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Need Advice – Morning Lessons
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Happy Summer Ladies,
I need some advice as we head into the new school year soon. I know, love, and truly want to embrace the philosophy of “morning lessons and afternoons are free for handicrafts and interests” but the reality of this in our home is just not happening. Any advice or tips to actually make this possible would be greatly appreciated.
A little about our family… 7 children (soon to be 8). Ages are 12, 10, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1, and due August 2017.
I know that we will have some “newborn transition” days/weeks coming up and that is not my concern. I am referring to this past year when things were just “normal”. We start around 9:00am with Together Time (bible, worship, etc…), then head into math, language arts. Take a lunch break at 12:00pm (enjoy time together with our meal, a light read aloud, and scripture memory), finish lunch around 1:00pm, put the littles down for naps, swap laundry, and then we still seem to have morning work to finish, science and/or history, and individual reading to do. Our day never ends before 4:00pm, which is when I put on the brakes, swap laundry again, take care of littles, start dinner, and my older children then have their “free” time. Basically it is 9:00am – 12:00pm, lunch break, start back around 1:30pm, and end at 4:00pm (whether we are actually done or not).
All that to say…. I just feel like there should be an earlier ending time and more free time in the afternoon for the children. A friend of mine with children similar in ages says their day looks very similar to ours and they just have to choose an ending time. They never finish before lunch and most days they do not complete all tasks. So this may just be a dream of mine with this many children at home. Don’t get me wrong… I LOVE our days at home. I wish every hour could be read aloud hour, but looking ahead to this next year I would love to have the freedom in our days to allow more time for handicrafts and personal interests.
Hi! Just a quick thought…how long are your lessons? I’m sure it will vary from oldest to youngest.
I’m eager to hear what others say too.
I do try to keep short, focused lessons and we do as many subjects together as possible. I do use some teacher intensive curriculum (not all Simply CM reccinendations- such as All About Reading) but even those things I keep short and focused. The past 2 years I have just given in to the fact that there are a lot of us here in our home, which means a lot of daily life + school “needs/interruptions” and it just was not possible for a family our size to keep a CM schedule on a daily basis with free afternoons.
Thanks for any input/advice that you ladies can give. A new year is approaching and I have hope that we can once again get back to that homeschool
lifestyle/schedule.
Here is my guess – the kids need to learn to do independent work on their own when you are helping someone else do things like AAR (which I currently use with 3 of my 9 going on 10 kids – my kids are 16-1).
Things my kids can do independently include math practice pages(except on Monday when they have a new lesson), copywork/handwriting, reading a literature book (could relate to history), grammar (except on Tuesday when we do a new lesson), scripture study (personal, we do family study at a different time), writing (some days they work on a project we’re already doing, other days we’re together to edit, etc). My high schooler does all work pretty independently unless she wants me to buddy up with her on something or needs me to review a writing piece or help with science.
My kids have a list of all their subjects and they know that if I’m not working with them on a group subject they pick something off their list to do independently.
We’re usually done by lunch, with 1 subject left for afternoon for the high schooler and a read aloud for the afternoon for the rest of the kids (history). We get started a bit earlier than you (8 or 8:30), take a 15 minute break for snack at 10am, and do lunch at noon.
It is a learning process to get them where they know what to do next (a list helps) and having things ready for them in a folder/binder but once that happens it is magical. 😉 Most days.
Tristan – Thanks for taking the time to reply and give me hope that this can be done. I think a list with their independent work would help along with focus in between tasks. I think we are wasting bits of time here and there throughout our day.
I agree about having a schedule written for each student, so they know what they can (and should) work on independently when you are with another child. That way they can continue working even when you have to step away, or help another little one.
It took time, and proper training on my part (too often I realized that I had not fully explained), but my kids do so much better with this, and they like having their own schedule so they can really see what they have to accomplish each day and each week.
These resource have been helpful to us, although it is still a work in progress:
http://sabbathmoodhomeschool.com/preparing-a-cm-schedule/
https://www.raisingarrows.net/2012/04/the-one-room-schoolhouse-model/
https://www.noodle.com/articles/one-room-schoolhouse-education-for-homeschooling
Timers, written schedules, students working some independently, and combining certain subjects have helped. Schedule the day based on timed lessons, not page numbers.
I don’t have near the number of children that you do, but my two are close to the ages of your two oldest; mine are 11 & 12. I found that my two can do some things independently, but they do not have the maturity to get it all done properly. I guess my habit training when they were young is a big fail! LOL
Anyway, I found that math and language arts nearly took as long as all the other subjects. Almost. So, I spent 4 years tweaking until I finally found a system that works for us. We spend about 3 hours a day doing lessons. I school 5 days a week leaving the other 2 days a week as catch up if we need. My husband works shift work and so I do our family work when he works and we do individual work on days that he is at home. This leaves me more available to him and it is nice to have another set of eyes helping to make sure kids stay on task. I school all year long, but kids understand that if they want summer or time off to be able to do thing with friends, then they have to take it upon themselves to complete their individual subjects early.
