Homeschooling questions for VERY advanced 3 year old :)

[appleseed]

OK - so we are considering homeschooling for her because frankly she is quite precocious. She just turned 3 two weeks ago and she is already pre reading, doing addition and subtraction, her letters, and putting advanced concepts together herself!

So.....we could put her in K this fall. Or....we could just try to homeschool her as if she WERE going in K this fall and see how it goes. I know, a 3 year old in K is early, but the pre-K stuff is just too easy for her. She is already in K workbooks from Barnes and Noble, etc.

So.....we are considering Catholic homeschooling as well, so that puts us in an even smaller sub section of homeschooling.

My questions are many, but firstly, how many days a week must you homeschool in K and 1st grade?

Can you homeschool Friday, Sat. Sun, and Monday? Does it have to be in the "normal" week? (I am off Fri Sat and Sunday) so that might be beneficial to us.

How many hours for that age/grade level is appropriate?

Thanks for any advice and help ahead of time!

[Lily]

She sounds like she's doing very well following her own interests right now. Why make learning formal?

[kgianforti]

I can't offer any help on the Catholic homeschooling aspect but I can totally relate to your 3 year old. I have a dd that turned 3 about a month ago and they sound very much alike.

I do formally home school. She is very self-directed and loves going to school. One lesson I learned was to not buy your curriculum too early. I bought a preschool curriculum in March thinking "she's going into preschool so I need to buy a preschool curriculum." Wrong! Now I'm looking for supplements because it's too easy.

I'm not going to advance her to K this coming Sept. I will do a "preschool" with her but some subjects maybe at a K level and some will be at a normal preschool level (her fine motor skills are definitely at a 3 year old level). We will start official K in Sept 2010.

You can homeschool any day of the week you want, night or day. It's up to you and your family. We've done "school" during the week as well as on weekends. I started this past January and our actual "school" time lasted anywhere from 15 minutes to 1 hour (depending on how long the baby slept) or how often dd asked to do more.

I know many folks don't agree with early academics but I think as long as the child WANTS it, then it's fine. Don't let anyone sway you from doing what you think is best for your child.

[MelissaM]

You can homeschool any days you want, as long as it is working for your daughter. It doesn't have to be as formal as school though. Remember that school is structured to deal with a classroom full. Adjust your thinking to facilitating your daughter to LEARN any way that suits her.

[FFH]

Seeing your dd blossom in "school things" way ahead of time is just one of the many joys of hs. Your schedule can be flexible, and you can expose them to things that you want at the rate you want when you want...AND you get to experience with them!

Sounds like your daughter would love hs. You can always try it for pre-school or a full year of K, and then enroll in ps if you feel you need/want to. I bet you won't want to go the ps route once you taste hs!