Things that Seemed to Work But Later Backfired

[goldenecho]

Have you had any teaching/homeschooling (like, even really small things, like how you explained a certain thing, or how you practiced something, or whatever), that you looked back on later and wish you hadn't done.   Especially things that seemed to work in the short term but caused problems later on. 

 

[Green Bean]

Not correcting my kid’s pencil grip

Not making DD go through a phonics program. This ranks as my number 1 mistake.

Not me, but school not enforcing correct spelling at all times. That was our last year 18 yrs ago in school!

Not doing a systematic grammar/mechanics program. We’ve dabbled too much.

 

[Servant4Christ]

I'm with GB on the pencil grip.... and sitting correctly and slanting paper correctly, too. I'm STILL trying to break DS11 of these poor habits because I didn't take the time to correct them when he was younger thinking they were no big deal. I also wish wish wish I would've taken more time with things like using scissors to improve fine motor skills.

Oh, another regret: using all workbooks instead of teaching how to set up a piece of lined notebook paper sooner. That is seriously a skill in and of itself. I'm telling you, diagramming on notebook paper vs on a premade skeleton in a workbook brings about way better understanding and retention. 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Servant4Christ

[teachermom2834]

1 hour ago, Servant4Christ said:

 

Oh, another regret: using all workbooks instead of teaching how to set up a piece of lined notebook paper sooner. That is seriously a skill in and of itself. 

Lol. I cannot tell you how old some of my kids were when they would get out a piece of loose leaf paper for something and write on the wrong side of it. Way way too old. 

[8filltheheart]

4 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Lol. I cannot tell you how old some of my kids were when they would get out a piece of loose leaf paper for something and write on the wrong side of it. Way way too old. 

My grandkids do this and it drives me crazy.  I told my granddaughter that if she did it again, I was making her rewrite everything bc she would turn in a writing assignment with pages any which direction.  I'm like.....it is like a book.  Seriously, how to you open pages and read a book?

Back when my oldest was in 7th grade and I was pregnant (and very sick), I asked him grade his own math and didn't physically check it for a few weeks.  I would talk to him about it every day.  He would tell me how many he missed, that he understood, etc.  One day I asked him to bring it to me so I could look through everything.  Turns out he didn't do math at all during those days and had been lying to me.  It was one of those things that made me furious with him, but really, I was more angry with myself bc I put him in that position.  Too much temptation for a 12 yo boy who had things he would rather be doing than school.  It was one thing that he lied.  But, really, I placed him squarely in a huge vat of temptation.  He skipped one day and felt bad but got away with it and after a few days, he felt so far behind he just gave up.  I learned to never put my non-older teen kids in the position of being responsible for daily management or self-grading, no matter how tired, sick, or swamped I am bc that is just an unfair burden. 

[bookbard]

I remember asking my sister these sort of questions about parenting when I was pregnant. What did you regret, what would you do differently? I've got my own set now to pass onto my younger sister now she has babies. But older sister parented before internet was a thing. Younger sister is parenting now phones are a big thing. We're all in different situations.

[Ausmumof3]

Teaching oldest letter names not sounds.

Long term it’s been ok but it did cause me some grief.

Stopping doing readers to early with middle child. 
 

Most of mine are around language arts. I spent money for good maths curriculum but figured I could teach language easily because it’s my strong area. I wish I’d started much earlier with a really solid language programme.

[Ausmumof3]

Oh and one more. Not spending enough time teaching tech skills and specifically typing. I  assumed my kids would pick it up easily but turns  out they really needed to learn more.

[freesia]

2 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

My grandkids do this and it drives me crazy.  I told my granddaughter that if she did it again, I was making her rewrite everything bc she would turn in a writing assignment with pages any which direction.  I'm like.....it is like a book.  Seriously, how to you open pages and read a book?