For this year, they finished their stuff at the end of may and I won’t start the new year until August. We are still currently doing family work, but we are slowly finishing our family work subjects and have only a few history readers left.
my family subjects are religion, history, geography, science, foreign language
individual subjects are language arts, math, typing, technology, & I assign history readers and fun literature readers. What they don’t finish in 3 hours, they do on their own time before they can have any electronic time or join in family activities.
I use to use guides, but never followed them, so I use CM’s method for determining how much to read per year based on age. For math, we use TT and my kids do well with it, but I let them take the quizzes until they can not pass with a 90 or above. Then they start lessons from there and then I have them watch a lesson’s concept and do the practice problems and if they get them correct, then I have them watch the next lesson’s concept and then do that entire lesson and if they pass with a 90 or above, then they move forward watching 2 lessons, but only doing the 2nd one. If for any reason they do not pass with a 90 or above, then I delete the ones they got wrong and the next day they do the lesson they skipped and then re-do the ones they missed. They still seem to pick up the concepts and they apply themselves more willingly because they like being able to skip a lesson and it is a natural consequence if they don’t pass, then they have to work a little harder. This has actually improved their progress, skills, and attitude towards math. Both rarely need me anymore. (We do Life of Fred math as a family just for fun and this has helped too keeping them from disliking math)
Now if I can figure out a way to do the same for science. LOL We start our first formal science, Apologia this next year, so pray for us because it is a lot! I’ll do it as a family subject his year to see how they do before I switch it to an individual subject, which is my goal. Luckily, they are close enough I have them doing the same one.
This may or may not help you, but I have noticed that I actually get more accomplished in school keeping to the 3 hour mark because we tended to start late then take a long lunch and then late afternoon was upon us. A few tricks that help with time efficiency too is that my kids listen better when they are doing mundane things while I read. So, when I am reading to them, they do their chores. I bluetooth my phone to a loud speaker and I use a microphone app so that they can hear me as they flitter about the house. My house has never been cleaner and they are gaining life skills while being “entertained” is how they see it, but I see that they will be able to educate themselves later in life with audios while they commute to the jobs, do house work etc. and not just rely on tv or internet for their entertainment. My hope at least anyway.
My couch and lap also got too small for all of us sharing books etc. so I also purchased a dongle that connects my laptop to our tv. This allows me to pull up youtube videos of composers or science etc. We do our Sign Language off the internet this way because they both can watch the lesson at the same time instead of each one needing time on the computer. I also can save money with pdf’s or ebooks too because I don’t have to print everything. I use it to do geography as well. I also bought a camera document and with it I can project anything onto the tv. even me working a math problem or drawing a picture or sharing a picture from a book. Great for picture study too because I can easily snap a photo with the camera document and then leave it on the tv screen as a screen saver. (cost was minimal… around $100 and I use it all the time)
I have also incorporated PE into our reading. (we are in south texas and it just gets too hot to be out for long time periods) I read Harry Potter to them and they have a Harry Potter workout. basically words used often are assigned an exercise and so when they hear the word, they are expected to do the exercise. I have kept this going and I just skim through the book I choose and assign exercises like calf raises, burpees, mountain climbers, jumping jacks, etc. this has helped me to add in a reader, but not loose them to sitting too long. LOL Sneaky, but effective. I do not have them narrate on this reader though because we are usually having so much fun with it that just the time together is worth it. It is almost like a game to see who hears the word first etc. some chapters kill them and others are almost sedentary and that just adds to the mystery.
hope some of this can help you… you have your plate full and you’ll need double duty to be able to get enough down time for all the kids to be able to get good and bored. LOL that is when their creativity is triggered…. not always for good mind ya, but it definitely gets triggered. hahahahaha
I’m just wondering about the lessons that you are coming back to in the afternoon – what is there from the morning that needs to be ‘finished’ in the afternoon? I have 5 kids, but my two oldest are completely independent at 16 and 14. The youngest kids (13, 12, 9) have a schedule similar to what you described in the morning, but we never (and I mean never) come back to morning school in the afternoon. I write out their subject order and the amount of time they should spend on each subject (math, 45 minutes; copywork, 15 minutes, etc.). Most lessons are finished in that amount of time, but if not, they would pick up there the next day. We school year-round, so that probably takes some of the pressure off to complete the ‘curriculum’ by the end of the school year, etc. But I haven’t found with my older kids (one in their senior and one in sophomore year) that it has put them behind at all to go at this pace.
One thing that will definitely be a challenge for you moving forward is to train your older kids to work independently as much as possible. We also utilize older siblings for younger kids’ math or English questions, which freed me up to help with youngers when the kids were smaller. Setting time limits and even using individual timers is a help here – you can let them know that you expect them to work independently, without giving in to distractions, for say 7-8 minutes. If they run into a question, they write it down and continue. At the end of their timer period, you can answer questions and then go again. It helps to train their habit of attention and gives them a goal to work toward as you increase the independent work times.
We also save our couch read aloud time for early afternoon, and have an hour of independent reading time in the afternoon. They spend at least half this quiet reading time on an assigned book, and half on their own reading selection. This is a structured free-time that gives the afternoon an educational focus while still allowing some choice. It also moves children into independent studies by building the habit of reading for information and enjoyment. After reading is over, the kids can work on their projects, enjoy nature, etc.
I hope that helps some and that your days are going to be smoother in your new school year! Congratulations on your new addition!
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