Fitting it all in....

[Trish in Monroe]

Here is my story....I have 4 kiddos, ages 8, 7, 6 and 4. I have always homeschooled them. I found the well trained mind a couple of years ago and it was a game changer for us....the kids actually liked being challenged! We stopped doing it because it was so time consuming for me. We ended up switching to Build your Library. This year when I added the kindergartener I was reading for 3rd, 2nd and 1st grade while the 4 year old was off getting into trouble. This took more time than ever and left out a kid!!! We quit it all and I had the kids doing time 4 learning while I kept up reading history, poetry and literature (just one book of each though, instead of three). Last week it became clear that the 8 year old is not learning enough from the computer (I can't believe this was a light bulb moment!) and I am now realizing we should circle back to classical. My plan is to do the one room schoolhouse for anything we read together, workbooks for the oldest and reading and grammar done by me for the middle two.

 

I really love the plan in the well trained mind and would like to closely follow what Susan did with her kids. Am I going to bite off more than I can chew again? I know that this education is hands down the best I can give them and far exceeds anything they would get by being sent off to school somewhere. I just also know that they want a mother with her head on straight and that this is a top priority.

 

Thoughts? Advice. Anyone else with stairstepped kiddos doing it all?

[EmilyGF]

For me, with kids almost-13, 11, 9, 6 and almost-2, I do best with a planned curriculum that covers the bases well but that I can supplement on my own.

 

I've learned to tweak as needed, but without that backbone, I flounder and second guess myself. 

 

I think my current 9-year-old, who has the executive functioning skills of Martha Stewart, could probably write and execute her own curriculum for many kids. Not me. I get side-tracked and nothing gets done. (BTW, I'm supposed to be exercising...)

 

Emily

[PeterPan]

I really love the plan in the well trained mind and would like to closely follow what Susan did with her kids. 

 

You were doing really well till you got to this part. ;)  SWB was working and writing during those years and had significant help from highly committed family. She's also been very upfront on her blog that even she doesn't "do" WTM, that no one (generally) does WTM completely. 

 

If you're saying you're going to have concrete plans for math and LA and then do history/science together, that can work. Just find stuff you can live with and put them in it and stick with it. Have you made a spreadsheet so you know who you're working with and what each child's schedule is? Do they have checklists? Anybody 6 and up can be operating off a list, so they at least know their routine and what is coming next. You probably have logistics issues more than a curriculum problem, honestly. No matter what curriculum you use, you're still going to have to deal with logistics. They're going to have to have work lists or some other method of knowing the routine, and they're going to need some things they can do independently. If you get those two things dealt with, the rest will come together. 

 

For instance, independent work could be dot to dots for a k5er, a bin for reading, cut and paste, etc. With my ds9, I use word searches and am getting ready to add crosswords. I just ordered him new books to have a bin of high interest for independent perusal. Give yourself some things like this that cover your butt, things that they can know what to do if they're not working with you or have a lag or are waiting. 

 

If you're getting done LA and math consistently with that many kids and get to do one nice/fun thing a day, that's pretty good honestly. I would trust the rest to reading and audiobooks. Love the audiobooks. 

 

Don't beat yourself up too much. People are already feeling the low vitamin D of winter. Focus on a few good changes and call it good enough.

[Trish in Monroe]

thanks Peterpan....I put together the checklist this morning and it includes plenty of independent work 😊 I will up my vitamin d.

[Sneezyone]

I use a checklist for my peeps and have since they were 1st and 4th graders. It really does help. They used to have guided mornings with separate/independent work and group work in the afternoons. Next year, they will still have guided mornings  but DD will have outsourced classes in the afternoons while DS has mom-driven lessons. You could easily do something like this and leave the table sections blank to fill in whatever works for you; keep it as general or specific as you like. I start the year with 6-weeks pre-planned (I do this over the summer) to get us into a good rhythm and then spend 30 min to an hour each weekend prepping for the following week (printing the new schedule sheet, gathering supplies, making copies of handouts, etc.).

 

 

 

Edited January 14, 2018 by Sneezyone

[PeterPan]

Your other tip of the day, if you don't already do this or haven't heard somebody say it, is to plan *4* days a week of work instead of 5. That way you have some flex when things go wrong. I had one dc who was Mary Poppins, and for her the wind would blow and it was all over, poof, gone. For my other dc, I don't know, we just get tired and need down days. We also have a lot of therapy. 

