Homeschool Chat Part III

[gallafamily]

Thank you all so much for your encouragement! We have been doing alot of research, and I agree with you all, that it does seem more accepted now. It was just so hard last time, because even my own parents were supportive at first, then were constantly putting us down, even though our kids were doing really well. They even now compliment how much our kids learned when homeschooled. It is just so frustrating! lol

 

[bcbmommy]

I need help. I'm having a really hard time scheduling my day with homeschooling my 11-year-old son. I have all these great ideas, but they seem to fall through the cracks every single day! My husband is worried he isn't learning enough. Heck, I'M worried he isn't learning enough! I'm failing at this, and to be honest, today I would tell you that I hate homeschooling. ugh. I know a big part of it is that my son has tourettes and ocd, and that's frustrating and difficult to get around. He follows me around all day, and I miss my freedom! There, I said it. Mommy guilt.

 

[Nicolepa]

I need help. I'm having a really hard time scheduling my day with homeschooling my 11-year-old son. I have all these great ideas, but they seem to fall through the cracks every single day! My husband is worried he isn't learning enough. Heck, I'M worried he isn't learning enough! I'm failing at this, and to be honest, today I would tell you that I hate homeschooling. ugh. I know a big part of it is that my son has tourettes and ocd, and that's frustrating and difficult to get around. He follows me around all day, and I miss my freedom! There, I said it. Mommy guilt.

I would start with just focusing on the basics. Figure out what he needs to learn and focus on that. I know we all get these ideas that we just know are great and so much fun etc. I personally have never been able to implement them.

My son has Sensory Processing Disorder. I spent the first year upset that we could never do these fun ideas because school took him so long. I've come to the conclusion that we will never be one of those families that finishes in 3 hours. It's just not going to happen. As long as we are done w/the basics by 3:30 when his sister gets home I call that a successful day. If we get to a fun project that is totally a bonus! I have also switched to a 4 day week. Now we rarely finish in 4 days, but Friday is our overflow day. With a 5 day schedule I was always stressed out because we always have a bad day that sets us behind. Now I just use Friday to catch up.

Are you using a curriculum? Maybe a switch is in order. I had to switch this year (November) because he was just fighting me every step of the way. With the new curriculum he has done a 150 (not quite a 180 but pretty close).

 

[bcbmommy]

I would start with just focusing on the basics. Figure out what he needs to learn and focus on that. I know we all get these ideas that we just know are great and so much fun etc. I personally have never been able to implement them.

My son has Sensory Processing Disorder. I spent the first year upset that we could never do these fun ideas because school took him so long. I've come to the conclusion that we will never be one of those families that finishes in 3 hours. It's just not going to happen. As long as we are done w/the basics by 3:30 when his sister gets home I call that a successful day. If we get to a fun project that is totally a bonus! I have also switched to a 4 day week. Now we rarely finish in 4 days, but Friday is our overflow day. With a 5 day schedule I was always stressed out because we always have a bad day that sets us behind. Now I just use Friday to catch up.

Are you using a curriculum? Maybe a switch is in order. I had to switch this year (November) because he was just fighting me every step of the way. With the new curriculum he has done a 150 (not quite a 180 but pretty close).

We're kind-of all over the place with our curriculum. Math-u-see, a 6th grade Reading workbook, Science workbook, and then just whatever else we want to do. I'm not organized about it at all, and I think I need to get in gear. One thing I'm unsure of is...how do I know what he needs to know? I'm afraid to ask the school that I pulled him out of....but if he decides to go back there next year or the year after, I don't want him to be behind.

Thank you for your reply & support.

 

[Rland8228]

I have been on here lurking on this thread and the others for awhile. I did post last year. So with that said, I am still really considering homeschooling my now 4year old son. I have a lot of people in my life including his father and my husband along with my parents( which my mother is a teacher) who just dont agree with it. I am so torn as to what to do. I really think it would be an adventure to do so but see how badly he wants to go to school. I just like the idea of not having to follow someone else schedule and watching my child learn. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated .

 

[Nicolepa]

We're kind-of all over the place with our curriculum. Math-u-see, a 6th grade Reading workbook, Science workbook, and then just whatever else we want to do. I'm not organized about it at all, and I think I need to get in gear. One thing I'm unsure of is...how do I know what he needs to know? I'm afraid to ask the school that I pulled him out of....but if he decides to go back there next year or the year after, I don't want him to be behind.

Thank you for your reply & support.

I'll admit I don't know about the issues you are dealing with, but my son absolutly needs consistency. That doesn't mean using the same curriculum with each subject but he needs to know that we are going to do xyz. We do every subject, every day. If I don't it stresses him out. There are things that are lower priority for me that we drop if the day is dragging on (handwriting, phonics etc). I switched to a unit study and it is so awesome because everything is combined so he doesn't really know when we switch from literature to vocabulary to history to science. It is religious based so I don't know if that works for you but it has been awesome for him. It is called Learning Adventures, it is around $100 for the year and you only have to add math, a few literature books and library books. I add additional grammar because he is weak there. With the additional work we are typically done in 4 hours which is about 1/2 what we were doing before.

Honestly it doesn't matter what they are doing in his old school. What matters is figuring out where he is at and starting there. Once the work is appropriate for him then you have a better chance of being successful and getting him caught up if needed. You also need to figure out what kind of learner he is. My son is not a workbook kid and my life was miserable when that was our type of curriculum. Our curriulum requires a lot more of my time, but in the end it takes less of my time because I'm not fighting him all day. Does that make sense?

The other thing I had to do was totally block out 9-12, every day. Unless I have no choice, I do not schedule anything for that time, ever. If he doesn't have that uninterrupted block of time first thing in the morning he won't do his schoolwork.

 

[sl_underwood]

IHomeschool my dd who has ADHD and ds whO has autism. So I understand comPletely when u say u miss me time. My son also needs me 24/7 and there are times I become overwhelmed. Each week I sat down Sunday night and write out what we will do for each subject. I print or copy worksheets for my sons folder and leave time for appts if needed. We also have a routine that helPs because the kids know what to do each day. It took them a few weeks of me prompting them before they were able to follow it. Our day starts with exercise right after breakfast. This helps my high energy kids a lot. I would recommend a routine to anyone struggling to homeschool because it really makes a difference. I even have me time in my routine. My son gets 3O min computer time so I have time to myself each day. We also go to our YMCA in the afternoons and he goes to the kids club and dd goes to swim team while I work out with a friend. We also have a good homeschool group that is active. We do moms night outs and field trips and classes which help give me a break.

 

[bcbmommy]

I'll admit I don't know about the issues you are dealing with, but my son absolutly needs consistency. That doesn't mean using the same curriculum with each subject but he needs to know that we are going to do xyz. We do every subject, every day. If I don't it stresses him out. There are things that are lower priority for me that we drop if the day is dragging on (handwriting, phonics etc). I switched to a unit study and it is so awesome because everything is combined so he doesn't really know when we switch from literature to vocabulary to history to science. It is religious based so I don't know if that works for you but it has been awesome for him. It is called Learning Adventures, it is around $100 for the year and you only have to add math, a few literature books and library books. I add additional grammar because he is weak there. With the additional work we are typically done in 4 hours which is about 1/2 what we were doing before.

Honestly it doesn't matter what they are doing in his old school. What matters is figuring out where he is at and starting there. Once the work is appropriate for him then you have a better chance of being successful and getting him caught up if needed. You also need to figure out what kind of learner he is. My son is not a workbook kid and my life was miserable when that was our type of curriculum. Our curriulum requires a lot more of my time, but in the end it takes less of my time because I'm not fighting him all day. Does that make sense?

The other thing I had to do was totally block out 9-12, every day. Unless I have no choice, I do not schedule anything for that time, ever. If he doesn't have that uninterrupted block of time first thing in the morning he won't do his schoolwork.

Thank you. I like the idea of blocking out a certain time frame; I think I need to implement that ASAP. I would love to think that we could do that and be finished so the afternoon is free. I really think it will help him, too, because so much of the time he just looks bored.
I'm going to go check out that curriculum you mentioned.

