead' a child's progress and can be rather unstructured. There is just something about avoiding the traditional school environment, where so much time is spent in what I call 'crowd control' activities, that saves time. And of course, for these children who can learn faster than average, there is nothing holding them back when they are homeschooled. This is why many have time to develop interesting hobbies which, apart from stellar scores on standardized tests like the SAT, earns them spots in Ivy League universities. There's a very interesting article regarding why homeschoolers get into these schools. Also, if you happen to be on the homeschool2 college yahoo group, you will see that getting into MIT or Harvard (and many others) is also relatively commonplace for children with this type of background. So.. how to get there? 

In order to figure out a tentative plan, I looked at the minimal requirements from top universities. For example Harvard U. states 'an ideal four-year preparatory program includes four years of English, with extensive practice in writing; four years of math; four years of science: biology, chemistry, physics, and an advanced course in one of these subjects; three years of history, including American and European history; and four years of one foreign language'. MIT requires 'one year of high school physics; one year of high school chemistry; one year of high school biology; math, through calculus; two years of a foreign language; four years of English; two years of history and/or social sciences'. Washington U. states that 'most candidates’ transcripts include: four years of English; four years of mathematics. (architecture, Business, and Engineering strongly recommend calculus); three-four years of history or social science; three-four years of laboratory science (engineering strongly recommends chemistry and physics); at least two years of a foreign language'. So the bottom line is that most competitive universities have the same quantitative requirements (X years of Y), but of course not a the same level: the more selective the universities, the more AP courses are encouraged, and the better a student needs to do on these and standardized tests (some universities also require the SAT subject tests) to have a chance to get in. 

For homeschoolers who do not take outside courses (like JHU-CTY or others), their progress is more challenging to track than for those who do, but this is far from being impossible. For example, certain homeschool curricula (like Calvert, a highly rated program), offer interactions with teachers who also grade assignments; another option is to take achievement tests, such as the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test or A Beka Testing. Of course once you reach the level for standardized tests and AP exams, a student can document his/her achievements that way as well. 

Our current plan is to continue with JHU-CTY, provided Joey qualifies again when he reaches the age when he would normally finish the second grade (see previous post). Starting at our current level, and assuming that Joey maintains his current acceleration, I figured that he would finish all his high school requirement in time to enter college at 15 years of age. Going this way is not inexpensive, but it will save us ~$20K over full-time private school in our area. 

See below:

For a better view or to save, select and copy all the cells into your own spreadsheet. If anyone knows how to present more user-friendly and attractive spreadsheets/tables in blogger, please contact me!

3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: TO HOMESCHOOL OR NOT HOMESCHOOL

Technically, Joey, currently in pre-school, is already being home-schooled part-time. As a matter of fact, this is what this whole blog has been about so far.... early education by parents and/or care-givers.  Many children Joey's age do not go to pre-school full time. What is different about what we have been doing is that we purposefully limited his school exposure to what we considered the bare minimum for socialization. When Joey was 18 months old, we started with two mornings a week for a year, then we increased to three mornings a week for six months, and now that he is accelerated to an older class (and will therefore enter pre-K at three and a half), he is going every morning so he can bond with this group of older children as much as possible. Another thing we are doing differently is that when Joey is not in school, we are implementing the program I design and plan every week, so his activities are not a random sequence of events (they do include extra-curricular endeavors, which will the topic of a future post). Therefore, we are not relying at all on the school to provide his education, just play and socialization. Now, I realize this is a very interesting statement I just made... The fact is that at some point I came to feel, as a parent, that my child's education was going way too well at home and was way too important to entrust a school with the bulk of it. This was the first hint that perhaps we should look into homeschooling (either full-time or part-time, the latter being currently our preferred option). But we will come back to that. 

Our Options for Kindergarten:
Clearly, everyone's options will be different, but this may give you an idea of how we are going about this decision process, and may aid you during yours. Our priorities are as follows: 1. the ability to keep Joey on his accelerated path and document this is the case (because when he gets older, if he is doing college work, why shouldn't he get college credit for it, right?) and/or 2. the ability to homeschool him part-time (and by part-time, we mean half-days because who wants to be doing math after getting out of school at 3 PM?) 3. the ability to incorporate serious language instruction (French and Hebrew) and studies in our religious background (for us, it is Judaics). 

