Question for moms with independent learners

[Hunter's Moon]

If coming out of PS after 10+ years, would you have your day set up as a normal PS day, or would you switch it up to how you like?

 

I fear if I switch it up a bit, the freedom will be overwhelming and I won't get all my work done. But I also don't want to do it how the PS does it, because that would just be pointless.

 

My mom won't be teaching me lesson plans, she'll just tell me what to do for the day/week and I'll do it. So, there won't really be any structure at all.

 

What do your independent learners do? Do they have any techniques that they use after you set them loose with their weekly assignments?

 

Thanks :)

[Hunter's Moon]

Another question.

 

How are your days structured during the summer so your children aren't tempted to go outside until school work is done? This might be more of a question for the K-8 board though.

[Greta Lea]

He always gets math done shortly after breakfast. He does have the option to eat, do math, then get a shower. That is certainly not like p.s. even though he is getting math done early in the morning.

 

I make a daily checklist for him in the order that I think it will work the best for him (like a heavy reading subject followed by a vocabulary workbook). He can follow it or not, but he HAS to complete everything before bed. He is almost always finished before supper in the evenings.

 

Remeber, when you get in college your days will NOT be like a typical p.s. You might not have a class until 10am. Then it will be YOUR choice to either sleep in and study later in the evening or go to bed early and get up early to study before any classes begin for the day. Also, one semester I had no Tues/Thur classes. My M/W/F were FULL of classes from 8am until late afternoon. I only did independent work a bit that evening, if any at all. The the next day *I* decided if I wanted to get up early to study or sleep in and study in the evening.

 

You have SO much more freedom in college. I say that you pretend you are in college and have some freedom to the structure of your day.

[Hunter's Moon]

He always gets math done shortly after breakfast. He does have the option to eat, do math, then get a shower. That is certainly not like p.s. even though he is getting math done early in the morning.

 

I make a daily checklist for him in the order that I think it will work the best for him (like a heavy reading subject followed by a vocabulary workbook). He can follow it or not, but he HAS to complete everything before bed. He is almost always finished before supper in the evenings.

 

Remeber, when you get in college your days will NOT be like a typical p.s. You might not have a class until 10am. Then it will be YOUR choice to either sleep in and study later in the evening or go to bed early and get up early to study before any classes begin for the day. Also, one semester I had no Tues/Thur classes. My M/W/F were FULL of classes from 8am until late afternoon. I only did independent work a bit that evening, if any at all. The the next day *I* decided if I wanted to get up early to study or sleep in and study in the evening.

 

You have SO much more freedom in college. I say that you pretend you are in college and have some freedom to the structure of your day.

 

Thank you.

I really like both ideas; getting math done early, and pretending I am in college.

 

:)

[jld]

I think a junior in high school is old enough to decide how to structure her day. My dd15 just picked up her algebra book one day towards the end of 8th grade and started doing it. She didn't wait on me for Latin, either. She gets herself up every morning and goes right to trig, after doing her Bible reading for the day. Then it's on to chem and bio. She makes her own lunch and her brothers', too. She schedules time for the gym every day. This is her life and her education; she knows this and takes responsibility for it. I think this is completely age-appropriate.

 

With as much initiative as you have shown in taking charge of your homeschooling, I can't imagine you will have any difficulty in scheduling your days. I would just make sure that you do the work every day, day in and day out. That's where the self-discipline comes in. Planning isn't necessarily difficult, but getting the work done can be. Planning a diet isn't necessarily difficult, but sticking to it can be.

[Teachin'Mine]

My daughter is almost completely independent. When you were in school, you had 40 minutes or so of "learning" a subject and then moved onto another one and then did the homework at night. With home schooling, you can start a subject for the day and keep working until you're done with that subject for the day. When you hit research papers or studying for quarter exams, you can structure your day however it works best for you. That day, not much else may happen if you get absorbed in your writing. The one thing that we've found that needs to be done daily is math. It's not the subject that you want to let go and then double up on to catch up. For other subjects, this can be perfectly fine.

 

I think that if you have a sketch of what needs to be done each week, and then make sure it gets done by week's end, you'll be fine. If you find that you're letting too much of it go until the end of the week - which I doubt you will - then you can break some of the subjects down to a daily work schedule to keep you on schedule.

 

Try to get as many of your subjects done in a day. You'll probably reach a point of saturation after an hour or so, and be ready to move onto something else by then anyway. For most subjects, an hour of serious work should be all you'll need. Again, math can be the exception needing more time for the lesson and correcting. Another exception is when it comes to studying for exams or writing papers. Same as in ps - more time is needed to study and write.

