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This is not going quite how I imagined…
- This topic has 10 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 6 months ago by
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This is our first “real” year truly trying to dive in to CM methods. My oldest is in first grade this year. We’re using the SCM guide for module 1, Math U See, picture study, composer study, All About Spelling, interesting books for reading, the Outdoor Secrets Companion for science, reading great books aloud, copywork, poetry, and a couple of other little things here and there.
My son says he “hates school”. This is NOT what I was going for! Now, he doesn’t truly “hate” every part of school. He enjoys picture study, reading great books, nature study, drawing, and parts of other things, too. What he doesn’t seem to enjoy: math, reading (though he reads quite well), narrating, copywork, and listening to certain pieces from our history studies.
He dislikes math right now because it’s simply learning addition facts. Just not much fun. I’m trying to make it into some games for him, so it isn’t so tedious. He doesn’t like to read aloud to me every day. He’s getting better and better and he reads quite well. He gets to CHOOSE what he reads from a large selection of interesting books. Is it his perfectionism when he doesn’t know every word that is making him dislike this particular thing? He doesn’t like copywork. I only make him do ONE line of copywork–not even a full sentence. I just want him to do that one line at the best of his ability. It’s usually about four to five words. It only takes him a few minutes when he actually sits down and does it (instead of just staring at it and throwing his pencil across the room when he makes a mistake). I know I’m not asking too much of him in that department. Why does he despise narration so much? We’ve tried different approaches, but it is like pulling teeth, for Pete’s sake!
Then when it comes to our history…I’m not sure that he’s really connecting with the content. Some of the books are interesting to him, others not so much.
I’ve been giving some thought to delight directed learning and wondering if an approach like this would ignite his desire to learn better. I’m pretty sure I could still use many of Charlotte’s methods with this approach, but in some ways it seems like it would be a lot more work, too. And I don’t know how I might make that work with several children once we get to the point where I’m teaching more than just him.
What I imagined was a child who was engaged and excited–not one who was complaining and dreading and dragging their feet! There must be something I can change or adjust. Help!
If he hates math so much this is an awesome one that I am using for my daughter and she loves it, it includes many games and hands on activities. http://www.alabacus.com/
http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/narration/ Here are some great OTHER narration ideas from Simply Charlotte Mason…I dont know if its much help to you or if you have looked at them already.
My oldest was like this all last year, too, only she is a couple years older.
For narrations, he is only 6 – go easy on him, it’s a tough thing to learn. My 8yo is finally just starting to get the hang of it. Usually…. He will get it in time, too. For now, make sure the portions are very short, even a sentence if needed. And I remember I never really prodded, but occasionally I’d throw out a “reminder” word or phrase to help jog her memory.
As for math, my dd was bored with adding & subtracting last year. Go figure, she likes multiplication better because it’s easier. 😛 If he struggles with it, I would definitely recommend doing RightStart math as suggested above. My kids LOVE math now. If he seems bored & understands the concepts of addition, just move on. He will memorize the facts over time as he uses them over and over again. That’s how my 7 & 8yos are doing it, and it’s working perfectly.
For copywork, when my dd was in 1st last year, I had her do just do letters, or maybe tracing 2 or 3 words sometimes. Rarely would I have her write out a sentence.
History books are hit or miss with my kids. Some books they absolutely love, some they really don’t care for. If they dislike a book so much that they can’t even pay attention to it, it’s gone (though I haven’t had to do that yet).
For reading, if he’s reading that well, maybe you could assign him a short part to read on his own and then narrate. Or if he’s struggling with some words, try word cards before reading a new page or book. The word cards have been like magic for my 7yo this year. My 8yo we stopped reading lessons when she could read just about anything she wanted and it was too boring to read aloud (& she wasn’t making really any mistakes anymore).
I hope some of this helps! I totally understand the struggles. I am so thankful I hung in there and kept trying. It’s like night and day, comparing this year & last year! 🙂
I am not familiar with delight directed learning. But, I can suggest what has worked for us. I have found that my ds likes readers that are animated animal stories and even a mystery like Lobel’s Frog and Toad series for example. So I think you do need to find out what he likes. But for knowing the words, I go through the reader and make my own notecard flashcards of the new sight words for him to learn and practice before reading the book. It is only 2 to 5 new words at a time. We review these flashcards every other day and on the other days, he reads through a phonics word list of similar sounds (like cat, fat, rat, sat). What program are you using to teach reading? What level of reading is he? What were some of his recent readers?
Narration can take other forms than oral (coloring pages, acting out with toys, dressing up in costumes and pretending to be a character in the story) and you can sneak it in like, “Hey, son, tell dad about the story of … that we learned about today.”
I also think that at this age, they are learning the discipline of sitting still to do any table work. They are growing in the habit of attention, also. I break up my table work so it is not so long. (Your copywork sounds good – short.) He has a comfortable reading chair in the living room where he reads and I sit next to him and look over his shoulder at the book to help when needed. And I “listen” to the story.
What are you using for history? Are they living books? Is it SCM? Is it appropriate for his age level? Are you keeping lessons short (15 minutes)?
Also, my son told me once that he hated school and I had to figure out just what that meant for him. I found out that I needed to do the table work (three R’s) before doing the other work that is more fun.
I hope this was helpful. It gets better and better the more you both get used to it.
