I just received a free literature based project pack PDF file on My Side Of The Mountain.
I LOVED that book when I was young! Yippee! This is going to be fun!
http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
We Never Expected To End Up Here
This is an update on how things are going in the K12 online charter home school program.
First, a quick recap: I pulled my sixth-grader out of public school in February. After trying the same things over and over, and following the recommendations of his school professionals, I realized that we were getting nowhere. My son asked me to homeschool him, and I knew right away it was the only thing to do.
We deschooled for a while, we tried unschooling, and finally when I began to understand what works for this individual young man, I found that I had to take him back to a fourth grade level and work with him in the core subjects. It seems that it was in the fourth grade where he became lost. We found workbooks at that grade level, and he used the Khan Academy website for math. After this experience I had strong concerns when I had enrolled him in the 6th grade with the K12 online charter school. We had yet to cover the fifth grade in his home studies. I did not know if he would be able to keep up. However, had we kept him in the brick and mortar public school, he would have been promoted to the 7th grade despite poor progress, and things would be worse.
When he was in public school, we performed the daily "backpack dump" together. I helped him sift through the wads of crumpled papers, sorting them according to which were due, past due, in need of additional work, or ready for the wastebasket. I assisted him with his homework, attended parent-teacher conferences, and did my best to decipher the coded grade entries and comments on an online school resource called ParentLink. Report card comments like "joy to have in class" did not explain why my child was struggling. I could not put my finger on the problem. My son is a good kid with a well-developed set of intrinsic values. He even attended after school study programs. Why was he failing? I was mystified.
Working with him in the K12 program these past weeks, I can see more clearly what the problems are than I was able to with a less structured approach. One is that he tends to be very disorganized and easily distracted. He often misplaces his books. Sometimes he gets up and leaves his desk in the middle of work to go do something unrelated to school, and if I observe without intervening, it could be over an hour before he gets back to work if at all. I often redirect him to focus on his work.
Another problem is simple self-discipline. It took me a long time to realize that when I thought he was busy doing schoolwork on his computer, he was really playing online games advertized to kids through an online dictionary, and he would quickly toggle back to the online school when he saw me looking in his direction. While I don't condone this behavior and have been taking steps to prevent it, I don't blame him for falling into the temptation of doing something easy and fun rather than buckling down and working. It's human nature. Now is the time for him to learn to discipline himself to do the hard work and achieve his goals first, and do the easy fun things as a reward for his accomplishments. My husband and I are working to help him learn to make the right decisions for himself, without making all of his decisions for him.
One of the biggest issues is reading comprehension. He can aloud read quite well, but he doesn't always process what he reads. This affects his ability to answer test questions and complete assignments correctly. If I have to work in another room in the house, I will often return to find him struggling, or doing some work incorrectly because he didn't understand the instructions. Yesterday during an online test, (K12 calls them assessments,) he gave a wrong answer to a question, and I knew that he understood the correct answer because we went over the material together and he was able to discuss it with me. I worded the question differently, and he corrected himself. This is a common occurrence and he often needs to retake assessments as a result.
We were told that the K12 program takes a 6th grader about 5 - 6 hours a day, five days per week, but as it turns out it's been a lot more work than we anticipated. Three days a week, we generally start the day at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, and work almost nonstop until 4:00 or 5:00, depending on other scheduled activities. I try to build in little "recesses" where we take a short break to stretch, do some self-care, refocus our eyes on distant objects, have a snack, play with the dog etc. We do take a lunch break, but often I hand him his lunch while he continues working. He also works an additional 1-2 hours per night, three nights per week. On Thursdays, he only gets in about three or four hours of work because he and his brother both have several standing appointments and activities on that day. My son has study sessions while while waiting for his brother's activities to be finished, and in between activities. He puts in additional time on the weekends. Even with this schedule he is behind.
I have noticed that even when I work closely with him, it can often take twice the recommended time to master a lesson. I've added up the amount of time we schedule for learning in a typical week, and it can be anywhere between 35 and 45 hours depending on other activities. The key word here is "scheduled." He is so often distracted that no matter how much time we set aside for learning, a good portion of it is spent off-topic. I spend a lot of time reeling him back in. Another things that slows him down is his reading comprehension issue, and a related difficulty with composition. When I reflect on the amount of time we spend on learning, I am reminded of parents who complain that their children are in school all day, then bring home loads and loads of homework on the evenings and weekends. I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to education, kids need however much time that they need.
