The blessings (or curses) about homeschooling are that it’s flexible and you’re in control so you can make changes as needed. With the emotional needs of our kids from hard places constantly evolving, our school day (and my coping mechanisms) have had to echo the changes. Since cloning myself is not in the budget, here are some things we’ve instituted to keep the school train moving forward.
- PJ goes independent. PJ has always been our most independent learner since he’s a great reader. I’ve pretty much turned him loose. We have a shared OneNote notebook where I list his assignments for the week, and he checks them off as he goes. Additionally, I shared my Outlook calendar feed to his Outlook so he can see when we’ll be home to do school. He’s done a great job at scheduling himself and he just comes to me when he needs help.
- Mia goes semi-independent. As my next best reader, Mia is independent for each day. I give her all of her assignments at the beginning of the day with a whiteboard checklist, and she checks in with me as needed.
- Dependent work early. We had tried scheduling mom-time every hour at the beginning of the year but it’s just not working for us. Instead, we are starting all together for Bible listening, then I’m doing ELL lessons with the big kids (with Ty in tow), then I do reading with the big girls (Ty in tow), then I do spelling with John and Mia, and then I do Ty’s kindergarten lesson. With all that “heavy lifting” out of the way, I’m free to wander between kids as they need me.
- More movement. For reasons of learning, emotional regulation, and general health, everyone is required to do at least 30 minutes of good exercise everyday. It’s right up there with making sure you brush your teeth. To keep them motivated, we linked it to non-educational screen time. The more you exercise, the more screen time you may have. Allotted screen time expires daily. Sometimes we also take a short 10 minute break to do a workout from The Smart Fitness Workout
DVD.
- D.E.A.R. When I was a kid, we had Drop Everything And Read time. When I’m not fully prepared to teach or just need a break, I send everyone to their respective beds for silent reading. We usually do some kind of dictation exercise afterwards.
- Video Cloning. So while I don’t exactly have a double, I have figured out how to make use of the technology we have to video clone myself. I started video taping PJ’s dication and John and Mia’s spelling lesson so it’s one less place I have to be at the same time.
If you’re a homeschooler, what’s working (or not working) for you this year?
Hey Melissa – thanks for ALL the ideas today! ok I see “my Outlook calendar feed to his Outlook” I’m assuming this means he can access the calendar from another computer. That’s what I’m trying to do. Can I ask where that is? is it the rss feed?
Kim,
The student needs their own account on the computer (or a separate computer). That will create a separate Outlook “account.” You can share your calendar as an .ics (RSS for calendars). Once you get that address you can import it into the student’s Outlook calendar. I think that’s how we did it. You may have to have our calendar connected to a Windows Live account to do all this which would also help you get it connected to your iPhone.
Melissa
LOVE the outlook idea & scheduling with the youngster. That’s where I keep my schedule.
Also love the video taping.
We also switched our schedule so my heavy hitters were in the morning. I fizzle just after lunch & that’s tea time for mom & reading for the gang. Thanks for sharing!!!