Day 2 of Home Education Week posts.
Describe yourself, your family or one of your children. What is it like to be home educated in your family? What is “normal” for you?
Normal for us has over time since those 4 little girls. Our days USED to be filled with everyone getting up and ready, then sitting at the table to work through our table time lessons – finishing these fairly quickly, (even the little ones quietly coloring or something,) then everyone completing their chores, then everyone reading or working on other projects and play time.
“Normal” now, with 4 boys in the home (+ the 2 younger girls, 16 and 8) is getting up and messing around, jumping around at the table during table time lessons, being disrupted by the 2 little boys during the table time lessons so we’re never done “quickly”, wrestling around during chore time, and goofing around when they’re suppose to be reading, rarely getting through soon enough to have enough play time. And FAR more bathroom breaks. Who ever said GIRLS are the bad ones for this?
Play time is still important though, so …. what’s a mom to do? Obviously, a lot more training is needed around here. The 2 girls recently went to their older sister’s for a week. I sent their lessons with them. They were done before 9:30 every morning, except for their independent reading, that they did at their leisure throughout the day.
Obviously, with our boys we’ve had to make adjustments in “normal”. The older girls preferred to work at the table, one lesson to the next, until we were DONE. Then their time was free. We’d even work ahead to give us “free days”. They LOVED things this way. With the boys, things don’t go that way. Much of their “play” time is taken DURING lesson time.
With boys we have learned:
- more about SHORT lessons, no waxing eloquent, just make the point and move on.
- to take short ACTIVE breaks between each SHORT lesson. They run outside around the house x number of times, jump 5 minutes on the tramp, ride their bike around the block a couple of times, or some other ACTIVITY. If it’s too horribly nasty to go out (it’s got to be REALLY bad to not go out, but there are plenty of times it’s bad enough they can’t get on the tramp or the bikes) anyhow, if they have to stay in, they run the stairs a few times. Then return for the next table time lesson/project or family reading. The key is RUNNING. If I just send them out to empty the trash or something, the goofing off, messing around, etc. kicks in and they don’t come back for 15 min.
- to vary lesson types that are back to back. A reading, a writing, a listening, a hands-on project all scrambled up. NEVER try to do 2 of the same type back to back. It will backfire.
I can’t imagine my boys in a traditional “school”-type setting. They’d no doubt be labeled and pushing for medication. I don’t know that I’ve totally figured out the perfect balance in our home though. A mom has to continually be using discernment for what is foolishness and disobedience, and what is just the way God made little boys. I’m still learning how to train boys. Girls are much easier.
So 14 years of Normal, has been exchanged for 7 years of “NORMAL?” I have a feeling “NORMAL?” has at least another 14 years to go, as our youngest boy is not quite 4 now.
