The hardest part of homeschooling has been figuring out the right schedule. What works best for the little man? What works good for me? What will the little lady be doing while I am working with the older one? How often should we do school work and for how long? There has been a lot of fine tuning over the past 2 years to figure this out and with this new change in life, will we need to make more changes?
Right now we have figured out that school work must be done while the little gal is napping (in a different room), otherwise it is like I am trying to teach the 2 year old how to write a paragraph (not happening, she's pretty darn smart but she's still at the scribbling stage).
Now I hate to admit this, but I am not the best at creating a bunch of lessons to teach him like I would for a class of 20 or so. I like using the hooked on phonics and other work books that I can find at the store and just add to those. People ask "What curriculum are you using?" I say what ever work book I can find at the store and what ever I feel like adding to it : )
I don't know what to say, I'm not working in a school where there are class sets of Houghton Mifflin books that I can just grab and teach him from. I know that there are companies that I can buy stuff from, but I would have to find that company, research what they have, see if it relates to where he's at, buy it , and hope that it's not a waste of money. Where as the dollar bins at Target have work books for a dollar and I can see right there if it at his level or if he will be there soon. No guessing, no research, no waste of money all this equals a happy momma and school work for the little man.
However my little man is not very self motivated, so how do I get him to do these work books? Most of the time by tapping on the book and reminding him of the task at hand. But I really am learning that he does best if I sit right next to him and read the directions with him, and guide him through the first part of every page. I just get so board. So today while he was working, right next to me, and the baby was asleep, I crocheted. I got another row of the enormous blanket for my husband done (each row is 315 stitches and so far the afghan is 123 rows, it's taken a year so far to make).Anyways it keeps me from getting board and a little warmer at night since the hubby likes to crank up the ac and we forgot to pack a warm blanket.
As for school work this seems to be working for now. We do about 2 hours of school work in a day, we do school work for 2 days then take on day off, and once a week we try to take a field trip. That field trip might be to a museum, the zoo, or maybe even the grocery store for math or science or art supplies. My husband loves that we get to teach him the real history and not what he learned in school and I just love that my little guy is advancing. He's excited about reading and more and more I notice him writing when I don't request it. For his age his right on track for where his friends at school would be (except writing, we still have a lot of work there).
This week we'll be going to check out a swamp nature center and get to learn about swamps. How cool is that. I get to learn so much more this way too. Will either of us ever head back to the class room? I don't know, I thought that was where I wanted to be but I never thought I would want to just teach my kids, the one on one is so much easier and I get to spend more time with them this way. It has also made it possible to go on the road with my hubby.
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