 

[bcbmommy]

IHomeschool my dd who has ADHD and ds whO has autism. So I understand comPletely when u say u miss me time. My son also needs me 24/7 and there are times I become overwhelmed. Each week I sat down Sunday night and write out what we will do for each subject. I print or copy worksheets for my sons folder and leave time for appts if needed. We also have a routine that helPs because the kids know what to do each day. It took them a few weeks of me prompting them before they were able to follow it. Our day starts with exercise right after breakfast. This helps my high energy kids a lot. I would recommend a routine to anyone struggling to homeschool because it really makes a difference. I even have me time in my routine. My son gets 3O min computer time so I have time to myself each day. We also go to our YMCA in the afternoons and he goes to the kids club and dd goes to swim team while I work out with a friend. We also have a good homeschool group that is active. We do moms night outs and field trips and classes which help give me a break.

Thank you. Love the idea of exercise right after breakfast! The more I read, the more I'm convinced that I've got to get into a routine with him.

 

[bellebud]

wanted to share...

http://simplycharlottemason.com/boo...ce=eletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=body

a free charlotte mason e-book. I'm downloading it for my Sony EReader. I love so many things about the charlotte mason method. I don't really "use" the method, but pick up ideas.

 

[sl_underwood]

Charlotte Mason method has a lot of great ideas. I have never actually used it completely but I have picked parts of it to use at times. Some ideas we have used that we found helpful are:
home made magnetic sentence builders- buy magnetic computer paper, make a table in microsoft word. Add words and punctuation. Our words are color coded as well. For example, all nouns are blue, verbs- red, etc. We made sure to add plenty of adjectives and conjunctions too. We added our kids names, pets names, etc as well. This can be bad as our kids havbe been known to write some not so nice sentences about their siblings at times, like Kara is a blue donkey, which is currently on my fridge. Today, Luke's sentence was I am so excited to go to Walt Disney world again. I have pictures on mine as well so Luke- my struggling reader can still make sentences without to much trouble.
Nerf Math is another one we do regularly. We have done this for number recognition through multiplication. I tape numbers to my fridge and call out math problems. They aim at the answer and shoot the nerf gun at their target- our bullets stick so it works really well. The kids love this and they learn their math. They only have 10 minutes to see how many questions they can answer. Each time they try to beat their score. You could also use this for letter recognition, parts of speech, etc.
We also made up a game on the trampoline for sentence diagramming. DD was having a difficult time with this on so dh made this game up. He gives her a sentence and she was to sit for the noun, jump three times for a verb and bounce on her bottom for a conjunction and so forth. With ds we have him plop on his rear each time he hears a noun right now since that is what he is working on.
We also jump rope and count by 2s, 3s, and so on. It helps prepare kids for multiplication and gets exercise.
These are just a few of our homemade games we have used in order to teach our harder to teach kiddos. Not all kids are book learners. We still have books and they do use them but we use other things to reinforce the concepts they are learning. For high energy kids, I have found that learning that allows for movement really helps. Think about your ds, what are his likes and dislikes? Is there a way to incorporate what he loves into school? If he plays basketball, have him anwer a math problem in order to try for a basket. If he likes video games, there is a great multiplication facts game on the internet for free. I think it was called timez attack. Zoodles also has a large number of games for grade schoolers. I also remember a free game dd played that was a racing game but you had to answer addition, subtraction and multiplication questions to get fuel. Cannot remember whether this was an online game or cd rom but dd really liked it.
I really hope some of these ideas help you. I know what it is to struggle and I think that if you can find some activities that your child can do alone for just a few minutes a day, you can get little breaks throughout the day which does help a lot. Another idea is to keep track of what you are doing each day because sometimes it feels like you havent accomplished much but if you write down everything you do, it helps to see some accomplishment.

 

[bellebud]

I want to mention the 'workbox' method of organizing for those of you whose kids want consistency, organization, etc. We've done it on and off, sometimes my kids liked it, and sometimes they didn't. But for any ocd kids, it may work very well. just google it, you'll find lots of info.

 

[weHEARTmickey]

wanted to share...

http://simplycharlottemason.com/boo...ce=eletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=body

a free charlotte mason e-book. I'm downloading it for my Sony EReader. I love so many things about the charlotte mason method. I don't really "use" the method, but pick up ideas.

