Today, I'm very relieved to say - was a good day! After a week of ups and downs today I felt was a bit of a breakthrough! In fact over the past couple of days I am beginning to see signs of change with S and the feeling that actually we've done a lot of learning and he's beginning to settle into a routine. A drastic change I realise from what I wrote the other day but then I suppose that's life with kids!
For the past couple of days we've begun the day with Social Skills board games. I thought S would not actually enjoy these much but I have been proved very wrong! This is actually really important for him and it has gone down really well as a way to start the day! We've had a lot of laughter and some serious thinking points too. The games are not so much about winning and losing than about completing them which is great as we don't start the day with strops about losing! They have been a great way to "warm up" for both of us! The danger is now that I get into the habit of doing them too much and killing off a good beginning activity! I think though now I need to think of more "game" type activities to start the day.
The past 2 days have had the normal reading and maths but we have finally done a bit more spelling and this time without protest! With both the penny finally dropped that I have been overloading him with "stuff". I have been laminating like it's going out of fashion and filling the desk with lovely plastic cards! Whilst it looks productive - for S I think it has been far far too much for him. When this finally dawned on me I literally halved what was in front of him and it was almost like watching a light being switched on in his head! He got the hang of what I was asking him to do straight away and we flew through the tasks! I need to remember this!
My final highlight (if I can speak in such terms) was when we went onto Education City. At the weekend I moved him up a level in maths. Whilst I know there are areas in the level he was on that he still had to learn we were at that funny in between bit that I was teaching him things beyond what the computer was offering him. Today he agreed to try out some of the activities on the harder level to do with time which I have been teaching him. The first activity he tried he got 100%. The following activity was more challenging and had 3 questions that we haven't really covered properly yet which he got wrong but he still got 70% so I was so so chuffed with him!
I think we were both quite proud of ourselves! We are being able to see now that we are progressing and whilst we have our moments we are having plenty happy times of learning and seeing the penny drop for both of us is lovely!
One last wee thing - I am so much appreciated folks encouraging me - by either commenting on the blog or just through chatting. Every single time a comment has been made it has come at a perfect time when I have felt a wee bit discouraged or flat about the whole thing. It has really made me think about how much I could be encouraging other people! Thank you to all who are encouraging me!
Right - off now to do some wrapping!
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Friday, 25 November 2011
One month in...
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!!
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!!
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Mummy needs time out!
So today didn't get much better from yesterday! I think we are both suffering from too much of each other and lack of fresh air! We did get some work done today but the atmosphere was rubbish and there were many points I did consider just leaving it all and starting afresh! Tomorrow the speech and language therapist is coming to discuss how that will now work which will be good. I'm tempted to take him out and do something COMPLETELY different simply to take the pressure off both of us for a morning and refocus!
I'm not going to go into the details of today simply because I'm needing a break too. I got zumba for the wii for my birthday and have hardly used it so going to try to switch off and exert some energy! Really hoping that tomorrow will be more positive! Once I've bounced about for a while I'm going to try to do some reading of how I can try to improve some of the difficulties that we are now running into! Off to zumba! :0)
I'm not going to go into the details of today simply because I'm needing a break too. I got zumba for the wii for my birthday and have hardly used it so going to try to switch off and exert some energy! Really hoping that tomorrow will be more positive! Once I've bounced about for a while I'm going to try to do some reading of how I can try to improve some of the difficulties that we are now running into! Off to zumba! :0)
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Time out!
Not one of our best days today! Either I have been to slack until now or my patience is disappearing but I found today really quite hard work and frustrating! As long as we are doing something active and non-desk-related S is quite happy. As soon as we mention writing or something that is not active or not involving a computer then the silly noises begin, the flopping around begins and the battle begins! Today I'd had enough! I gave him plenty of chances and then decided to put the first "Time out" into action.
I think it had an effect! I got a lot of wee jobs done in 8 minutes and S actually did sit in the one spot for the time and wasn't daft for that time! I wouldn't say he was a reformed character at the end but I think he realised that I was being serious about his behaviour and was not going to tolerate the messing around.
My big dilemma is that I'm finding it really really difficult to work out whether or not S is finding the work too hard or whether he really is playing me! When he understands what to do he sails through the tasks but getting over that initial hurdle of knowing whether or not he is grasping the concepts is a big problem. Today in the end he did work hard and we did a fair amount although I have scaled down quite significantly the maths when for the first time he actually did say, "Mum, this is far too hard!"
