Tag: Home Schooling

Switch it Up!

I am in love with Pinterest.

When it first entered the scene, I was somewhat curious but a little annoyed at the whole “pinning”, “sharing”, etc stuff going on.  Most of what I found there seemed to plunge me into a pit of envy and discontentment.  On Pinterest, everyone’s homes, children, birthday parties, dinners, photo shoots, clothes and entire lives seemed perfect!  I really didn’t find myself benefiting from most of what I found.  Not to mention all that DIY stuff.  That may work for some people, but for me?  Well, when I DIY it really looks like I did it myself!!  Enough said.

But in the last three months I have become a home school mom.

And now?

Well…

I am in love with Pinterest!

There are so many incredible ideas on Pinterest to help me teach my little A.  Right now I have no curriculum, only a Wal-Mart activity book, Pinterest and my Mommy instincts to teach my child…and it is great!  I understand that in some situations a curriculum is a huge blessing, but for our situation it would only add extra pressure and unrealistic expectations.  Why spend hundreds of dollars on a curriculum when you can use Pinterest!?  This way we can pick and choose our content and expand where needed with whatever grade level is required.

Anyway, I wanted to share some of the really great ideas we’ve used around here to make our learning fun.  I specifically picked out things that many of you moms can use for your children coming home from school every night with homework, as well, just to keep it relevant.  🙂

Word Work – We are combining spelling and reading by using a list of ten sight words every two weeks as our spelling list.  To practise these words and their spellings we use: finger paint, rainbow letters, scrabble tiles, white board or chalk board, say them aloud and clap for the auditory effect, type them on the computer, make flashcards, or make up little jingles and rhymes to help memorize spelling patterns.  For added fun, make videos of these to play back to use for practising as well!

Math facts -We haven’t gotten hugely creative with this yet, but there are tons of apps you can use on a tablet or smart phone to help your kids drill.  We play “War” with playing cards but require the child to figure out the sum, difference, product, etc of the two numbers flipped up.  Speed drills are easy to find on Pinterest and always fun to do.

Writing practise – Journal!  Let them pick their topic!  Don’t dictate what they are to write about and you might be surprised what they all write and find them looking forward to it!  Also, don’t fix their spelling mistakes in their journal and ‘pleasure writing’ activities unless they ask.  Just appreciate the quality they produce!  There’s lots of time to fix spelling and grammar later when you’re working on more dictated writing prompts.  At first glance, appreciate the content!  Other ways to practise writing are to make cards, write out grocery lists, label pictures and artwork, etc.  I bought a manuscript printing practise book that Little A does every day.  Even though she has almost all the letter formations accurate it’s good practise and keeps it fresh.  It also gives us an opportunity to practise writing in the lines, figuring out letter positioning and to practise neatness and accuracy.  Take every opportunity to write and make sure it’s not always difficult!

Grocery Shopping – There are so many ways to have fun at the store with your littles..and big kids, too!  Again, Pinterest has lots of fun activities and printables.  You can explore weights, check off lists, do a scavenger hunt for items or letters, practise money management, observe jobs and so much more!  Again, this may make your shopping trip take a bit longer, but you’re much more likely to have involved, occupied, well behaved children than if you’re just dragging them through the store as fast as possible!

Other things we’ve done include playing board games, card games and made up games of our own.  We’ve played store to practise counting money, and used fun YouTube videos to link to our learning for a fun spin.  For example Alexa loves Pete the Cat so we got Pete to help us with subtraction one week.  The video/book “Pete the Cat’s Groovy Buttons” is about subtraction so we watched that together and then made our own Pete the Cat word problems to practise subtraction.  She loved it and it added a fun element to a pretty standard activity.  There are all kinds of educational TV shows you can access as well to iad your child’s learning and spin lessons off of!  The Magic School Bus has been around for ages but is full of great ideas and learning as well as Sid the Science Kid.

There are so many ways you can spice up your child’s learning.  I am a firm believer that a child really willlove to learn if you give them the opportunity to learn in a way that’s fun and interesting to them!  Admittedly this takes work and effort, and you can’t do it all.  There are aspects I know I should be finding more creative ways to teach and I just don’t have the time, resources or energy to do it.  That’s ok.  Pick a few things that you can fit into your time and do those!  You and your child will both have more fun and I guarantee you it will be worth it to see the light in your child’s eyes!

AF

 

 

 

 

We Are Home Schooling!

Yes, you read that right.

Me and my littlest A are homeschooling!  It’s been 2 weeks and maybe we are just honeymooning but it has been AWESOME!   I love it!

Now I can just about see some of you rolling your eyes, making that skeptical face and going…yeah whatever.

I get it.

I never wanted to home school, either.

In fact, until I read through my daughters’ adoption files I always said that I would never do it because I would have hated it as a child, myself!  I thought that home schooling was for really large families who like to hide away from the world or display their family on TV shows!  I thought children who were home schooled were all really smart, a little socially impaired and just not normal!  As you can see, I really hadn’t spent much time thinking about it or taking a look at people who actually did home school!  These were just my misguided perceptions, which I am thoroughly embarrassed of now.

