Help! I think I focused on the wrong subjects

[Flowergirl159]

Okay so I need some advice on where I am going wrong. My oldest daughter is having trouble getting through her work. She is rather studious and loves independent learning. However, I think I loaded her up with too much independent work this year and it has kind of backfired. Something to keep in mind as you read my long post, she is linguistically minded and loves reading, writing, learning foreign languages. At this stage, she would like a career writing books and being a journalist.

 

We begin our new school year in January, so we are just over half way through grade 6.

 

To help you understand what I am talking about, it might be easier if I list what the day looks like for her.

 

When she gets up, she begins her morning chores then waits for everyone else to be ready for our group activities 'Morning Basket'. She actually does not really enjoy this time together, I think she feels like it is a waste of her time :/ Morning basket can take up to 90mins if we have started early enough. (otherwise, we move onto maths and the rest of our day).

 

Then I spend half an hour teaching her the maths lesson for the day, also covering some review of some sort. Then she finishes off her maths, including drills. So she spends an hour on maths each day.

 

Time for a half hour break.

 

She then has 2 hours to work on her independent work, (which is impossible to fit in here) but this includes:

 

Visual Latin 1 30mins

Writing With Skill 1

French - First Start from MP, Duolingo, Paul Nobles CD's 30mins

Handwriting

Piano practice

Speech and Drama practice

Readings: poetry; science; literature; biography

 

Then I have an hour with her right before lunch. This is when we work on grammar, spelling, and I check her work on her other subjects.

 

Up until a few weeks ago, I wasn't actually checking all of her work (that was a bad mistake on my part). So during our hour together, we were spending 30 minutes on Visual Latin. I was also having her do FSF on her own, but it was too difficult for her. So I decided to have her do VL on her own, and now I check it daily plus I now teach her FSF. I have just realised this week that I actually need to do WWS1 with her, that can not really be an independent subject for her at this stage.

 

Handwriting - A Reason For Handwriting - she doesn't really need this, but she loves it and asked me to order the next book for her. This only takes 10 minutes a day.

 

She has formal weekly lessons in Piano and Speech & Drama. She participates in eisteddfods for speech, so she practices about half an hour each day. The last eisteddfods for the year are in August, so she will have a little more time from September on.

 

At times, she reads from any books I have assigned her, poetry, literature, science, biographies, historical fiction. But it has been really challenging finding the time to help her write up a narrative or report or notebook on any of these. I know she really needs to be writing, but it is really difficult to fit it in. Ideally, I would like her to write a report once a week on each of science and history, maybe even literature or biography.

 

When I look at her list, I realise that Latin, French, Piano and Speech are all possibly electives. They are not core subjects. I feel like we are making these our priorities, but we are leaving out writing, science and history (we only started WWS in April, and are on week 6). It is her choice to study French. She has been interested in learning to speak French for a few years now, and this year is the first that we really are giving it a good go (during our morning basket time we are working through GSWF altogether).

 

She loves to read and would read all day if I let her. At the moment though, I haven't assigned any readings or any time for reading. I was giving everyone a booklist and half an hour of quiet reading time in the afternoons, but at the moment, we only have 2 afternoons free of extracurricla things so I would rather they have free time.

 

I would ideally like to follow Ruth's ideas for science - I read her threads and posts last weekend. I had decided that we would cover meteorology this term and geology next term. Doing this altogether! They can watch docos, read on their level. But I can't see when to fit that it.

 

During morning basket time, we are reading through SOTW1. We are half way through and should finish it this year, moving onto SOTW2 next year. So I have all these great books from the library here to go with our reading from SOTW, but we have no time for everyone to do their own independent reading, or notetaking either. 

 

I have been looking at our priorities and trying to see where our subjects aren't balanced. I think that French, Latin, Piano, Speech are all electives, so perhaps they should come after Maths, LA, Science, History. Am I on the right track?

 

Our school day begins just after 7am and finishes at 1pm for lunch. My DD11 working most of this time except for a half hour break, is plenty. I don't think its fair to ask her to do more after that. But realistically, we are just not getting it done.

 

Oh and another thing, I was reading on the unlikelyhomeschooler about delight led independent learning. I would love to be able to have her work on a project of her choice. She would love that too! But when, oh when?

 

ETA: We school 4 days a week, the fifth day is piano and sports lessons, we usually do fit art in on this day though.

 

Edited July 23, 2016 by Flowergirl159

[Sherry in OH]

She has too many subjects/time spent per subject for the amount of time you want to allocate to school.   

 

7                      Chores 

7-8:30              Morning basket (up to 90 minutes)

8:30-9:30         Math (60 minutes)

9:30-10            Break (30 minutes)

10-12               Language, music, literature (120 minutes)

                                    Piano (30 minutes)

                                    Speech (30 minutes)  

                        Latin (30 minutes)

                        French (30 minutes)

                        Out of time and haven’t done language arts

12-1                 Check in with mom (60 minutes)                  

Lunch

 

 

To start, I would shorten Morning basket to 30 minutes.  90 minutes is too long, especially if most of the content is geared toward your younger children

 

 

7-7:30              Chores, if finish chores early, handwriting or silent reading until group time

7:30-8              Morning basket

8-9                   Math

9-9:30              Latin or French  [or reduce time to 15 minutes each language]

9:30-10            Break

10-10:30          Language arts

10:30-11          Speech or piano

11-12               Silent reading – rotate among history, science, and other subjects

12-1                 Check in with mom and WWS

1-?                   Lunch – listen to SOTW or other audio

 

Sometime after 2 pm  - Practice piano or speech and study 2^nd foreign language.

