Homeschooling

[rustysdove11]

So I'm just wondering, how many of you lovely ladies homeschool? I have five little minions and all of them are such different learners! I have one with dyslexia and one who's two grades ahead... and then there's my 3rd.... he's just turned six and much better at doodling than anything else
I'm always curious to find out what kinds of curriculum other mommies use? and what are you biggest struggles? I feel like consistency is our biggest issue, it's hard for me to stay inside and do school when it's sunny outside.

 

[windblown]

Hi RD11, we'll be officially starting homeschool with mine who will be a kindergartener come fall (I have 3 older girls in public school but the little ones from here on out will be at home with me ). I'd also love to glean wisdom and insight from others. I struggle A LOT with inconsistency as well.

 

[FollowingHim2]

We home school three of our six children. They are 9, 7, and 6. Inconsistency is our problem as well. I think this is the area we're doing worst in at the moment. If I just had the older 3 then it wouldn't be such a problem, but I also have a 4 yr old, 2 yr old, 17 month old, and I'm pregnant. Trying to find time to get everything done is near on impossible.
We don't have a curriculum that we follow, which I struggle with but which Samuel thinks is best because we're not consistent enough, lol. We basically unschool. For example, last week we made cheese and butter and talked about how all that worked. Today the children are out with Samuel as he is doing scientific experiments for a trial for his business. We read several times a day as the kids love books and there are books everywhere which does drive me slightly batty. I really need to go through them and organise them again, you know, in my spare time...
We do use Life Of Fred curriculum for maths. It's not something they can start on straight away, I'd say when they're about 6 - 7 years? They really need to be able to read quite well and have a basic understanding of numbers and addition etc already. The kids absolutely love it though.

 

[Sonshine]

I do! I've been homeschooling since my oldest started Kindergarten, almost five years ago. Right now I have one finishing 4th grade, my twins finishing 2nd grade, and my youngest finishing Kinder. We use (and have used since the beginning) My Father's World for history and bible. They also sell math, geography, science, etc... from other companies so you can get everything in one big box. They're a really great company and I love how easy everything is. Once the kids are in 2nd grade they can join the older siblings in all the subjects except for, basically, english, math, and spelling.

I also have trouble with consistency, in that I don't always start school at the same time every day. :/
This year has probably been my hardest because I feel like everyone has just been sick so much that we've gotten behind. That's probably my biggest struggle. So far. I'll let you know if that changes the older they get.

 

[rustysdove11]

I'll have to look those up! I've had a couple of people tell me to try "math you see" but I haven't gotten it yet.... I really wish there was a curriculum library of sorts, I hate the idea of spending money on something only to find out it doesn't work for us. That and the kids Learn SO differently! I've only been homeschooling since last year but I see such a difference in my kids already. One of my favorite tools is "Kahn academy" it's an online learning tool for kids and it's free.

I struggle with feeling like I can't do the house and school, it's always one or the other.... maybe if I was more organized than it would be different, then again, maybe I'm grasping at a fake sense of perfection?

 

[Sonshine]

I hate the idea of spending money on something only to find out it doesn't work for us. That and the kids Learn SO differently!

I hear ya!! My oldest son (10) and my twin girls (7) learn so much differently in math, for example. My oldest has just always gotten it. Never really needed too much explaining. My girls, on the other hand are completely different. The math I've used for all of them, though, that has worked out pretty well is Singapore Math. But, only the homeschooling version. They sell another, Common Core version. But, even though math hasn't come as easily with my girls, they've still done great at it. I've just had to be a little more in depth in some of the explaining and use some verbage that they don't necessarily include in the curriculum. Honestly, I use YouTube videos when all else fails, sometimes.

I think I've heard of Kahn Academy before! I'm so glad that it's working for you!!! And free is always a bonus!!!

I struggle with feeling like I can't do the house and school, it's always one or the other.... maybe if I was more organized than it would be different, then again, maybe I'm grasping at a fake sense of perfection?