 

If you're concerned about completing everything in the week, try to front load your school week - try to do most of it early in the week with the goal of finishing by Thursday. Then Friday can be your day to do whatever wasn't finished, take tests, etc..

 

The first two quarters you can experiment with different ways to get it all done, and find what works best for you. It's good practice for scheduling your work in college anyway. :)

[Leanna Tomlinson]

My 2nd dd and ds have had the same downfall in high school- they tend to want to finish a subject for the entire week before moving on. We have found that they do much better if they make themselves switch subjects every 60-90 minutes. They don't necessarily do every subject every day, but they have also learned that breaking things into smaller chunks works better for them. Trying to do Calculus for three hours without a break is usually not as productive as two separate 90-minute sessions. Trying to write a paper while chained to a desk all day does not work as well as writing for a time and then switching to another subject or activity. After a break, you can return to the paper with a fresh perspective. Also, working in a little physical activity every couple of hours really energizes the mind as well as the body. My ds will do a set of weights every hour and then get back to work. He really needs to expend some physical energy or he can't think.

 

Another thing....stay away from email and FB until the afternoon. It really takes more time than you realize. My dd had to make her own rule: No email until 2 subjects are done. No FB until 3:00. My eldest at college went on a self-imposed FB fast during midterms and finals.

[Nan in Mass]

I can't speak for my children, but I can speak for myself. When we switched to homeschooling from public school, I was desperately afraid I would do enough school. To solve that problem, I decided we would keep public school hours, more or less. That means that M-F we get up every morning and do school first thing, from 7 until 2. Then in the evening, we do math and language excersizes, because those are two things that we need to hit twice a day, seive-brained as we are. I have time slots for during the "school" day, but we don't really keep them. I make them at the beginning of the year as a sanity check, to make sure what we are doing will fit (and fill) the day. For many years, we did basic skills stuff M-R in the morning, read in the afternoons, and did science and history on Fridays after math and foreign languages (since we didn't dare take a long weekend sized break from them). This helps enormously. If I were you, I would do this. You can schedule the work however makes sense to you during the day, but have beginning and ending hours to encourage you to do school, and also so you have some sense of when you are done each day. As a high schooler, you will either have longer hours than just until 2, or you will have work you do after supper (like us), and you will need to do some work over the weekend. We often put reading or writing projects on the weekends. If you want to work in the summer, you might also consider what we do. If mine do an hour right when they wake up, and then do an hour before bed. It is surprising how much you can cover like that, and you still have the lovely a long summer day when you needn't even think about school work in between. Mine is a half-and-half method. : )

-Nan

 

ETA that I can't speak for my children because the older one went to school and I paid no attention whatsoever to how he scheduled things. The middle one homeschooled/CCed until he left for his 4-year college. He worked within my school day times for the subjects he did with his brother and me, and slowly added CC classes to that. By the time the harder CC classes came along, he was pretty much working all the time that he wasn't doing something scheduled (like gymnastics or getting together with a friend or doing something with the family) or taking a break. I didn't pay any attention to how he scheduled his CC work, other than to drive him back and forth and to make sure we didn't schedule family events when he had midterms or something. You may find that what happens is that you just work all the time, unless you are doing something else. I know that sounds very funny and obvious, but that probably is what is going to happen.

Edited June 15, 2010 by Nan in Mass

[lisabees]

Tigersgrowl,

 

What a great question. I have enjoyed reading all of your posts, as I have a sophomore in ps, who will be getting hs next year. :001_smile:

 

Scheduling is what I worry about most with him. At 11:30 last night, I thought he was studying for finals and he was (once again) watching Khan Academy.

 

The kid may just about kill me next year! :lol:

Edited June 15, 2010 by lisabees

[LatinTea]

Another thing....stay away from email and FB until the afternoon. It really takes more time than you realize. My dd had to make her own rule: No email until 2 subjects are done. No FB until 3:00. My eldest at college went on a self-imposed FB fast during midterms and finals.

 

Mind if I send this to my ds? :) He's doing college at home and email and FB sure do suck his time some days. And this is why my dd still has no email/Internet account yet. It would pull her in and I would never see any work done. Of course, listen to her, and you will hear another scenario! :glare:

[momofkhm]

What do your independent learners do? Do they have any techniques that they use after you set them loose with their weekly assignments?