 

1 afternoon a week – hands-on science (1-2 hours).

 

[Tiramisu]

I think I might start with making a comprehensive list if all of her work and then I'd prioritize it. With my older kids I always prioritized math and Latin and writing. They were constantly reading for fun and had a natural curiosity so I didn't prioritize the reading at age 11. I'm not sure if I will prioritize Latin with my next 11 year old only because she has writing issues that I have to give priority.

 

My priorities have been different that others would choose. I never prioritized science or history before high school except for the kid who loved science most. With another who I had home for only eight grade, I prioritized math and kep the rest light and enjoyable, because she had lost her love of learning in ps and her math grades were sinking. In just that year of prioritizing math, her math tested at the 98th percentile and more than that, she learned to like math and gained a lot of confidence.

 

Your DD's path will be individual based on your priorities, but when I have carefully considered my priorities and goals and planned accordingly, I never went wrong even if it didn't look like what everyone else was doing. My oldest is now a college senior with learning glitches. She got a great scholarship and has survived a program where half the students she started with have left. My next one is a junior in high school and she had achieved first honors every semester.

 

The other thing I did this last year was to continually fine tune our schedule until I hit a point that the work for that day would always get done...unless something really unusual came up. And I consider last year our best homeschool year ever. It just took so much pressure off me and my kids, and obviously they learned.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Tiramisu

[fourisenough]

I think if she were my child, I would drop formal handwriting, spelling, and one foreign language (probably French since she's getting a taste of it via GSWF in morning basket time). I would move her independent reading to bedtime, making time for history and science during her school day. On the two days when afternoons are free, she could pursue some interest-led projects.

 

My DD11/6th grade will work from 8-3, M-Th this year with Fridays for art, French and one additional elective at co-op. We're limiting evening dance to 3 nights per week plus Saturday. I'm uncertain if we'll be able to get everything done, but I have her day structured to allow 1 hour each for math, science, grammar/writing/vocab, reading and 30 minutes each for history and French. With her 'downtime' she sews, knits, or crafts while listening to audiobooks or watching crafting tutorials on YouTube. I would say her delight led learning is all handiwork!

[8filltheheart]

Since she loves to read, I would drop the morning basket time with her and let her use that time to read. For our family, doing things together rarely works bc someone is held back and someone else is overwhelmed by it being too advanced. 90 mins of reading would add a lot to her day.

 

Fwiw, 7-1 would not work for my 6th graders, especially one studying 2 languages (my 12th grader was studying French and Latin in 6th). It is not at all unusual for my middle schoolers' days to be as long as 8 hrs. Between 6-8 is the norm.

 

Writing one solid piece per week is also the goal. They don't write narration a or book reports, but 1 research report per week is pretty much guaranteed in 6th. By 7th/8th many of those assignments are switching to essays.

[HomeAgain]

We space electives throughout the day.

 

I agree with 8FillTheHeart, my oldest was working for up to 8 hours in middle school.  Research, activities, writing...it all takes longer.  And that's fine.  That's why we spaced the electives throughout the day.

 

My personal goal in your shoes would be to write down the specific things I want to focus on this year.  Writing a research paper?  A deep exploration of science?  Learning how to draw properly?  Pick one goal for each main subject and keep them posted.  When you find yourself running off course, turn back to that list of goals to get centered again.

[2_girls_mommy]

In middle school I went to school 8-3, close to that anyway.  And we had afterschool activities.  Mine were academic.  I was on the mathcounts team and in a writer's club and I took Spanish before school a couple of days a week. My sister was a cheerleader and had camps and games and was in Spanish and writer's club with me which all made our days longer.  We had homework in the evenings almost every night starting in 6th grade for math and sometimes on weekends.  And there were the occasional big projects.

 

So I have no problem giving my middle school kids a longer day.  We break it up.

 

Some suggestions I agree with from above: shorten circle time or release the older child from it.  (I personally do our circle time/history readings after lunch.  That way the core subjects are done in the morning.  Then some days we can read together for an hour and a half, but other days, we need to keep it under an hour.) And make the day longer.  With two languages you are looking at them as electives or extra curriculars, which mean more time in the day. And I would make piano practice first thing in the morning or later in the day after school.  And I would do independent reading at bedtime.

 

Here is what my 6th grader's schedule looked like this year:

8:00 science (she took a class at co-op for experiments.  She did the reading and notebooking and wrote definitions in this hour.)

9:00 am math

10:00 Latin

11:00 silent reading (doing it at this hour gave me time to make lunch and play with the baby.)

12:00 lunch and chores and get ready dressed for dance class which happened right after afternoon subjects.

1:00 baby down for nap.  Mom reads aloud for history/lit/poetry/art, etc. This would be our circle time/together time

2:00 or 2:30 English/spelling until time to walk out the door for afternoon classes.  We used this time for writing projects.  So once a month or so the week would be devoted to a writing project for co-op or wherever one was needed, except history.  We would not read some days and they would work on a history research paper during that time.

**** My 6th grader would often take her math book to dance class and work on it during her sister's class to get it finished and not have homework.

