We started school on Monday and I'm surprised that it is going so well. The past few weeks I'd noticed that chores were being done less thoroughly so my fear was that adding school on top of fixing the chore problem was going to be too much. It seems that this isn't the case.
Our dc aren't the type who can do schoolwork anywhere in the house. On the occasions I have allowed work to be done on the couch or in their rooms, nothing gets accomplished. They work best when they are sitting at the table with the books spread out in front of them. Lorna does much of her work on her own using the planning sheets as a guide for what needs to be done. By the end of the year I expect Malachi will be doing the same.
I think the craziness of our schedule the past few weeks has made school seem more appealing because it's a return to a more scheduled life.
5 comments:
Hi Kim,
Congratulations on the good start! Keep it up, kids :-)
Can you tell me more about the planning sheets you mention? It sounds like something I should check out.
I used to do all my planning on a teacher's planning book but found that it was too difficult to fit everything in one little square once both dc were doing school so I made my own sheets using Excel. I can tailor the size of the boxes to fit the subject, math has smaller boxes than history because of all the books we read. Each kid has their own sheet and I leave extra lines so I can add anything extra we have done or make notes on anything that needs to be adjusted. It sounds way more complicated than it is.
I type up the plans at the start of the week and put it on a clipboard along with any worksheets the kids will be doing. Each morning the kids just look at their sheet and decide what order they want to do things. There are some things we do together but there are also lots of things they can do on their own.
The picture I added is of our sheets for this week to give you a better idea of what it looks like.
It really just another version of a list. I've seen a number of variations in different homeschooling manuals.
We do something similar in that I print off a weekly schedule for each student, fill in assignments for the week, and then let them decide in what order they want to complete things. But it seems that every year as the year goes on I end up just writing daily assignments on the whiteboard because I didn't get around to writing up the weekly schedule.
I am impressed by your organization!
Ten Thousand thanks!
I've never picked up any home school manuals other than TWTM.
The charts you show have me soul-searching a bit and wondering why I make things so complicated.
I'm beginning to think the clip board idea would be welcome to my daughter. It would certainly give her a chance to show responsibility and to prove what she can do when she is left in control of her time.
I'll most certainly give this more thought. Thank you again.
Hi Kim,
I completed two weeks of lesson plans for my daughter. She is looking forward to using them and I'm looking forward to seeing how the system will work in our home.
I'm so hopeful this specifically choosing which order she does her subjects in) will help her over the dawdling hurdle she has trouble getting over.
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