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Feb. 8, 2008
What's normal for us
The longer we homeschool the more I get comfortable with what is normal for our family. So what's normal for us? Variety is the first word that comes to mind. Change would be another word. Doing what we need to do at the time.
A new missionary friend is lending me "Teaching the Trivium" by Harvey and Laurie Bluedorn to read and as I browsed through some of the beginning yesterday I was so encouraged by this comment:
"If you try to do homeschool like a classroom school - using their course of study, their scope and sequence, their curricula, their class format, their teaching methods -then you will probably buckle under the burden and give up. And you will be right - that kind of schooling does not fit in a homeschool. Rare is the pair of parents who have the time and talents to bear such burdens. It will truly test your commitment to homeschooling. The great advantage of tutoring your own children at home is that much of what goes on in classroom schooling is rendered completely unnecessary."
I relate to that comment! While I realize there are homeschool parents out there who love to do things more structured or more like a classroom school and do really well with it and their kids love it and thrive I am not one of those parents and my kids do NOT thrive on something like that. But that's the great thing about homeschooling your own children! You don't have to fit in any certain mold, unless that works for you. And thanks to a lot of great curriculum out there I can find what works for each kid and go with that!
So for the homeschool update today I'd like to say, for the record, that both Dane and Arel are loving Math U See and thriving on that method. It's a real relief for me and it keeps them going. It's also nice to have a subject that comes easier for them so we can spend more time focusing on things that are hard. I have discovered something about my boys though....
Dane likes the structure and order of doing his workbook pages for Math but he likes to do it at his own pace. Now his pace is pretty fast but were I to give him a time limit on it for some reason (even if I say "In 1/2 hour see how much of this page you can get done") it really stresses him out and he most likely will put it away because he is so worried about the time or something that he can't focus and do the work. So when it's time for Math he just goes to it and gets it done.
Arel is my boy who does everything at a slower pace which is totally fine and I am happy to let him take all the time he needs to do his Math. However, he does not do well being left to just do his workbook page like Dane is. He could easily sit there all morning and not finish the page if left by himself. Not because he doesn't understand it...oh no! I've checked into that and do regularly but he usually has the idea down and knows what to do. The problem is more that he is bored or something and needs encouragement in different ways. It needs to be interesting. Sometimes it is to sit beside him and talk him through it. Sometimes it is to have him do the problems orally. We also use a timer. I had been having him set the timer for 15 minutes and do as much as he can in that time, stop when the timer goes off and take a 5 minute break and go again for 15 more minutes until the page is done. It sort of worked but he was again finding it to be not stimulating enough or he was thinking up some amazing thing to draw! 
So this week we've been trying something else with the timer. I told him to do the first line of problems (5 double or triple digit subtraction problems) and see if he could get them done in 5 minutes. At 4 minutes he hollered out that he had done two lines (10 problems)! So I told him to take a 1 minute break and then go for 5 minutes more and see if he could finish the next 10 problems. Sure enough at 4 minutes he finished them. This left just two word problems which took him maybe 5 minutes to do and there he was DONE in 15 minutes with Math for the day! We were both celebrating!!
Now if I could just figure out something like that to help him with reading and writing. Hmmmm...
I'll keep ya posted.
Apart from Math which we do almost every day, the boys and I have been focusing more on English Grammar. They are both a bit behind for their age (but really who's worried at this age!) so we're working through "Easy Grammar Grade 4" with Dane and "Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind" with Arel. Because they are slightly older and maybe going through something that's slightly under them they are grasping the concepts and memorizing things quickly. So really maybe these books are just the right ones for right now! I think so! |
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Feb. 8, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Blessings,
Dawn