Let’s face it – a 6 or 7 yo boy would rather be running and playing than learning math facts and doing history dictations. That is normal. This is a normal boy. And the issues you have observed (“perfectionism”) will be there no matter if you assign the subject matter, or he chooses it, so just be prepared to help him progress through these. With a good attitude from you, and maturity, which will happen with time, the perfectionism can help drive him to do better work, not block him from from doing his work. But right now he is only a normal energetic 1st grade boy. Don’t forget that.
Make sure you are sticking to short lessons. Time yourself. He doesn’t have to love each lesson, but if it is short he can get through it. Praise him for attentiveness, not perfect work, if he is hung up on making mistakes. I think choosing some topics to study, say in history or science, that are of interest to him (delight driven) is a great idea. You don’t have to abandon your entire routine to do it, either. Just add in a time a couple times a week, or replace a history or science period. Don’t worry if a topic takes you out of your scheduled time period or whatever. Like Charlotte says, give them great ideas to think about and let them make their own associations. You don’t have to do it for them, it will happen!
Math: I want to encourage you to add in some living books for math that you read aloud and think/talk about together. There are many at my library and probably at yours, too. Here is a book list with many choices to help you get started, or just do like I did and search for a math topic at the library, go to that section and browse through the available books. My first grader loved “The Greedy Triangle” and a tangram book about Grandfather Tang. These math readers can help us as parents/teachers remember that there is A LOT more to math than learning math facts. The math facts won’t build a love for math, but living books can, and it is a painless way to add to math studies.
Keep up the good work. Don’t forget that you are teaching a child, not a subject! And make sure he is getting plenty of playtime. Believe me, I have a 6th grader that was a 1st grader once, and the interest in topics like history studies is there now, although five years ago, not so much LOL. They grow up!
My second grade son professes to “hate school”. Funny enough, when I question for specifics he enjoy most of it, but detests copywork, math, and history.
For copywork I began, like you, in first grade once he had mastered all his letters requiring one line as nice as he could. Now we set the timer for 10 minutes and I get a good two to three sentences. He really hated it at first, but after steady progress he has very nice handwriting and is getting far more fluent. Slow and steady. Even though he doesn’t like it, it is building character to persevere and learn something that is needful and worthwhile.
For math I discovered my son really just hates the rote mthod, along with laborious exercisies. We still do book work but only twice a week. I use living math books two more days, right now using Greg Tang’s series with both my son and his Kindergarten age sister at their appropriate levels. I also schedule one day as math computer games, which he loves. He LOVES the living math books, and the games, and we persevere through bookwork as necessary. I let him do most of the work orally, using counters if needed. He has an excellent grasp of math, just hates the routine boring facts.
For history I switched to A Child’s History of the World and suddenly he loves it and narrates fluently. Our previous book he did not connect with. He like short, action packed stories like King Arthur and his Knights of the round table, the Minstrel in the Tower. etc. I think he needed to connect with the right book to make it fun.
One thing that works excellently for my high octane, qlways moving, always investigating son is that I pick out fun books at the library that supplement what we are reading in school. I just leave them in the basket and he *finds* them. For example if we read about porcupines in the Burgess Animal Book, I get a few fun picture and info books on them. I also got some books on knights and how they learn to be a knight and train and live and all that.
Some things are just needfula nd must be persevered through but some things can be changed to capture interest. My son caught a wooly bear today and is busy constructing a habitat for him to overwinter. So we chase that rabbit trail 🙂 But we still have to read history 🙂
Tara
I remember when my middle son was that age. He complained about everything that had anything to do with school. We were doing Sing, Spell, Read, & Write where you learned to read by playing games. He loved games but he still complained. Two years later he remarked one day, “That SSR&W was really a lot of fun.” I thought that it would have been nice to hear some encouragement two years ago.
You are the parent, you have to be the adult and carry on whether they enjoy everything or not. You choose what you think is best and they may not rise up and call you blessed for a long time but still that is why you are the one in charge not the child.
I feel refreshed just reading this thread. Yes, we are using living books, yes, I am keeping lessons short. No, I think some of our books were definitely not appropriate for his age level, but I’ll adjust that now. I needed to give myself the freedom to depart from The Plan. 😉
I’ll check out those living math books! (Some of these ideas are so delightfully new to me!) I’m considering the Right Start, but I really don’t want to be flopping around with curriculum choices, so I’ll make that decision carefully with my husband. I’m thinking at the moment that might be the best choice.
I agree that the copywork just needs to be persevered through. I am not asking too much of him at all. Like I said, he can complete it in just a few minutes when he truly attends to it.
I have A Child’s History of the World and *I* really like it, so I think that he might, too. Going to try that. 🙂
It sounds like you are on the right track and have had good advice.
I’m also going to recommend Rightstart – we just started using it this year, and my kids are really enjoying it. (So far it has been mostly review… but in the next couple of days we are getting into totally new concepts.) The games are great. My kids think it is great when I say “math time” and pull out the math card games. So far they know 4 or 5, and really like them.
We just started “A Child’s History of the World” this year too and they seem to like it so far. I like it too.
As for copywork, your son doesn’t know how lucky he is… one line done well versus fill up the page… and writing in most subjects, like is done with many programs and also PS.
Also, when you do copywork…you can set something aside to where he can see it {something that he enjoys, and cant wait to do} and tell him when he finishes his copywork with best effort and attitude in a timely manner that he can play with that something, or do something he really looks forward to. Like a reward. For my daughter our lessons are 15 minutes long, and alot of the time she finishes in about 10 or less so I let her do something she enjoys until the timer is up.
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