When I have mentioned this to other K12 moms or learning professionals, they warn us of burnout. I've thought this over, and I've come to the conclusion that we must consider the needs of each child individually. My perspective comes from having three boys, each with widely different needs, talents and challenges. One of his brothers is fully grown and while growing up was extremely bright, socially outgoing, and talented with a strong will of his own. The other has multiple disabilities and life-threatening health challenges which he has fought and struggled against since birth. Each son matures at different rates, and each has different challenges and different needs. Our home schooled child seems to be socially mature for his age, although academically immature. He is highly motivated by praise and by his individual progress. He is exceptionally sensitive and kind with a strong moral compass. At this time in his life this seems to be what he needs, although his needs will change as time goes on.
We engage in as much fun recreation as a family as we can on the evenings and weekends. I provide him with plenty of activities where he relates to children his own age - we go on field trips organized by other home schooling parents, he takes extracurricular classes in dancing, singing and acting, and he attends social events for tweens. At the end of the day, we offer him some sort of a reward for demonstrating effort, progress, and hard work. Sometimes the reward is TV, sometimes it's a family outing, and sometimes it's something special that he wants to do.
It's a steep learning curve for both of us. I am learning to make sure he understands the written instructions before he begins working on an assignment. I've learned that it's important to start each day by first looking at what needs to be done and what is on the schedule, setting our intentions before the day gets away from us. I have continued many of the practices we were using prior to K12, such as setting a timer. One benefit of using a timer is that it teaches him to remain focused on a specific task or subject until the timer goes off. I'm learning to monitor and support him without increasing his dependence on me, with the goal being to increase his independence. I'm becoming more patient as I watch him struggle to work things out on his own. He's learning to be better organized, experiencing how much easier it is to get through a school day when his books and materials are found in their place. His stamina for staying focused on his work seems to be increasing. He is learning that he can do things that he didn't think he could. We've been spending a lot more time reading together.
I also believe that at least for some young people, the preteen adolescent stage is vitally important for learning a strong work ethic and other important values. Many times I have observed a period in a teen's life when they become old enough to want to make their own decisions without having the skills to make the right ones. They no longer wish to follow the rules set by their parents, but are incapable of making or following rules that serve their own interests. At some point, a time comes in a parent's life when he or she realizes that the ship has sailed, and the child is no longer as receptive to parental advice. My husband and I are working doubly hard now, before that window closes.
It's been an adjustment for my husband and I. Before starting the K12 program, I had concerns. What if it's too restrictive? What if he has to quit his extracurricular classes? I don't think I would have signed him up if someone had told me that we would be putting in so much effort. According to everyone I've spoken to, most kids in K12 only work 3-6 hours five days per week. That's 15-30 hours, not 35 to 45! It seems that the public school environment he was in previously was not effective for him, and this is where we are now as a result. We are making up for lost time. Perhaps if we had begun home schooling him earlier, we would not be working so hard now. And yet, he does not complain about his schedule. He wants to learn and succeed. He understands the importance of education. He does not want to go back to public school.
Here is a summary of my parenting goals for him at this point:
Help him to be better organized.
Help him to increase his focus.
Help him get up to grade level in reading and writing skills.
Get him caught up in his work, and encourage him to get ahead one day.
Teach him to be more responsible, better at remembering to do his chores and take care of himself and his things.
Build in a wide range of recreational and learning experiences.
We are confident that some point, he will not only be completely caught up, but will be able get all of his work done more independently in 25 or 30 hours a week, and he will have more free time. Sometimes when I reflect on the amount of work and challenge involved, or think about the things I love to do that are going by the wayside, I remember why we are doing this. It's worth it, and one day this child will be better off for it.
It seems that what we are doing is working. He is demonstrating gradual improvements on a regular basis. He may need extra intervention to overcome his difficulties with reading comprehension at some point, so we are monitoring that closely. But despite the concerns, he seems to be thriving. Back in February, I looked up the core standards for where he was "supposed" to be in math, and decided we needed to work on integers. We tried, but it didn't work at all. He wasn't ready. A few days ago, I overheard my son and husband during an algebra lesson. The lesson was about integers, and it was going well.
Update: Since I first began working on this blog post, I've had a parent teacher conference with his new K12 teacher, and she sent me some resources for helping him with reading and writing. He is already improving, although we are still about a week behind in the curriculum. Fortunately, this is a mastery based program, so a child does not get promoted and moved to the next level until he or she can demonstrate readiness. Additionally, if he's still behind at the end of the school year, he may continue working over the summer to complete the work. This is exactly what he has needed all along. I only wish I had started him on this program at a much earlier age.
First, a quick recap: I pulled my sixth-grader out of public school in February. After trying the same things over and over, and following the recommendations of his school professionals, I realized that we were getting nowhere. My son asked me to homeschool him, and I knew right away it was the only thing to do.
We deschooled for a while, we tried unschooling, and finally when I began to understand what works for this individual young man, I found that I had to take him back to a fourth grade level and work with him in the core subjects. It seems that it was in the fourth grade where he became lost. We found workbooks at that grade level, and he used the Khan Academy website for math. After this experience I had strong concerns when I had enrolled him in the 6th grade with the K12 online charter school. We had yet to cover the fifth grade in his home studies. I did not know if he would be able to keep up. However, had we kept him in the brick and mortar public school, he would have been promoted to the 7th grade despite poor progress, and things would be worse.
When he was in public school, we performed the daily "backpack dump" together. I helped him sift through the wads of crumpled papers, sorting them according to which were due, past due, in need of additional work, or ready for the wastebasket. I assisted him with his homework, attended parent-teacher conferences, and did my best to decipher the coded grade entries and comments on an online school resource called ParentLink. Report card comments like "joy to have in class" did not explain why my child was struggling. I could not put my finger on the problem. My son is a good kid with a well-developed set of intrinsic values. He even attended after school study programs. Why was he failing? I was mystified.
Working with him in the K12 program these past weeks, I can see more clearly what the problems are than I was able to with a less structured approach. One is that he tends to be very disorganized and easily distracted. He often misplaces his books. Sometimes he gets up and leaves his desk in the middle of work to go do something unrelated to school, and if I observe without intervening, it could be over an hour before he gets back to work if at all. I often redirect him to focus on his work.
Another problem is simple self-discipline. It took me a long time to realize that when I thought he was busy doing schoolwork on his computer, he was really playing online games advertized to kids through an online dictionary, and he would quickly toggle back to the online school when he saw me looking in his direction. While I don't condone this behavior and have been taking steps to prevent it, I don't blame him for falling into the temptation of doing something easy and fun rather than buckling down and working. It's human nature. Now is the time for him to learn to discipline himself to do the hard work and achieve his goals first, and do the easy fun things as a reward for his accomplishments. My husband and I are working to help him learn to make the right decisions for himself, without making all of his decisions for him.
One of the biggest issues is reading comprehension. He can aloud read quite well, but he doesn't always process what he reads. This affects his ability to answer test questions and complete assignments correctly. If I have to work in another room in the house, I will often return to find him struggling, or doing some work incorrectly because he didn't understand the instructions. Yesterday during an online test, (K12 calls them assessments,) he gave a wrong answer to a question, and I knew that he understood the correct answer because we went over the material together and he was able to discuss it with me. I worded the question differently, and he corrected himself. This is a common occurrence and he often needs to retake assessments as a result.
We were told that the K12 program takes a 6th grader about 5 - 6 hours a day, five days per week, but as it turns out it's been a lot more work than we anticipated. Three days a week, we generally start the day at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning, and work almost nonstop until 4:00 or 5:00, depending on other scheduled activities. I try to build in little "recesses" where we take a short break to stretch, do some self-care, refocus our eyes on distant objects, have a snack, play with the dog etc. We do take a lunch break, but often I hand him his lunch while he continues working. He also works an additional 1-2 hours per night, three nights per week. On Thursdays, he only gets in about three or four hours of work because he and his brother both have several standing appointments and activities on that day. My son has study sessions while while waiting for his brother's activities to be finished, and in between activities. He puts in additional time on the weekends. Even with this schedule he is behind.
I have noticed that even when I work closely with him, it can often take twice the recommended time to master a lesson. I've added up the amount of time we schedule for learning in a typical week, and it can be anywhere between 35 and 45 hours depending on other activities. The key word here is "scheduled." He is so often distracted that no matter how much time we set aside for learning, a good portion of it is spent off-topic. I spend a lot of time reeling him back in. Another things that slows him down is his reading comprehension issue, and a related difficulty with composition. When I reflect on the amount of time we spend on learning, I am reminded of parents who complain that their children are in school all day, then bring home loads and loads of homework on the evenings and weekends. I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to education, kids need however much time that they need.
When I have mentioned this to other K12 moms or learning professionals, they warn us of burnout. I've thought this over, and I've come to the conclusion that we must consider the needs of each child individually. My perspective comes from having three boys, each with widely different needs, talents and challenges. One of his brothers is fully grown and while growing up was extremely bright, socially outgoing, and talented with a strong will of his own. The other has multiple disabilities and life-threatening health challenges which he has fought and struggled against since birth. Each son matures at different rates, and each has different challenges and different needs. Our home schooled child seems to be socially mature for his age, although academically immature. He is highly motivated by praise and by his individual progress. He is exceptionally sensitive and kind with a strong moral compass. At this time in his life this seems to be what he needs, although his needs will change as time goes on.