 

So planning 4 days a week instead of 5 can be a good strategy for some people. And if you're consistently nailing the 5, fine, no matter! For us, we have the plan and then we have Cookie Friday. If we're on track, we can make cookies on Friday. You can have your own little traditions and motivators like that. 

 

A small thing, done consistently, will get you somewhere. It's total Tortoise and Hare. 

[mellifera33]

We have a big visual schedule on our schoolroom wall. It has been helpful to us for each kid to see exactly what they are supposed to be doing, in relation to each other family member--Okay, P is doing spelling, mom is doing spelling with him, N and C are doing puzzles. It takes up the whole wall, but it is worth it. It also takes the blame when someone doesn't want to do something--well, that's what the schedule says. Somehow there is a disconnect there--they don't put together that mom set up the schedule.  :lol:

 

We also do the 4-day schedule thing, kind of. We call it unschool Friday. We're kind of scheduled in the morning--we do our read-aloud, our Brave Writer freewrite, and some fun oral Latin stuff. Then we play a game that hits reading (Quiddler Jr, nonsense word concentration from The Phonics Page, Happy Hats), a game that hits math (Prime Climb, Dragonwood, anything with scoring, really), my oldest might read something to the youngers. In the afternoon, depending on weather, we like to hit a local park, or watch nature shows, maybe do a Mystery Science lesson, or do something artsy. If the week has been chaos, we will catch up on loose ends. We try to keep it light and fun. :)

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Edited January 14, 2018 by mellifera33

[PeterPan]

We have a big visual schedule on our schoolroom wall. It has been helpful to us for each kid to see exactly what they are supposed to be doing, in relation to each other family member--Okay, P is doing spelling, mom is doing spelling with him, N and C are doing puzzles. It takes up the whole wall, but it is worth it. It also takes the blame when someone doesn't want to do something--well, that's what the schedule says. Somehow there is a disconnect there--they don't put together that mom set up the schedule.  :lol:

 

We also do the 4-day schedule thing, kind of. We call it unschool Friday. We're kind of scheduled in the morning--we do our read-aloud, our Brave Writer freewrite, and some fun oral Latin stuff. Then we play a game that hits reading (Quiddler Jr, nonsense word concentration from The Phonics Page, Happy Hats), a game that hits math (Prime Climb, Dragonwood, anything with scoring, really), my oldest might read something to the youngers. In the afternoon, depending on weather, we like to hit a local park, or watch nature shows, maybe do a Mystery Science lesson, or do something artsy. If the week has been chaos, we will catch up on loose ends. We try to keep it light and fun. :)

 

I super love this!!!

[Trish in Monroe]

Great advice!!!!! You all are spurring me on to see that my dream is possible. I already planned the 4 day week, put together their checklist, after reading this last night put together a checklist for myself so I can check off my time with each kiddo. I also plan on fitting in some extras like Latin or Spanish, a spelling workbook and some extra science during the summer when we are in between the bulk if the language arts. I just need to make a box full of goodies for the little one..... enchanted learning here I come!

[Trish in Monroe]

Somehow there is a disconnect there--they don't put together that mom set up the schedule.  :lol:

 

 

Funny!!

This makes me think of our cat feeder...... the cats don't even tell me when it is empty, they just meow at it like it fills itself.

[mellifera33]

Great advice!!!!! You all are spurring me on to see that my dream is possible. I already planned the 4 day week, put together their checklist, after reading this last night put together a checklist for myself so I can check off my time with each kiddo. I also plan on fitting in some extras like Latin or Spanish, a spelling workbook and some extra science during the summer when we are in between the bulk if the language arts. I just need to make a box full of goodies for the little one..... enchanted learning here I come!

 

We like to do our major science units during the summer, too. One year we used the Nomad Press Geology of the Pacific Northwest book and took some field trips to major geological sites (like my avatar!). The kids thought that was great. 

[JennW in SoCal]

Hey there,

 

I never come to this corner of the forums because I've long since graduated my kiddos and retired from homeschooling, but this topic was the on the home page and it drew me in. I just wanted to give some encouragement and offer a glimpse at what worked for us. Of course I only homeschooled 2, though one of them was so much work it felt like more!

