At this point, we are not part of the local Home School Association. I have spoken with a few home school moms and have researched online and have read a few books on the subject and there is 1 thing in common with all of my resources. They all report that no 2 home schools are alike. That is good to know, so I know that I won't be completely wrong.
I am blessed to have 2 very smart children and found that I really don't need to plan lessons at this point. I let them do their assigned work and when they have a problem with something, they come to me and we have individual lessons. Sometimes I have to learn new things in order to teach them. Lattice multiplication is an example of something that I have never done before, but I have taught my 3rd grader how to do it and he scores nearly 100% on pages where he uses that method.
We started by me reading a chapter of a book in the mornings and then saying the Pledge of Allegiance and praying and starting work. We had a break for "recess" and then more work. We found that this pattern was not working for us. I really like structure, so I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to help. One fantastic thing about our school is that we know where to turn when we don't know what to do. Not the internet, God! We turn to God! As I prayed about what we should do, I was led to begin the day with a prayer and then seat work. At one hour time, we have to stop what we're doing and regroup. We stretch and we get our wiggles out and then we have our reading time. I read aloud to the children and they enjoy it. It is not part of our curriculum, but we are currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I've never read them before so I am enjoying it almost as much or more than the kids.
We will not do more than 1 hour in a row of seat work because it is too frustrating to sit for a long time and be expected to produce good work. After each hour we take wiggle breaks and we have science lessons and art and music depending on the day.
When we started, my son was jealous of my daughter who got to sit with Mommy and read out loud. In early reading this is necessary, but it is difficult for him to comprehend. He felt that I favored his sister and so he decided that he needed to read out loud. Well after about a week of that, he changed his mind and said that it took too long to read out loud and he would read to himself. We also changed how I assigned his reading portions. If he had a story with chapters, I was assigning it as one chapter per day, but he wanted to read the whole story. Now he reads the entire story in one day and then does his workbook activities for the next few days covering each chapter.
I haven't quite put my finger on my daughter's favorite way of learning yet, but I know she hates seat-work and really hates handwriting. I take off points if she is sloppy and she always puts off her handwriting until last. In fact she writes more neatly in her language workbook than in her handwriting workbook.
I think our entire home school experience will be dynamic. We will learn how to learn and hopefully continue learning forever. Can you imagine how boring a song would be if it were only one note and one rhythm and one dynamic the entire way through? Our life songs will have faster and slower tempos, crescendos and decrescendos, piano and fortisimo, multiple rhythms and pitches. Learning to play each section will be the challenge and I am ready to take them on!
I am so jealous of you. Wish I was doing this with Tate. He hates handwriting too and got behind because he just wasn't doing it. He told me he know how to write so he doesn't need to keep doing it. He also does better when he is not confined to a book and a certain way of writing. He loves creative writing and doing it on his own in his own time and in his own way.
ReplyDeleteTate and I read all of The Chronicles of Narnia too. We love them.