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teaching 3 six-year-olds
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We have 3 bio kids, a 6 yo and 2 preschoolers. We are in the process of adopting a sibling group, and we’ve found out about a group of twin 6 yo’s and a 4 yo. So now I’m trying to figure out a potential game plan for teaching 3 six year olds at different levels. Fortunately bio DS6 is pretty independent. Right now we do Bible and extras together (science, history, art, music), he does copywork, assigned reading and some math activities independently. Then 1 on 1 we do math games, and handicrafts once a week. I know he is advanced over most 6 yos, and considering the background the foster kids are coming from, I presume they will be behind his level. How would you approach it? Should I leave bio DS6 to do stuff independently and focus on adopted 6 yos? What about the preschoolers? Obviously we will just be focusing on Bible and 3 R’s during the transition. I know I want to put a heavy focus on habit training to set the stage for future growth, but since they are 6 I know I need to do some academic stuff with them for legal reasons!
I’m not sure you can really plan until you know them, but here is how I would approach it:
Family subjects for things you will read aloud to them and narrate orally(like history, literature, science) or experiment/explore with them (like science and nature study). Art, artist study, PE, composer study are easy to do as a group because they involve looking, listening, or creating. Everyone can do it to their ability.
Individual work:
reading (based on where each child is)
math (based on where each child is)
writing/copywork (based on where each child is)
When the new children arrive evaluate where they are as individuals in the individual work areas! You may discover that two are at the same level in math or some such. I would still work with them as individuals because with such a huge change in the family each child could benefit from some one on one with mom (be it their mom they’ve always had or their new mom they just got).
Of course I have ZERO experience with adopting. So this is just what I think would work well based off mothering eight little ones. I know there are dynamics in adoption I don’t understand because I haven’t experienced them.
I would approach it just as you would if you had 3 children of different ages doing school. Pick the subjects that will be ‘family’ subjects, and figure out how you will do those with children of different abilities. I know many families on this forum do subjects like history and science with children of varying ages and then work individually with each child on things like reading and math.
On the other hand, I have found that we can’t really do the ‘family read aloud and narrate’ scenario in our home. I have DD8 and DS6 doing school. Both could handle reading all the material themselves silently. When it comes to read alouds, however, they are radically different. DD8 would happily listen and narrate for hours. DS6, on the other hand, has a VERY short attention span when it comes to auditory skills. He can read for hours, but loses focus and interest very quickly when listening. He also has a stammer, so although he can narrate, it takes him a long time. DD8 gets frustrated waiting for DS6 and DS6 gives up and wants DD8 to do the narrating for him.
So we do Bible, poetry, physical education, and music and art subjects together, but everything else is separate. I had great plans to combine more subjects, but quickly figured out that it wasn’t good for our family. It might make sense for you to plan to do most things individually (even if using the same books) for the first while, as you get to know your children and teach habits and how to narrate, etc. Then you can decide later if combining makes sense.
Good luck! What an exciting opportunity!
Joanne
I have five adopted children. In your situation I would plan to shelve all academic plans indefinitely and focus on bonding and transitioning for biological and foster children. Really.
Jeaninpa, I was just logging on to say the same thing. I have four children, two of whom were adopted. This is going to be a huge adjustment for everyone, an adjustment you all will be continuing to adjust to for years to come. With everyone still so young, my advice is to not even consider homeschooling. View it as everyone is preschoolers (with the possible exception of your current 6yo). Continue with Bible. Integrate the children into the family culture. Teach them about what work you do around the house. There will be a lot of time spent on just emotions. A LOT of time. We still spend a lot of time on emotions. Do habit training kinds of things *as they naturally come up* but very gently. I’m sure you have some ideas about discipline of the new children so my only ‘words of wisdom’ from my own experience is disciplining an adopted child is much more delicate than I would have ever understood before doing it. So gently train your family culture for the next year. And then next fall, think about introducing reading and math. I mean, you’ll be doing it some bc one naturally does it some with preschoolers, but I wouldn’t do it as ‘school’ yet.
