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New to afterschooling, how to know what to do?


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I never wanted to afterschool. One of my reasons for wanting to homeschool was to give my kids more time to explore their interests and still have lots of free play time. I never liked the idea of afterschool because that just added more to their workload and took away from their free time. But we put DD in ps this year (3rd). She's doing okay and likes it well enough.

 

I am not super impressed so far with the academics. For math, a lot of the worksheets say "Math Advantage" on the bottom. I admit I know nothing of this curriculum, I need to look it up. They are doing single digit multiplication right now, which we did over a year ago. Her spelling words are challenging her, but they do nothing to learn spelling rules or anything about them, just get a list on monday, test on friday. DD hates this, she is very rules-oriented and likes to know *why* it's spelled the way it is. Writing is going well, that's where she struggled before and between anxiety meds, speech therapy for several months, and someone not-mom telling her to do it we've crossed a hurdle there.

 

Science just doesn't happen. Or "social studies". The teacher even told me that they just aren't getting to it this year because LA is taking up so much of their day. DD LOVES science. We were spending a lot of time on science before, per her request. Though not a ton straight from our curriculum. We didn't even finish our science curriculum from 1st or 2nd (ironically one of the reasons I beat myself up that I wasn't doing a good enough job and thought ps could maybe do better for her :001_rolleyes: ). 

 

SO, long story short, I guess we'll be doing a bit of afterschooling. Her teacher is actually fine with her not doing her regular homework packet in exchange for stuff with me. She still needs to work on her spelling words, but we can skip the busywork math and LA worksheets. I've already broken out Beast Academy and DD is thrilled with that. I'm working on pulling back out some science stuff. How much can I, *should* I, do?  I don't want to start adding too much, but I don't want her missing out on stuff.

 

We don't know yet if she'll be going back to PS or coming home next year for 4th. I admit I kind of want to do AAS3 and BA, and get through at least a reading of the history spine so that if she comes home, I can move along without feeling like we skipped stuff.  And of course science. She wants a lot more science. Then I start thinking of critical thinking, spanish, word roots, and all the other things I had planned for this year. Is this just trying to hs on top of ps? How do I prioritize?

 

 

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I never wanted to afterschool. One of my reasons for wanting to homeschool was to give my kids more time to explore their interests and still have lots of free play time. I never liked the idea of afterschool because that just added more to their workload and took away from their free time. But we put DD in ps this year (3rd). She's doing okay and likes it well enough.

 

I am not super impressed so far with the academics. For math, a lot of the worksheets say "Math Advantage" on the bottom. I admit I know nothing of this curriculum, I need to look it up. They are doing single digit multiplication right now, which we did over a year ago. Her spelling words are challenging her, but they do nothing to learn spelling rules or anything about them, just get a list on monday, test on friday. DD hates this, she is very rules-oriented and likes to know *why* it's spelled the way it is. Writing is going well, that's where she struggled before and between anxiety meds, speech therapy for several months, and someone not-mom telling her to do it we've crossed a hurdle there.

 

You did multiplication early. My son's 2nd grade class dabbled in multiplication at the end of 2nd grade. They did a lot of counting by 2s, 3s, 5s, etc even starting in K -- which does make some picking up multiplication easier. But they were not expected to start learning multiplication tables until 3rd grade. He's doing multi-digit multiplication this year (in advanced 4th grade classes)

 

I was in "Gifted and Talented" growing up -- but multiplication and division was 3rd grade and 4th grade still.

 

I wish we had afterschooled more writing last year. Good that your daughter is learning it. It's been a hard slog for my son this year and I'm very proud of him for persevering.

 

I'd do science and history for afterschooling. Especially for a kid that loves science, school is not likely to feed that love until middle school.  They really focus in these years on getting reading and math down. The reading/literature arts so they are sure kids are comprehending what they are reading. (My son reads at a high level. But he doesn't comprehend at NEARLY so high a level as he can read). And math because you need the math background to really get into science.  They dabble in science and social studies.

Edited by vonfirmath
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For science, I would look for hands-on opportunities that don't involve any "responsibility" on the part of your child.  Aside from whatever science-y toys, hobbies and books she may have, see if your local libraries / museums / zoo / parks have affordable programs she could attend outside of school hours.  Our area has a huge list of such options, but I had to dig into the websites of each organization to find them.  Many of the programs are free.  I have heard of a "science club" that some kids in a nearby community attend, so maybe that is an option for you also.

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Thank you both for your advice. I found a science class a university near us does. It's done by their school of medicine and taught by the graduate students. It's 3 hours one Saturday a month. Her first is tomorrow and she is so excited! I will have to look into some other places to see if they have any programs that she'd enjoy.

 

I think I'll continue to get BA out, at least a couple times a week. Not trying to push through the whole curriculum, just do what we can. She really does enjoy it and it will challenge her a bit where her school math work isn't. Even if we did multiplication early and they're on track, that still puts her at repeating it now. History has never held her interest, so I don't want to push that one as much. Maybe just a chapter or two a week from SOTW as a read-aloud only. 

 

I guess I will try to let the rest go for now. I don't want to try to do too much. We have the summer to hit a few things if we decide to bring her home for 4th. 

 

So conflicted. This has been a harder transition for me than for DD. 

 

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I agree with SKL - no responsibility for the child. It gets harder each year for kids with more and more work and then to come home to eager mom with more stuff.

 

I wish you luck. We're all in the same boat with having so many plans and then scaling way back. You have to pick and choose. I wouldn't necessarily hold something off until summer, she might be sick of all things school. There's always weekends here and there.

☺

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Fortunately school has so many days off that you have plenty of opportunity to keep her on the math progression that will let her have good science opportunities in high school. You want to continue with math at home, because Common Core is too slow and shallow...even the authors of the math portion admit its not for future scientists and engineers as they wont be ready for calc as a freshman in college -- and this in a world where the better high schools provide calc to jrs.

 

The unlisted skill you need to add is auditory comprehension. You can get that with read alouds, old time radio, etc.

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Fortunately school has so many days off that you have plenty of opportunity to keep her on the math progression that will let her have good science opportunities in high school. You want to continue with math at home, because Common Core is too slow and shallow...even the authors of the math portion admit its not for future scientists and engineers as they wont be ready for calc as a freshman in college -- and this in a world where the better high schools provide calc to jrs.

 

The unlisted skill you need to add is auditory comprehension. You can get that with read alouds, old time radio, etc.

 

That is good to know about CC not great for a future in science. I will definitely keep up BA. I also have SM CWP if we need it.

 

We love read alouds. We had slacked off of them with her in PS and were really only doing a couple picture book bedtime stories, but the girls both missed it since we used to read aloud for at least an hour a day. Just last week we pulled out a new read aloud and I think I'm going to throw SOTW in there a bit, too. 

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Hi!! Welcome to afterschooling!! My daughter is in 3rd and my son is in 2nd... I have always afterschooled. Your current situation sounds a lot like mine!!! First let me say that as my kids are now older it is much more difficult to afterschool.  They have afterschool activities, homework and need time to just be kids. Here is my current approach:

 

1) I homeschool during week long breaks and summer.... I do a lot of the heavy duty stuff that I want to get done during the summer. I don't homeschool for hours on end on these days. And they may not get through the entire curriculum in a year but its ok. It also keeps my kids out of the summer slump and its still a more relaxing day than public school for 6 hours a day. 

 

2)I use the school provided resources- My school provides a lot of internet resources, wherever possible I use their resources to replace things I would do at home. For example, I use Raz kids for reading comprehension. My daughters school uses reflex math to learn math drills. I have a problem with math because their school provides ST math and controls the grade level, I use dreambox and my kids are a year ahead... in this case I don't make the kids use ST math and they have to do dreambox. I ran into trouble because last year my daughters teacher made her do ST math weekly so now she's behind indreambox at home. But i don't sweat it beause she's still a year ahead in dreambox and this year her teacher doesn't require it so we are able to catch up. 

