Friday, January 6, 2017

Making Transitions While Homeschooling Different Ages

Homeschooling has been hard lately! The reason: my angelic four year-old, and for a completely unexpected reason. The expected reason would be something along the lines of throwing a tantrum or getting into stuff he shouldn't get into (well, he admittedly does do this) while homeschooling. The real reason is that he wants to do everything that Tiny B, my kindergartner, is doing for school. 

He is a very bright child--so inquisitive and having the desire to learn. But he really isn't ready to do what Tiny B is doing for her homeschooling. Previously I let him do the work with us and he'd get bored after a few minutes but that isn't happening now. He gets frustrated. And I'm getting behind on Tiny B's work which really isn't okay since she attends an actual school two days a week and needs to "keep up" with her class. 

I tried bringing out his Mother Goose Time curriculum but he refuses if she is doing kinder work at the time. I decided that I need to be firmer with him and tell him that when she's not at school those two days, that that is her time and that he needs to respect that. I have confidence that he will listen. He is a very sweet child who wants to please. 

On this day pictured, I did not follow what I just described though because I hadn't yet decided what to do. So I'm just going to describe our transitions for that day. 

I completely stopped with Tiny B's kinder work when I realized that Strong B desperately wanted to be involved. I pulled out our Mother Goose Time and set up the puzzle for the day. Tiny B did it first without the backing (as more of a challenge). 
 

 


 

I started up the fireplace. 

 

And then I took out one of my most favorite parts of MGT: the I Can Read books. I punched out the sight words and I went over them with both B's. They are both working on sight words so it was perfect. This is an activity that I can do with both of them simultaneously. 

 

 

I had Tiny B look through it herself while I read through it with Strong B first. He never gets to go first so I figured this would help him. 

 

He was able to read some of the sight words and memorize the book which enabled him to "read" it almost entirely and boost his confidence greatly. 

I had him color a page in the book while I transitioned to reading with Tiny B. He felt good about this because he had had his time with me and his brain was stimulated. 

 

Jack the Standard Poodle was reading through the lesson plans in the teacher guide as I worked with both kiddos.

 

Tiny B and Baby Alive now had their turn. 


 

While I read with Tiny B I transitioned Strong B to an Invitation to Create activity. 

 

Then he worked on his activity while she did her learning games on the computer (which can make him jealous but he was fine because he was busy). 

 

I'm writing this post, I've had a realization. My first inclination is to go back and rewrite the beginning but I'm just going to keep it. 

I realized that possibly working with him first on our homeschooling days might be our ticket. She is more patient and able to work more independently. Maybe giving him attention first will "fill his cup" so that Tiny B and I are able to completely attend to her curriculum. 

I'll report back and let you know if my theory worked!

 

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