First Hiccups

Well, it's not even September and we've run into our first homeschool hiccups. You know it's going to happen, even if you pray it doesn't.

First one is actually a pretty good thing. Claire LOVES her handwriting practice. She's doing so well with Handwriting Without Tears. I should have realized this might be a problem when got her the Pre-K book in April and she finished it in July. We started the Kindergarten book on July 29th, one month later we are at page 47 of 93. Yes, half the book in one month! I figured I had three options:

#1 - Go ahead and get the 1st grade handwriting book.

#2 - Just give her extra practice sheets of my own invention ... for the rest of the year ...

#3 - Get a Kindergarten book from a different publisher to give her the same level work.

There were cons to all of my options, for #1 I was afraid that if I just went ahead and got the 1st grade book she would be ready for the 2nd grade book by January and the 3rd grade book (and cursive!) by next April! While I don't want to hold her back I don't think she will be ready for that ...

For #2 I was afraid that it would bore her and I don't want to loose her motivation and excitement at practicing her letters. Also, I would have to create several practice sheets for her everyday.

The only con I thought of for #3 was that the letters would be formed slightly differently. I'm not sure if that would confuse her or not. After considering it for a few days and asking advice from some awesome fellow homeschool moms I decided that option 3 was my best bet. So I ordered the Kindergarten workbook from my runner up when I was deciding curriculum Zaner-Bloser. I hope she likes it and I figure when we finish it I will just go to the Handwriting Without Tears First Grade book or we can continue with Zaner-Bloser if she loves it.

Well, I have children who require my attention, so I will talk about our other hiccup in a later post!