I have two girls, ages 4 1/2 and 3, and we are planning to homeschool K next year. We have been somewhat diligent with preschoolish stuff this year, and we have even begun learning to read by using the Ordinary Parents Guide, etc.
My question, really, though is about Bible time. I have always wanted this to be a special time, but sometimes I feel I’m being way too hard-nosed about it. I know I have that tendency. Let me say that my four year old has learned several complete Psalms and a rather lengthy passage from Colossians.
However, it comes at a price, and I don’t want the price to be too high. She seems very resistant at times to memory work. I “get” that she’s only four (’though I do have to remind myself often), and I don’t want to burn her out on it at such a young age. However, I know she has the potential to learn it fairly easily, and I want to take advantage of this time in her life when memorization is so, so easy. My three year old knows quite a bit of the passages big sister has memorized, as well. Do you have any thoughts on this, other than to tell me to “chill out”?
-Amy
Memorizing Scripture, poetry, anything is hard work. Kids resist work. Heck, adults resist work. The difference between the two is that adults know that memorizing Scripture is beneficial and a blessing to us, while a four-year-old can't typically see the benefit of anything past the immediate gratification of the moment. So while an adult will memorize Scripture because we love God's Word and want to have it in our memory banks so we can recall it when we need it, most kids have absolutely no internal incentive to memorize Scripture.
You can go the route of prizes and incentives, but my husband and I have always been wary of this technique. It's great for getting over the hump in some areas of a kids life, but it always bothered us to think of paying a kid off to memorize God's Word. Doubtless others out there don't agree with us, and that's absolutely ok. You'll need to decide for your family.
What has consistently worked well in our home is the memorization of Scripture through singing. Singing is fun, joyful, easy, and helps those trickier passages stick to the brain like super glue. I have marked every passage we come across that we know set to music with a little music note symbol in the margins of my Bible. It's easy to flip to any page with a music note and begin singing. How's that for easy review?
As the kids have gotten older and challenged themselves to memorize passages or books, there have been rewards; we'll celebrate and praise and reward with something tangible, but the reward isn't typically offered from the outset as a carrot on a stick, so to speak. It's more of a , "Hey! We're so proud of you! Great job!"
I think you're absolutely right to not burn out your daughters, possibly causing them to loathe Scripture memory. Turn it into something joyful, exciting, and cozy. Let them crawl into your lap while you sing Scriptural praises together.
Some good products to start with:
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I would love to know what your advice would be for getting back on the homeschool wagon. I have five children and my oldest two are pretty self sufficient. But I really feel as though I’ve let down my youngest three. Ages six, four, and two. My 10-year-old really could use more direction as well.
I’m feeling so bad about my failures that I’m having a hard time figuring out where to start.
Thanks!
-Rain
Dear Rain-
What is keeping you from really digging in with your younger kids? Sometimes if we assess what the main roadblocks are, we can eliminate them from our end before we even set about getting the kids involved.
In the past, several things have derailed me: pregnancy/morning sickness, burn-out, over-busyness, unrealistic expectations, and laziness. You may have entirely different reasons, but as I go through each one of these, perhaps you'll read something that strikes a chord.
Pregnancy/Morning Sickness- The most difficult thing for me to remember when I am in the throes of nausea and fatigue is that it will not last the entire nine months. If we've fallen off the wagon during my morning sickness, well then we can get right back on when I am feeling better.
Burn-Out- If you are experiencing burn-out, then you need to take a good, hard look at what you are trying to accomplish in a day. This topic is a post in itself, but start by making a list of your top three non-negotiable activities and assess whether everything else you're trying to do is really essential.
Over-Busyness- Ditto.
Unrealistic Expectations- Are your expectations meeting the reality that God has given you? If I expect a child who really doesn't "get" math to be at a certain level or in a particular book, then my expectations are not the same as my reality. That's not to say we don't set goals or try to reach higher standards. But it does mean we keep our eyes on God and our ears open to what He wants for our families, not what the state says is "normal" for a grade level or not what we were doing when we were in school, etc. Every child and family is unique, and the beauty of homeschooling is that we can grow at a suitable pace rather than making everyone conform to "one size fits all".
