New to SCM

Yay, I have similar ages to you, so I’ll share what we’re doing.  My children are 5th, 1st, K, 3yo, 2yo, 8month old, and baby coming in January.

First, and most obviously, combine everyone for as much as you can.  I love the SCM modules for this very thing. Do you have their Family Handbook for the module?  It lists out the books and gives you daily schedules of what to read for family and each grade range, keeping you all on the same general topic all year.  Love it!  Today, for example, I read aloud a biography from Famous Men of the Middle Ages (we’re in module 4) to all my children.  We were at the table with coloring materials to keep little hands busy.  The older 3 narrated orally.  Then my 5th grader went off to read her assignment (1/2 a chapter in The Vikings by Janeway), with the reminder that she needed to narrate to me or write a narration when she was done – her choice.  Meanwhile I read a section of Leif the Lucky to my younger four (the baby played on the floor this time) and we looked at pictures.  The 5 and 6 year olds narrated to me briefly and then headed off with brother age 3 to be vikings sailing a ship.

Second, don’t duplicate efforts.  What I mean by that is if you are having the child write a narration then don’t assign separate writing work on top of this.  Take one narration every week or so to “polish up”, editing for spelling and punctuation, etc. 

Third, don’t make things harder than you must.  A personal example here, picture study is simple, takes only 10 minutes once a week.  However, for a while I found myself doing more than once a week, adding in books to read about the artist for the entire 6 weeks in a formal “sit down while we read this” setting.  Now I’ve released myself from that extra work.  I read enough about the artist to be able to share a few minutes about them.  Then I have a stack of books on all levels from the library about the artist and if a child wants to look at it in their free time they are welcome to.  If not, then we just do our once a week picture study and let it be good enough.

My best advice for the littles is twofold.  First fill up their tank with mommy time before starting sit down work with the bigger kids.  Snuggle, play, read a picture book, whatever makes them happy.  Then do all you can with them nearby playing, until you need to move to the table for seatwork.  When seatwork time arrives bring all the littles with you and give them an activity or toy.  The key to this at my house is booster seats with seatbelts.  From a very young age my children learn to sit with us for table time.  We start with 10 minutes and they get one toy/activity.  If they toss it on the floor it stays there and within a few days or so they usually stop tossing their activity on the floor, because they learn I’m not going to get it, they can just sit quietly and watch everyone else.  Once 10 minutes is easy I add 5 minutes, and we work our way up to about an hour, with 3 activities given to them over that hour (20 minutes each).  My little ones get lots of time running and playing, and usually we’re not at the table for a whole hour at once.  They also are allowed to play on the floor nearby if they are quiet, when it is not their table-time.

We started using the seatbelts when I had little boys who wanted right in the middle of the action – on the table top literally standing on the big kids’ work.  It’s been a great thing!