Thank you!!!!!!!! I have already read "A Charlotte Mason Education" and "More Charlotte Mason" both by Catherine Levison. I'm thrilled to read "A Thinking Love" now!! Thanks I can tell that I will probably use other methods for math & history, but I LOVE Charlotte's ideas on literature, teaching the Bible, nature, science, art, spelling, grammar, etc.... (ps---did I just kill a kitty? Has anyone else seen the DISer signature about apostrophe "s"??? I think I must be wrong on my apostrophes)

FANTASTIC ideas sl_underwood! Thank you for sharing these "out of the box" learning techniques. I can't wait to get started...just TWO more weeks before my kids' last day at public school!!!!

 

[Mouseketeer67]

Are there any other homeschoolers here that have a senior about to graduate? My oldest son will be graduating in mid May and I am in full planning mode. He is an honor student and I want to make his graduation as special as possible. I am open to any suggestions!

 

[KibbyCat]

Thank you!!!!!!!! I have already read "A Charlotte Mason Education" and "More Charlotte Mason" both by Catherine Levison. I'm thrilled to read "A Thinking Love" now!! Thanks I can tell that I will probably use other methods for math & history, but I LOVE Charlotte's ideas on literature, teaching the Bible, nature, science, art, spelling, grammar, etc.... (ps---did I just kill a kitty? Has anyone else seen the DISer signature about apostrophe "s"??? I think I must be wrong on my apostrophes)

Nope, no kittens harmed here. Apostrophe S means possessive noun. The ideas belong to Charlotte, therefore they are Charlotte's!
Peace...

 

[KibbyCat]

Just on the previous page alone, there are posts about curriculum, teaching methods, learning differences, graduation, and tools/materials available to homeschoolers. Who agrees with me that it would be a whole lot better and easier if we could navigate the threads within our own forum? Why do the mods keep ignoring us?? Are there no users who could step up and take ownership as moderator of a homeschool forum? The request has been on here for a loooooooooooooooong time...

 

[sl_underwood]

Having our own board would be wonderful. It would make it 100 tImes easier to find information and help each other. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it will ever happen.

 

[Nicolepa]

Wish me luck. I finally bit the bullet and am switching math curriculums on Monday! That is the only area we didn't switch earlier in the year and the only area that he still fights me on. So we are going from Saxon to Math Mammoth. I hope he likes it more!

 

[Macgyver91]

I posted on the thread "to homeschool or not to homeschool" but I thought I might get some extra input on this thread. I have two kiddos...DD13 and DS10. DH and I have thought all year about homeschooling the kids next year. DS is all for it but sister has other thoughts. She doesn't want to miss High School...next year she would be a freshman. DS is an outside the box thinker and I have always thought that he needed to tap into that, but in a classroom of 23 kids he taps into what the majority needs. DD gets so caught up in drama of what is going on that she can't concentrate on the real reason that she is at school...to learn. She gets commended performance on her TAKS tests but doesn't do well enough in her class work to get into the honors program. Which keeps her in the classes with the kids who (most of the time) don't want to be there in the first place. I know that she will grow up tons before she goes into HS however I can't help thinking that she could get much farther with her education if we took all the "drama" out.

My big question is...will it mess her up if we try this for a year and it doesn't work? And is high school a right of passage that we should all go through? I just don't want to mess my kids up any more than DH and I already have...! I would appreciate any thoughts you guys may have...Thanks a million!

 

[bellebud]

DS is an outside the box thinker and I have always thought that he needed to tap into that,

Hi - I was on the other thread w/ you too... but wanted to recommend this for your ds to help you assess his learning style...

http://www.learningsuccessinstitute.com/mariaemma.html

I'd buy the book and do the assessment. I also love the book "how they learn" by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias.

I can't say enough about assessing learning styles, ESPECIALLY for a person who you say is an "outside the box" thinker. It will help you immensely to hs him, and to help him reach his full thinking potential! It gave me more insight to my ds9 than I ever thought imaginable. With my dd11, she wasn't too hard for me to figure out - but my son was, because he doesn't think like me. Invaluable, I swear!

good luck deciding what to do