Back when my oldest was in 7th grade and I was pregnant (and very sick), I asked him grade his own math and didn't physically check it for a few weeks.  I would talk to him about it every day.  He would tell me how many he missed, that he understood, etc.  One day I asked him to bring it to me so I could look through everything.  Turns out he didn't do math at all during those days and had been lying to me.  It was one of those things that made me furious with him, but really, I was more angry with myself bc I put him in that position.  Too much temptation for a 12 yo boy who had things he would rather be doing than school.  It was one thing that he lied.  But, really, I placed him squarely in a huge vat of temptation.  He skipped one day and felt bad but got away with it and after a few days, he felt so far behind he just gave up.  I learned to never put my non-older teen kids in the position of being responsible for daily management or self-grading, no matter how tired, sick, or swamped I am bc that is just an unfair burden. 

Everyone I know who let their dc self grade math had that same experience. 

[hollyhock2]

I should have had my youngest boy do a real handwriting program instead of just copywork in elementary. It took him a really long time to form letters correctly and get good at it. Something like HWT would have helped a lot, I think. He's fine now, though, so it's not a big deal, and just copywork worked for my other kids just fine, but it's one of those things that I should have noticed about that particular child.

[freesia]

Re: the upside down lined paper. My kids did that, too and it drove me insane. But I have to be honest and say it never really mattered and the two in college have been straight A students, so it’s not something I regret. 

[Clarita]

Oh no now I'm super nervous about the pencil grip and slanting paper. I taught/teach my kids pencil grip, but they aren't always great with it. I have not touched on paper slanting. Is it just so the lines are perpendicular to your arm?? (That's what I do.) 

I have bad pencil grip I'm just stubborn; so I learned to write beautifully with horrible pencil grip.

[freesia]

The only things that stick out to me are: I should have given my oldest way more support when he transitioned to high school work. I thought working downstairs in the family room where it was quiet was a good thing, but he wasted a ton of time the first semester of his freshman year. The child he was at the end of eighth grade was different from the child who started ninth grade—hormones. I also wish, in retrospect, I should have gotten him therapy when he showed signs of social anxiety at the same time. I also wish I’d moved a toxic friend out of our lives earlier when I first had doubts. The mom was my close friend at the time, so it was hard, but there was a lot my kids hadn’t told me and I didn’t learn until later. I should have gone with my gut. 
 

Also, when dd was going into fifth grade we went to a talk about the self-propelled child. She said, can we do that? (meaning have her work more independently. She didn’t like our group work.) At the time moving her to be more independent in some areas worked great, and I think she learned more in science. She wasn’t completely independent—I taught her daily grammar, writing, and math and she had weekly history group and lit group. But, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have dropped group (our name for morning time) for her. Her pulling away from that was actually not the best thing for her and She needed to be more connected to our family as a group. And, that led to fall out that is also connected to toxic friend from above. 
 

All of the above worked out and both kids are thriving right now. We regrouped and changed things in reaction to what went wrong. I learned that parenting teens is an art, not a formula. In both cases I think I should have listened more to my gut feeling. 

[BlsdMama]

Teaching Textbooks 😒 

 

Because DS struggled, I didn’t focus on the habit of schoolwork. I didn’t recognize his abilities and let him slide on things I should have made progress on slowly but surely. 
 

I wish I’d had him doing narrations and written dictation daily even if just 3-4 sentences. 

[AnneGG]

I’m on my 3rd year of homeschooling so I am still learning a lot and still making lots of mistakes. 
 

My biggest mistake thus far was not spending enough time learning how to homeschool. I should have spent less time on fluffy, feel good homeschool stuff and more time polishing my teaching skills. 
 

My second mistake was trying all the things and buying all the things. I did not need 5 different games that focus on CVC words. I did not need to buy books (at the thrift) on the 2nd grade Sonlight list when the child was two years old. I mean, really? 🧐 Over excited much?! 🤣 My sister and mom (also hs’ers) used to just smile and nod when I would share all my finds. Bahaha! 

[Ting Tang]

We’re wrapping up year #2 of homeschooling, so I’m still “new.”  I really appreciate this thread, like, a lot. Habit training is where we could improve. Curriculum aside, it’s hard to make things work when kids grumble, want to rule the show, or are loud when others are working.

[historically accurate]

I should've gotten evaluations for learning disabilities a lot sooner than I did - I knew there was a problem, but I had no idea how to go about it. I do comfort myself in that she would've been missed in school too probably. We continued to muddle through, but she wasn't able to work to her ability.

