Current Mood: Cool

So we’ve completed week one of home school. Wee lad still has a project he wants to do with Dad, but otherwise our week is done. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

• Know when to say when.
  A younger kid (especially ADHD ones) can only take so much brain strain before they start tuning out. Take their cues.
• Mix it up!
  The same hum-drum boring learning environment isn’t going to keep a kid interested. Try a couple of different learning games/techniques per subject.
• Change scenery.
  Unless you have a very small living area, you have multiple places to use as a “classroom.” Feel free to sprawl on the couch or spread out on the floor. A change of scenery will generally brighten the mood, especially if there’s a lot of natural light. If it’s not cold, why not go outside?
• Give options.
  No one ever said that math has to come after science. No one said you have to study every subject every day. No one said you can only have art or music once a week. Give your child a choice of what they can study next, they will be more receptive to it.
• Don’t forget breaks!
  A time to reset is always good. Take cues.
• Get out of the house.
  Field trips, even if it’s just to run an errand, is a great way to break up the day. But, as we’ve learned, coming back after one of these trips makes it difficult to hop back into the learning mode.

We don’t have a set schedule yet. I don’t know if we ever will have a full-out schedule, because he seems to be getting along well with the free-form learning.

As I’m finding out, there’s no right way to do this, especially with the younger ones. Do what feels right to you. Take cues from your child. And if you aren’t sure how to take a cue… well… How did you get this far along in parenting?

We worked with more money and counting, more phonics and reading, some piano and another trip to the library. He also drew a pretty cool picture of a wolf (okay, cool for him, he’s six!) after watching a “how to draw” video. I think we’re going to make a lap book on the wolf subject, as that’s what he’s really been interested in learning this week. Here’s some information on lap books, thanks so much to Robyn for the idea!

BTW, if this image ends up anywhere besides right where it is, I will order a DCMA take-down order. Not to be a jerk, but to avoid the jerks that make fun of kids’ drawings.

Current Mood: Cool

We started out the day with math (I think a pattern is developing here) by playing “store” and buying stuff with coins. He’s still a bit shaky on his monetary values, so after buying a few items we switched over to dominoes, where he practiced not only counting the dots and addition, but he also kept score with tally marks.

After math we had music, where we learned that there are four beats per measure (average, we’re not going too deep here yet), and a quarter note is one beat, a half note is two beats, and a whole note is four beats. We practiced these on the piano.

We watched a show on the History Channel about the history of canned food. He thought it was a pretty cool show.

He then had some software phonics time, then we read a book. After his lessons we went to the store to pick up a primary writing tablet (you know, the kind with the dotted lines for writing) and a couple of workbooks.

We did have some frustration with the piano today, because, being the ADHD boy, he has a problem understanding that we are working on the COUNTING and not necessarily the  proper notes. There was some brain hurt during math previously, so that may have also been some remaining frustration. Hopefully he’ll grasp that concept soon.

Current Mood: Happy

As I mentioned previously, I am home schooling my son on a trial basis. So far, so good! We started out the morning with math flash cards. He wasn’t too keen on that first thing this morning and quickly got frustrated, so I think that we will do math a bit later in the day. Then we did some “PE” with a few basic exercises, some running, some wiffle ball, and dodge ball. After that we came inside and watched an Aesop’s Fable, then he got some computer time playing a phonics game. Then we looked at a book about dragons, then had lunch. After lunch he’s having a recess, playing out in the yard with some toys. We will be heading to the library after lunch his play time, he has decided he wants to learn about wolves. The library has not only books about wolves, but also puppets! We’ll also look at reading level appropriate books. After the library we will be doing either a small art project or piano, his choice, then we’ll be done with his schooling.

I think that we will be using this week to set a bit of a schedule on his learning. I’m trying to mimic his regular classes as much as normal so he doesn’t get out of the routine (in case he does go back to school).  This also keeps routine in his life, which is essential for an ADHD child. Right now we are figuring out what works best for his own style and what he can tolerate. While we are going to have routine, a freestyle routine I think will work better for his attention deficit disorder. We also change locations for each subject so he has a better definition of class change, as well as a change of view.

So for day one, we are working pretty well and fairly optimistic. We’ll see how it goes.