**** But there was often a bit of something that needed to be done in the evenings for outside activities like a project for scouts or co-op or to finish up some of her daily math or latin.  I consider "homework" pretty normal by middle school, especially for kids doing languages in their day. It just takes more time.  I am rearranging our day for next year for her priorities.  She needs more one on one for English and Spelling and at the end of the day that wasn't happening.  We also had a big history year last year.  So this year, less time will be spent on history and more on English and Spelling and I am moving them to earlier in the day where I can really focus on them with her. That is because that is where her needs lie.

[Ausmumof3]

I don't have any kids as old as that yet so take this with a big pinch of salt but if she's not enjoying morning basket time Id either let her drop it or only have her in on the parts of it that are really important to her. Then she can work on that massive slab of independent stuff during morning basket time and you can tackle the writing in the other time. Handwriting can also be done during circle time.

 

I think for projects it can be worth taking a week off a couple of times a year to do an intensive project that you can't fit in normally, if and only if you are making good progress on the basics of course.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Ausmumof3

[Laura Corin]

She doesn't need to do everything each day. With my boys, it went:

English, maths and exercise every day along with continual review of previously learned facts (foreign language, science, etc)

History and Latin on Mon and Wed

Science and Mandarin on Tues and Thurs

Other electives rotating on Friday (poetry memorisation, logic, art, art history..)

Music practice was also every day but not part of the school timetable - it would have been an evening extra if they had been in school. Silent reading was also outside of the school timetable.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Laura Corin

[happypamama]

I would excuse her from the morning basket time, or only keep her there for the first few items. Then I'd have her read on her own, history, literature, or both, in that time.

 

I have a large age gap, and my ninth grader is excused from group work completely this year. There's just not time for her to do everything, and she's had plenty of exposure to children's level geography, poetry, Bible, etc. My sixth grader is part of group work for the first few things, and then he's excused unless he wants to stay. I don't really see any other way to handle the big gap (four kids between Kindergarten and ninth grade, plus a preschooler who might or might not join us).

[luuknam]

To help you understand what I am talking about, it might be easier if I list what the day looks like for her.

Handwriting - A Reason For Handwriting - she doesn't really need this, but she loves it and asked me to order the next book for her. This only takes 10 minutes a day.

When I look at her list, I realise that Latin, French, Piano and Speech are all possibly electives. They are not core subjects. I feel like we are making these our priorities, but we are leaving out writing, science and history (we only started WWS in April, and are on week 6). It is her choice to study French. She has been interested in learning to speak French for a few years now, and this year is the first that we really are giving it a good go (during our morning basket time we are working through GSWF altogether).

 

Oh and another thing, I was reading on the unlikelyhomeschooler about delight led independent learning. I would love to be able to have her work on a project of her choice. She would love that too! But when, oh when?

 

Like Ausmum, my kids aren't that old yet, but here are some thoughts:

 

Let her skip morning basket time. If you feel a need for her to do SotW, let her read through the chapter on her own (which is much faster than listening, and she probably doesn't need as many explanations as the younger kids need). If you don't feel she needs to do SotW, just let her go straight to the independent reading about the time period.

 

If you don't feel she needs handwriting, but she loves doing it, you could just call it a hobby and let her do it outside of school hours, just as if she were doing calligraphy.

 

I wouldn't say a foreign language is an elective per se - I'm from NL, and in 5th-6th grade 1 foreign language is required (these days), in 7th grade 2 foreign languages are required, and then in 8th grade they throw in a required 3rd foreign language. Starting in 7th grade, Latin and Ancient Greek are optional foreign languages (electives), so in 8th grade you can have 3 mandatory foreign languages plus 2 optional ones equals 5 foreign languages. So, I'd see French as core and Latin as elective. While we're at it, music is required until high school.

 

Speech is something I strongly believe should be a core subject - there are so many adults who would rather die than speak in front of a group, or who bumble their way through job interviews, performance reviews, presentations they're required to do on the job, etc. As a journalist (if she ends up going that route), your daughter needs to be able to interview people, etc. That said, speech does not have to be 30 min every day - I'd maybe do 30-60 min a week, and the rest would be a hobby and be outside of school hours.

 

Wrt delight led independent learning/project, she wants to do French, so that's delight led independent, right? Maybe you could come up with some sort of project around that (maybe something to do with French culture), to be done during French time.

[Arcadia]

When I look at her list, I realise that Latin, French, Piano and Speech are all possibly electives. They are not core subjects.

I come from a country with compulsory 2nd language from 1st grade. French would have been counted as a core.

Music is a core too so if piano is the only music then piano to me is a core.

Speech (and debate) would be included in Language Arts.

 

I would let her skip morning basket and let her read.

 

The more free time my kids have, the more interest led they are. My DS11 can read all day. I just tell him to stop reading and do something else if I see him glue to a book for hours without moving. That's because he gets stiff neck, legs and eye strain.

[RootAnn]

I'd agree that I'd let her start on her reading time right after chores. Have a set time that you will start math with her everyday (pretty much no matter what) so she knows that is when she has to put down her books. (In our house, we couldn't start with reading because their mind would be stuck in their book the rest of the day.)

 

My eldest did two languages at that age and my dd#3 will start her second language this year (6th). Two languages take a lot of time!

 

I'd let her read SOTW on her own OR give her something more age appropriate to read for history. I'd use lunch time to talk about what she read for history that day. The other kids should be able to contribute from what they heard during their own morning time.

 

If you can, I'd encourage you to split your 1 hr (12-1) into two 30 minute blocks or even 1 30 minute & 2 15 minute blocks so you can give her direction on WWS1 & then send her off to work on it. She comes back in 15-30 minutes and you check her work & have her revise/fix as necessary. In the smaller chunks of time she's working independently, you can work with your other kids--- and then send them off to work independently (or play or read) for a short while, too.

 

You have a great set of ages for homeschooling there -- without any toddlers/babies in the mix. Ideal!

[Flowergirl159]

Wow! Wow! Wow! Thank you so much! It means a lot to me to have been given such wonderful advice :) Now to work on my plan :/

 

Okay so 5.5 hours of work is not really that bad? Between 6 and 8? Okay so perhaps our times are fine :)

 

I live in Australia, and remembered after reading these responses, that in our state, we need to be covering music and foreign languages. There aren't any stipulations, just that they need to exist in our learning. So piano would go into the core list. French is her love, so that would stay as her FL. It would be unfair of me to take that off her. Latin... hmmm... Latin is a different story.

 

I began Latin because it sounded interesting and there are so many benefits. Also, it is a great way to learn grammar right? Well last year I used GSWL with DD, she loved it to begin with but not by the end of the year. So I opted for Visual Latin, thinking she needed a fun way to learn this language. She is up to lesson 14 and it is not her favourite subject. The grammar has been so challenging that I decided, after her mentioning that she loved the little bits of grammar we touched on over the years, she really needs a grammar program. So we began a separate grammar study a couple of weeks ago. I am hoping this might help her with Latin. She kindly reminded me of something I told her last year "I would like you to do Latin for one year, and then see how you like it." I hoped VL might have been the program to give her a love for it to continue. But no, she is waiting for this year to be over so she doesn't have to do Latin any more :( 

 

Studying Latin here in Australia is unheard of, no one I have spoken to or schools I have looked at, have ever learnt any Latin. So I am really not sure it is worth pursuing after this year. I am aware of all of the benefits in learning Latin, but conveying that to a preteen?! DD did mention that she would like to read Latin, so I have Lingua Latina here ready for her to begin once she hits lesson 16 in VL.

 

I think Latin would really benefit her, especially with the path she currently wants to take. But I just don't know if it is worth the battle. I was so hoping she would catch the bug for it this year.

 

Dropping her out of morning basket is probably a good idea. I mean, it is definitely a good idea :D She finds SOTW1 boring, so yes she could use that half hour to do her own history reading. I would need to flag pages for her to read that coincide with the chapter we are reading, right? I really like them doing the map work though from the AG. What would I do for her mapping?

 

I have to run right now so will continue my response later :)

 

Thanks so much again, you truly have given me something to think over

[luuknam]

She finds SOTW1 boring, so yes she could use that half hour to do her own history reading. I would need to flag pages for her to read that coincide with the chapter we are reading, right? I really like them doing the map work though from the AG. What would I do for her mapping?

 

Whether you keep her history lined up with the other kids' history is up to you. You don't have to. And you could still do the map work from the AG even if you have her read history from another book, if you're covering the same area & time period (I think - we use SOTW, but we don't use the AG, so I have no idea what I'm talking about wrt the AG, lol).

 

I'm sure there are plenty of great writers and journalists out there who have never taken Latin. If she's not enjoying it, and you don't really have time for it, then I'd drop it for now - maybe she'll want to pick it back up if she's older. Or maybe not. But it's not like her future will be ruined if she doesn't study Latin. It's up to you what you think is important, of course - but is it more important than whatever you don't have time for now? I also think that she'll get (almost) all the benefits from French that she'd get from Latin (that said, I only had Latin in 7th and 8th grade and I mostly ignored the grammar (not completely though - I did get the most basic stuff, like that word endings matter and word order doesn't - but I never bothered to actually memorize the lists of word endings) because I don't like grammar).

[happypamama]

My middle schoolers use History Odyssey and the k12 Human Odyssey books and Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. History Odyssey has the map work plus other assignments.

[kiwik]

Maybe she could do a Latin roots programme as part of grammar and call it good? I am in NZ and always wanted to learn Latin but only the posher city schools had it. We had French - taught by a guy with a strong English accent at high school and half an hour a week Maori at primary but most people never really did a second language.

[Haiku]

I think your dd has too much work. You have her working on at least ten different things (maybe more). To me, that's overburdening.

 

The first thing I would do is remove piano from the "school day." Lots of kids take music lessons, and it's an extracurricular, not a school subject.

 

Next, I would remove the morning basket. Ninety minutes is way too long, and SOTW1 is not challenging enough for a sixth grader. She's very possibly bored with it. I would find something she could spend 30-40 minutes on for history that is grade-appropriate. I also wouldn't try to teach kids of varying ages like yours a language together. By necessity, you're going to work at the pace of the youngest/slowest child. That would be boring for the oldest.

 

I would go with one foreign language. If she wants to lean French, let her focus on French. You can save Latin for high school. I would also select one resource for French. I know that I often feel overwhelmed when I try to use multiple resources for one subject. If you drop the morning basket, you can just focus on one French resource and save time.

 

I agree that WWS is not something she should be working on independently. You can spend some time going over the lesson with her, and then she can work on the assignment, and then you can go over it with her again, making suggestions on how to edit and improve.

