I have to say that homeschooling isn’t what I thought it would be. Mostly, yes, but how I am teaching is different than how I thought it would be. I never really gave much thought that I am also learning how to teach Jack. He learns differently than I would have expected, initially. His little hints to boredom and frustration are obvious, thank goodness, and I’m learning how to work with him in those areas. If I don’t, we end up with heavy lead on lesson paper… from top to bottom… multiple times.
On the 5th day of schooling (today) I was so pleased with how well Jack did with the Phonics and Reading. He knew what to do and is actually understanding new terms. He gets bored with handwriting in the P&R . “I’m tiiired.” is what I often hear, which usually means that it’s time for a break because the writing comes at the end of the lesson and it takes about an 45min to an hour to get through the P&R. So, it’s probably partly the truth. He can write, but he doesn’t like doing it in lines.
However, today for our math lesson (which I put off until about 3pm) He wrote his name perfectly and correctly at the top of the page! Capital J and the rest lower case, written correctly and in the proper place in the lines. I am really thinking hard about the placement of his lessons now. We usually start at 8:45, but tomorrow I think I might either break P&R up (it’s our first subject) or start it an hour later and see how it goes then.
Some ways I am dealing with his frustration and boredom are through breaks, or letting him use a fun colored marker or colored pencil to do his work. Today while we were circling objects that start with “c”, he decided to make the circles “melting” with an orange marker and he loved that. It really spiced up the lesson when he was starting to get bored. He was smiling, learning and having fun. He also drew an udder on a calf…. “because that’s what cow’s have under there.” I’m keeping this lesson forever. I laughed a lot today with him.
We had been struggling with the term “alike”. “Different”, he gets, but “alike” we had some issues with. Also with the term “same.” But today I had a break through. Instead of trying to show him “same” with shapes that were the same but different color in his lesson, I just drew them on the white board identical to the pattern on the paper and he finally understood once color was eliminated. I tried last week with objects around the house and it didn’t work either. Perhaps common sense to you, but it didn’t really occur to me. And then… once he started to grasp the concept, I let him teach me. I should have figured this out days ago. He’s the oldest child and loves teaching Andy and Alex. By allowing him to teach me, I am teaching him. We’ll be using this method frequently from now on. Also an excellent way to get Andy involved.
He can also write the number 2 correctly now with out help. Just 6 days ago it looked more like a 5 written from bottom to top. I love seeing him improve and learn. It gives me some strength in what we are doing. It makes me happy to know that I can do this!
Many times last week I was bombarded with thoughts like this: “You can’t do this. It’s too hard. He’s getting frustrated and you need to clean the house. He’s never going to learn from you. Just give up.” I know where the thoughts were coming from. So I fought back with prayer and facts...
“Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7
“For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear; I will help you’”. Isaiah 41:13
The devil may catch me off guard and try to trip me up. Thank goodness I have a big hand to hold on to! I know I’ll need it through this adventure, because this is only the beginning.
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