 

3) I use parent-teacher conferences to refocus my afterschooling- this is probably the best reason to afterschool. As much as I'd like to keep pushing my kids ahead in math (my kids started multiplication at home while they were in the 1st grade) they need to focus on writing. I am going to hold off on math for the summer (which is really hard for me because its easy for me to get them to do  math but getting them to write is a huge challenge). If my kids have a writing assigment for homework I take a little bit more time and go through it with them... do more one on one. They are more willing to put in the time with me because I am helping them get their homework done. 

 

4) Social studies and science .... this is a deficiency in the current standards (in my opinion). Teachers don't have the time. I am still working on incorporating this more.... one way I do this is to do these topics on the random days off or the week long breaks that the kids have. It becomes the only thing I will do on those days. The other thing is that I try and throw in some science and social studies related non fiction in their weekly reading. OUr school mandates reading 20 minutes a day my kids are voracious readers and I try and get in one of these non fiction books once in a while and when I can I read SOTW to them. (I like the perspective SOTW has). 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I started after schooling when my kids were quite young, and it was easy in the early years. It gets much harder as they grow older and have more demanding schedules at school.

In terms of how to prioritize, I would say that you need to first consider why you're after schooling. If it's to fill in the gaps, then the priority should be to do what school doesn't do. If they don't do much Science, then you could devote some afterschool (or holiday) time to Science units. However, if your goal is to build on a child's interests or strengths, then the afterschooling priority would be different. So I guess that step one is to figure out your own after schooling philosophy: Why are you doing it, and what's most important to you?

 

My basic goal with afterschooling is to fill in the gaps from school, and to make sure that my kids have solid academic foundations and study skills. We've always prioritized math and grammar/writing, and we've always spent lots of time on free-reading/read alouds.

However, recently I've started to worry about "knowledge gaps" and "knowledge deficits." I think that it's really important for kids to read and study lots of rich content in the Sciences and the Humanities, but schools don't seem to have the time to do much of this in the early years. So far, I've tried to help my kids extend their knowledge base in fun ways -- through read alouds of non-fiction books and field trips to museums and Science Center exhibits. I'd love to do more, but we just don't have the time, and I'm not willing to sacrifice playtime and extra-curriculars (like sports, the arts) for this.

 

So that's where we are right now :)

Btw, I'm a teacher myself, so I absolutely love afterschooling, and I think it's really important. It's a great way not only to build a close relationship with your kids but also to help your kids realize how pleasurable and satisfying learning can be!

 

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In the remote chance you are anywhere near Los Angeles, East Los Angeles Community College has an excellent  weekend Children"s College. Students move freely  in an out of any level on their own pace,. We started pre-k, and stayed until the end of 4th, before maxing out all the 6-7th classes.   https://eastlac.augusoft.net/  Never mind. Just opened the link.   Looks like it  had an excellent program.

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I'm in a similar position now.  My dd11 is in ps for the first time.  I've not wanted to overload her, and we haven't done any real afterschooling so far.  It's been a bit of an adjustment as is to have less time to do her own things, and we've also needed to get a feel for the schoolwork situation.

 

I feel like I have a better sense now what her time availability is, which isn't a lot - she has piano and violin, and chess club Saturday afternoons.  I really don't want to get in the way of those activities.  And she will do sewing projects on her own, plus time with friends which are important IMO.  So the conclusion I've come to in the school year is to pick one or at most two necessary things to look at.  I think the choice may end up being math, as I'm not at all thrilled with the program so far.  Luckily, her writing seems to be coming along really well at the school, all I need to do at home is insist she pay attention to her handwriting and spelling which she tends to "forget" to do.  Her French is blossoming as well.

 

I also think science and history are subjects that don't get enough coverage, so I am thinking we will look at pursuing those in summer, even possibly just through reading - she's old enough now to read some substantial books and get something out of them.  Luckily, history has always been her favorite subject so I hope she will enjoy it.

 

One thing I am unsure about is how to manage her school reading choices.  They are largely allowed to choose their own books, and her report is that she chooses appropriate grade 6 books.  In fact, I know they are mostly below her reading level.  I am ok with that sometimes but I think she needs to stretch her skills to improve them.  It's tricky though to figure out how to get her to make better choices.  Maybe just go with summer reading.

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