 

Were it me, this is what the student's daily schedule would look like:

 

7:30-8:30 Math

8:30-9:15 History

9:15-9:30 Break

9:30-10:00 French

10:00-11:00 Writing

11:00-11:15 Break

11:15-12:00 Science (with siblings)

12:00-12:30 Speech/Drama

ETA: I see she's still doing spelling and grammar, so those could be done from 12:30-1:00.

 

I would end here. That's 4 1/2 [5 including grammar/spelling] hours of work, which I think is perfectly adequate for a 6th grader. Piano practice, handwriting, and subject-specific reading would be things that would need to be accomplished outside of school time (honestly, I would tell a 6th grader, unless it was a child who for some specific reason needed handwriting instruction, that handwriting is a hobby that she can work on on her own for fun). And I wouldn't worry about having your child do weekly writing about the subject readings. Yeah, it's a great idea in theory, but in practice, we can't do everything, and WWS is pretty heavy-duty writing.

 

Also ETA: I know that different things work for different people, but I've never felt the need to have a middle-schooler working 6-8 hours a day (my kids are now in middle and high school). For us and our priorities (not just academic but also hobbies/interests and family time), that would have been too much.

 

Edited July 24, 2016 by Haiku

[Flowergirl159]

Since she loves to read, I would drop the morning basket time with her and let her use that time to read. For our family, doing things together rarely works bc someone is held back and someone else is overwhelmed by it being too advanced. 90 mins of reading would add a lot to her day.

 

Fwiw, 7-1 would not work for my 6th graders, especially one studying 2 languages (my 12th grader was studying French and Latin in 6th). It is not at all unusual for my middle schoolers' days to be as long as 8 hrs. Between 6-8 is the norm.

 

Writing one solid piece per week is also the goal. They don't write narration a or book reports, but 1 research report per week is pretty much guaranteed in 6th. By 7th/8th many of those assignments are switching to essays.

 

Thanks for your response. 

 

I love the idea of the whole family doing group stuff together, but yes I do see how it can hold the older ones back. I guess its a new season for us, with an older who no longer wants/needs to be involved.

 

I think it was one of your posts I read a few weeks ago regarding weekly writing. That thread, whichever one it was, was extremely helpful to me. Research and gather info on Monday, draft on tues/wed, edit on Thurs, and final copy on Friday (not sure that I remembered the exact days but you know what I mean). I mentioned this to my DD and she was thrilled with the idea of having a  written piece every single week. So the first week, she had just finished reading Soul Surfer. Her report was on Bethany Hamilton. I edited it for her and talked it over with her. 

 

My question is though, how long should we be aiming for? This, her first one, was just over an A4 page.

 

Should I alternate topics such as this week history, next week science, the week after literature, then something creative?

[8filltheheart]

Thanks for your response.

 

I love the idea of the whole family doing group stuff together, but yes I do see how it can hold the older ones back. I guess its a new season for us, with an older who no longer wants/needs to be involved.

 

I think it was one of your posts I read a few weeks ago regarding weekly writing. That thread, whichever one it was, was extremely helpful to me. Research and gather info on Monday, draft on tues/wed, edit on Thurs, and final copy on Friday (not sure that I remembered the exact days but you know what I mean). I mentioned this to my DD and she was thrilled with the idea of having a written piece every single week. So the first week, she had just finished reading Soul Surfer. Her report was on Bethany Hamilton. I edited it for her and talked it over with her.

 

My question is though, how long should we be aiming for? This, her first one, was just over an A4 page.

 

Should I alternate topics such as this week history, next week science, the week after literature, then something creative?

I do alternate across subjects. As far as length, I don't dictate it. They write however much is required to discuss what they need to address.

[Flowergirl159]

I'd agree that I'd let her start on her reading time right after chores. Have a set time that you will start math with her everyday (pretty much no matter what) so she knows that is when she has to put down her books. (In our house, we couldn't start with reading because their mind would be stuck in their book the rest of the day.)

 

My eldest did two languages at that age and my dd#3 will start her second language this year (6th). Two languages take a lot of time!

 

I'd let her read SOTW on her own OR give her something more age appropriate to read for history. I'd use lunch time to talk about what she read for history that day. The other kids should be able to contribute from what they heard during their own morning time.

 

If you can, I'd encourage you to split your 1 hr (12-1) into two 30 minute blocks or even 1 30 minute & 2 15 minute blocks so you can give her direction on WWS1 & then send her off to work on it. She comes back in 15-30 minutes and you check her work & have her revise/fix as necessary. In the smaller chunks of time she's working independently, you can work with your other kids--- and then send them off to work independently (or play or read) for a short while, too.

 

You have a great set of ages for homeschooling there -- without any toddlers/babies in the mix. Ideal!

 

I like your idea of splitting her one on one time up - WWS example makes a lot of sense :). But I had a nicely planned morning :( 

8:30 maths time for an hour

9:30 break

10 work with DD7

11 work with DD9

12 work with DD11

1 lunch and finished

 

Now to look at rearranging that...

[Flowergirl159]

I do alternate across subjects. As far as length, I don't dictate it. They write however much is required to discuss what they need to address.

 

Okay thanks, is there a way to determine what they need to address? 

