I just decided that I can give them so much more right now. They get one on one attention when learning and they go at their own pace. They are able to advance when they're ready or slow down if something needs more work.
I have always used workbooks of some sort, but I found these great kindergarten prep workbooks with every subject in there. So it is an all in one type deal. I like that so we can take one book somewhere and not have four or five books of different subjects.
I put tabs on this big book separating the subjects. Obviously we aren't going to do 40 straight pages of writing and then move on to 30 pages of math. Each day they do a few pages of writing, a few of counting, then I let them pick from the other subjects which are shapes, counting, time, sequence, and a few other game type pages.
We are big on phonics right now and practicing sight words like "of" "the" and "to". The harder sounds we are practicing are the "ck" "ch" and "sh". All those get tricky.
We will usually sit down at the table for a few hours in the afternoon taking a few ten minute play breaks in between.
Yesterday Jonah had been working on tracing and writing for about twenty minutes and he was getting very frustrated, tired, and his attention was elsewhere. Rather than getting on him again to stay focused and keep going, I asked him if he needed a little play break and his eyes lit up and he nodded his head. So I put on the timer on my phone and gave them Both a recess. They came back refreshed and ready to continue the lesson.
I honestly had a break through with that because I had pushed him prior whenever he was losing focus to just concentrate so he can be done with it. As a result he wouldn't be happy, he'd do half the effort and it would probably be sloppy unless I kept getting onto him. It was a cool thing to see how his mood lightened up when we agreed to take a break as long as he came back afterward to finish up. And he sure did.
I always see commercials on PBS for the preschool learning website called abcmouse.com. I finally caved in and gave it a shot and its been so great. It's a whole program on the computer that makes learning into games for the kids. Yesterday they were playing a game where the elephant will eat the peanuts as long as you put the correct amount in the bowl. So they gave you numbers like 97 or 53 and the kids could scoop peanuts by the 10's or by 1's. I really liked it for them because it gave them a visual of what counting by tens is. We count by tens by looking at the numbers on the paper, but this is a new way to learn about it and have it stick.
Other than that, I'll use every day opportunities to teach. Whenever we get in the car, they can see our clock to see what time it is. I've been teaching them how to read the time. They make it a game and read clocks everywhere.
So that is our routine. As of now, we are still undecided about if we will continue to homeschool them after preschool. I enjoy it, but I might be getting into nursing school in the fall. We shall see!
2 comments:
When did you start and how did you go about getting them into a routine? I have one of those big workbooks with all the subject for preschool but Alex won't sit still very long. I am completely flustered over it.
I started doing the smaller $1 workbooks when they were about 3. I started using different resources as they got older such as flash cards, videos, posters, their own dry erase board to write on. When they were 4 we started the routine where we would literally sit down at the table for lessons. They wouldn't last very long like you are saying with Alex. But what really helped is the fact that we did it every day, even if it was in the morning one day, in the evening the next day, or after lunch. They knew that every day we'd be sitting down and I would expect them to try. Sometimes I would break it up into twice a day. Maybe 15 minutes after breakfast to do a letters craft where we cut out pictures in a magazine of things that start with "C". Then after snack later they would practice a counting worksheet.
Now that we've worked up to it, they can sit down for a good hour just working on different pages in their workbook and I divide it up by playing some sort of learning game. I think Alex is normal for not being attentive for too long. Just keep constant with it and I think he will slowly start to increase his time at his work.
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