One thing that totally confused my children (2 out of 3 used it) was HWT. 2 lines on the paper does not translate to any other worksheet paper (given at co-op or library or a freebie I would print), and my children were totally confused on how to write on the 3 line Kindergarten paper or notebook paper for a while. 

 

[hollyhock2]

15 hours ago, AnneGG said:

My second mistake was trying all the things and buying all the things. I did not need 5 different games that focus on CVC words. I did not need to buy books (at the thrift) on the 2nd grade Sonlight list when the child was two years old. I mean, really? 🧐 Over excited much?! 🤣 My sister and mom (also hs’ers) used to just smile and nod when I would share all my finds. Bahaha! 

I'm sure all of us have done something like this when we were new, excited homeschoolers! I know I did.

14 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

We’re wrapping up year #2 of homeschooling, so I’m still “new.”  I really appreciate this thread, like, a lot. Habit training is where we could improve. Curriculum aside, it’s hard to make things work when kids grumble, want to rule the show, or are loud when others are working.

Yes, I have found that elementary school is almost as much habit and character training as actual academics!

[Ting Tang]

47 minutes ago, hollyhock2 said:

I'm sure all of us have done something like this when we were new, excited homeschoolers! I know I did.

Yes, I have found that elementary school is almost as much habit and character training as actual academics!

It sure is!  I think we need to do better next year, especially with adding another child into the formal 5 day a week schooling part!

[GoodnightMoogle]

23 hours ago, AnneGG said:

My second mistake was trying all the things and buying all the things. I did not need 5 different games that focus on CVC words. I did not need to buy books (at the thrift) on the 2nd grade Sonlight list when the child was two years old. I mean, really? 🧐 Over excited much?! 🤣 My sister and mom (also hs’ers) used to just smile and nod when I would share all my finds. Bahaha! 

I just want to say that I’m glad it’s not just me who has done this! My son is not even two. Yet I also go to library book sales and purchase books from lists like sonlight (I don’t even want to USE sonlight, so like, I have no excuses 🤣). I am incredibly disorganized so I need all these years to plan ahead. I’m sure I’ll regret many silly purchases. And no matter how many threads I read here on phonics and math programs, I’m still gonna bite my nails and have no idea which one I’m gonna choose 4 years from now. It’s definitely possible to be...over-informed. Analysis paralysis.

My book shelf these days is looking great though. 😄 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 4/29/2022 at 1:08 PM, teachermom2834 said:

Lol. I cannot tell you how old some of my kids were when they would get out a piece of loose leaf paper for something and write on the wrong side of it. Way way too old. 

Right? My boys are in middle school, and still flip the paper on the backside, or upside down. ARGH. 

 

[MagistraKennedy]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:00 AM, historically accurate said:

I should've gotten evaluations for learning disabilities a lot sooner than I did - I knew there was a problem, but I had no idea how to go about it. I do comfort myself in that she would've been missed in school too probably. We continued to muddle through, but she wasn't able to work to her ability.

 

 

Thats's one of the things I beat myself up about as well. I often wonder if we would have picked up on things sooner, had my sons been in a traditional classroom? On the flip side, I know I saved us all years of headaches. But yes, I know better now and head for evaluations a lot sooner with my younger children. 

 

Edited May 1, 2022 by MagistraKennedy

[Clarita]

5 hours ago, MagistraKennedy said:

Right? My boys are in middle school, and still flip the paper on the backside, or upside down. ARGH. 

My public educated self though goes, when was that knowledge ever actually useful in my adult life. I feel like once I graduated from college, I never wrote on another piece of binder paper again. 

[cintinative]

On 4/29/2022 at 10:07 PM, AnneGG said:

My second mistake was trying all the things and buying all the things. 

