home school 4yrold hellp please

[mushpea]

the 4yold I mind was due to start school next week but they are moving house and have just been told she didnt get in to the school near their new house so they are appealing the desicion, they dont want to send her to the school which she did get in to as they feel it would be too unsettling to then move her within the month to another school as she is not the most confident child.
So I would like to help her by doing some school stuff with her at mine, obviously its still play based learning in the first year but does anyone know what sort of things they would need to know or that they teach ie she can write her name and recognize numbers, knows that numbers match groups of items, knows what shapes are called but not recognize their written name.
does she need to learn to write or read certain words,
does anyone know what the books are called when they first start school, the ones with one or two words in or just picture books?
I really want to help her so she dosent fall behind as she isnt very confident and if she walks in to school not knowing stuff she would feel left out.

[sarah707]

They have some really good workbooks in WH Smith or online.

you could speak to other home schoolers - there are lots of websites dedicated to it.

Hth :D

[jumpinjen]

The most important thing with learning to read is that you teach the letter sounds correctly, or you will do more harm than good. That means saying 'lllllllllllllllll' not 'luh' and 'mmmmmmmmmmm' not 'muh' and so on - if you google search phonic sounds you can find a whole list - focus in lower case letters and their sounds rather than names.

As for writing, encourage a good pen grip, but don't push her to write before she is ready as again will do more harm than good - take a look at the L and D matters for her age group and the early learning goals which are what a child is aiming towards by the end of the reception year.

The best thing you can do is keep boosting her confidence in new situations and in herself, ready for when she does start, when she is developmentally ready, she will learn these things so fat that you needn't worry about her getting behind - most Scandinavian countries don't start formal teaching til seven and their literacy and numeracy levels wipe the floor with ours in the UK!!!

For maths do lots of real life maths, looking at prices in shops, weighing, measuring, counting things, measure in footsteps, how many bricks, as well as cm's - sorting, categorising, playing with shapes etc

I consider this little girl lucky to be having some more time to be a child before being sent to school! Have fun!

Jen x

[kindredspirits]

I home educate my 5 1/2 year old son and with this age group it really isn't that difficult. I didn't manage to do phonics with him as he already knew the 'proper' letter names when he was 2- so if i was saying 'llll..' he'd say no mummy its 'el'. :rolleyes: funnily enough he can read far beyond the level of his peers.
I would just carry on along the lines of what you've been doing with her already. the Oxford Reading Tree books are very popular with schools. :thumbsup:

[jumpinjen]

The national recommendation for phonics called 'letters and sounds' is available as a free download - that has loads of information and will help you!

Jen x

[mushpea]

Thankyou all very much,, i have found a few things on line and have looked at the requirments of the eyfs , i will look in to the suggestions as well. the letter sounds I know well from temping in a school years ago, my only problem I think I will have is this little girl is very bright but when she dont want to do somthing she wont :idea: for instance when we were walking to the park we were looking at letters on car number plates and finding the letters in her name, after the park we went to a friends and I said what is the number on the door,, she woudnt even look at the number and just kept saying I dont know, she does know and it frustrates me because I know shes bright and kows her numbers but i guess this is her way of saying I've had enough now so I didnt push it and just left it.

[jumpinjen]

That's the right thing to do - not to push - at the end of the day, her education is her parent's responsibility in law - and whilst you want to provide a rich and challenging environment for her, pushing too much too soon is counter-productive, bright or not! I suppose you can tell how passionate I am about too much too soon lol! Hope it goes well! Jen x

[kindredspirits]

you are so right Jen - 18 months ago my DS was doing loads of times tables and division sums, now he claims he can't do it and actually cries with frustration so we've given maths a rest for the time being!:thumbsup:

[Maza]

As someone else mentioned, 'Letters and Sounds' is just fantastic. There are tons of activities to do before the children even begin to recognise letters, such as discriminating environmental sounds, rhyming, alliteration, hearing initial sounds, oral segmenting and blending. Recognising letters is just one small part of learning to read (albeit an important one). As a former reception teacher I used to spend the first half term doing Phase 1 activities from Letters and Sounds. After the first half term I would use Jolly Phonics to introduce a new sound each day.