Laziness- I cannot improve upon what the book of Proverbs has to say about Laziness. Begin there and ask God to speak to you through His Word.
I'm sorry if I haven't touched upon any of the reasons you are struggling to get back at it. If you have anything else to add, please comment and I'll try to help you troubleshoot some more.
Oh. And like Nike says, Just Do It. Purpose to get back on the wagon.
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Oh, could you please talk about how to deal with (and what to do with) a child who takes shortcuts… not wanting to do the work (mostly school, but also other tasks), a child (age 11) who works very hard at not working. Guessing at answers, pretending to read, failing to do corrections because she “did not think you would recheck it”… which I always have.
A child who fills in an answer that says “ten”… ten what?? Ten minutes, ten weeks, ten years? And when asks, replies, “You should have just known.” I am asking for a miracle I know… my child is not the norm (ask Cheryl) as she came to me later and has trouble connecting. Still, her education is in my hands and I am baffled. I have a younger child also, who is watching this and starting to copy some attitudes. He is seven and needs more training time, which is being stolen by bad behaviors in his sibling. How do I fix this?
~Bren
Oh, Bren, I could not help but chuckle at some of the things you shared. I know it's not right, but it's always funnier when it's someone else's child, no? I'm sure you're past seeing any humor in the situation and are just plain frustrated.
I can only share with you what we've done with a similar situation, but it might not be the answer you need. Pray and ask the Lord what He thinks.
We have a child who is very mature, very responsible when it comes to getting tasks done, and a complete help with siblings. I can count on this child in so many ways.
However. This child loses EVERYTHING. Crafts have been started and then lost. Yes, whole projects, GONE. School books can't be found, clothing is missing, etc. Actually, as I write this I can see that we have made some small progress, so I can say things are getting better.
Initially I was just plain frustrated. How does someone lose an entire backpack filled and ready for vacation the day we are going to leave??? It was set out that morning...
Tears have been shed, and the child is also frustrated. That being the case, I have set about helping the child with my own exhibited patience. We've cracked open the Bible and had the child copy verses about responsibility and diligence. We've also set in motion some "reality discipline" tactics: no new crafts can be started until the old ones are found and completed. Lost school books are paid for if not found by a set date.
My kids don't have a steady income (no allowance, etc.), so having to pay for a school book is agony! It's only happened once (amazing how much time they'll spend looking for it when they know they'll have to pay for it), and after the child doled out $25 and the new book arrived, the old one was found. Painful reality.
My advice to you would be to guard yourself from showing any kind of frustration. When I get worked up over a child's behavior, it only makes the situation worse. Then set up, in advance, the rules and the consequences. Sit down at breakfast when everyone is calm and happy and tell that sweet child what she's going to work on that day (diligence? a good attitude?). Tell her that each time you see her exhibiting that good quality, she'll get x (an m-n-m? a checkmark on a chart that leads to some prize when all the boxes are filled?). Or tell her that if she can go 15 minutes without being lazy or complaining, she'll get x. Or if she can do each task completely, without cutting corners, she'll get x.
Baby steps, you see? Reward every. little. accomplishment. At the end of the day, praise her to her dad and brother. Make dinner triumphant, even if she only succeeded once that day.
Don't be afraid to create some negative consequences, too. Much like having to pay for a lost school book, you could set in motion a rule that discourages half-done work. Stick to it. Don't renege. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. If you tell her the consequence of not being diligent is to not be able to participate in some fun activity, then by all means, don't let her participate.
You are on her team. Communicate that as best you can.
~Kendra
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When I recently wrote in response to a reader's lack of joy, I mentioned adding something into her day that would appeal to her. Something to look forward to in all the necessary doings of the day.
For me, it's cooking. More specifically, it's baking. I dream in bread, cakes, pies, and crème brûlée (who doesn't dream in crème brûlée?) Lucky for me, baking is a science and so I have planned a whole season's worth of science lessons that have me in the kitchen with my kids during our slotted science hour.
When it dawned on me that we could use our two science mornings as our cooking course, I began to see a world of possibilities open to me. I also began to get excited and look forward to our science days, about which I had tended to feel rather ho-hum in the past.