Mine was like this--before the first year I started homeschooling I located and downloaded 1,000,000 resources and then I printed them. In color. Okay, I am exaggerating, but only a little. I had a whole shelf of binders with pages in those sleeves.  My husband would ask me if I was printing the Internet again.  I would like to apologize to the trees I killed that year.   My lesson learned is don't print it until you are sure you will use it. Also, get a laser printer. LOL

[cintinative]

So another one I have is that I regret that we spent so many years on primary level Latin. I know this one is controversial, but my kids were totally burned out on Latin by the time we got to the high school level Latin classes in 7th grade.  It's a double edged sword really. The primary Latin really helped their high school Latin, but since we had done it for years (my youngest did both Song Schools plus Latin for Children A through C), they just were tired of seeing it just as we were entering the most challenging year. I'm not sure what the answer is for this.

This is not something that "seemed to work" but when my youngest was identified with ADHD-Inattentive, I really should have pursued some additional testing. We didn't find out until about four years later that he is also gifted with a processing issue, etc. 

Also not something that "seemed to work" but we did co-op and CC our first year and that was way too much. Don't recommend!

[Ting Tang]

15 hours ago, cintinative said:

So another one I have is that I regret that we spent so many years on primary level Latin. I know this one is controversial, but my kids were totally burned out on Latin by the time we got to the high school level Latin classes in 7th grade.  It's a double edged sword really. The primary Latin really helped their high school Latin, but since we had done it for years (my youngest did both Song Schools plus Latin for Children A through C), they just were tired of seeing it just as we were entering the most challenging year. I'm not sure what the answer is for this.

This is not something that "seemed to work" but when my youngest was identified with ADHD-Inattentive, I really should have pursued some additional testing. We didn't find out until about four years later that he is also gifted with a processing issue, etc. 

Also not something that "seemed to work" but we did co-op and CC our first year and that was way too much. Don't recommend!

This was our first year of Latin, and I was very much “sold” on it and the prospect of my children taking the NLE young. For my oldest, what I initially chose was a fail. We switched to a comic book style curriculum, and it went much better! Benefits of Latin aside, maybe these years should be more exploratory. Then they can specialize later? Unless they truly love Latin from the start… 

[Cordelia]

On 4/30/2022 at 9:44 PM, GoodnightMoogle said:

I just want to say that I’m glad it’s not just me who has done this! My son is not even two. Yet I also go to library book sales and purchase books from lists like sonlight (I don’t even want to USE sonlight, so like, I have no excuses 🤣). I am incredibly disorganized so I need all these years to plan ahead. I’m sure I’ll regret many silly purchases. And no matter how many threads I read here on phonics and math programs, I’m still gonna bite my nails and have no idea which one I’m gonna choose 4 years from now. It’s definitely possible to be...over-informed. Analysis paralysis.

My book shelf these days is looking great though. 😄 

I was just like that when my oldest was a toddler. You're not alone. I will say though, the most productive thing I did during those years was read a lot of books about homeschooling and education. I had time to think through my educational philosophy and what my end goals were. 

[GoodnightMoogle]

39 minutes ago, Cordelia said:

I was just like that when my oldest was a toddler. You're not alone. I will say though, the most productive thing I did during those years was read a lot of books about homeschooling and education. I had time to think through my educational philosophy and what my end goals were. 

That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve actually been reading though some books to try to re-educate myself as well. Heck, I had never even read Winnie the Pooh or Beatrix Potter! What kind of a homeschool mom would I be if I didn’t at least have those under my hat.

Tabitha Twitchit is a mother-mood, I often wonder if I could just lock my toddler in the cupboard so I could get some cooking done in peace. 
 

At any rate, I’m going to continue to follow this thread to add to my giant mental list of things I do and don’t want to do in my future homeschool. I’m grateful for this community even though I’ve largely stepped away from well trained mind recommendations, which was one of the first homeschooling books I read. 

[Ting Tang]

11 minutes ago, GoodnightMoogle said:

That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve actually been reading though some books to try to re-educate myself as well. Heck, I had never even read Winnie the Pooh or Beatrix Potter! What kind of a homeschool mom would I be if I didn’t at least have those under my hat.

Tabitha Twitchit is a mother-mood, I often wonder if I could just lock my toddler in the cupboard so I could get some cooking done in peace. 
 

