The joy in homeschooling

It is such a privilege to be able to teach my children at home.  Besides the “reasons” we homeschool, the best is that I get to actually see the joy when my child first learns how to do something. 

Yesterday, my 5 year old completed the first level in his Hooked on Phonics reading program.  To see how excited he was when he finished was a true “delight” to my heart!  He did it!  He pushed me to let him keep going on and he pushed himself and tried so very hard, and he did it!  I’m proud of him and excited that the more he learns to read, the closer he is to being able to read God’s Word on his own.  I think I just may bawl my eyes out when I hear him read his bible for the first time!

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."    

Proverbs 22:6

Fun with phonics

This is actually a "delight" from my day yesterday that I wanted to share, because it might give some other homeschooling Mom encouragement to try something that is "out of the box". 

Yesterday, my 5 year old son came out with paper and his big box of foam letters he got from his Aunt Sandy a while ago.  Excitedly, I said to him "Are you going to make words with your stickers?" 

He stopped and looked at me and then smiled and said "O.K.". 

I replied "That sounds like so much fun!"

I proceeded to ask him what word he wanted to make, and he told me BAT.  So I sounded out each letter and he found it and put them in order on his page.  He was so excited, and I was surprised to see him come up with words I didn't know he even knew how to spell.  The last word that he came up with was BUN.  I asked him what a bun was.  He said "You know.. that you have with hot dogs".  I had to laugh, because he doesn't eat hot dog buns, because he can't have gluten, dairy or soy.  (I know I could buy him some or make them, but I don't because he is happy eating his hot dogs plain)

Learning can be fun and doesn't have to come from a book, especially at this precious age.  I have been so blessed lately to see how the Lord has given me ideas on the spur of the moment for a learning  experience.  I am a rule follower, and a "by the book" type of person, and I want to "make sure my child is learning what he is supposed to".   However, what I have noticed is that as I step back from "what I think school should be", and sometimes just work with my child on the spur of the moment with something he is interested in, it is more enjoyable for both of us and certainly less stressful.  I am making more of a point to "enjoy" teaching my kids, and I am!  Who says that putting foam stickers on a page is not as good as filling out a worksheet in a professional approved workbook, I think it just might be better. 

I do love crafts, and this son loves them too!  I can't wait to teach him more, who knows what we will be doing next! HAPPY HOMESCHOOLING!

Schedules

During the last week and a half, we have tried a new schedule and strategy with our 6th grader, in an effort to train him to be more responsible with his school day,  and work to become more organized and able to work independently.  Out of all the schedules we have done for him over the years, this is by far the best one.  It has worked out so well!  

Several things that I discovered this time is that the size of the font and color are very important to my son.  He is a visual learner, so I should have figured this out sooner.  He says that the color is just more fun, but I believe that the words stand out more and make it easier for him to distinguish on the page.  We coordinated the color of each subject title on his daily schedule with his weekly assignment sheet that details each subject and all the items that need to be completed in that subject on each given day.

When creating the schedule, we evaluated the following:

• pre-scheduled events for the day 
• topics that my son can work on independently
• times when I need to teach a topic or assist older son with his work
• times when I need to be available to work with my younger son.

Taking all this into account, we came up with his schedule and it is wonderful.  It helped this week when I was sick and my husband had to step in to help out.  My son was able to accomplish all the tasks that he needed to do so we do not have anything we need to catch up on.  That in itself is a true "delight" for me!

I have attended many seminars and read many more articles on the topic of "scheduling the school day", but until this point nothing had worked as smoothly.  I'm glad we finally found something that is working for now.

Scribbles to Showpiece

What to do with a child who is angrily scribbling on all the paper at his table?  That appeared to be my dilemma with my 5 year old.  I told myself, "don't get angry and tell him not to do that".  Then I remembered something I did as a child and set forth to enlighten him about how he can scribble. This is how it went:

I told him to get a piece of paper and then I used "hand over hand" and helped him to scribble slowly all over on his paper. He was intent to find out what to do next.  Then I instructed him to watch as I colored in one of the spaces.  He was delighted to see the result.  I finished by telling him, "now you need to color in each of the other spaces and you will see a beautiful picture".  He was determined to work on the project, and best of all he stopped scribbling angrily on all the paper at the table.

The end result was this beautiful masterpiece! 

My son's masterpiece embellished with patriotic stickers. I think it looks like a hen.

I love Crafts!!

I love to do crafts!  Having a PreK child gives you plenty of opportunity to do a little crafting throughout the day.  I often use crafts to keep my 5 year old’s hands busy.  He gets practice using his fine motor skills by cutting, drawing, coloring and even some writing.  However, you can’t leave him alone or he will cut the curtains, linens and anything the scissors will cut.

Today, my son had to miss pre-school due to illness, so I capitalized on the opportunity to work on various fine motor and cognitive skills.  You can see the shamrock project that he completed.  This was a last minute craft I printed from Enchanted Learning to have him work on while I worked on another subject with my 12 year old.   First my son completed the dot-to-dot; working on drawing straight lines from one dot to dot another, and following the sequence of numbers from 1 to 42.  After he completed that, I thought he could work on building the muscles in his hand by coloring it in and I reminded him to try and stay in the lines. While he was so diligently coloring, I remembered we had glitter glue that I had bought for him to use, because he loves any type of media.  He was so excited to use something new!  I made sure to work on sensory issues by having him move the glue around with his index finger.  We also made this cute little green hat which gave him a chance to practice his cutting skills.

While all this was helpful to my sons development and fun for all of us, reviewing the life of St Patrick was the most important lesson today.   He was not Irish.  He was kidnapped by Irish pirates and forced to live as a slave in Ireland.  Later, he went back to Ireland to minister to the people of the country that held him captive.  He used the (three leafed) Shamrock as way to explain the three persons of the Godhead. His heart was full of love and forgiveness for the people of Ireland.  He was an example for us of a servant of God who walked out the “great commission” that Jesus gave before he ascended back to his seat at the right hand of the Father.  So today, it isn’t about the luck of the Irish for our family, but the faith of one man who was obedient to the Lord and a great example of one who truly did love and forgive like Jesus. 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!