Day 1 Homeschooling: Mom Mistake Edition

Monday was Day 1 for 3rd grade and Kindergarten in our house. I think I was the only one excited.

No one wanted to sit still. Or listen. Or write even one definition. Or liked any of my awesome plans or color-coding. 

It was sad and tense and I'm pretty sure at some point all 3 of us cried. It was very discouraging. And I had felt so "prepared" for this day.

And these tips may be premature to discuss after only 1 ½ good days (out of 3), but today was drastically different and I have a few guesses why.

Today they started off with typical breakfast and Lego building while I read and prayed for today to be better than yesterday. Then we had Bible story, song and prayer time together, on the floor. Then 5 minute Busy Bee clean-up time, to help start us off better with less clutter (rewarded with a couple M&M's). I start the timer, play music and we all pick up anything out of place and "deliver" it to the right room. Then I got my oldest drawing to decorate all of the notebook dividers, which is his favorite thing to do, while I worked one on one with the glass door closed with my 5yo. 

5yo boy likes a lot of activity and silliness and so we made some adjustments today including:

• Lots of high fives, moving around on the floor and dancing.
• I let him STEP on the flash cards to match the Letter sounds and he was much more eager than answering at the table.
• Use talk of Train cars or some sort of physical analogy to teach with when possible. 
• Whisper or say something in a silly way will help him to repeat.
• We started a marker board with the 4 or 5 tasks that we will do and they like checking those off and seeing that we are almost done.
• And then, although we had done everything on the list, he assumed he had to do an ABC exercise he had done the last 2 days, so he started himself on that! Routine and knowing what to expect really do make a difference!
• Working with them separately also worked much better than dividing my attention between them across the table.
• (There were few M&M's distributed too.)
• I called Dad in front of him to brag what a good day he was having. 
• And he gets a nickel in his Learning Jar for every day that he puts in good effort, inspired by Thomas Jefferson who loved learning as well. Nickels = super exciting when you are only 5!
• I started my day with remembering to pray for them as students and me as teacher. That God would bind our hearts together and help us to be a perfect match in this relationship. And to give me patience if they don't meet my expectations and to shower them with grace.

Mom-bots & Bro-bots

When my 5yo's list was done I set him up to color little robots to make a bookmark out of. But my 8yo wanted to also so we all ended up coloring 2 robots, gluing them on colored, lined cards, and laminating them. Spontaneous art project! These can be bookmarks for our school books but I can also write on the lines on the back what to do for their work. 

By then it was almost lunch time so I had them clean up the kindergarten work while I made lunch. We had a picnic lunch on the living room floor and watched an episode of really old-school Sesame Street. They didn't complain and it was definitely repetitive letter and number lessons.

After lunch it was time for 3rd grade work which we did do at the table: Journal writing and drawing, Math lesson, English Vocabulary (I wrote 1/2) and they both jumped in for Introduction to Latin because it was cartoonish and they like to talk in a mouse voice (Minimus mascot).

With my 8yo boy it's been helpful to:

• Take a 5-10 minute break between each subject.
• Use the timer for breaks, reading, journaling, cleaning so they know there is an end time. 
• I've left out a puzzle and some castle blocks so there is something in the room they can work on if they want for those 5 minutes, without going to their room and diving into a bigger project. 
• Incorporate drawing and creativity whenever we can or he feels stifled. 
• Chapter book reading or independent art can be substituted for quiet time while I work with 5yo.
• When I can, writing some of the work down for him since he really feels pained to write. He says it hurts his hands even though I pointed out he can draw for hours, so we agreed that I would give him less to write (oral review) or let him dictate, if he would work on a better attitude when writing is necessary. He loves to read but hates to write, so I'm trying to show him that writing and vocabulary building will make him a better reader.   
• Use individual marker boards to play a games, write answers. 
• It is helpful if I stick close while he does a Math worksheet so I can see if he is struggling.
• Seriously, be flexible! And don't plan to much for your day so if work spills over to the afternoon it's okay!
• And if everyone is moody or bored, go for a walk or switch gears and try again in an hour. If my day is not overbooked, this won't be stressful to let happen.

SO maybe I should just scratch the calendar and call today "Day 1?" We had such a pleasant time today that we ended up picking up Jr. Frosty's on the way to making returns and to buy more note cards. Yes, we may have overdone the rewarding today but felt I deserved it too.

I think some of Monday's mistakes were:

• My talking on the phone for an hour to a friend in the middle of the day threw us all off.
• Trying to sit still too long at the table.
• Trying to keep them both engaged across the table when they each needed me. 
• Giving the youngest a "time-filler" activity that was too tempting to my oldest and a distraction.
• Taking too long of a morning break and getting us out of routine.

But today ended with this, so we must have done all right together. 

(Contractions lesson to follow.)