As for that, I'll be honest. I keep a moderately clean home. It's not spotless really, but it's usually always "company ready". I find that I do much better at cleaning when I do keep a more rigid schedule. A clean house is important to my husband, so I have to really make an effort at this, as it doesn't come naturally to me.
But, if I get up early, start my day off before the kids are even up, I generally have plenty of time for both housework and school. It's just when I start to get a little lazy when it comes to what time I roll out of bed--that's when the problems arise. :/

 

[FollowingHim2]

I hate the idea of spending money on something only to find out it doesn't work for us.

Yip, same here, which is why we've spent very little money on curriculum focused things, except for Life Of Fred. Most of our school money has gone on supplies and outings. Although we did buy some books from America based on creation science about dinosaurs and such, and that cost a fortune because apparently it's twice as much $ as the books cost to send them to here and then they got stuck in customs and we had to pay more money to get them out because now we're importing stuff...sigh. Annnnd we haven't even gotten around to sitting down and using them properly after all that.

I struggle with feeling like I can't do the house and school, it's always one or the other.... maybe if I was more organized than it would be different, then again, maybe I'm grasping at a fake sense of perfection?

You know, I keep trying that being more organised thing, and it just doesn't work. I live in chaos, and I hate it. The house is a tip, though it's clean underneath all the toys and junk. I keep telling myself that this is a season and eventually I'll get through it. I also have to make the decision of if we're going to do school today, or if I'm going to cook meals and do washing and try to get some dishes done. And it sounds ridiculous if you don't have lots of little ones.

As for that, I'll be honest. I keep a moderately clean home. It's not spotless really, but it's usually always "company ready".

Wow, go you! My house is never company ready, well not to my standards anyway. Samuel says my standards are too high.

But, if I get up early, start my day off before the kids are even up, I generally have plenty of time for both housework and school. It's just when I start to get a little lazy when it comes to what time I roll out of bed--that's when the problems arise.

This is what I want to do. Here's my problems. Our house is very small and is based with the lounge in the middle. Two bedrooms, the bathroom, and the kitchen all come off the lounge. The third bedroom comes off the kitchen and the door is directly across from the lounge doorway. The fireplace is in the lounge and that heats the house all night so all the bedroom doors need to stay open. If I get up then all the children hear me. I can't go to the bathroom without waking them up. I definitely couldn't have breakfast or even a cup of tea without waking up the 17 month old (Miriam). Once they're up I need to be getting them breakfast and changing nappies and all the general stuff that happens in the mornings. And I'm still sick in the mornings, so I really need to wait until my food has settled before I'm well enough to start doing dishes and school and all of that stuff.
Plus Miriam is in that wonderful stage where she loves to destroy the house, and then look at me innocently like she didn't just spread tissues through the whole house, or throw pinecones throughout the lounge so the dog can rip them to shreds, or take her trousers off and put them in the rubbish bin...
What I would love is to be able to get up at 6am, go to the bathroom (always the first thing on a pregnant woman's list ha ha!), then make breakfast and eat it while reading the bible and planning my day with Samuel. Then get the kids up at 7, get their breakfast sorted and while they're eating I can be pottering about getting washing on or catching up with dishes or something. Then tidy up from breakfast and start on school.
The reality is that I can't do school until Miriam is in bed at 10am, because she makes it impossible. I can't even read the bible with her up as she just climbs all over it and tries to rip it up.
And in a few months I'm going to have a newborn that is going to stuff up any kind of routine I might have entirely.
Does anyone have any solutions? I'm open to hearing anything. I do know this is a stage, but it's also a stage I seem to be perpetually in since I keep having babies, lol.