Option 1: the local Jewish day school. Great for Hebrew and Judaics, but not good for acceleration (from reviews of parents with gifted kids there), although they did agree to screen Joey for KD a year early (so at least there would be some acceleration). As a matter of fact, the reality of private schools is often that they are really good for kids 'within two standard deviations of the mean' cognitively, but not for kids who are four standard deviations from the means, which is what we are dealing with. Also it doesn't look like they are willing to consider a half-time option, even though there is quite a bit of interest in the local community for having that option. Finally, they don't have a French language program (or if they do, it is not immersion).

Option 2: a private Montessori school. Great for acceleration (it is built-in with Montessori) but perhaps not so great when it comes to documenting progress in terms of grade level. Also, the multi-age classroom would mean that Joey would 'lose' his current accelerated status. Not a deal-breaker though. They do have a half-day option and we might be able to argue to continue it in the higher grades. The other thing I love about Montessori is that the classrooms are very quiet, and this is good for gifted children, I think, who tend to get over-stimulated in noisy environments (actually, don't most children?) And this particular school also offers immersion French as an after-school activity (with a native French speaker who is a teacher there). Of course there are no Judaics or Hebrew (but no 'seasonal' units and decorations either, so good for us in this regard), so we would have to provide that during our homeschooling. This may present challenges because our nanny really doesn't have the background for it, so we will have to hire tutors, which will add quite a bit to the expensive private school bill. 

Option 3: our area has a special public school for highly gifted students, but it is so insanely competitive to get in that we are not banking on it... I think we will try for it anyway, but they only start in 1st grade (they would admit Joey early as long as he had attended KD in an accredited program).. and it is also a public school (what we were trying to avoid since a full day might mean little time for religious studies). I am not sure if they would allow part-time homeschooling due to the special nature of the program (part-time homeschooling is legal in our state). Clearly, we would have to provide foreign language and Judaics ourselves. 

Option 4: our area also has a French language immersion school. It is a public school, so not so great from this point of view and in a so-so neighborhood. However, the principal, having a highly gifted child himself, is very understanding and is completely on board with part-time homeschooling. So it would be free and we could provide tutors etc to cover Hebrew, Judaics, and other extra-curricular activities without too much problem. Joey would be grand-fathered into early 1st grade there if he had attended KD early in an accredited program the previous year OR if he had been home-schooled and had completed KD this way. An issue with this school is that we do not live in the right district, so this may be a non-starter. 

What about regular public school full-time? Regular public schools do have gifted programs, but being 'pulled out' to an older class or enrichment for a mere few hours a week is just not cutting it for children who are so far from the norm and who may have other issues, such as asynchronous development (i.e they are ahead cognitively and academically, but they are a bit behind in social and emotional maturity etc) or even deeper issues (such as children who are 'twice exceptional' or '2e'). Joey is a bit asynchronous, but not 2e. 

What about full-time homeschooling? Well, it is a possibility, and it certainly is tempting. I have read many books on the topic, including: Homeschooling for Excellence (very inspiring and some good advice there too, especially for those of you who are considering unschooling); Homeschoolers' College Admissions Handbook: Preparing Your 12- to 18-Year-Old for a Smooth Transition (absolutely awesome and full of practical information you can use); Early Entrance to College (also very useful); Homeschoolers' Success Stories (ok, not so useful but inspiring); Creative Home Schooling: A Resource Guide for Smart Families (I am not done with this one yet, but it seems that a large portion of it is dedicated to why homeschooling is best for some children). One truly inspiring book is "College by Twelve". It is an eBook that you can purchase. Clearly this family's background is nothing like ours, but it was still a great resource. So full-time homeschooling is on the radar, but things that concern me are: 1. vulnerability: if you do this full-time, your child's education is (for the most part, although not 100%) provided by one person. So you are completely dependent upon this one person, therefore if an illness or other change of fortune occur, you could find yourself without a teacher and without supervision for your child during the day; if you home-school only part-time, there is a readily available back-up if any of these things happen 2. socialization: it is clear from the data that home-schoolers are very well socialized, but it does take an extra effort and a higher level of vigilance to make sure that peer contact does happen on a regular basis. Also, in our case and although the homeschooling movement is a lot more diverse than it used to be, we do not fit the typical profile of a homeschooling family, so it may be more challenging to socialize our child with people we can easily relate to; 3. on a related topic, so much of Judaism focuses one one's ability to function as part of a community and to be part of a community. In other words, religion, while it encompasses things like law and history, is not just an intellectual pursuit that you can get good at 'in a vacuum' (by the way, the same comment could apply to learning a language). Certainly, this can be achieved through means other than a day school (like regular worship attendance and other related activities), but it is clearly more easily achievable when your child attends a faith-based school. 