[busymama7]

I have to disagree a bit with a previous poster. You can work on things that are at the older child's level and the younger ones get the exposure and get what they get from it. It doesn't have to be the other way around. I see so much discouragement on this board from working together in multi ages and I find it sad. That is the best part of our homeschool life. Siblings learning and working together. And the younger ones benefit so much from being around and absorbing what is being done with the older ones. Now if you are always doing stuff for little kids and having the olders just listen in that can be a problem. But the other way around does work. I've done it for years. I don't know how moms with big families could possibly keep up in any other way.

[Haiku]

I see so much discouragement on this board from working together in multi ages and I find it sad. That is the best part of our homeschool life. 

 

We used to do much/most of our work together. But when the kids started finding it not profitable, we rearranged. It's not that we are discouraging working together. But when an 11 year old says she feels that spending 90 minutes on a morning basket is a waste of her time, I think it's fine to look for alternate solutions.

 

My kids are less than one calendar year apart in age. It would be awesome if teaching them together worked. For us, it doesn't.

[RootAnn]

I like your idea of splitting her one on one time up - WWS example makes a lot of sense :). But I had a nicely planned morning :(

8:30 maths time for an hour

9:30 break

10 work with DD7

11 work with DD9

12 work with DD11

1 lunch and finished

 

Now to look at rearranging that...

 

You can still have a nicely planned morning. Your chunks will just be smaller and more spread between all the kids. Your younger kids will work on independent assignments for small chunks of time and learn when to move on and when to come ask you questions. (We have a system for this. Sometimes it works.) We all get a lot more done when we're working on math together -- with me floating between kids. One kid is working on review problems while I'm introducing new material to another child. Then, I introduce new things to the one who had been doing review problems while the one I just worked with starts working through more problems on the new topic. I answer questions and help as needed. This works with two kids maximum at a time at our house. Add a third kid & there isn't enough of me going around. But two is pretty close to perfect. (Your third could be taking their break or reading or playing quietly.) 

[busymama7]

But when an 11 year old says she feels that spending 90 minutes on a morning basket is a waste of her time, I think it's fine to look for alternate solutions.

.

Yes and in our family the solution has been to move to harder/higher level group lessons. This also worked. The OP could teach to the oldest and move some of the younger basket things to bedtime for the younger ones.

 

We have not found success from having high schoolers work independently. I thought for years and years that this was the solution but when we went that way, they hated it. They loved the social group interaction that family lessons provided and did not do well being sent to a room with a book to learn from. I had to rethink everything as I thought that if I did a good job in the lower grades that they would be independent by high school. Instead, teaching to the oldest and allowing the others to be along for the ride is working better. Not perfect, but better. I just wanted to offer a different solution.

[Haiku]

did not do well being sent to a room with a book to learn from. 

 

Yeah, I wouldn't like that, either. That's not how we do it here. We're generally all working in the same space, and the kids do talk to each other (and me) about what they are working on, ask one another questions, go on tangents, etc. But my kids' interests and abilities are too divergent for it to work for us to all be studying the same things. For example, this year my dd is doing an in-depth study of the history of Greece and Rome. My ds has no interest in going over that again, so he's going to study the history of our city and also Vikings using videos from The Great Courses. Last year was the last year we did history together. 

[PeterPan]

I'm jumping to the end here, but I'll say that your dd seems happy and like she's thriving.  I would only change things that are BROKEN, not things that aren't.  Her passion for languages is not a fault, and giving her time for it is a gift.  Spending time on them is not a problem, and spending the whole morning on humanities is not an issue.  If she enjoys it, do it.

 

Anything she's doing that is not age-appropriate, I would drop.  People mentioned morning basket and SOTW.  If the way you're using those aren't stretching her or intriguing her or appropriate, replace/change, sure. 

 

I think it's a pitfall to read about someone's plans on the board and go "Ooo, I must do that!"  Just because they're good in theory or for someone else's dc doesn't mean they're necessary or going to thrive with the plans.  They might really be a distraction.  It seems to me like you're seeing what she's blossoming into, and I'd encourage you to make plans for science that fit her.  She doesn't have to do everything equally or in the most extreme way.  You might decide good enough on science is good enough, or done with a humanities bent would be good enough.  

 

You've done so well so far, raising someone who has a strong sense of what she enjoys, I would continue to listen to that.  :)

[busymama7]

Yeah, I wouldn't like that, either. That's not how we do it here. We're generally all working in the same space, and the kids do talk to each other (and me) about what they are working on, ask one another questions, go on tangents, etc. But my kids' interests and abilities are too divergent for it to work for us to all be studying the same things. For example, this year my dd is doing an in-depth study of the history of Greece and Rome. My ds has no interest in going over that again, so he's going to study the history of our city and also Vikings using videos from The Great Courses. Last year was the last year we did history together.

Yeah I missed the boat a bit there for awhile. I read about these kids just doing their own work and such and it just didn't work like that in my family. I mean for skills, of course. But otherwise, learning together has been a better fit. Even being in the same room working on different things wasn't great. They just aren't really independent learners and I wish I had been exposed to another way for doing high school earlier. It was a long, frustrating journey to this place but we are excited about next year.

[Denise in IN]

I'd definitely consider flipping the group time (and not have it go 90 minutes!). Work at HER level, and let the littles follow along. That method worked many, many years in the one-room schoolhouse model. You'll HAVE to split the kids up as the oldest moves on. I was able to group mine: oldest two, middle two, last. I was blessed that the younger of the two pairings was easily able to handle the older one's work. It meant that the younger of the two pairings had some GREAT electives in high school! 