 

[Well loved wife]

When my kiddos were little I put up a child's gate in their doorway. They weren't allowed out of their room until the alarm went off, which was 7:30. They had to make their beds (even toddlers) and have their toys picked up before coming out after the alarm went off. Only mom or dad was allowed to put up/take down the gate. Even my 9 yr. old was to stay in the room, she's a reader so it meant more reading time for her.... it insured children weren't up destroying the house at 6:00 when they heard me in the shower. I could have a quick Bible time, make breakfast, make and pack our lunch for the day as well as their daddy's. I also made our dinner right after we ate breakfast. Why do dishes so often to keep the kitchen tidy? Make all the meals first thing, clean the kitchen and dishes and know you atleast you accomplished something today, and you have dinner cooked or cooking in the crockpot. The kitchen stays nice all day.

 

[Well loved wife]

We are a home educating family as well. I love the planning part, it's the implementation that gets me every time
We start school every day at the same time. To waver kicks me in the teeth. I often put a fun song on just before it's table time. Kids start running to the bathroom, or stove to start their coffee/tea. I have done scheduling each subject before- we all had anxiety it was to much pressure. I do what we call bench marks. (Benchmark #1) From 8:45- 9:30 is table time: we go over our verse, song and prayer requests, math tables, then kids leave and go to their assigned places for their work. We have a decent sized house but a small table and some of my kids are wiggle worms or out loud readers....(BM#2) by 11:00 am 2-3 subjects of their choice is to be turned in. (BM#3) by 12:00 3 subjects turned in, scored by me, corrected by them and ready for tomorrow's work. We take a 45 minute break for lunch, we eat, sleep, deal with laundry, run, do a 10 min tidy through the living area and back to work. We are usually done with 5-8 subjects by 2:30 and ready for tomorrow's work. I don't do anything but be teacher. To me this is our 'decently and in order'. Every year changes. This year we only did 4 school days per week. I take care of some of the paperwork for my husband's business, and we added piano lessons to our week.....
Our 2016-2017 school year I had a 10th grader, 7th grader, 5th grader and 3rd grader.

 

[FollowingHim2]

When my kiddos were little I put up a child's gate in their doorway. They weren't allowed out of their room until the alarm went off, which was 7:30. They had to make their beds (even toddlers) and have their toys picked up before coming out after the alarm went off. Only mom or dad was allowed to put up/take down the gate. Even my 9 yr. old was to stay in the room, she's a reader so it meant more reading time for her.... it insured children weren't up destroying the house at 6:00 when they heard me in the shower.

What age did you start them doing this? Miriam is still in the cot, so she can't get out, but if she wakes up she'll cry until we get her up.
Also, what did you do when the children who were toilet trained needed to use the toilet first thing in the morning?

 

[windblown]

Sarah, have you read any of the babywise books? (I loved reading your long response, btw. It sounds like such dignified chaos to me with all of your proper terminology. ) The books have a lot of good ideas in it for organizing the chaos of children, lol. My little guy (22 mo old) totally benefits from "blanket time." Just set out a blanket (or when they are older you designate a room or other larger area, etc.), set out some toys/books/activity, and set a timer. They seem to respond so well to that type of structure. Unfortunately, I don't use it enough...so I have non-stop chaos also. Throw in a few older hormonal girls and that's us.
WLW, your school routine sounds amazing!
Sonshine, your housekeeping sounds amazing!
(I frequently wonder what my strong suits are...)

 

[Well loved wife]

What age did you start them doing this? Miriam is still in the cot, so she can't get out, but if she wakes up she'll cry until we get her up.
Also, what did you do when the children who were toilet trained needed to use the toilet first thing in the morning?

Ah, the toilet. I forgot, we had an attached bathroom that they were able to go in and use as needed. I'm not sure I'd recommend putting a potty chair in the room, hmm, I'll think of a remedy. If my littles were up before the rest, (older then 18 months) I gave them a sippy cup and walked back out of the room. We taught them not to fuss or cry without reason. the (under 18 months) babies I'd get them up to nurse and put in a play pin on the other side of the door, or dropped them in bed with daddy for snuggles, if he was still home. It was a little tricky when they were that young, but consistency was a huge factor. Im not sure if this helped much.
I got many ideas from No Greater Joy. A book- To Train up a Child by Michael and Debbie Pearl. Also, our Pastor's wife was a huge child training for us. Like who knew kids don't have to get away with a tantrum every time they're put in the car seat, or to come when they're called at the age of 10-14 months...

 

[Well loved wife]

Sarah, have you read any of the babywise books? (I loved reading your long response, btw. It sounds like such dignified chaos to me with all of your proper terminology. ) The books have a lot of good ideas in it for organizing the chaos of children, lol. My little guy (22 mo old) totally benefits from "blanket time." Just set out a blanket (or when they are older you designate a room or other larger area, etc.), set out some toys/books/activity, and set a timer. They seem to respond so well to that type of structure. Unfortunately, I don't use it enough...so I have non-stop chaos also. Throw in a few older hormonal girls and that's us.
WLW, your school routine sounds amazing!
Sonshine, your housekeeping sounds amazing!
(I frequently wonder what my strong suits are...)

The blanket time was a life saver for me!! I encourage all moms to read the Babywise books too!! The author has three books. The info was such a help. I was due with my second baby when I found out toddlers should be sleeping all night. It took three nights to train her but we made it through. When my next baby was born he started to sleep through the night at about six weeks old!

 

[Well loved wife]

So I'm just wondering, how many of you lovely ladies homeschool? I have five little minions and all of them are such different learners! I have one with dyslexia and one who's two grades ahead... and then there's my 3rd.... he's just turned six and much better at doodling than anything else
I'm always curious to find out what kinds of curriculum other mommies use? and what are you biggest struggles? I feel like consistency is our biggest issue, it's hard for me to stay inside and do school when it's sunny outside.

I've tried a few different curriculums. I would encourage mastery. Don't let children go onto subtraction if addition is a struggle.
My favorite math, English/grammar and spelling curriculum is Rod and Staff. You can google samples. I have two dyslexic children so to use a textbook that had you put answers on a separate notebook page was such a struggle. So from third grade on we use Landmark Baptist curriculum. You can see samples on Christian books.com. I have my son using ACE math. ACE curic sits on the topic a little bit longer then Landmark does. He's a slow learner, but when he gets it he knows it. One of the reasons I prefer Landmark is because they have the pages say week 1, lesson 1... it helps to know who is 'behind' on school days and who isn't. Landmark doesn't have much busy work so some people would call it dry, it's also affordable. I can fluff it with Kahn Academy or xtramath.com, It is a spiral curriculum, which means it touches other topics while mastering another. .. this school year we used Landmark for math, English, spelling. Science we used Burean Builders and Notgrass history. I've looked into Easy peasy online curriculum, although it's free, with four kids it would be hard to keep up who got what done and it requires a lot of screen time....

 

[rustysdove11]

What kind of approach do you use for your dyslexic kids? Mine is 9 but we just found out that's what is going on, up until then I thought I was bad teacher. He's super smart and VERY artistic, but we just can't get past the reading stage where you sound things out, And he gets very emotional when he gets answers wrong. Would using a whiteboard help or a lot of hands on things?

 

[Well loved wife]

For my son who is very dyslexic we went through a program called DEAR (I can pm you if you want more info). This helped in some ways. HIs clumsiness went away, letters and numbers weren't backwards as much. His reading proficiency went up, he still hates to read though. He still struggles to write thoughts down and any report is like pulling hens teeth. I have him talk into a recorder app and then he can re listen to himself and get his report written down and done. Also book reports; When my kids are done with a chapter they are required to write 1-3 words or sentences of what they just read. When they're done with the book they then have the report almost done too. With my daughter - we went through kindergarten twice, the second time through I used the book Teach Your Child to Read in 180 lessons, I also combined it with ACE English and WordBuilding PACE # 1001-1012. She reads well now and still sometimes switches numbers and letters, but its usually when she's tired or in a hurry. She's also VERY artistic. first grade work took two years to get through the curriculum because if we took a brake she would forget a lot. So I would take a few days and review all the blends, read with her and so on. Oh, our biggest help was touching each word as she read, she doesn't need to do this any longer though. All children are different. Don't give them crutches that can handicap them for life, give your children tools to build on. "You can do this" "let's try this slower".... CONSISTENCY is key, my biggest advice is don't give up, don't let them give up, try,try, try, and pray, pray, pray. You may see a difference as he ages.
I'm not very consistent so it helps to know they will struggle if I let things go. I was really slack with one of my kids and now they have lazy tendencies that we both have to work hard with.