So this is where we are at right now! I will update this when I find out more information and as the year progresses. 

3 TO 4 YEARS OLD: OUR PROGRAM

As Joey turned three, he was well on his way to mastering 1st grade math with the help of  Syngapore Math, the Learning Palette, and 'Meet the Common Core Math Standards Learning Center' (Lakeshore Learning), not to mention the Mathstart book series (also good for reading!). For addition and subtraction, he was getting really good at counting in his head (as opposed to having to count on his fingers), and we used the 'addition and subtraction machines'  (Lakeshore Learning). He also started writing out additions and subtractions, at first without any carrying over. For this purpose, we got the 'Beat the Clock! Addition/Subtraction Facts to 18 Practice Board' (Lakeshore Learning). One day, we decided to teach him to carry over, and it was 'no problem', he just got it. At that point, I felt like we could move on to 2nd grade material, but first look at this video we took of Joey doing some additions. 

For second grade, we basically got all the same material as for 1st grade, but for 2nd grade (duh). That includes the 'Building Thinking Skills' series from The Critical Thinking Co.  In addition, we got the 2-3rd grade Folder Game Library from Lakeshore Learning, including: 'Place Value';'Numbers and Operations'; 'Geometry', 'Time & Measurement', and 'Money'. 

In anticipation of doing multiplications and divisions, we got the 'multiplication machine' and the 'division machine', just like we did for additions and subtraction, as well as the 'Beat The Clock' practice boards for multiplications and divisions. We also got the 'Learn-To-Multiply Magnetic Center' and 'Building Fractions Activity Center'. All from Lakeshore Learning. We will not rely on manipulables near as much this year as we did before, but one manipulable which we have found indispensable this year so far are the Learning Resources Folding Geometric Shapes: they are 3D shapes which open up and you can take out and look at the nets (the 3D shape flattened up)... this is important to figure out the number and shapes of the faces that make out the 3D shapes, an important 2nd grade skill. In the past, we would focus on manipulables exclusively at first, then only slowly moved to more conceptual ways of teaching the material. This year, the manipulables have more of a support role, and I anticipate that this will be the last year we will use them. It will also free up some time to focus on more structured learning of French (which he speaks and reads fluently) and Hebrew (just knows the letters and a few words). I will create a separate post to deal with learning languages. Another resource I am finding very useful is a math worksheet generator to make up additions and subtractions (and multiplications and divisions too) with a certain number of digits, borrowing or not, carrying or not, etc.  

I will have a separate post on teaching simple operations (from pre-emergent skills to conceptual understanding to solving simple then more complex operations with regrouping, borrowing, etc), but I want to mention two wonderful tools once your child has memorized the simple operations (only strive to do this if they completely understand the concepts because otherwise it will be a waste). The first tool for additions/subtractions is Math Slam...I usually shy away from electronic toys, due to their hypnotic tendencies and also because I don't like a lot of noise, but in small doses, it is a wonderful and engaging way to practice without doing worksheets. The second is the FlashMaster: Handheld computer for mastering math operations, which helps practice all basic operations, at different levels, and allows you to move the question mark around (so the question is not always X*Y=?, but can be X*?=Y), which is a good introduction for algebra. The Flashmaster is also great for restaurants because it is quiet. More details on my 'Best Stuff' page. 

I felt that this transition into 2nd grade material would also warrant moving from practicing reading and basic comprehension to material which was more focused toward language arts and more advanced text comprehension (see my blog page on gifted resources, which talks about the advantage of early reading). So to start, we got 'Reading Informational Text Common Core Standards Learning Center', 'Reading Literature Common Core Standards Learning Center', and 'Writing Common Core Standards Learning Center' (all from Lakeshore Learning). We have not used this material yet (but will start next week), so I will review it in the next few weeks. Also, to prepare for KD screening (which will be a year early for Joey), I got 'Let’s Talk! Conversation Starters' (by the way, so far, these have extremely helpful!) and 'What Should You Do? A Game of Consequences'. I expect that during the screening, Joey's tendency to go off on a tangent (talking about something he read that interests him, for instance, but may have nothing to do with what is going on at the time) may be misinterpreted, so we have to give him a bit of coaching in the art of regular conversation. We will see how that goes..!