We began with a cooking lapbook because I wanted to train my kids from the ground up. A while ago, I had made cooking binders for them in anticipation of a summer cooking course I was going to teach. But babies came instead, one summer after the other, and our cooking course never happened.
So I organized my materials and set out to have a whole lot of fun. How neat is it that we also end up producing a meal or a snack in the process?
If a cooking/science/chemistry unit sounds good to you, too, I say go for it. These are some of the resources we're using:
Online:
America's Test Kitchen Videos Online
Our Favorite Cookbooks for Kids:
Paula Deen's My First Cookbook
My Favorite Cooking Blogs:
CupCake Blog (although she's no longer blogging, her archives are to die for!)
So.
I am the Preschoolers and Peace gal who loves routine. Schedules. Plans! But...
My wise friend Cheryl has often said to me, "Hold your plans loosely", and I am getting lots of practice doing just that these days.
For those of you who might think I've got the corner on organization, I give you
Tuesday, January 20th
8:00 5-year-old crawls into my bed to rub my back. The day has begun well!
8:10 Mother-in-Law calls from next door to tell us that the inauguration is coming on and do we want to come over and watch it? I *thought* it was going to be on at 11:30, but apparently that's real time, not California time.
8:30 Put strata (made yesterday by my friend who helps us on Mondays) into the oven.
8:35 9-year-old, 7-year-old, 5-year-old, 22-month-old, and I go next door to watch the inauguration. No sign of the teenagers- they prefer their warm beds in the morning.
9:30 Come back home to feed baby.
10:00 Eat breakfast, read devotional, send everyone on a hunt for my small Bible, clean kitchen, fold a load of laundry, listen to phone message from food co-op coordinator.
11:00 Put 22-month-old in the playpen in the family room with the intent of starting our history study in the schoolroom. 13-year-old reminds me that his guitar lesson will be in that room in 15 minutes. Move playpen upstairs to my room. Forgot Beatrix Potter DVD downstairs. Who needs a gym?
11:15 Start history. Can I tell you how thankful I am that Linda Hobar has recorded The Mystery of History??? I push "play" and sit down to check email. Diaper desperately in need of changing.
11:19 Crack open a can of Diet Coke. I'm off the wagon, but as my best friend says, "Its not Vodka".
11:30 Search Google for photos of Chinese foot binding.
11:35 Search Google for photos of acupuncture.
11:50 Discuss St. Simon and the Coptic Church. Discuss Eric the Red (we're going chronologically).
12:00 Clean up schoolroom. This after my little friendly but loud lecture about actually doing your job rather than claiming to have done your job.
12:03 Discuss inauguration on the phone with my husband. Put away Christmas books while talking. Conversation ends when he arrives at the pool for a noontime swim.
12:08 Continue to encourage the cleaning of the schoolroom. Collect library books for return.
12:20 Send children to do their morning chores. It's not morning. We're pretty darn majorly behind, and by the way- our two hour Circle Time has been reduced to 45 minutes, and we only studied history. "Hold your plans loosely"... Grab 22-month-old and 8-month-old to go put the littlest guy down for his nap.
12:25 Carry 5-year-old downstairs. She still can't walk until we see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow.
12:26 Read aloud in the living room. Tell 5-year-old to sit still and stop fussing because she didn't get as many pretzels as she wanted. Correct 22-month-old 11 times while he sits in his little booster seat and eats pretzels. Knit seven rows on a baby bootie.
12:45 Ask 13-year-old to start celery with peanut butter for lunch. He's the Tuesday breakfast guy but he was nowhere to be found when breakfast needed to be started.
1:00 Discuss the fact that it takes more calories to eat celery than is to be gained by it. Listen to the 15-year-old tell me about a movie he, his brothers, and cousin plan to make about facial exercise. Practice facial exercises. Crack ourselves up.
1:15 Talk to best friend on the phone. We will miss seeing each other as she passes through our town today :(
1:20 Hear 11-year-old frantically practicing the piano because his lesson is at 2:00. Watch the celery and peanut butter disappear. Watch the crackers and apples disappear. Watch the oatmeal cookies disappear.
1:35 Sneak upstairs to write this.
1:40 Tell piano players to get into the van. "Take your math!". Give 13-year-old instructions for feeding and playing with the baby. Try to find lip gloss. Make-up is a priority.