 

Thanks :)

 

I basically give them their assignments and they are off on their own. I do have a check sheet for them and they can check things off as they choose. The order they do their assignments as well as where they do them is up to them. My oldest does everything at the school table. Even reading the literature books. My middle does her work all over the house - some at the school table, some on her bed. I figure as long as the work gets done, I don't care where they do it. DS reads in the comfy chairs and does seat work at the kitchen table, but he's not independent yet. Any discussions we do are in the family room, sit where you want. I try to sit in a place where it's easy to see everyone at once.

 

I'd be happy to send you their check sheets (really a weekly planner) that you can tweak as you like. I wonder if we can send a pdf through a pm? I have a friend who lists everything for the week on a white board. As you finish an assignment, erase it from the board. That way she and they can see what's getting done and what's not.

[ChrisN in NY]

If coming out of PS after 10+ years, would you have your day set up as a normal PS day, or would you switch it up to how you like?

 

I fear if I switch it up a bit, the freedom will be overwhelming and I won't get all my work done. But I also don't want to do it how the PS does it, because that would just be pointless.

 

My mom won't be teaching me lesson plans, she'll just tell me what to do for the day/week and I'll do it. So, there won't really be any structure at all.

 

What do your independent learners do? Do they have any techniques that they use after you set them loose with their weekly assignments?

 

Thanks :)

 

I help my high schoolers set up a schedule of sorts to help them complete their assignments. Once my older dd was working, she figured it out on her own and was pretty good about getting everything done.

 

My 2nd dd I've helped set up a schedule. She does her two hardest subjects right after breakfast and right after lunch. Then she practices her instrument (piano in the AM, flute in the PM).After each of those she does one of her easier subjects. Then a more "medium-hard" one. When it's not winter, she goes out mid-afternoon and works on her soccer drills and saves her late-afternoon piano practice for later.

 

HTH!

[Colleen in NS]

With as much initiative as you have shown in taking charge of your homeschooling, I can't imagine you will have any difficulty in scheduling your days.

 

:iagree: And congrats on ZERO days left of p.s.!!!!!!

[Hunter's Moon]

:iagree: And congrats on ZERO days left of p.s.!!!!!!

 

Lol. Thank you everyone!!!

 

I am so excited, I am started Chem on Monday, and possibly Math if it gets here in time :D

[Teachin'Mine]

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

:party::party::party::party:

 

:party::party::party::party:

[krstbrwn]

First - Congrats on no more public school.

Second, I have a daughter who will be a junior this fall, and I plan to have her try and schedule her own day. In the past, I have made a schedule for each day. We weren't always able to stick to it, but it let her work on things on her own while I was working with my other children. Also, there were certain subjects that had to be done, like math and science, and others we were more flexible with, like grammar and vocabulary. My hope for this year, however, is that she will start learning the all important skill of time management. I will guide her, but I want her to figure out how much time needs to be devoted to what in order to get her assignments in. After all, I won't be over her shoulder in a couple of years when she's in college. It sounds like to me, at least from reading your posts, that you are on the right track and responsible enough to handle all of this.:D

Best wishes,

Kristi

[Anne]

Tigersgrowl - Congratulations on coming out of PS!!!

 

I'm with the others in saying you can schedule your days. This will be terrific preparation for your college years and for life.

 

One thing I would suggest is that you make a plan every week as to how you will approach your work. Write it down. At the end of the week, see how that plan worked for you and think about if or how you'd like to tweak it.

 

I'm excited for you starting this new adventure!!!

 

Anne

[Cedarmom]

My son tried the no schedule, but too much freedom led too easily to procrastination. So we wrote out a scedhule. He estimated how much time he would need for each subject andscheduled it. However, he was also flexible. If he was deep into writing a paper he might just keep going and not switch over to math. But the beneift of having the schedule was that he knew approximately how long each ting would take, and so he could have an idea of all he needed to do.

[Hunter's Moon]

Thanks everyone for the wonderful ideas. I am going to start small and build up. Next week I will start Chemistry and History.

 

The week after that I will add in Math. And the week after that I will add in Italian.

 

By the time I have done a week of Italian, two weeks of Math, and three weeks of Chem and History I will add in Astronomy, Music, Health, American Lit, and Rhetoric because that was when I was originally going to start school. I just figured since I got my Chem kit and I have my History stuff I might as well start slow and get used to a schedule that I have to implement myself :)

[cocoabean]

We approach the work as a priority, just like a job that must be done before anything else. Not that it is a job, but with that mind-set.

 

When we set it in our minds that school work is number one, then it doesn't get put off. It gets finished before doing less important things.

 

HTH!