Email of the Day:
We started off homeschooling well, but for the past two months it’s been a BATTLE to keep my daughter focused and to move through the work in the Curriculum of Choice. I’m at a loss.
Answer:
Stop.
There isn’t any sense in continuing to do things that don’t work.
Your relationship is more important than any workbook pages.
Take a break. You have 5,840 hours to cover 1,000 hours worth of work. If she’s not yet 8, you don’t even need to be doing any work.
Homeschooling, as defined by WA law, is “less structured and more experiential than the instruction normally provided in a classroom.”
Read that again: less structured and more experiential than the instruction normally provided in a classroom.
Your homeschooling doesn’t have to look like “school.”
Stop. Take a break from the curriculum.
Go. Do. Be. Explore. Create. Build. Sing. Play. Climb. Bake. Read. Rhyme. Run.
The curriculum will always be there.
Get yourself a copy of Ed Hirsch’s “What Your ___ Grader Needs to Know” and play with the concepts from that grade. Have intense discussions in the car.
Don’t do things for her, but discover what she needs to know as she needs to know it, and help her figure that out (this includes the maths needed to determine if she has enough money to buy X, the maths needed for cookery, how to use the dictionary, etc.).
Put away the things that aren’t working, and try new things. Some of them will work. Some of them won’t. If you make a big, rich, full life, your kid is going to learn far more than she would have slogging through worksheets and textbooks.
Go. Do. Be. Explore. Create. Build. Sing. Play. Climb. Bake. Read. Rhyme. Run. I promise you your life will be fuller and happier for it, and your kid will learn more. ~Jen GS