Kindergarten Abeka Seatwork

[klhoward42]

We have been moving through the school year with my DD 5, she is doing great. We have turned the corner and have started seat work. I like it because there is more for her to do to really reiterate what she has learned. She doesn't like it so much, granted it is the 3rd day. Se thrives on the one on one attention and I want her to be able to work more independently. My question is what do you do to make seat work more interesting?? I understand that seat work is designed to fill the time in a traditional school setting ,but how did you make it work in your home? I am not looking for Abeka bashing and " that's why I don't do seat work". I am looking for info of how you make it work better for you. I believe in Abeka and love their different way to teach my daughter. I just would like some tips and encouragement on how to make seat work more interactive and fun. Thank you

[Tidbits of Learning]

hmmm....We aren't doing Abeka this year, but my k'er has seat work with k12 and we have done Abeka before in the past. I think some kids really take to it off the bat and others don't. We sometimes do some of the seat work on the chalk board. I have a small chalkboard (think 2' x 2.5') mounted at his height on the wall and my k'er loves writing answers on the board. We did his worksheets together at first with him writing the answers on the board (I would fill in his sheets) and us talking a lot. Then he wrote answers on the board b/c he loved it. I try to add stickers and such. We do a timer to see if he can beat the timer and finish his page before it goes off. I also used the timer as a tool for me to say he had had enough for the day. Even if he didn't finish the worksheet and the timer went off after 20 min. or whatever the suggested time was...we put the paper away. I have a melissa and doug teacher stamp set and he likes to get his papers back at the end of the day/week (whatever works for you) and see the stamps and show them off to Dad. Now he doesn't want my help with his worksheets. He will tell me he can do them himself and has really taken to them. So I guess just try to make it fun at first and slowly move towards her doing it without you. If something had a lot of repetitive style questions on a page, we would do a lot orally and only leave a few for ds to finish on his own. We have been working on seatwork for about 4 months now and ds has really gotten better about it the last 2 months. I would say that you will have a little bit of a transitional period and to just try and make it fun. Stickers, stamps, grades or check marks or smiley faces, and a treasure box can really turn it into something fun.