Bad to push 5 year old on academics outside of school?

[Anonymous]

Our DD is in a DCPS in kindergarten. It is less rigorous than the charter she attended for PS/PK, where she did very well in math. To supplement what she's doing in school (not much), and so she doesn't entirely lose the progress she made in PS/PK, we have her do math worksheets and workbooks. She seems less than thrilled to be doing them, but generally complies. When she gets a question wrong, she tends to hang her head and gets very discouraged, even though we tell her it's ok to make mistakes, as long as she's trying. Are we pushing too hard, or is this reasonable? We're talking about 15-20 minutes a day, 3 times a week, but she already has a long day with before care, K, and aftercare til about 6. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Too much. Let her play afterschool and do math the fun way (recipes, measuring things, counting all the red legos and dividing them between the two of you, etc).

[Anonymous]

I think your current method is really setting her up to dislike school and feel like she isn't smart. Instead of worksheets, why not get some math oriented games and integrate math talk into your everyday activities at home?

[Anonymous]

You're pushing too hard. Some kids enjoy packets and worksheets and some don't. If the latter, forcing it at 5yo is totally counterproductive. If you want to work on math skills, give her a measuring tape to play with, cook together, count steps to the bus stop and all that other fun stuff that just happens to use math.

[Anonymous]

I would back off on the worksheets and do more games or other more hands-on type math problems. Add and subtract toys, for example, or use beans or pasta to practice fractions and dividing.

[Anonymous]

How were they doing math in the PRek program she was in? Was it workbooks/worksheets? Did she enjoy the math earlier? Can you mimic what she was doing?

[Anonymous]

Yes. Let it go. They learn so much from playing and being creative and making up her own stuff and stories.

[Anonymous]

I'd back off. Like the others said, let her help you cook or have her take a "census" of her stuffed animals. You gave her a good foundation, but even if she "forgets" something she knew, the foundation is there and it will come back easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our DD is in a DCPS in kindergarten. It is less rigorous than the charter she attended for PS/PK, where she did very well in math. To supplement what she's doing in school (not much), and so she doesn't entirely lose the progress she made in PS/PK, we have her do math worksheets and workbooks. She seems less than thrilled to be doing them, but generally complies. When she gets a question wrong, she tends to hang her head and gets very discouraged, even though we tell her it's ok to make mistakes, as long as she's trying. Are we pushing too hard, or is this reasonable? We're talking about 15-20 minutes a day, 3 times a week, but she already has a long day with before care, K, and aftercare til about 6. Thanks for your thoughts.

It is reasonable for some kids. It is not reasonable for other kids. The question is, is it reasonable for your kid? What do you think? You know your kid best. You know how she's reacting.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks much for the feedback from all. Will ease up on the worksheets and try to incorporate math in other ways that are more fun. In response to one question, I'm not sure what they did in PS/PK that she liked, but it was probably more fun than worksheets!

[Anonymous]

We do it. I think it good to do a small supplement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks much for the feedback from all. Will ease up on the worksheets and try to incorporate math in other ways that are more fun. In response to one question, I'm not sure what they did in PS/PK that she liked, but it was probably more fun than worksheets!

I'm that PP.. I think there are some great math games/toys out there for little kids. Look into that. My 2nd and 5th grader love going on the computer. So, I let them play fun math games online (timed, race against others, going up to next level, etc...).

[Anonymous]

I'm torn on this because my kid is also in K, also pretty good at math, but showing resistance to sitting down to "learning" at home.

On the other hand, my mom was a teacher and I was forced to do lots of exercises and workbooks at home.

On the third hand, I always hated school. Hated it.

I think the thing to do is find the lessons in real life like a PP sugested. Learning to tell time has been great for teaching fractions and a weekly allowance has been amazing for addition, subtraction, multiplication and recently division. He still does the occasional Kumon, but he's much more excited about figuring out how many weeks he needs to save in order to buy some toy he wants.

[Anonymous]

Way too much. Let her learn to love school. Sounds like the extra work is discouraging her and making her dislike academics. I would stop any worksheets you are giving and talk to the teacher about fun ways you can incorporate academics at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How were they doing math in the PRek program she was in? Was it workbooks/worksheets? Did she enjoy the math earlier? Can you mimic what she was doing?

I suspect it was appletree--very heavy on academics for PS/PK.