WTM with a large family?

[Guest bookwormmama]

Ok I have almost all my curriculum and everything set up for school. I am starting to get nervous {even though I have homeschooled for 4 years so far}. I will have 4 children to school this year and I am using OPGTR with my two younger ones, FLL for 3 kids, and WWE with my two older kids. Plus we also have Math and Latin and Science and SOTW 2 for History. I am beginning to get worried as I thought about all this... how am I going to implement all these lessons {many of them are scripted and require a lot of one-on-one time with the student} with so many children and with a toddler and a baby running around the house? I noticed that these curriculums are not set up in a way that it allows the older kids to be independent in their work. Argh. I am starting to doubt how I can do this?

Should I arrange an hour of one-on-one time with each child each day and do as many group lessons together as I can like the history and music and art and science and the rest of the subjects such as the basics can be done during t his one-on-one time? How do you all do it? What does your schedule look like? I am wondering if I need a mother's helper or tutor or something?

 

Thanks!

[Quiver0f10]

I do combine as much as I can. Even if I am only able to lump a few kids together that helps. Pretty much the only subjets each does at his or her own grade level are math and english.

 

In the morning we do some group things and then I start wokring with one child. Once that child is able to continue on alone I start with the next and so on until everyone is working and then I just keep going through subjects/kids until we are done.

Edited August 3, 2009 by Quiver0f10

[Guest bookwormmama]

Thanks Jean. I am worrying about my ability to focus on one child for a long period of time with all that is required in the teaching portions of our curriculum. I hope it all works out! Thanks again

[mycalling]

We're just starting our year and this is the first year I've schooled more than 2. We're still getting adjusted. What is working is using computer-based stuff for a lot: CDRom Building Thinking Skills and science, history, biographies, and geography are research-based on Cosmeo.com. The ones too young to research (K-2) aren't missing much at their ages. My oldest does read those subjects' topics out the the various encyclopedias we have once or twice a week. I want to get that happening more often. She enjoys doing that.

 

My biggest time consumer is listening to read alouds. I'm sure my kids could each listen to the younger sibling read, but I haven't implimented that yet. So far, I've pawned it off on dad. I know there are electronic reading aids that could add more practice.

 

I'm switching Writing to being a group activity sort of IEW-esque with a main lesson they will have skill-appropriate assignments from. We'll be doing young NaNoWriMo this year so we're preping for it with grammar and stucture first then parts of and planning for a story. We'll see how it goes.:001_unsure:

[Haiku]

I don't have a large family, but loop scheduling may be of interest to you.

 

Tara

[Guest bookwormmama]

Tara, could you expand on that a little bit? What is loop scheduling?

[Guest bookwormmama]

Does ANYBODY know what loop scheduling is? HELP!

[Colleen in SEVA]

I don't really have any advice, just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in your worries. :grouphug:

[Guest bookwormmama]

Thanks Colleen! :001_smile: I see you have a large brood as well. It's nice to not be alone. I think I will need to implement a very strict schedule and just make sure we stick to it. :}

 

Thanks!

[farmwife]

I share your concerns.

 

Pray. Schedule. Train. Teach.

 

That's what I'm trying to focus on.

 

Also on a more practical note, I use a modified Managers of Their Homes schedule, and I LOVE the SOTW c.d.'s. I am going to be using that to supplement our school instead of reading it aloud. Also, we are leaning toward the MFW bent in order to better work together. I am also going to try workboxes this year, I know it won't take away any of the actual teaching time but it will save the "I can't find my book etc," problem (I hope!) . We'll see.

 

You are not alone.

 

P.S. Loop scheduling, I think it is just moving from one subject to the next and what you don't finish you just start up the next day. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong! I personally couldn't handle it, I would never get much done, thinking it would get done the next day! ;) Procrastination is a problem here, I don't want to encourage it!

[Melissa in Australia]

I only have 5. what I have found helps is grouping the kids together for some subjects, and having the m do different subjects at the same time . eg. they can all do math, and Rosetta stone independently so I have some doing math , some doing Rosetta stone, while I help the 5 year old with his phonics. then I move on to helping the next child, etc. they also have their breaks at staggered times. so it ends up with me teaching / assisting from 8.30 in the morning straight until 3.30 , but the kids are coming and going.

[Haiku]

Loop scheduling is where you schedule your subjects in a certain order. You start working on them and work until your day is done. Anything that you didn't get to today becomes the first thing you work on tomorrow. For example, if you had Math, Writing, History, Latin, and Science scheduled, and today you got through Math, Writing, History, and half of Latin before your time was up, tomorrow you would start by finishing Latin, doing Science, and then moving on to Math again. It's a way of making sure that all your subjects get equal time even if you can't get to each of them every day.

 

You mentioned possibly devoting an hour to each child. If each child had a loop, you would be assured that each subject would be gotten to and none would be constantly put on the back burner.

 

Tara

[Colleen in SEVA]

The loop idea wouldn't work for this family either... we are ALL procrastinators!

 

FWIW... we are doing workboxes for our morning work. Each boy has 6 boxes (cheap magazine files) with his individual work (math, spelling, and such). Then in the afternoon we do history all together (all listen to SOTW and color, then B stays to do additional work and discuss readings from Core 6) and science in groups (B on his own, G & D together, R & W napping).

 

So far (both weeks :D) this is working better than what we did last year, which was to have everyone do the same subject at the same time and I ran around the table helping as needed.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

Here's my approach...

 

I start with a list for each child: subject, number of days per week, time required with Mom, time required independently For example for my 5th grader....

 

Math 5 days 15 min. 30 min.

Spelling 3 days 0 min. 20 min. etc.

 

Next I combine subjects that don't require 5 days. Then I add up the total mom time required and the total independent time required.

 

Once I see the actual totals, I evaluate. How much time is required by me for each child vs. how much time do I have available? How much total time am I scheduling per child per day vs. how much time do I want them to do school work each day? Then I can see where I need to combine kids, prioritize what curriculum is most important, and if I need to make some cuts or changes. HTH

[Haiku]

The loop idea wouldn't work for this family either... we are ALL procrastinators!

 

I actually think that loop scheduling would help procrastinators. You just set your time for the day and work until the time is done. Unless, I guess, the problem is that you procrastinate on starting school each day. :confused:

 

Tara

[Colleen in SEVA]

I actually think that loop scheduling would help procrastinators. You just set your time for the day and work until the time is done. Unless, I guess, the problem is that you procrastinate on starting school each day. :confused:

 

Tara

 

It's the "set your time for the day" part that wouldn't work for us. I can't commit to a certain amount of school time each day. With all of the little ones, it would be too easy for me to say "let's just stop here for the day so I can go take care of ____." This is what has happened around here for the last 2 years.

 

I know others on these boards have used the loop schedule successfully, I just know I would not be able to do it successfully. :)

[qfbrenda]

You can absolutely do the WTM with a large family. But the more kids I have, the more I tend to choose curriculums that can be done at least partly independently. I can't sit down and teach each and every subject to every child every day. So that has affected my curriculum decisions in a huge way.

 

But many curriculums fit within a WTM framework and some are more teacher intensive than others. For instance, for phonics many like Spell to Write and Read. It's a great program! But since it's too teacher intensive for me, I choose to use Explode the Code instead because my son can do it mostly without me. Now before all you SWR fans start defending the program, I'm not saying anything against it. ;) But we all have only so much time and have to decide how to use it. :D

 

And I'm not saying you made poor choices. I'm not familiar with all of your choices so I don't know. But as your kids grow, how teacher intensive a particular curriculum is should be part of the decision making process. :)