 

I agree with this, or you could also do the first 30 minutes geared to the older level, then let her go do independent work, and continue with the youngers at a lower level.  

[PeterPan]

... I wish I had been exposed to another way for doing high school earlier.

 

This is what I'm getting at!  I assumed for years, based on what I read in WTM and on the boards, that we'd get to junior high and high school and it would like ok, I tell you what to do, you do it.  Then we got there and I realized HELLO she's a PERSON!  And she has unique interests and passions, and squashing those and saying no, must do xyz, would be counter-productive.

 

And there are kids where you can require long lists of things you created and they still have time and energy to follow their own passions as well.  But in our house the balance is making sure those passions happen.  If some things that might have been nice have to get sacrificed to alternative ways of doing things, that's fine.  

 

I think it's ok to be a unique student.  My dd is not one of those who is going to compete with the AP rat race thing.  If the goal is to look impressive, she's not going to stack up that way.  But she's really UNIQUE, and the college she's applying to REALLY likes her and the places where she has interned in her planned field really like her.  So then you realize it was ok to be unique and be yourself.  Once you see them blossom like this, it's ok to let go of the fear of not doing all the things you could have done because you're going to progressively focus on the things that really suit THEM.

 

I should update my sig.  I just realized it's a little behind!

And, fwiw, the WTM *does* say to do that, to go very broad in the early years and narrow as you go up into high school.  But there's sort of a culture on the boards where we see how x person does history (expertly) and y person does math (expertly) and z person does writing (expertly) and we think we need to do all those things to do a good job!  But I think we have to know when to back off and let our kids blossom in areas and when not quite expert level is good enough, where good enough is good enough.

Edited July 25, 2016 by OhElizabeth

[8filltheheart]

I don't know how moms with big families could possibly keep up in any other way.

 

 

Well, I think we meet the definition of a large family, and we have managed to keep it up for decades. ;)

 

 

We have not found success from having high schoolers work independently. I thought for years and years that this was the solution but when we went that way, they hated it. They loved the social group interaction that family lessons provided and did not do well being sent to a room with a book to learn from.

I am not sure why teaching kids at their own levels means that they are being sent away to a room to learn from a book. That is the complete opposite of how our family functions. We are always engaged in discussions, either one on one or two on one if 2 are studying the same subject.

 

Nothing has to be so cut and dry. Things can morph and change as family dynamics change. For example, I have 2 high schoolers studying biology this yr. One is using Thinkwell and another is using Campbell/Reese. We chose the different approaches based on the different needs. One is ready for biochem focused biology and one isn't. They are going to labs together. But it would be doing a disservice to both of them to put them in the exact same program bc they are not functioning on the same level.

 

There is no single right get way. But when something isn't working, trying a different approach is worthwhile. For our family, my kids are very involved in selecting their own subjects and they are involved in the curriculum selections. By high school, they have all had very different interests and not one of them has had a high school education that has resembled another's at all. Good thing, too, bc they have been at radically different levels and they have been able to function at the level appropriate for them. That is what works for us.

 

If others do it a different way and that is what allows their kids to flourish, wonderful. But if I had a child who explicitly stated that something was not working for them, I would take it as a reality check and determine why.

[8filltheheart]

Okay thanks, is there a way to determine what they need to address?

I meant what they needed to write in order to adequately cover the topic they were writing about.

 

Fwiw, these 2 posts describe how I teach writing: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/239259-bringing-karens-mention-of-essay-writing-to-a-new-thread/?p=2363522

 

HTH

[vonfirmath]

I'm sure there are plenty of great writers and journalists out there who have never taken Latin. If she's not enjoying it, and you don't really have time for it, then I'd drop it for now - maybe she'll want to pick it back up if she's older. Or maybe not. But it's not like her future will be ruined if she doesn't study Latin. It's up to you what you think is important, of course - but is it more important than whatever you don't have time for now? I also think that she'll get (almost) all the benefits from French that she'd get from Latin (that said, I only had Latin in 7th and 8th grade and I mostly ignored the grammar (not completely though - I did get the most basic stuff, like that word endings matter and word order doesn't - but I never bothered to actually memorize the lists of word endings) because I don't like grammar).

 

Agreed. I didn't really have any formal grammer until HS (no diagramming sentences, or the parts of a sentence. We did a lot of writing and a lot of projects. We covered the basics -- noun, verb, adverb, adjective, capitalizing sentences... but that is it -- and I picked up all the names for things, etc. in Spanish and was able to easily correlate it with what I knew in English.

[Flowergirl159]

You can still have a nicely planned morning. Your chunks will just be smaller and more spread between all the kids. Your younger kids will work on independent assignments for small chunks of time and learn when to move on and when to come ask you questions. (We have a system for this. Sometimes it works.) We all get a lot more done when we're working on math together -- with me floating between kids. One kid is working on review problems while I'm introducing new material to another child. Then, I introduce new things to the one who had been doing review problems while the one I just worked with starts working through more problems on the new topic. I answer questions and help as needed. This works with two kids maximum at a time at our house. Add a third kid & there isn't enough of me going around. But two is pretty close to perfect. (Your third could be taking their break or reading or playing quietly.) 

