Dana at Principled Discovery is hosting fun writing prompts and real world activities to celebrate Home Education Week. We have shared about our lives before homeschooling, profiles of our families, and today we observe April Fool's. And we have likely all felt the fool in one way or another. Share your greatest challenge. Or one of those terrible, horrible no good, very bad days where the only thing there is to do seems to involve moving to Australia.
My greatest challenge this year has been homeschooling three different grade levels at once. This is the first year I have had to do this. There is a 5 year age difference between ds1 and ds2, and ds2 and ds3, and a 4 year gap between ds3 and ds4. I wasn't planning on doing anything formal with ds4 (only 3yo) but he insisted on joining in lol. We do pretty well...I will start off with ds2 and do all the subjects that I need to actually "teach" him, like math or language, etc. Then I will set him up with some reading and note taking task and turn my attention to ds4. We will do our LOTW lesson and BFIAR and then I'll have him do some worksheets (he loves them for some reason.) Ds3 is a late riser (and it's best to just let him be that way lol) so he is waking and eating breakfast while the other children and I are schooling. Then I do lessons with him. If there is something like a craft, nature walk, or science experiment that they can all do together we save that for last. With this system some days are good and some days I hear "Mom!" coming from all corners of the room! Aside from the actual teaching three children at once, there is the mountain of planning, grading, researching, etc. that comes with working with three different grades. I think that part has actually been the biggest challenge for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the "administrative" part of homeschooling, it's just that sometimes it's a little much!
Now to end on a lighter more "April foolish" note, today is my brother's birthday and April 3rd is my birthday. There is a 9 year gap in our ages. Ever since I can remember, my family has "fooled" my brother by not celebrating his birthday on the 1st and waiting for the 3rd to recognize both of us. As a little girl I thought it was so funny and didn't realize that my brother "caught on" after the first year lol. Now it's a special thing between the two of us.
Our real world activity for the day is to sit in a circle and have everyone say something they like about their siblings and mom and day. I'm not sure how I will trick the 18yo into doing this, but we are going to try after dh gets home tonight lol. Have a great Home Education Week and April Fool's!
Happy Birthday soon. My Dad really did share a birthday with his sister. They were three years apart. My SIL's kids share their special day too. That is what you call family planning!
ReplyDeleteI love that even when they're a handful, they still crave what you're doing for them!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday! Nice to meet you too. This has been a fun thing to do this week.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, I can relate to this. I try to work with each of them individually, like tutoring. But sometimes it seems like all of them are calling for me. And the youngest wants to play noisily in the same room where we are trying to work. Happy Birthday. We have two Birthdays this week also - on the 2nd and the 4th.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday to both of you! It sounds like you are doing a great job teaching all different levels. Even with just two boys, it seems they both want my attention at the same time.
ReplyDeleteWell, happy birthday to both of you!
ReplyDeleteI'm only formally homeschooling one (well, two for math), but it can get hectic. Not from the perspective of trying to keep everyone going on their level, but because the little ones so much want to do the same things. They are learning a lot, however.
I don't even know when my son learned to recognize his numbers. One day he said, "Hey, that's a three!" And it was...and I learned that he already knew his numbers so I started math more formally. Where did he learn that? I never "taught" him!