But when special needs walks into the picture, everything changes.  Suddenly I could see that even though I loved school and it would have made me miserable to be at home, for some children it may be the exact opposite!

For some kids, school causes so much stress that they spend all their time just trying to cope!  This may be a result of trauma, attachment issues, learning disabilities or any number of other special needs.

There are tons of supports available, but you have to fight for them and it’ll take time.  I certainly don’t recommend that every parent experiencing difficulties with their child at school should just pull them out without exploring their options, but sometimes all the support and time in the world won’t meet the real needs of your child.   This is especially true in adoption.

For months, I had been saying…we’ll just give it some more time.  Or, I’m not ready yet so that’s just where she needs to be.

In truth I wasn’t confidant enough that I was ready to commit to this journey or that it was the right path for my daughter.  For some reason I was really afraid that I would pull her out of school and then fall flat on my face!  I was afraid she wouldn’t learn, that it would all be a mess and that we would all hate it!

But somehow God has a way of making things clear and as things got worse at school my mind lingered more and more on the idea of home schooling.  Part of me fought it…simply because I love school!  I love the specific school my daughters were attending, and where my oldest daughter still is.  I love the community.  I love the staff.  I love the atmosphere and all the kids.  I love the special projects and events that are connected to school.  I love the opportunities school brings to experience life alongside others and to have a broader view of the world.  I just love it.  I am a teacher, after all.

However, God began to speak to my heart and show me that my daughter needed something different.  My husband and I had always promised that we would make decisions about our children’s education according to what was best for each child, one year at a time.  We could no longer claim that we were doing that, and that bothered me!  Even worse, I was scared and discouraged as I watched my daughter start to fall back into behaviors and patterns that we hadn’t seen in a long time!  I felt like we were losing ground instead of gaining, and I missed my happy little girl.  Though we had a great team at school and communicated regularly, I realized that my daughter didn’t need a teacher.  She needed her Mommy.  She needed me.

So in some ways I chose to home school out of desperation and because school was not working…but even more I chose to home school because I realized that I wanted to!

I missed the first four and a half years of my daughter’s life.  I want to spend more time with her!  I want to be there all day, every day, even though it truly does drive me crazy sometimes!  I want to know every little thing that happened in her day, and to be the constant that she comes back to.   I want to be the one who laughs with her, gets frustrated with her, explores the world with her and watches her learn and grow.  Because even after 18 months together, I’m still getting to know her.  I’m still trying to figure out who she is and how she thinks.  I’m still learning her challenges, her strengths and her learning styles.  I am still figuring out her love language and her sense of humor.  I am still proving to her little heart that I am her Mommy and I will always love her; that even though others have come and gone I am here to stay.  There is nothing that can replace TIME.

So, here goes nothing!

The next half year is a bit of an experiment, but I am so excited.  I am excited to be able to focus on the things my little girl is good at, and remove some of the things she is not yet ready to handle.  I am excited to use the teaching skills I have to figure out how she learns and to make learning fun for her.  Choosing to home school a special needs child is completely different than choosing to home school a child who is gifted or even just average.  For the special needs child, you need to lay aside curriculum expectations, most typical teaching styles and any methods that conflict with your child’s exceptionalities.  I have to fight against the temptation to follow a book, accomplish too much in one day or copy other’s home school structures.  Home schooling is all about finding what works for your child and your family.  Once you embrace that, there is immense freedom!  It is wide open from there!  You get to decide what you study, how much, how long, where and when.  You get to decide everything.  This can feel scary, but chances are if you set out on this venture your gut will let you know the answers to these questions.

 So far, it has been the best decision I’ve ever made.

I have my little girl back.

I’m seeing peace where I saw frustration and agitation.  I’m seeing happiness where I saw a constant edginess.  I’m seeing success where I saw failure academically.  I’m seeing gentleness where I saw anger.  I’m seeing a glowing pride in her bright blue eyes where I saw confusion.

It’s not all perfect, and I’m still figuring out how we’re going to handle all this.  I don’t know how long we’ll be doing this, but for right now it’s the right thing.  I am sure of that.

I was given some great advice from another home schooling mom.

Pray.

Pray over everything you do.  Pray over the math, the spelling, the reading books and the colouring.  Pray for wisdom, pray for patience, pray for grace and perseverence.  Pray for courage and a sense of humor.  Pray for yourself, your child, your husband and your other children.  Pray blessings over your child and their school work.  Pray blessings over your home and family.

Know that this work you have chosen to do…been called to do…is valuable and important in the eyes of God.  At the end of the day, you are Kingdom building, not just teaching ABC’s.

This is the perspective I want to embrace as we dive into this new venture.  I want to teach my daughter out of a sense of gratitude, and hand all the work of our hands over to the One who can make it beautiful and valuable.

 

 

%d bloggers like this: