HOW (or maybe WHEN)???

[mcmama]

My almost 8-year-old son has just started public school for the first time (second grade). I'd like to engage in some "afterschooling," but HOW and WHEN do you do that?!

 

My son needs decompression time. While the routine of school is a big part of why we sent him (he feels much more comfortable when he knows what's coming, and has a regular routine), the stimulation, activity level, etc is a lot for him and he needs time to process that.

 

He gets one hour of computer time on school days (he usually uses half before and half after school).

 

So after all of that, after doing his 15 minutes of reading, 10 minutes of homework, and 10 minutes of math fact practice, there's not a lot of time left for anything else.

 

We eat dinner as a family, and after dinner, we do cleanup and a bedtime routine. My kids are in bed at 7:30, and usually asleep by 8:30.

 

Weekends are family time, and great for life-learning type "afterschooling." We do a lot of chatting, reading, etc. But we turn off our screens and the outside world one day (which makes googling hard, argh!).

 

I am just already feeling like it's hard to cram everything into our days. How do I make time for more?

[cathmom]

I've been wondering the same thing. I haven't been able to work in any afterschooling yet - just wanted to get used to the routine.

 

But there really isn't a whole heck of a lot of time. :confused:

[jenbrdsly]

Start with carschooling, and go from there. Another tip would be to purposefully structure your bedtime read-alouds. Now we are reading books about King Arthur. Now we are reading books about the Asian American experience. Now we are reading books about famous explorers. etc.

Another tip would be to try one new science experiment each weekend. Kids usually LOVE science, so that ends up being a really fun family activity. Good luck!

[RebekahnDavidMom]

I am having the same problems, except that my daughter gets home from school about 3:30 and i immediately have to start making dinner so that I can eat and leave for work by 5. Since she doesn't leave the house until 8:30, i thought we'd have plenty of time to "before-school" but it takes us nearly an hour and a half to eat breakfast (our only family meal since I work nights), pack lunches, and get ready. I am getting frustrated since i can't even seem to fit in a 10 minute FLL lesson. My daughter needs much more than the school offers, yet I can't seem to give it to her at home. I work 1-10 most Saturdays and 9-5 most Sundays so i am hoping to sqeeze a little in during that time, but the time I don't work on weekends is sacred family time as well since we don't get much at all. My husband is home with the kids all night, but he is also going to school online full time so busy with his own work.

[slackermom]

For our family, "family time" is often the same as "afterschooling time," and it is woven through the day. For example, DD has often requested math lessons in the tub, and on occasion I even bring a white board into the bathroom to help with a math concept. We also go to museum exhibits fairly regularly, and I am a museum freak, so for me, taking the family to the museum is quality family time.

 

Like jenbrdsly, we usually have a theme going with our reading material. I grab a bunch of books from the library for DD, and she reads many of them independently, especially for her bedtime reading. We discuss the topics a few times during the week, maybe while making dinner, in the car, or over the weekend when we have more time.

 

DD has been asking for more projects related to her history reading (such as when we "mummified" her dolls), and that sort of thing would usually happen on the weekend. Our current project is building a cardboard pyramid to house the mummies. We have had to do some math to figure out the angles involved, and determined how much the size of a sarcophagus affects the required height of the pyramid. So, the application of math turns into a good math lesson.

 

DD is able to count her "afterschool" reading materials as her school-required 20 minutes of reading at home. Last year, DD's second grade teacher also encouraged her to do her writing assignments on topics we were covering at home. We could also send some of these reading materials to school for independent reading time, so DD was "afterschooling" at school. :001_smile:

 

I review DD's homework folder when I pick her up at school, so I know right away what needs to be done. Take-home worksheets from school are often completed in the car on the way home. We keep a clipboard in the backseat pocket for this. If DD is up for it, we review spelling words and math facts as part of the ride to school in the morning.

 

So, we solve the "how and when" problem by blending most of it into our regular activities, which makes it easier to have occasional pockets of time, maybe 20 minutes, for more traditionally structured lessons, with some worksheets. Those lessons could be on math, a foreign language, history, or geography. It's usually just one lesson on any given day, and something like that would generally be right before or after dinner, or on the weekend.