I can’t believe this is month six of our This Homeschooling Linky, I’ve never known half a year go so quickly!
January was a really good month for home education, I haven’t liked much else about it and I am so pleased it’s now over (hurry up spring!) but it feels like we have started to discover what works for the kids in order for us all to be happy. If you read last month’s post then you will know I was talking about introducing a bit more structure into our day, mainly because Mr C felt like we should be doing more to encourage Cherry to read and write. I didn’t fully agree with it but I was happy to give it a go and try out some activities but it just didn’t work, to the point where I would suggest doing some word cards and be met with a point blank refusal so I went back to how things were before, with a bit more trust it was the right thing having attempted another way. We don’t want the kids to ever feel like we are putting pressure on them to do something, it takes the enjoyment away and that’s one of the reasons why they won’t be going to school so it would be crazy to recreate that atmosphere at home.
So we are now back in a very child-led, unstructured way of doing things and it works really well. In fact we had our best homeschooling day so far last week. The weather was horrible and we’d had a busy start to the week so we spent all day at home with no plans to go out and it was just a really productive happy day for everyone. Cherry came to me that morning and said she wanted to learn about what life used to be like so I printed off a sheet from Twinkl (we have their platinum subscription package which is fab) and we went through all the different periods in history then I asked Cherry which one she would like to learn about and she chose World War 1 so that’s what we did, again all resources came from Twinkl. Her asking me to learn about it meant she was took in everything I said and was asking lots of questions, then after about 10 minutes she said she wanted to go outside and play and learn more another time.
Now I know 10 minutes doesn’t seem like very long but it was long enough for her to take in and remember all that we talked about and had I kept talking once she had decided she’d had enough then she wouldn’t have been listening therefore making it pointless. She absolutely loves being in control of her time and is so good at finding things to do. She is constantly crafting, painting or making things and yesterday even set out an entire craft class for us where she directed me what to do! Other daytime activities include going out to play in the garden, this involves mud and is very messy but it’s something they’ve been doing every day for the last few weeks. Another favourite is playing with water in the bathroom sink, again very messy but it keeps them entertained for ages.
Someone told me a little while ago about a YouTube yoga channel for kids called Cosmic Kids, it’s absolutely great, for kids and parents. Each video is about 20 minutes long and combines the yoga moves with a fun story. It’s definitely worth checking out.
When it comes to groups we’ve been going to a trampolining and gymnastics class once a week, Cherry and Tiger absolutely love it. Parents go up and watch on a screen upstairs and I was surprised at how well Tiger took to the environment as he’s never been to pre-school. The class is great though, they are doing different set ups each week and starting to use all the big equipment.
Then we are still doing Fun Science. We did plan to start a Spanish class but we left about 20 mins of the first session because it just wasn’t right for Cherry. She doesn’t have the attention span to sit and listen to people talking and kept asking to leave, at some point in future we will try things like that again but I’m also prepared for the fact she might not ever be able to sit and listen to people talking. It’s just not how some people are able to learn.
They are the only things we are signed up for, the rest of the time we like to just go with the flow. We’ve had a fair few soft play dates this month and we also make lots of trips over to Mr C’s workshop so Cherry can ride her quad bike and Tiger can drive his car.
And the funny thing is that since we stopped asking Cherry if she wants to so some maths / writing she has started coming to up and asking to. She likes doing sums and can write a fair few words now, it’s definitely not something she spends much time doing but the important thing is she is getting there, in her own time.
This Homeschooling Life is a linky for you to share either a week, a day or just a moment from your life as a homeschooling family. We are hoping it will be a really nice way to discover new blogs and learn how we all do things differently.
2. Link up a post from your month, no more than 3.
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