Today was maybe the first day that I did find myself thinking that I would be quite happy of a wee break and for someone else to teach him! One of my problems is getting him going to start with! The next problem is then maintaining the motivation from subject to subject and being productive. I am so aware that many homeschoolers would think I am trying to be too structured and should take the foot off the gas and relax but I am finding that is going completely against my nature and am scared that if I do that it will become far too easy to not actually teach S what he needs to learn and for him to fall academically behind his peers. I think I will check out some other home schoolers for some advice!
The positives - since home schooling I've had to cut out a lot of extra things that I do. As a result of that I've done more than half my Christmas shopping which is unheard of at this time of year! Because of that I'm going to try really hard to get myself sorted so that maybe for the first time ever I won't be running around like a headless chicken in the week running up to Christmas and be able to enjoy the excitement building with the kids.
I think it had an effect! I got a lot of wee jobs done in 8 minutes and S actually did sit in the one spot for the time and wasn't daft for that time! I wouldn't say he was a reformed character at the end but I think he realised that I was being serious about his behaviour and was not going to tolerate the messing around.
My big dilemma is that I'm finding it really really difficult to work out whether or not S is finding the work too hard or whether he really is playing me! When he understands what to do he sails through the tasks but getting over that initial hurdle of knowing whether or not he is grasping the concepts is a big problem. Today in the end he did work hard and we did a fair amount although I have scaled down quite significantly the maths when for the first time he actually did say, "Mum, this is far too hard!"
Today was maybe the first day that I did find myself thinking that I would be quite happy of a wee break and for someone else to teach him! One of my problems is getting him going to start with! The next problem is then maintaining the motivation from subject to subject and being productive. I am so aware that many homeschoolers would think I am trying to be too structured and should take the foot off the gas and relax but I am finding that is going completely against my nature and am scared that if I do that it will become far too easy to not actually teach S what he needs to learn and for him to fall academically behind his peers. I think I will check out some other home schoolers for some advice!
The positives - since home schooling I've had to cut out a lot of extra things that I do. As a result of that I've done more than half my Christmas shopping which is unheard of at this time of year! Because of that I'm going to try really hard to get myself sorted so that maybe for the first time ever I won't be running around like a headless chicken in the week running up to Christmas and be able to enjoy the excitement building with the kids.
Friday, 18 November 2011
The end of another week!
I can't believe that it is the end of our 4th week of home schooling! I had imagined that by this stage I might have been having major regrets or been totally exhausted and am so pleasantly surprised that I'm neither exhausted (well no more than usual!) and have absolutely no regrets with what we have done for S.
This week has been a different week in working with S. It has become more and more apparent that S is at his least motivated and productive first thing in the morning and that to sit and do structured work is daft! For the last 3 days we have started the day doing Education City on the computer which has been great to warm him up. Discovering "Live Maths" on Education City has been great! Today S sat for a whole hour doing "Live Maths" whilst I prepared the tea and cleared up a bit. At first I was feeling bad that we were not sitting "working" and then I realised how stupid a thought that was! Here was my son (who up til now has found mental arithmetic a real challenge) loving doing mental arithmetic and excitedly challenging and pushing himself to answer more and more questions! By the end of his session today he'd answered over 3 days 601 maths questions!! He has reached the top of the leader board today and is over the moon!
We did eventually sit down at the desk and started to try to do some of the tasks that I'd prepared. We read our daily Bible story which led to S asking where Jerusalem was. We got the atlas out and tracked down where Israel was, where we were and chatted about how long it would take to get there. We then looked at some of the other countries and ended up in the United Kingdom. From there S wanted to know where all the cities in Scotland were who had football teams so we toured the country! This led on very easily to getting the football stadium book that I gave S's dad for Christmas last year. We looked up all the football stadiums that S wanted to see. Rather than missing an opportunity we looked up the capacity for each stadium. One of the maths targets for this age is to be able to read and understand big numbers in the 10000 + category - so this was perfect!! S quickly enjoyed reading out the number of seats in each stadium and then we guessed whether or not the next stadium would have more or less seats in it than the one we were looking at! It was so good to see the benefit of being able to go completely off in a tangent and to have S learning without even realising it!
Following that we looked at days, months, 6 + 7x table revision, (we'd done our reading earlier) and we designed and made our own football strip on a plain t-shirt.
This week has been yet another learning curve for me. The claustrophia has not been so bad for me this week with plenty other things going on and to see that I am beginning to loosen up and not have the intense need to be sitting at a desk doing "work"! I still think it is important for S to learn that he does need to do tasks that are maybe not his first choice all the time and that it is important to sit still sometimes and concentrate but it has been great to begin to understand and see how to sneak learning opportunities into so much!
