I echo everything Tamara Bell says, but with two different daughters. One daughter, now 20, very much needed to be working with her hands in some way while listening. She also has a fondness for patterns, so a bucket of pattern blocks was a necessity, and many lovely designs were created on the carpet. : ) In the case of this dd, working with her hands and doing mechanical things has always been a love and strength for her. She loves to build things, repair things, fiddle and tinker in general. Every piece of IKEA furniture we’ve ever had was partially or completely assembled by her, and she started using power tools in early elementary school. (My husband is a professional model builder, so he was able to teach her all of this – it’s not one of my strengths!) Another thing she loved was when we would buy some sort of machine (like an old typewriter, for instance) cheaply at a thrift store, put it on a big bed sheet on the floor, and give her tools to take it apart. That would keep her engaged for hours over weeks at a time. I say all that only to say that sometimes these tendencies can be channelled in other ways, too, rather than being seen as in irritation or a deficit, as they might be in a traditional classroom. This dd is not going into a mechanical career, but she still does most of these things, and even when she was in high school (still homeschooled) she would play with kinetic sand with one hand while doing her geometry homework with the other.
Our third dd is the age of the OPs and seems to need large motor movement above all else. She loves to be climbing, swinging, or upside down. In her case, we have done a lot of read-alouds while in the backyard, with her climbing or swinging from ropes in our backyard tree. (We live in S0uthern CA, so this is possible basically year-round). My only requirement is that she be facing me as much as possible and that she not talk while I’m reading. This has become a very enjoyable tradition. She has also become an avid indoor rock climber in the last several months. Her mind and body just *need* that kind of activity.
FWIW, our first dd, now 25, liked to sit still on the couch and listen to books. She would sit still for a ridiculous amount of time, even as a toddler. So my kids run the gamut!
A book that has been very instructive and encouraging to me is called Balanced and Barefoot. It’s written by an occupational therapist and goes into detail about how much kids need certain activities that many childhoods seem less and less to include, such as climbing, unstructured running about in the woods, swinging. She talks about how children’s brain development needs these things, not just on a physical but a cognitive level. She didn’t write it specifically for homeschoolers, but I find it a great reinforcement for the idea of hours in the out of doors, or even just letting kids do all their quirky things while listening and studying.
Well, this got long and rambly (as all my posts do!), but I hope it’s helpful to the OP or anyone who has kids like these. : )
