Posted in A lifestyle of learning - thoughts on education
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Now I have been struggling for sometime (actually, make that the entire 17mths we have been homeschooling!) with the whole homeschooling thing - as in actually getting some of the 'schooling' part done!!! LOL! It just seemed like life got in the way so much, and being the ADD girl I am, I get easily distracted and found that often the day would be gone and not much school got done (other than read-aloud's which are my major priority). Our school-age children are 7 (almost 8) and 6.5 years old. I had felt since the beginning of our hs that I wanted to do our 'own thing' and make up our own curriculum, I have found this to be extremely time-consuming and that it requires a lot of work from me because my children are not reading and writing fluently yet. So after much soul-searching I decided that I needed to give myself a break and SIMPLIFY. I didn't want to buy an all-in-one curriculum for several reasons (mainly being significant cost and the fact that I think I'd feel burdened and trapped by prepackaged curriculum)...so what was a girl to do??? I had been resistant to workbooks & worksheets, because I felt that it was just 'busy work' and like it was somehow cheating...silly huh? I loved the idea of a Charlotte Mason style curriculum (I still do!), but I also liked the idea of real-life based learning (does that mean we don't need to do school?? LOL!).
I have now realised that it's OKAY to use worksheets and workbooks. Not as the sole means of learning, but as a helpful tool to make sure that the basics get done. So what am I using you ask? How much did it cost you ask??? www.learningpage.com and the cost is FREE (you need to join, but there is no cost!) Now I know a lot of you will be familiar with this website - it's been on my favorites list for over a year, but I'd never really thought of using it on a regular basis. They offer LOADS of free worksheets and have themes that you can use as unit studies that include math, science & language worksheets. We are currently doing a Zoo unit study using their themed worksheets, a cool printable zoo mural with animal cut outs (we coloured it, added the animals and put it on the wall). There are also lesson plans you can use (or not!). The other themes are Oceans, Dinosaurs, Reptiles & Amphibians, Insects/Spiders and Space. They also have all sorts of worksheets for learning to write the alphabet, numbers, time, measurement, senses and season themed worksheets too. The worksheets are for Kindergarten to Grade 3 levels. I figure that each themed unit will last for around a month (longer if we repeat the worksheets), so that's at least 6 months of free curriculum.
The children are doing a Math, Science & Language worksheet each day, which takes a maximum of 30 minutes, and I have them colour & decorate the worksheets to put them into a binder (I've used a divider to keep the subjects separate). Easy as pie. We are also reading (me reading aloud to them) for 1 1/2 to 2 hours a day (Inc. Bible, literature, poetry and Aesop's Fables with oral narration). I am also going to be adding in 20 minutes a day of reading. So that's us in a nutshell. And I feel very calm and relaxed about the whole homeschooling now...there's a lot to be said for following the K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Sweetie!) principle! I realise now that I had been putting WAY too much pressure on myself to make up own own curriculum using lapbooks (not lapbook kits where everything was done for you!), especially when the children are so young and require so much help. I really feel like I just need the mental break (from trying to do everything myself).
So...wow that was long, I hope that it inspires/encourages some of you (especially if you have young children like mine) to simplify your homeschooling a little and give yourself a break if you're trying to do it all on your own! I think that we will move into a season of using less worksheets etc when the children are older and have a good handle on the basics, but for now, I know that this is the best thing for us!
Love & blessings
 Ang |
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Posted by 40winkzzz
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