2:00 Drop two pianists off at piano. Drive to chiropractor with 15-year-old for adjustments.
2:30 Back at piano teacher/dear friend's house. Paint the remainder of her kitchen cabinets that I couldn't finish the night before.
4:00 Home. Have long conversation with best friend on the way, finishing as a load of laundry goes from washer to dryer. Approve two snack requests. Tell everyone downstairs to come upstairs for school help.
4:20 Spelling with 9-year-old. I spell "raving" wrong just to get a laugh out of her.
4:40 Realize I didn't pick up my food co-op order. Really, really, bummed at myself.
4:52 Check Facebook. Why? I don't know. Feel guilty that I'm not downstairs checking on the other schoolwork being done at the kitchen table. Getting up now...
I'll stop there, partly because I'm thinking you're bored about now and partly because I can't remember. Are you all feeling better about your days now?
Enjoy today, and hold your plans loosely!
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Would you mind sharing how you teach writing to your children? Not grammar or handwriting but the process of writing.
-Brandi
Whenever someone asks me how we teach our children the process of writing (a term paper, an essay, fiction, etc.), I cringe. Writing is one of those things I don't teach.
There are lots of reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that I learned to write well because my mother is a good writer, as are my brothers. One of them is twice published. In spite of the paltry education the government provided, I learned to write by having my family read my writing and offer suggestions and corrections. My mom also read aloud to us while we were growing up, so good literature was something with which we became familiar. My high school English teacher told me I was better read than he was, which says a little about me but a whole heaping lot about the public high school I attended, known for its "high academic standards". Hmmm. That's not entirely fair; I had two stand-out teachers who required much in the way of writing and offered copious correction, but these were teachers in the "gifted" program and it bothers me greatly to think of how many kids not labeled gifted didn't receive good writing instruction at all.
When it came time to delve into teaching my own children, I didn't bat an eyelash concerning the teaching of writing. It's natural. It just flows from who we are. Do you see why the question of how we teach writing makes me cringe? I have no concrete answer.
I will tell you what exercises our children have done to strengthen their writing ability, and I'll be happy to answer your questions. The easiest way for me to organize my thoughts on this subject is to go child by child, so I apologize in advance if this becomes tedious and boring.
10th Grade Boy- Strong natural writer. Worked his way through English for the Thoughtful Child and Rod and Staff English books from first to fourth grade and then I let him go (this won me many Brownie points). Has done upper level writing programs "for fun". Listens to Andrew Pudewa workshops I pick up on CD and enjoys them.
8th Grade Boy- Antithesis of the above. Started with English for the Thoughtful Child and Rod and Staff English. Cried. A lot. I ditched the grammar books and just required heaps upon heaps of copywork until this year when he is working through Rod and Staff English 8. Would cry if he knew he wouldn't look like a sissy. Not really, but he finds it utterly distasteful. However, he has a lot of required writing for Veritas Press Omnibus II, so we continue to plug away, refining and correcting and improving.
6th Grade Boy- Quite a good natural writer. Started with English for the Thoughtful Child but not Rod and Staff. I'm so confident in the 8th grade text that I am waiting to toss that his way next year or so. He has loved Matt Whitling's series of books called Imitation in Writing, and I have loved the results so much that these are now a permanent fixture on our curriculum scene. For fun, he's been working through How to Write a Story this year.
4th Grade Girl- English for the Thoughtful Child. Copywork, copywork, copywork. Dictation, too. When we write notebooking pages for history, she either copies several sentences I write on the white board or she composes her own. She's not a strong writer and finds spelling a challenge, but she's young yet and I think we'll start the Imitation in Writing series in the next year or two.
2nd Grade Girl- Same as above, except her spelling ability is excellent. She's super right-brained (creative, verbal) so I suspect we'll see some neat things flowing from her pen one of these days.
I wish I could give you "Ten Steps for Producing a Good Writer", but I can't. Keep your eye on each student and see where their weaknesses lie. There are so many excellent resources on the market these days that it shouldn't be too difficult to find ways to challenge your young writers.
If you're looking for a writing mentor for your students, Patrick Henry College has a program for you:
Patrick Henry College Writing Mentors
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