 

[Well loved wife]

What kind of approach do you use for your dyslexic kids? Mine is 9 but we just found out that's what is going on, up until then I thought I was bad teacher. He's super smart and VERY artistic, but we just can't get past the reading stage where you sound things out, And he gets very emotional when he gets answers wrong. Would using a whiteboard help or a lot of hands on things?

All about spelling and all about reading may be helpful for him. We used a little chalk board for a while. I learned to read with The Writing Road to Reading. If he's a hands on kid a magnetic board or fridge front could help. When my daughter was emotional during reading I often took the book away and worked on that sound/blend until she nailed it. Flash cards were very helpful to use before she would read. Christian Liberty Press K-2 grade reading and grammar is one I used for her, I think. It's been awhile

 

[windblown]

Oh man... I am way in over my head. Lol.
WLW, I look forward to meeting you in TN!

 

[Well loved wife]

Oh man... I am way in over my head. Lol.
WLW, I look forward to meeting you in TN!

Yay! I look forward to meeting and visiting with you!

 

[FollowingHim2]

Sarah, have you read any of the babywise books?

Yes! When our first was 7 months old we were going a bit batty with no sleep and so I borrowed the first book from some friends. The routine changed my life and I use it now with all of the kids and they're all sleeping through between 6 - 12 weeks. I haven't read the other books though. I know there's one for toddlers. I should see if I can find it.

the (under 18 months) babies I'd get them up to nurse and put in a play pin on the other side of the door, or dropped them in bed with daddy for snuggles,

He he, I do this with Samuel and he loves early morning cuddles with the little ones. Miriam is just getting to the stage of not being as settled in bed with him though. I had James trained with a play pen that I would put him in during the day sometimes for me to have some quiet time or while I was cleaning the bathroom or bringing in groceries after coming home etc. It worked really well. But then I moved to a home where I couldn't really fit the play pen in, and now the house we're in is even smaller than that, with more people, so there is absolutely nowhere I could put one unless I tied it to the ceiling or something. I'm sure the kids would love that, start grizzling and I could just rock them as I walked past ha ha! The advantage now is that I have older children to watch the little ones. They don't watch them as well as I do, but they at least make sure they're not dying while I'm cleaning the bathroom. Some days I swear I am just spending the whole day making sure my kid isn't going to die, they seem determined to kill themselves.

Like who knew kids don't have to get away with a tantrum every time they're put in the car seat, or to come when they're called at the age of 10-14 months...

When I was young and naive I used to post on a NZ parenting forum. There was a thread started called 'Tips For Crawling Babies'. I posted that instead of moving everything up high, teach your child from as soon as they can crawl not to touch things. Well, that went down like a lead balloon. Apparently this was impossible, and if anyone managed it it was only through child abuse. Yet I've taught my kids not to touch things easily, mostly by just telling them no. I haven't been as strict with Noah or Miriam as I was with the others though, and that's really showing itself now.

I was due with my second baby when I found out toddlers should be sleeping all night. It took three nights to train her but we made it through. When my next baby was born he started to sleep through the night at about six weeks old!

It took 3 nights to train my first as well! It made such a huge difference though. Glad you found the books and routine!

What kind of approach do you use for your dyslexic kids?

We don't have any dyslexic children so far, but I had a friend who did and she would have her son make letters out of play dough and then make words with them. It helped him to be doing something physical that made the letter.