At any rate, I’m going to continue to follow this thread to add to my giant mental list of things I do and don’t want to do in my future homeschool. I’m grateful for this community even though I’ve largely stepped away from well trained mind recommendations, which was one of the first homeschooling books I read. 

If you read to your child and make it a habit, that will help foster a love of...and a habit of...reading.  Having four close in age together, we haven't been consistently good at this I hate to admit, and it is a lot harder to fix later on.  

[seemesew]

Mine has been not enforcing correct letter formation.

Using a curriculum to read when really they did better learning from books.

Not using a phonics approach to spelling.

Buying too much fluff.

Adding in too many workbooks when a simple written narration would have hit everything.

Edited May 4, 2022 by seemesew

[seemesew]

Oh and for my older kids:

Not investing in a better elementary math program

Not reading aloud enough

Not doing a family morning time

[BusyMom5]

I have my left-handed kids use notebooks backwards, so their hands don't rub on the spiral.  It doesn't bother me to read it that way,  snd I think it helps them.  

1.  Continue handwriting and copywork all through elementary. I taught cursive,  they learned it, then forgot it!  I had to reteach it a few years later.  

2.  Don't stop looking for answers when you know something is wrong. 

For the most part, I'm pretty happy with our choices.  They do change with our family needs and for each kid.  They are all individuals and I try to honor that when I decide how they are going to learn. 

[Chelli]

Skip counting songs for multiplication. It ruined my oldest on actually learning her multiplication and division facts. She still has to sing the songs at the age of 18. Because she doesn't know her facts other math concepts like reducing fractions, factoring, multiples, etc. are extremely difficult. I did not make that mistake with the other two. 

[GoodnightMoogle]

5 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

If you read to your child and make it a habit, that will help foster a love of...and a habit of...reading.  Having four close in age together, we haven't been consistently good at this I hate to admit, and it is a lot harder to fix later on.  

I only have my one so far, but this seems to be true for him. I’ve read to him a lot (and have way too many board books) and he is obsessed, always bringing me books to read. The current favorite that I have to read every day is Go Dog, Go.

I hope I can stick with it with all my future kids. My mom told me that she read with me constantly but dropped the ball with my younger sister and brother, and out of the three of us I’m the only one who ever loved reading. I think introducing it early is really good. 

[daijobu]

On 4/29/2022 at 7:07 PM, AnneGG said:

I did not need to buy books (at the thrift) on the 2nd grade Sonlight list when the child was two years old. I mean, really? 🧐 Over excited much?! 🤣 

OMG, I totally did this.  When I finally realized that high school teachers will assign a specific textbook by a specific author for even a specific publication year, I stopped buying high school level textbooks when my kids were in middle school  😁 

I made a new rule for myself to not buy anything unless I had an immediate plan to use it.

[Servant4Christ]

How could I forget the obvious?! Skipping kindergarten because the first grade curriculum just looked so easy! And it was... until he was doing fourth grade work when he should've been in third. Everything ramped up and was moving faster and requiring more written output than he could handle. I came to realize that making a necessary change didn't mean I had failed as a teacher and he certainly didn't fail as a student. It was an ignorant decision on my part from the very beginning that needed to be remedied. We switched curriculum and went backwards by a full grade level and it was the best decision ever.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Servant4Christ

[Gil]

Creating the WRTR Spelling Notebook. It was a glorified handwriting exercise that sabotaged my kids ability to spell and took years for him to recover from.

He was actually a good speller for 4-6 years old, but the the year "learning" spelling rules seemed to confuse him at 6-7 and caused him to regress significantly. It put up a block/barrier in his mind that it literally took me years to get down, so that we could undo the confusion/damage from that spelling notebook.

[Not_a_Number]

On 4/29/2022 at 8:23 PM, freesia said:

Everyone I know who let their dc self grade math had that same experience. 

Hmmm, DD9 has been self-grading for now (it's a temporary thing) -- I've caught her lying once, but I don't think it has happened since. I've offered to check things for her, but that seems to work a lot less well for her, alas. At least for now. 

Different kids are different, I guess!!

[Not_a_Number]

My kids are gifted and very stubborn, so this probably won't apply to everyone... but my biggest regret is constantly sitting with DD9 when she was doing her schoolwork in Grade 1. She got used to it and really struggled with any transition to independence until we went cold turkey on my involvement this year. I wish I had let her get used to being stuck and having to power through it earlier on, before she got used to taking out all of her frustration about her work on me. 

I'm letting DD6 be much more independent, and it's working well for her. I check in on her and make sure to explain things, but I'm not always THERE. 

[ScoutTN]

.

Edited May 9, 2022 by ScoutTN

[Clarita]

4 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

My kids are gifted and very stubborn, so this probably won't apply to everyone... but my biggest regret is constantly sitting with DD9 when she was doing her schoolwork in Grade 1. She got used to it and really struggled with any transition to independence until we went cold turkey on my involvement this year. I wish I had let her get used to being stuck and having to power through it earlier on, before she got used to taking out all of her frustration about her work on me. 

Oh this is interesting. My DS5 is starting to get upset and mad at "school time" because I've started doing lessons with DD3. I've been feeling a little guilty because they currently get split attention from me during their school time instead of one-on-one attention, but now I can think it's a good thing. 

[seemesew]

21 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

My kids are gifted and very stubborn, so this probably won't apply to everyone... but my biggest regret is constantly sitting with DD9 when she was doing her schoolwork in Grade 1. She got used to it and really struggled with any transition to independence until we went cold turkey on my involvement this year. I wish I had let her get used to being stuck and having to power through it earlier on, before she got used to taking out all of her frustration about her work on me. 

I'm letting DD6 be much more independent, and it's working well for her. I check in on her and make sure to explain things, but I'm not always THERE. 

I agree this was a mistake I made with my kids when they first started too. I'm trying to be better about my younger ones.

[HomeAgain]

22 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

My kids are gifted and very stubborn, so this probably won't apply to everyone... but my biggest regret is constantly sitting with DD9 when she was doing her schoolwork in Grade 1. She got used to it and really struggled with any transition to independence until we went cold turkey on my involvement this year. I wish I had let her get used to being stuck and having to power through it earlier on, before she got used to taking out all of her frustration about her work on me. 

I'm letting DD6 be much more independent, and it's working well for her. I check in on her and make sure to explain things, but I'm not always THERE. 

Rewrite this as ds 1st-5th, and needing to transition to a less-parent-heavy year this year, PLUS puberty, PLUS covid brain lag.....I got to a point where my nerves were on edge and I was ready to sob every day.

 

On the Latin, I do have to say this: following ds12's lead with it and moving away from a grammar heavy worktext to a translation-heavy textbook was the best thing we ever did.  He is far from burnt out with it because he's always reading something. Me, otoh, I'd really like to not start the same textbook over because he wants to read the chapter stories with me again in one long swoop.

 

My regret is moving away from handwriting as a subject.  We did it through 4th, I thought ds was good, and really, I should have been enforcing the same standards in 5th and 6th before he started writing in a scrawl.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, seemesew said:

I agree this was a mistake I made with my kids when they first started too. I'm trying to be better about my younger ones.

How are you changing with your younger ones @seemesew and @Not_a_Number in this regard? I had/have a sense in early elementary I'm still "suppose" to be very involved during school time. 

[Slache]

Thinking that since we schooled year around it didn't matter how much we got done because we had the time. That quickly turned into them not respecting the need to finish things and therefore not getting enough done.

[Ting Tang]

4 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

Rewrite this as ds 1st-5th, and needing to transition to a less-parent-heavy year this year, PLUS puberty, PLUS covid brain lag.....I got to a point where my nerves were on edge and I was ready to sob every day.

 

On the Latin, I do have to say this: following ds12's lead with it and moving away from a grammar heavy worktext to a translation-heavy textbook was the best thing we ever did.  He is far from burnt out with it because he's always reading something. Me, otoh, I'd really like to not start the same textbook over because he wants to read the chapter stories with me again in one long swoop.

 

My regret is moving away from handwriting as a subject.  We did it through 4th, I thought ds was good, and really, I should have been enforcing the same standards in 5th and 6th before he started writing in a scrawl.

