Today was a milestone! Exactly one month ago today we started the home schooling journey. This journey has been an interesting one so far! You know that excitement you get when you are going on holiday and beginning your journey? Well, that is exactly how I felt (and I think S too) as we started a month ago. Like the clothes all neatly packed in the suitcase all fresh and ready to go all our resources were ready to go, jotters were new, books crisp and unused and there was a definite excitement about stepping into the unknown. Now, almost 5 weeks on we are definitely into the nitty gritty of the journey! The novelty is gone, the reality of the journey is sinking in and our sleeves are rolled up ready for hard work!
The last 2 days since I wrote have been good. After some frank talking and slight changes in approach along with a bit of fresh air and a change of scene, our productivity got back on track! Yesterday S's speech and language therapist came to visit. I was explaining to her some of the things I was struggling with when teaching S and some of his attitudes to his work that I found difficult (basically he doesn't want to learn like me!!) and she told me that that is exactly what she found when working one-to-one with him. That was SUCH an encouragement to me! To know that this was not just special "mum" treatment was a boost. I think, and have to remember, that every weekend or every time I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all I discover that the things I am struggling with are totally normal and that S is behaving normally for what is expected of him!
Anyway, yesterday for our change of scene I took S to Tesco! Exciting trip I don't think but decided to incorporate a bit of SaLT (speech and language therapy) into the trip. S's knowledge of vocab is ropey so I gave him a shopping list made up of things I knew he would know along with some "new" items too. He was so good! We actually had quite a good shopping trip! We had good chat along the way about what some of the things were and picked up a couple of extra things that he asked about (NO idea what I do with a marrow!!!!) which I hadn't planned for. The change of scene did us a lot of good. Alongside that I took a more game like approach to maths and we looked at time and fractions. He did really well on his fractions - time is going to take a bit longer to sink in! S enjoyed the speech therapist's visit. He really likes her and although we didn't do formal therapy as such he enjoyed showing her all the nuts we'd chosen at Tesco and made up some games for us all to play!
Today has been fine too. I started working with him mid morning instead of first thing which actually worked well. He definitely is not good first thing but by mid morning he seemed happier to settle down. I have ordered a special game for the wii for him to use as "motivation" for him. If he manages to complete the tasks I'd like him to each day I'm going to let him play for an hour at the end of the day. He is liking this idea so far! The game was supposed to arrive today so S managed to complete his maths, reading, language and story writing task! Unfortunately the game didn't arrive!!
So, thankfully a better end to the day! Almost took the blog off this week. My husband and I were reading about a family who were home schooling and who were reported to the authorities for not doing any teaching with their child! Quite a thought! I hope through my blog folks are seeing the variety involved in teaching at home and the complexities of it too! I'm certainly learning how many opportunities for learning there are in every part of the day; in fact I sometimes have to stop myself from "teaching" the kids about things that are happening all the time and let them simply play, relax and be kids! Anyway, if the blog suddenly disappears you'll know I've had a wobble and decided to pull it off!!
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