 

Thanks RootAnn :)

 

Yes this is how we do our maths hour. I begin teaching the lesson to my oldest, while the other two work on drills. Then my oldest moves on to her independent maths exercises while I teach to another child, and so on. After an hour of jumping around doing math problems, everyone is done with maths for the day and I know that I don't need to help with maths until tomorrow.

 

So perhaps I could look at doing something like this for writing and grammar. I am currently using these resources: WWS1, WWE3, WWE2, Fix It! Grammar, Jr AG, FLL2.

 

Actually maybe even AAS would work in this way. I have found in the past that if my older two only have dictated sentences that day, I do them at the same time. So while one is writing their sentence, I will dictate to the other one.

 

Then that would leave me with Latin and French. I do Latin with one girl, French with another girl and edit Latin for her. 

 

Oh and listen to my younger two read aloud for a few minutes, we can just tack that on when we have a few minutes spare in our mornings.

[Flowergirl159]

I'm jumping to the end here, but I'll say that your dd seems happy and like she's thriving.  I would only change things that are BROKEN, not things that aren't.  Her passion for languages is not a fault, and giving her time for it is a gift.  Spending time on them is not a problem, and spending the whole morning on humanities is not an issue.  If she enjoys it, do it.

 

Anything she's doing that is not age-appropriate, I would drop.  People mentioned morning basket and SOTW.  If the way you're using those aren't stretching her or intriguing her or appropriate, replace/change, sure. 

 

I think it's a pitfall to read about someone's plans on the board and go "Ooo, I must do that!"  Just because they're good in theory or for someone else's dc doesn't mean they're necessary or going to thrive with the plans.  They might really be a distraction.  It seems to me like you're seeing what she's blossoming into, and I'd encourage you to make plans for science that fit her.  She doesn't have to do everything equally or in the most extreme way.  You might decide good enough on science is good enough, or done with a humanities bent would be good enough.  

 

You've done so well so far, raising someone who has a strong sense of what she enjoys, I would continue to listen to that.   :)

 

Thanks so much for your encouragement OhElizabeth, I really appreciate your kind words :)

 

I will keep your words in mind when looking at her day and what I need to reshuffle around. :)

 

You know, a couple of weeks ago, I was talking with her about science. She used to be a wealth of knowledge, answering her little sisters questions that mummy couldn't answer. I was looking at what science to use for her, so I asked her if she knew where she got her information from. She reluctantly told me it was from the year she did Abeka Science. She read Abeka Science in grade 4, but hated it. So we didn't pursue that again the following year. Instead she has been reading Apologia Elementary. So we had a good talk about it. She realised that if she learnt the most from Abeka, it was probably a good fit for her. What she didn't like about it was having to write out answers to every comprehension check. We are doing things a little differently now. My main purpose is for her build up her general knowledge. At some points throughout the book, I will require her to write but not every chapter. So she has now begun the grade 7 Abeka science book, only a few days so far, and is really enjoying it.

 

While I do love Apologia, she realised that she wasn't getting as much out of that resource as she did Abeka. ( I had huge plans of using Apologia for grade 7 on, now, I am not so sure)

 

All that to say, I have only just now chosen a science that fits 'her'. 

[Flowergirl159]

As far as morning basket goes, yes I need to tweak that. I do love the idea of having them all in together. And yes, in years past, it was more aimed at my oldest. But I need to be careful with content from a lot of Literature and such, for my DD7 as she is rather sensitive.

 

This is the first year that my DD11 feels like it is not where she needs to spend her time. And I get that! SOTW1 is aimed at my younger two and they are both loving it. So I will very possibly have my oldest do her own history reading instead of sitting in for SOTW.

 

Ideally, we usually spend about half an hour (it usually works out to be closer to twenty minutes) on Bible reading, and memory work - I will see what I can do to change that around, maybe move Bible reading to breakfast.

 

Our last half hour is French and Greek - French - that, my DD11 loves so I don't really want to delete that. Followed by learning the Greek alphabet. We are about half way through Code Cracker. At the beginning, they all loved it. But now, we are moving too slowly for DD11 and too fast for DD7. So they are both getting frustrated in their own way. Perhaps I could take Greek CC out of morning basket time and move it into everyone's independent time. Then DD11 can move onto whichever other Greek program we choose.  I had actually wondered about Hey Andrew for DD7, it might go a little slower, a better pace for her. My DD9 loves doing Greek CC :)

 

So perhaps we could begin with Bible/memory, French then DD11 could move onto her independent work til we begin maths at 8:30. Meanwhile, I will keep the younger two with me to cover SOTW. 

 

Any suggestions or recommendations here?

 

ETA: I could see doing MB this way would only require 30-45mins of DD11's time.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Flowergirl159

[LMD]

I have a similar daughter also in 6th and almost this same struggle. I can't seem to fit everything in and she's straddling the younger kid /short day/lots of play and wanting to do big, important subjects (everything!), but not quite mature enough to do it all herself...

 

I keep morning time short, 10-15 minutes each for Bible, read aloud (with handicrafts), loop subject (geography/music/math or science game or reading). Done in an hour and stuff she enjoys.

 

A couple of things have helped. She has her own desk. Makes her feel independent.

I give her a weekly list and let her organise her week herself. Stuff that is non negotiable on certain days I mark. So our school time is 'meeting' time where she brings me what she's working on. She really likes this and does well with organising her days.

 

I'll come back and read through the whole thread properly because I could really use some advice too...