We did discuss discipline today and I have told S that as of Monday we will be having a yellow and red card system with "time out". Whilst we are learning a lot S complains a lot about doing the work and wastes a lot of time being daft! I find this quite hard to deal with and am losing patience with it. I am aware as well that we might not home school for S's entire education and we need him not to develop bad habits and be able to respect elders whoever they are! Don't think he's overly impressed with the thought of time outs but I think it will be a necessary deterrent! We'll see....
So I'm motivated to face the next week. I think we are at the stage of revising the maths we've done so far and I'm going to give him an assessment of sorts next Friday to see if he is retaining the learning. It's 5 school weeks until Christmas now. I've agreed with S that if he works hard for the next 4 weeks we will stop then. At school they don't seem to do very much structured learning and I think it is only fair to him to give him a bit less pressure then too!
We have folks staying this weekend which is lovely and which has been good to encourage me to stop thinking about things to do and to be prepared for Monday today and not have it to prepare tomorrow. I am beginning to appreciate my weekends so much again!
This week has been a different week in working with S. It has become more and more apparent that S is at his least motivated and productive first thing in the morning and that to sit and do structured work is daft! For the last 3 days we have started the day doing Education City on the computer which has been great to warm him up. Discovering "Live Maths" on Education City has been great! Today S sat for a whole hour doing "Live Maths" whilst I prepared the tea and cleared up a bit. At first I was feeling bad that we were not sitting "working" and then I realised how stupid a thought that was! Here was my son (who up til now has found mental arithmetic a real challenge) loving doing mental arithmetic and excitedly challenging and pushing himself to answer more and more questions! By the end of his session today he'd answered over 3 days 601 maths questions!! He has reached the top of the leader board today and is over the moon!
We did eventually sit down at the desk and started to try to do some of the tasks that I'd prepared. We read our daily Bible story which led to S asking where Jerusalem was. We got the atlas out and tracked down where Israel was, where we were and chatted about how long it would take to get there. We then looked at some of the other countries and ended up in the United Kingdom. From there S wanted to know where all the cities in Scotland were who had football teams so we toured the country! This led on very easily to getting the football stadium book that I gave S's dad for Christmas last year. We looked up all the football stadiums that S wanted to see. Rather than missing an opportunity we looked up the capacity for each stadium. One of the maths targets for this age is to be able to read and understand big numbers in the 10000 + category - so this was perfect!! S quickly enjoyed reading out the number of seats in each stadium and then we guessed whether or not the next stadium would have more or less seats in it than the one we were looking at! It was so good to see the benefit of being able to go completely off in a tangent and to have S learning without even realising it!
Following that we looked at days, months, 6 + 7x table revision, (we'd done our reading earlier) and we designed and made our own football strip on a plain t-shirt.
This week has been yet another learning curve for me. The claustrophia has not been so bad for me this week with plenty other things going on and to see that I am beginning to loosen up and not have the intense need to be sitting at a desk doing "work"! I still think it is important for S to learn that he does need to do tasks that are maybe not his first choice all the time and that it is important to sit still sometimes and concentrate but it has been great to begin to understand and see how to sneak learning opportunities into so much!
We did discuss discipline today and I have told S that as of Monday we will be having a yellow and red card system with "time out". Whilst we are learning a lot S complains a lot about doing the work and wastes a lot of time being daft! I find this quite hard to deal with and am losing patience with it. I am aware as well that we might not home school for S's entire education and we need him not to develop bad habits and be able to respect elders whoever they are! Don't think he's overly impressed with the thought of time outs but I think it will be a necessary deterrent! We'll see....
So I'm motivated to face the next week. I think we are at the stage of revising the maths we've done so far and I'm going to give him an assessment of sorts next Friday to see if he is retaining the learning. It's 5 school weeks until Christmas now. I've agreed with S that if he works hard for the next 4 weeks we will stop then. At school they don't seem to do very much structured learning and I think it is only fair to him to give him a bit less pressure then too!
We have folks staying this weekend which is lovely and which has been good to encourage me to stop thinking about things to do and to be prepared for Monday today and not have it to prepare tomorrow. I am beginning to appreciate my weekends so much again!
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Home schooling's not a good thing for an ego trip!!!
Well according to S today I'm the bottom of the pile when it comes to good teachers as all his other teachers can teach 25 pupils but I have only got him! Just as well we are not doing this to boost my self esteem and to give my parenting skills a pat on the back!! If that was my motivation I think I would be failing every assessment and evaluation!
Fortunately though there are very other motivations going on just now and today was another day to confirm our decision to have S at home and a day full of ups and downs but a good amount of learning too.