We engage in as much fun recreation as a family as we can on the evenings and weekends. I provide him with plenty of activities where he relates to children his own age - we go on field trips organized by other home schooling parents, he takes extracurricular classes in dancing, singing and acting, and he attends social events for tweens. At the end of the day, we offer him some sort of a reward for demonstrating effort, progress, and hard work. Sometimes the reward is TV, sometimes it's a family outing, and sometimes it's something special that he wants to do.
It's a steep learning curve for both of us. I am learning to make sure he understands the written instructions before he begins working on an assignment. I've learned that it's important to start each day by first looking at what needs to be done and what is on the schedule, setting our intentions before the day gets away from us. I have continued many of the practices we were using prior to K12, such as setting a timer. One benefit of using a timer is that it teaches him to remain focused on a specific task or subject until the timer goes off. I'm learning to monitor and support him without increasing his dependence on me, with the goal being to increase his independence. I'm becoming more patient as I watch him struggle to work things out on his own. He's learning to be better organized, experiencing how much easier it is to get through a school day when his books and materials are found in their place. His stamina for staying focused on his work seems to be increasing. He is learning that he can do things that he didn't think he could. We've been spending a lot more time reading together.
I also believe that at least for some young people, the preteen adolescent stage is vitally important for learning a strong work ethic and other important values. Many times I have observed a period in a teen's life when they become old enough to want to make their own decisions without having the skills to make the right ones. They no longer wish to follow the rules set by their parents, but are incapable of making or following rules that serve their own interests. At some point, a time comes in a parent's life when he or she realizes that the ship has sailed, and the child is no longer as receptive to parental advice. My husband and I are working doubly hard now, before that window closes.
It's been an adjustment for my husband and I. Before starting the K12 program, I had concerns. What if it's too restrictive? What if he has to quit his extracurricular classes? I don't think I would have signed him up if someone had told me that we would be putting in so much effort. According to everyone I've spoken to, most kids in K12 only work 3-6 hours five days per week. That's 15-30 hours, not 35 to 45! It seems that the public school environment he was in previously was not effective for him, and this is where we are now as a result. We are making up for lost time. Perhaps if we had begun home schooling him earlier, we would not be working so hard now. And yet, he does not complain about his schedule. He wants to learn and succeed. He understands the importance of education. He does not want to go back to public school.
Here is a summary of my parenting goals for him at this point:
Help him to be better organized.
Help him to increase his focus.
Help him get up to grade level in reading and writing skills.
Get him caught up in his work, and encourage him to get ahead one day.
Teach him to be more responsible, better at remembering to do his chores and take care of himself and his things.
Build in a wide range of recreational and learning experiences.
We are confident that some point, he will not only be completely caught up, but will be able get all of his work done more independently in 25 or 30 hours a week, and he will have more free time. Sometimes when I reflect on the amount of work and challenge involved, or think about the things I love to do that are going by the wayside, I remember why we are doing this. It's worth it, and one day this child will be better off for it.
It seems that what we are doing is working. He is demonstrating gradual improvements on a regular basis. He may need extra intervention to overcome his difficulties with reading comprehension at some point, so we are monitoring that closely. But despite the concerns, he seems to be thriving. Back in February, I looked up the core standards for where he was "supposed" to be in math, and decided we needed to work on integers. We tried, but it didn't work at all. He wasn't ready. A few days ago, I overheard my son and husband during an algebra lesson. The lesson was about integers, and it was going well.
Update: Since I first began working on this blog post, I've had a parent teacher conference with his new K12 teacher, and she sent me some resources for helping him with reading and writing. He is already improving, although we are still about a week behind in the curriculum. Fortunately, this is a mastery based program, so a child does not get promoted and moved to the next level until he or she can demonstrate readiness. Additionally, if he's still behind at the end of the school year, he may continue working over the summer to complete the work. This is exactly what he has needed all along. I only wish I had started him on this program at a much earlier age.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Great article about unschooling
Here is a great article about unschooling. I like the useful list of links at the bottom.
The Beginner's Guide To Unschooling
Here's a couple of other good sites I ran across recently:
http://www.studyladder.com
http://www.frugalvillage.com/2011/03/30/create-kids-crafts-in-your-kitchen/
The Beginner's Guide To Unschooling
Here's a couple of other good sites I ran across recently:
http://www.studyladder.com
http://www.frugalvillage.com/2011/03/30/create-kids-crafts-in-your-kitchen/
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