I haven't said anything about learning science yet. When Joey was younger, we got him a 'Primary Science Set', and now we are using the 'Thames & Kosmos Little Labs: The Human Body' and will continue with this series. What I like about it is that there is very little need for additional material (I am really not the type to mess up my kitchen for 'experiments' or do a lot of crafts). We also got the 'Facinating Facts Human Body Game', a pretend doctor's play kit, Science Vocabulary Readers Set (beware that the kit comes with multiple copies of the same books, so it is expensive for what it is), etc. Otherwise, we got books about scientific topics, whatever Joey is interested in at the time. So for a while, he wanted to know all about good microbes and bad microbes, so we got basic and well illustrated books on microbiology like 'Micro Mania', 'Bacteria: Staph, Strep, Clostridium, and Other Bacteria (Class of Their Own)', and will probably get the rest of the series. We got him a subscription to 'National Geographic Little Kids' and a little specimen collection toy for when we go hiking (to motivate him to keep walking... so he can find other 'specimens'). So unlike for other areas, we are not so structured when it comes to science because compared to math, I feel it is easy because he understands and memorizes things easily. Joey also seems to have a natural affinity for building things and 'motion physics', including 'fluid dynamics'. These are big words to describe his obsession with the Marbulous  (he builds them and tests his designs after each major addition - so quite a scientific process for him) and anything that involves 'following a certain path'... he has been really interested in the heart circulation, for instance, and anything like mazes.... you get the idea.
November 2013 update: Now Joey (a couple of months short of four years old) is really into the elements and the periodic table (I got him this wonderful book:The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe). So Joey decided he was done giving the answers for the multiplication table (this is one of his favorite 'songs' at bedtime) 'the normal way'.  Now he only wants to answer them by using the symbol for the element whose atomic number is the result (he memorized these for fun on his own). I don't even know what some of these are, let alone their names.   

Otherwise, he has been doing Ravensburger- 100 Piece Puzzle pretty much on his own, so we are moving to the 200-piece variety. 

This last spring, we also signed him up for the John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (JHU-CTY) since he was eligible thanks to his SBV scores. The first math course is for pre-K, but since Joey is accelerated by one year, they let him take the course early. This program is incredibly great... I was really nervous at first because Joey had not spent any time on a computer, so we had him practice for a couple of month using E-Learning for kids, which is a really handy and free resource. This included teaching him how to use the keyboard, and things like drag and drop. It didn't take long for Joey to master these skills (I suspect it wouldn't take any kid very long, nowadays), and we were ready for JHU-CTY and pre-primary mathematics. So far, he is doing wonderful in the course, and we expect to finish early (it is self-paced) and move on to the 1st grade course. I intend to use this program to validate and document his actual skill level and to continue accelerating him, since he can fulfill all his requirements for primary and secondary school, including AP classes, through this program, as long as he qualifies again through the talent search by the time he would normally finish 2nd grade (more details on this post). Next spring (after he turns four), we will tackle some of the language arts courses for young children (the Young Reader series), so I think that focusing on language arts and text comprehension this coming fall, as well as starting to have him type simple sentences on the computer, will prepare him for that. We will also sign him up for 2nd grade math this spring, and it will be a challenge because it will be nose to nose with what we are doing at home, so he won't have the advantage of having mastered the material prior to the course. 

August 2013 update on the John Hopkins program. It turns out that Joey finished the pre-primary math course about three weeks early, so he went into accelerated 1st Grade Math and finished it in three weeks (!). The format is a bit different because the course is borrowed from the Stanford U. gifted program. There aren't regular exams like in the native John Hopkins U. courses, you just go faster or slower depending on how many wrong answers you give and when you reach the next grade in all areas, then you take a final exam. Joey will, in all likelihood, take the 1st grade final this week, and move on to 2nd Grade. I wasn't planning to have him take 2nd grade math until next spring, but I already paid for the next three months, so we might as well continue!

October 2013 update on the John Hopkins program: Joey finished 2nd Grade in one month and is going into 3rd Grade Math. It is hard for me to believe, but it is true.