The computer programme worked really well to start the day again. The interaction with the screen he really enjoys. As long as I pick something that will result in minimal if any failure, he loves it and seems to warm up. The desk work is still a hurdle to overcome but today I presented a couple of tasks and then got on with my own wee tasks alongside him. I'm really hoping we can get to the point where I can leave him to learn independently but for now he really needs me to be sitting next to him pretty much all the time.
This is going to be a short entry tonight. I'm not at all prepared for tomorrow! My house is a mess, my prep is not done and I'm trying hard to gradually get myself in gear for Christmas shopping!! Cards are going out the window I think this year. I have to somehow hold on to a little bit of sanity and I am barely fitting normal life into the 24 hours I have each day without trying to write Christmas cards and all that goes with it!! I hope folks understand!
Fortunately though there are very other motivations going on just now and today was another day to confirm our decision to have S at home and a day full of ups and downs but a good amount of learning too.
The computer programme worked really well to start the day again. The interaction with the screen he really enjoys. As long as I pick something that will result in minimal if any failure, he loves it and seems to warm up. The desk work is still a hurdle to overcome but today I presented a couple of tasks and then got on with my own wee tasks alongside him. I'm really hoping we can get to the point where I can leave him to learn independently but for now he really needs me to be sitting next to him pretty much all the time.
This is going to be a short entry tonight. I'm not at all prepared for tomorrow! My house is a mess, my prep is not done and I'm trying hard to gradually get myself in gear for Christmas shopping!! Cards are going out the window I think this year. I have to somehow hold on to a little bit of sanity and I am barely fitting normal life into the 24 hours I have each day without trying to write Christmas cards and all that goes with it!! I hope folks understand!
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
A Good Day!
I made it out tonight so feel a bit like a new person - having had grown up conversation outwith the four walls of our house! That combined with a trip to the park with the 4 kids after school has made it a lovely day.
On Saturday I asked S what he wanted to learn in maths this week and he requested the 6 and 7 times table so today I was all prepared! Unfortunately S's enthusiasm wasn't quite so hot! I'm definitely picking up that S is not a morning person and takes a good while to warm up! Rather than have a huge battle to begin the day I suggested we started with Education City - a computer programme we are using which he loves! This went down really well. Thankfully I'm getting to know it pretty well and directed him to a game on "time" that I knew he would manage and would be good revision for what we covered last week. He then wanted to do more so I moved him onto a game on multiples. He still wanted to do more so I picked what i thought would be a really basic game on vowels and consonants to discover that he didn't know the difference! I'm sure he would have been taught this but think it has been lost with his memory difficulties! Whatever - he loved the games and it certainly worked to warm him up.
We ended up having a really productive morning with reading, language work, maths (6x table sorted!) and then science where we made a volcanic eruption (or "interruption" as he insisted in calling it!). I wouldn't say S was on the most co-operative form but we actually got through a lot of learning and were able to stop at lunchtime which I am really pleased about!
So hopefully tomorrow will be another positive entry! It would be so good to think we were beginning to settle into a routine. I certainly don't feel quite as exhausted just now and am speeding up in my preparation and more aware of what is and isn't going to work with him without having to trawl through resources for hours! I am aware there are some big big gaps but have got some ideas tonight from a teaching friend and am inspired to put some into action!
Off to watch some Lost before calling it a day!
On Saturday I asked S what he wanted to learn in maths this week and he requested the 6 and 7 times table so today I was all prepared! Unfortunately S's enthusiasm wasn't quite so hot! I'm definitely picking up that S is not a morning person and takes a good while to warm up! Rather than have a huge battle to begin the day I suggested we started with Education City - a computer programme we are using which he loves! This went down really well. Thankfully I'm getting to know it pretty well and directed him to a game on "time" that I knew he would manage and would be good revision for what we covered last week. He then wanted to do more so I moved him onto a game on multiples. He still wanted to do more so I picked what i thought would be a really basic game on vowels and consonants to discover that he didn't know the difference! I'm sure he would have been taught this but think it has been lost with his memory difficulties! Whatever - he loved the games and it certainly worked to warm him up.
We ended up having a really productive morning with reading, language work, maths (6x table sorted!) and then science where we made a volcanic eruption (or "interruption" as he insisted in calling it!). I wouldn't say S was on the most co-operative form but we actually got through a lot of learning and were able to stop at lunchtime which I am really pleased about!
So hopefully tomorrow will be another positive entry! It would be so good to think we were beginning to settle into a routine. I certainly don't feel quite as exhausted just now and am speeding up in my preparation and more aware of what is and isn't going to work with him without having to trawl through resources for hours! I am aware there are some big big gaps but have got some ideas tonight from a teaching friend and am inspired to put some into action!
Off to watch some Lost before calling it a day!
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