Since your 6yo is already in the habit of school and it sounds like he is doing well with it, I’d consider keeping that up to some degree but even for him I’d back way off and keep everything as gentle as it can possibly be. Will he be the oldest? What is the age difference between him and the twins?
LIFE will be your family’s education for the first year or so. There will be more emotions than you can possibly imagine from this side of it to work through. But you will work through them and everyone will learn about how to be a family and how to treat people and how to love and say you’re sorry and how to attend to six children at once and how to have patience while mama takes care of someone else… So much more important things that learning to read and do math. All the other things will come in time but FAMILY is your first priority. (In my opinion…:))
I look forward to hearing how it goes, from those exciting early days to the really trying ‘how will I ever be able to do this?!’ days.
Best,
shannon
A year ago we adopted a sibling set (3 children) from foster care. I am assuming the laws are different in your state that permit homeschooling children who are adopted from foster care. All children preK and up were required to be enrolled in public school until the adoption was officially legalized which takes at least 6 months in most cases. We actually had to talk to them about how we were going to educate our three year olds at home since they wanted them to be in early intervention services. They were satisfied with the “education” I would be giving them at home so they allowed it. But I don’t think they would be so flexible especially for a child who is legal school age.
If you do homeschool, I have a feeling that the cps worker who is monitoring your family will not allow you just to work on bonding and attachment. You will need to prove that you are providing your children an education. Yes, I know that bonding and attachment are crucial but CPS has other expectations than trust being established.
School ended up being a disaster for our prek son but I think that it helped us some to have him in school during that transition period. His transition was the hardest and I think it would have been absolutely overwhelming to have him at home 24 hours a day. His behaviors were quite extreme even for a little 4 year old. At first, he didn’t listen to anything we said at all.
Now, a year later he is often our easiest child and we think that homeschooling is the best educational choice for him right now, but that’s because he has a strong emotional bond with us. He trusts us. That said now that he is 5, we don’t do anything formal with him. Once a day our 4 children, (4-6 yo) have access to choose playful learning materials during our mostly free choice learning time. That isn’t a Charlotte Mason approach but it works well bc my kids need to learn independence and self control so this type of learning time allows them a safe place to practice that. It is sort of Montessori inspired but could work well with busy bags too.
We have been lucky that our kids absolutely love read alouds. They have since the beginning, and they weren’t really exposed to it in their prior placements. Sensory actitivies are great. And outdoor play has been the number one activity that our whole family loves and makes a commitment to every day. And, yes, they came to us afraid to dig in the dirt and mud. Now, they happily mess about in the yard often covered in mud. =)
Focus on setting a rhythm to your day that is predictable to your kids. Transitions are going to be tough. It took a long, long time before we had a peaceful bedtime routine. It was chaos. So work on establishing those routines. I think what helped us a lot is that I am as stubborn as a mule and I love schedules so I worked really hard at getting the kids used to the routine.
Adoption is just as hard as bringing home a newborn. It will take a long time for you to feel like yourself again and also for your family to settle into a mostly peaceful rhythm.
Thanks for all the thoughts.
We live in GA, and there was recently a law passed to make it more acceptable to hs foster children en route to adoption. I am not for sure they will let us hs, but hopeful. I do think there will be an expectation of actual measurable education going on or they will not let me do it! I definitely want to have attachment and bonding as a priority, along with habit training, but I think there will at least need to be some 3 R’s occurring for them to let it continue.
I do like the idea of mostly considering them preschoolers though. I currently do picture book read aloud time for my bio preschoolers, and would love to include the adopted kids in that together. I want them to love reading too! I was also planning to do lots of outdoor play. We do that regularly now, and I think it will be a good opportunity for the kids to play together and me to supervise and intervene when necessary.
I definitely want to continue with bio DS6 and his 1st grade work. Maybe we will hold off on things like history and science (except nature study!) for the first couple months so I can focus on 3 R’s with the 6 yo’s. DS6 loves learning, so mostly if I give him more books and more time for reading (while I’m busy with other kids) I know he will continue learning informally on his own!
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