Our Homeschool Diary: Frolics and Antics
What's your homeschooling routine?
Ours should be like breakfast, chores, Bible, Math, Science, Language Arts, and History. Emphasis on "should be" because more often than not, that does not happen.
We have lots of time-outs, break time, "wait, Mommy!", and other "diversion tactics", so this momma needs to re-assess and be more creative in getting the end-goal done.
Two little learners and an almost tween, getting the right formula to our home education is still yet unknown to me. In the early years when homeschooling my eldest alone we were getting the groove already but enter the two smaller ones last year and this year respectively, boy, oh boy! It's indescribable.
Expectation vs Reality?
Okay, every day we have a D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time. The goal is to improve their reading and comprehension skills, at the same time to inculcate the love of reading to them.
The reading material may be anything - could be as simple as flashcards (for the littlest), or a storybook, or a reference book. There are days when we will breeze through just fine, while there are days when after a few lines they will already be restless.
FWIW, here's a link to this little guy's video on a good DEAR Time day. He himself felt he read a lot that time, but you will also see that there will be times that he would "monkey" around. Fair enough. I am proud he's doing so well with his reading.
Doodles! Doodles!
I remember when I was in school, the back of my notebooks would be full of random doodles. It came about from boring classroom moments. These cheeky little learners will definitely have more doodling days ahead. They are off to a good start. LOL.
Here are but two of them:
"Wait, Mommy. Look at this first", Little Man would interrupt. I couldn't help but smile though, because his drawings are already getting "expressive". And look at his handwriting, lots of room for improvement, but still a good accomplishment.
Another "wait Mommy" moment. A kind of a warm-up before we start with the lesson, this one by Little Miss.
Crazy Math moment with little mademoiselle.
So we're doing Khan Academy again today. Addition and subtraction word problems. The problem talks about some gorillas lifting weight in the gym, then 3 more came so they became 17. Find out how many gorillas were originally there, to begin with?
Me: There were gorillas in a gym....
LM: Why do gorillas go to the gym?
😣🙄😑
Me: Okay, imagine you are in the gym with your friends...
LM: But I don't go to the gym!
Me: 😤😒😫😫😫😵🥴
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. LOL.
Thoughts
No matter how we spend a day, the end goal is for them to learn something that will be their foundation to their quest for more learning and discovery. Having three very different learners is difficult, but giving them learning opportunities in different ways while having fun.
How about you? Do your homeschoolers also have "diversion tactics"? How do you go about them?
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It's so interesting to read about your homeschooling experiences! I don't have children yet, but I would like to homeschool my future kids as well. I worked in different primary schools for some years and I've seen too many children lose their natural fun in learning there.
I believe children have a native urge to learn and I would love to support them in the right way.
But one good thing about school is, that there are other kids the same age. How do you deal with that? Do you have contact to other families, homeschooling their kids, so your little ones get to play with other children?
Thanks for sharing your experiences <3
Hey @anafae, appreciate you coming over to my post. Homeschooling your future children will really be one of the best (if not the best) you'll ever make. It's obviously not all rainbows and chocolates, but it's all worth it.
We live as expats so we do not have much children neighbors. Before the pandemic though, we used to meet with other kids from our local homeschool coop. Nowadays meetups are done virtually. It's a blessing to have siblings! They are the friends (and enemies) of each other. hehe
!ENGAGE 25
ENGAGEtoday.Those stupid word problems are one of many reasons why we don't like workbooks and why KA is only successful to a degree for my mob XD I am still getting similar questions as yours were asking from my youngest child who is still young enough to get questions like that. The older kids are doing different maths now.
We didn't really have diversion tactics, just tantrums when they were younger and couldn't understand something, and these days there's just a lot of arguments when I tell them they need to do something they don't want to do XD
Yeah, the "arguments" are starting to bud on my eldest. XD
I'm trying to mix my approach with my 1st grader coz there are some lessons she find too "boring" hence I try to pick her brain a little but she ends up whacking mine. 😁
!ENGAGE 25
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