 

I think the key to following the WTM, to giving a solid, unique and challenging education to your kids, is to break it all down into 2 categories: skills and content. Skills are the math, the reading and writing. The WTM gives great advice on how to teach writing from copywork, to dictation, to narration which eventually leads to essays. It worked for my kids -- never used a single writing program from k thru 12. I did my best to work on those skills daily, though in reality 4 days a week sounds about right!  Grammar was less frequent, and mixed up with games and workbooks and when they were older, learning through editing their writing. Spelling again was a combo of games, workbooks and editing, and generally not daily. 

 

The content is the fun part. Kids glean so much from what we read aloud, what they listen to on audio or read independently. There are also many wonderful documentaries and PBS shows like NOVA or Nature. My kids did science kits, built stuff with legos and cardboard following their imagination or projects found in library books. We went to the zoo, to the museums, to plays and movies, and no matter what we did, we talked about it all. I like to think they learned how to make persuasive arguments through these discussions so that writing essays was simply transforming those arguments into nicely written paragraphs. I'd guide some of the content through picking out what to read aloud or what we would watch or where we'd go, but so much of my kid's education, even in high school, was interest led.

 

You will never, ever fit it all in. It is simply impossible. Just do the best you can to give your kids the tools they need to further their education, and nurture their curiosity by exposing them to the wide world. Worry is part of it, and you'll be reinventing how you do things a couple of times a year! I don't think I stopped worrying until they graduated college! But, the best part is that my 2 kids are really interesting young men who appreciate their unique homeschool experience. 

 

[Trish in Monroe]

Hey there,

 

I never come to this corner of the forums because I've long since graduated my kiddos and retired from homeschooling, but this topic was the on the home page and it drew me in. I just wanted to give some encouragement and offer a glimpse at what worked for us. Of course I only homeschooled 2, though one of them was so much work it felt like more!

 

I think the key to following the WTM, to giving a solid, unique and challenging education to your kids, is to break it all down into 2 categories: skills and content. Skills are the math, the reading and writing. The WTM gives great advice on how to teach writing from copywork, to dictation, to narration which eventually leads to essays. It worked for my kids -- never used a single writing program from k thru 12. I did my best to work on those skills daily, though in reality 4 days a week sounds about right!  Grammar was less frequent, and mixed up with games and workbooks and when they were older, learning through editing their writing. Spelling again was a combo of games, workbooks and editing, and generally not daily. 

 

The content is the fun part. Kids glean so much from what we read aloud, what they listen to on audio or read independently. There are also many wonderful documentaries and PBS shows like NOVA or Nature. My kids did science kits, built stuff with legos and cardboard following their imagination or projects found in library books. We went to the zoo, to the museums, to plays and movies, and no matter what we did, we talked about it all. I like to think they learned how to make persuasive arguments through these discussions so that writing essays was simply transforming those arguments into nicely written paragraphs. I'd guide some of the content through picking out what to read aloud or what we would watch or where we'd go, but so much of my kid's education, even in high school, was interest led.

 

You will never, ever fit it all in. It is simply impossible. Just do the best you can to give your kids the tools they need to further their education, and nurture their curiosity by exposing them to the wide world. Worry is part of it, and you'll be reinventing how you do things a couple of times a year! I don't think I stopped worrying until they graduated college! But, the best part is that my 2 kids are really interesting young men who appreciate their unique homeschool experience. 

 

I love this!!! Thank you.....

 

[2_girls_mommy]

We like to do our major science units during the summer, too. One year we used the Nomad Press Geology of the Pacific Northwest book and took some field trips to major geological sites (like my avatar!). The kids thought that was great. 

I have so done this! I call it our "summer camp." Whatever was our theme for the summer was the few hours of camp. One year it was a science unit study. Another year I worked on writing with all of the kids. All summers include reading aloud and library summer reading programs and their summer classes and shows for kids.  I took in babysitting kids and just put them all in together. 

 

So we would spend the morning at a park or on a nature trail, then head to swimming lessons or free swimming. We would pack lunches for this and eat outside. Once we got home and cleaned up, everybody gathered together for read alouds. If it was the science unit, we looked at the specimens we collected under the microscope or read from our library books and added to our timeline or display we were making. We always had art projects and summer journals we were filling out each summer too to keep up writing about what we were doing each day. And then there was a read aloud always, even if it was totally unrelated. This took a grand total of under 2 hrs each summer. That is including math practice for the older kids usually and some silent reading and there was still plenty time for hours of swimming in the mornings. And we got some major science topics covered that way that I felt were missing in some school years. One year we did a big Bible study kind of like extended VBS here.