What was school like for you? how much should we educate our kids and how early

[moogie]

When I was a kid I didn't attend preschool till i was 5 and then I started grade 1 the year i turned 6.  This was 9am till 3pm from grade 1-12.  Was it similar in the States?  I went to public school. 

Now it seems that grade 1-12 is about the same as when i was a kid but it seems that prior to school kids are starting learning earlier and that through school are learning more(atleast with private).  I hope they're still having fun and i think its great that a thirst for knowledge is being encouraged, i do wonder if some are being pushed beyond their desire to learn at age 3,4,5.  At the same time though I feel some are neglecting their childs desire to learn by leaving it up to the schools at age 6 andd then they're probably behind.  fine balance i guess. 

MIL teaches Charlie a lot.  I don't know exactly what but they use edu tools.  I'm reluctant to do anything purely edu as i don't want to over do it or double up.  I'm also curious what others are doing with their 2-3 yr olds in general as i feel a little on the back foot since I don't see C in large blocks of time to know what she'd enjoy doing at her age.  MIL isn't being very helpful in divulging what i could do so i just contnue to read her books, we play with a Mr potato head set, and ainly play outside. 

so if you guys could let me know what you do with your kids it'd help a lot.

this is a bit of a jumbled post, sorry.

[ShannonandDel]

Megs, school here sounds similar, only with kids going to preschool at three or four and then Kindergarten at five. 1st grade is at six. One of the reasons that we want to homeschool is that they are stressing academics at such a young age now. We have a friend who telling us how impressed she was with her son’s kindergarten class because they had homework every night. To me that is excessive.

With Delaney we are pretty much following her lead at this point. Awhile ago she was obsessed with letters. Now she couldn’t care less. She counts everything and makes us count with her. She loves to be read to and sometimes she will “read” to us by taking out one of her books and telling us what she sees on each page. We play dolls a lot, blocks, dress-up, play outside, swim. Nothing to exciting 
Are there any activities like gymnastics or music classes you could get her involved in? I know it is a great way to get kids together with other kids their age and right now I think our little December babies are really starting to enjoy other kids.
HTH
Shannon

[skeettafic]

Awhile ago she was obsessed with letters. Now she couldn’t care less. She counts everything and makes us count with her. She loves to be read to and sometimes she will “read” to us by taking out one of her books and telling us what she sees on each page. We play dolls a lot, blocks, dress-up, play outside, swim

Ditto!  Its funny because this is pretty much how Jocelyn's progression has been lately.  About 4-5 months ago she was all about the letters and seemed to know most of them but then *poof* she wants nothing to do with them.  But her counting is really taking off and she also counts everything!  At breakfast last week she lined up all the coffee creamers and counted them over and over.  We read a lot and do a lot of puzzles.  Tonight we painted and she also plays a lot of pretend.  The other night I was a bird and she kept catching me and putting me in the cage.  She would feed me nuts and seeds and then she would let me out so I could fly away. 

I never went to preschool and though I posted in the other thread about it, I don't know for a fact that we will send Jocelyn to preschool.  I know that there are now requirements of things kids "need" to know before entering kindergarten but I'm sure we could teach her those ourselves if she didn't already know somethings.  I honestly think it is ridiculous that kids now need to know their alphabet and how to write their name and things like that before starting school -- to me that's what kindergarten and 1st grade are for.  I think I would pull Jocelyn out of any school that gave kindergartners regular homework.

[moogie]

I think the idea of forced homework is such a croc.I always found it boring and repetitive and I'm sure it is one of the reasons i was a poor studier.  I hated to feel that i had to do study rather than wanting to.  kids are at school 6 hours a day, which is a long time so i think for them to have to do homework which really is practice.  what do others think?  Projects are different where they are learning and discovering themselves, but repetitive homework that they could and probably should do at school wth teacher assistance and guidance.

btw preschool here is for 5yr olds and is probably like your kindergarten.  What 3 and 4 yr olds go to is early learning.

Charlie goes to swimming and playgroup with her grandmama, and occassionally goes to a different playgroup with me.  I guess i was just hoping i was on par with playing with Charlie.  Its hard when i don't have full time care to know that i'm meeting her needs but it looks like we're going well.  And we're also making progress in getting her home, its a long process though unfortunately.

[kokonutmama]

with Kody I don't really "do" alphabet and couting at all.  There are a few reasons for it, including that my mom was so intense on extra learning, early learning, etc, and she was very competitive about the erudition of her kids with her brother and her friends, and I was therefore woefully ahead of the other kids in my classes in school and bored out of my head.  There's no reason for it.  k will probably end up in public school at least for the younger grades unless I can figure out a way to support us and homeschool well at the same time.  Another reason I'm not teaching him yet is that I see his creativity and thinking skills developing so well without it.  so what if he doesn't know any letters, he's only 2, there's pleanty of time for him to learn to read, right now I think the best thing is for him to explore his world.  We do work on social skills through pretend play.  We do gymnastics, I'm teaching him knife skills and other safety habits and we watch grown up educational TV together, which has really had an impact on his sentence constuction and vocabulary, as well as his awareness of things like how things work, how things come to be, the relationships between animals including humans, safety, relationships, etc.   

I do think that there is some value to homework from school when kids are learning something that just needs to be memorized, but nothing like the volume we used to get.  uhg.  I remember crying over my math homework every night, literally bored to tears.  I mean, I have a freaking DEGREE in math now, something is seriously wrong with that kind of system.

[jnezmama02]

I attended 1 yr of preschool 3 times a week for 2hrs a day (early learning), half-day kindergarten everyday, and then normal school hours after that.  I loved school, as far as the academics. I exceled in it. However, I was kind of shy and had a hard time relating to my peers as I was a year younger than most My bday is end of aug and my parents had an option for me to start K at almost 5 or almost 6 in florida...they started me at almost 5. Well, when I moved to Indiana, everyone in my grade was a year older,  Heck, I moved into my college dorm the week I turned 18yrs.  I'm glad that both Jessie and Emily won't start Kindergarten until they are almost 6yrs, due to the current cut-off of Aug 1st. It seems the older the kids are, the more "social" advantage they have.

As far as teaching the kids, I am starting a more structured learning time w/ Jessie where we go over letters and numbers thru fun activities. With Emily, I sing songs, count w/ her, ask her questions, etc...nothing structured yet.

As far as homework, I don't like most of it w/ kids...most of it is "busy work". However, I do think a certain amount of repetition is good for practice & some things just don't have time to finish during the school day. I also think it's good for the parents to know what's going on in school by supervising homework. Still, I'd rather my older kids go to school an hour longer to get time to do most of their homework w/ teachers to help and then actually get to have family time when they're home rather than them spending hours and hours in their room doing homework like I did in middle school and high school  (it was nothing for me to have 4hrs worth of homework a night...I too used to cry at how much school work I had to do, on top of all of my activities, chores at home, and "family time"). I just think there's no reason to stress kids out that much!!!