What did you do for Latin? For my oldest, we started with Memoria Press First Form. We switched to Minimus and will do Minimus Secundus next year. I plan to then have him do the next Cambridge series. My oldest just needed more connections to the Roman culture. I did think MP was so concise and orderly. But he’s not me, lol. 

[8filltheheart]

3 hours ago, Clarita said:

How are you changing with your younger ones @seemesew and @Not_a_Number in this regard? I had/have a sense in early elementary I'm still "suppose" to be very involved during school time. 

I'm still very much involved with my kids all the way through high school.  🙂  It is interacting with my kids that is my joy in homeschooling.  We have awesome conversations and I get to hear all their interesting ideas.  

[HomeAgain]

7 hours ago, Ting Tang said:

What did you do for Latin? For my oldest, we started with Memoria Press First Form. We switched to Minimus and will do Minimus Secundus next year. I plan to then have him do the next Cambridge series. My oldest just needed more connections to the Roman culture. I did think MP was so concise and orderly. But he’s not me, lol. 

We have bounced around.

DS started with Latin's Not So Tough.  I do the first book orally and with math counters rather than writing, so he was matching things up physically instead of with a pencil.  He loved it.

From there we did GSWL, another low stress/no writing program.  The next year I had him look at samples of lots of different curricula and he ended up choosing First Form.  Not my cup of tea, but we made it through February before he got really, really bored with it and fed up with the writing.  I pulled Cambridge off my shelf to finish out the year and he was delighted.

The next year we were co-oping with another kid and they did LFC A.  Well.  I can say that the previous methods had worked well enough that LFC was very quickly not up to par.  In addition to the errors ds kept pointing out (in the revised edition, and the errata is hidden on their website, so I was rather annoyed), it felt like someone threw up Latin on a page with no clear scope and sequence.  We had and used all the parts like the audio, dvd, activity book... it just wasn't good.

So I started thinking about what he actually gravitated to vs. what he wanted to gravitate to, and it was translation heavy materials.  He quickly outgrew Cambridge's pace but I found Ecce Romani at a thrift sale and had him compare the two.  Ecce won.  It had everything I wanted: explicit grammar teaching, optional workbook, meaty teacher's guide.  It also had one long story broken up into 27 chapters and exercises in the text to go with each one.  Plus, the historical lessons tucked in matched up well with MagisterCraft, so after reading it in English he'd watch the Minecraft version in Latin on youtube.

Fifth and sixth grade had him go through book 1, about 18 lessons the first year and 10 the second.  He finished last month and is going through it all again.  And he reads the Cambridge books for fun.  He's off to the actual school next year and is having a hard time deciding if he wants to take it again there or take their French offerings.

 

I think if I had pushed the writing too early, or pushed a program that wasn't a good fit, yeah, it would have been an absolute slog for years no matter if he could do it or not.  By giving him usable bites at a time he stayed in love with it.  It's the same way I approached a lot of his subjects, now that I think about it.  Reading: he didn't memorize the alphabet first, then all the sounds, then put words together.  He learned 3 sounds and immediately began using them to blend into words, adding as he went along.  He didn't learn math by counting and writing his numbers out.  He learned by getting in there with blocks and quantities and experimenting.  I shouldn't have expected him to learn a language by disconnecting the grammar and the vocabulary from the reading.

[Green Bean]

18 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

I'm still very much involved with my kids all the way through high school.  🙂  It is interacting with my kids that is my joy in homeschooling.  We have awesome conversations and I get to hear all their interesting ideas.  

Agreeing with 8 here- kids need the parent to teach all the way through regardless of their attitude at the time.

[HomeAgain]

I think there's a discrepancy in what some of us are saying about needing to sit there all the time and what is being thought it is.

I teach ds everything.  EVERYTHING.  I don't outsource except for music, so it's on my shoulders.  The problem isn't needing me to teach.  The problem this year was literally needing me to sit there to watch as he read, as he filled in a worksheet, as he did an exercise on the computer.....

This is not teaching time.  This is independent skills time and learning to develop a work ethic.  It would be stunting a child's growth to not expect any independent work whatsoever as they get older.