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Need for enjoying the process
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Hi. I’m farily new on the SCM site but have known about CM and her ways for a couple years. But this is the first year that we will be homeschooling our children. After much prayer, God has allowed me to homeschool with my husbands blessing. PTL! We had a ‘trial run’ last month in order to make a decision whether or not homeschooling was right for our family. During that time, I basically tried to work out the 3 R’s and scheduling with the kids (ds 7, dd 6, ds 3), as well as some areas of behavior. It went well for the most part. But I was overwhelmed by how much monotonous work it was; and by how much time we didn’t have for the enjoyable kinds of learning, like learning science through exploring outside or sitting down with a good book about Abe Lincoln and enjoying that time together. There was so much ‘sit down and pay attention’ kind of learning in the morning, that I was overwhelmed by the afternoon and just needed a break. The 20 minute lessons don’t work for me. By the time 20 minutes is past, we’re right in the middle of the lesson and it wouldn’t make any sense to stop them right in the middle of their learning. Also, we deal with interuptions from siblings, which can make the lessons drag out longer. A typical lesson usually lasts 30-40 minutes. I feel like it’s too long, but I don’t see a better way of doing it. I have a passion for homeschooling my kids the CM way. But I feel like what I’ve been doing has been doing one tenth of what CM wrote about…and it’s missing all the lovely stuff. I want to enjoy all the lovely stuff I read about. But just getting throuh the morning lessons is overwhelming. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas or insight into my situation? I think I’m going to need to get creative and joyful about learning…but that’s just a concept to me right now…not sure how that’s going to play out day by day.
Hi!
I think I hear what you are saying, but I”m concerned about your lesson planning. There are of course always going to be interruptions. This is a thing one just has to learn to work around. But I am very concerned about 40 minute lessons with 7 and 6 year old children. I would not begin a lesson with those ages unless 1) I had a plan and a set of time blocked out, with some plan for occupying younger children during the time 2) I had all my materials ready and everything ready to go from second 1 and 3) the complete and total attention of all the children to be taught. Then I see no reason why it would take 20 minutes to get “into” the lesson. In 20 minutes your lesson should be done. How are you planning your lessons and what are you planning on accomplishing in each lesson? Could you give us some examples of what you are expecting in a lesson, how you plan it? Perhaps the difficulty lies in this area. Are you trying to tackle too much in a lesson? What obstacles are you encountering (besides normal interruptions?) Are you having difficulty obtaining the attention of the students? If so, you will probably need to practice on this first. What subjects are taking such a long lesson time? The “lovely things” are not just lovely, but also important. You do need time for them. I think we need to try and diagnose the difficulties with the lessons that are going for 40 minutes before addressing the rest.
Hi – I agree with Bookworm – the lessons for that age are more high school length not for the young ones. Are you actually using CM materials and reading, narrating and things like that – or are you using textbooks from someone and trying to adapt them to CM? Let us have a few more details and we can all try and advise. Linda
Yes, I agree with what was said above. If we could have some details about your materials and how you are implementing comprehension (i.e. narrating or Q & A worksheets) and what subjects you’re doing.
Also, it takes some time to get used to HS’ling w/little ones, so you have to have a plan for occupying them. Many ladies have good ideas for that here. Also, the top two habits that should be a priority are Attention and obedience; if you don’t have those, neither you nor your children will benefit fully from HS’ling experience.
Sonya has free handbooks on habits and other things that may be helpful to you. They can be found on the home page. Also, there on the SCM blog, there are topics that deal specifically with habit development in the young as well as other topics that would assist you.
Looking forward to helping as much as we can,
Rachel
((hugs)). As you can see, the ladies here are very helpful! We look forward to giving you some tips to smooth your way and to help you in making your materials work for you.
Agree with the above:) It does take a while to find your groove. I think with some planning for the littles and focused time with the olders, you should be able to get done in much less time and enjoy the other activities. At that age, my child would spend about:
15 min. on Math-U-See, 10 min. on Queen’s copywork, 5 min. on Handwriting Without Tears, 15 min. or so on phonics instruction/learning to read, 10 min. on Bible, 15 min. on a literature story. That’s approximate…but I’d try to get those in first before worrying about the other things (which aren’t all done daily, many are only once or twice a week). HTH some:) Gina
Every year I have to find my new groove. I usually take notes on what isn’t working and what I want to tweak. After a couple of weeks of doing that, I am usually set…until the next season of course! 🙂 I used to get frustrated about it, but now (call me crazy!) I like the challenge. In fact, it has taken me a lot less time to figure it out this year, whoohoo!
Your kids are young, so keep it light and simple on them and yourself. As they get older, you can rotate them. For instance, I usually put my 2 year old with an older sibling while doing a lesson alone with another child. I have set rules involved so everyone knows what is expected of them beforehand and there are less interruptions.
HTH!
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