Wrinkes, Ironing and Focussed Learning time

As I mentioned in an earlier post we have recently taken a step back from our "complete a set number of workbook pages then hand in to mum for marking" approach that I had fallen into relying upon over the past 2 years. We still have some little wrinkles that need ironing out but I feel that we are getting to a place where we are all thriving.

The main wrinkles are ds11 and his 'issues' with writing and being actively 'taught' anything.

Then there is ds13 who at times I feel is not being challenged or pushed enough to work to his full capacity. I did have issues with his level of diligence for a while too but I think he is getting there with a bit of consistency and discipline on my part now being in place.

Although he now works with fairly good diligence which is a major accomplishment when it comes to teaching all the kids together at times I feel I don't expect as much from him in output and work quality/quantity as perhaps I should do. I know that although he is not inclined towards doing more work he is certainly more than capable so hopefully we will find the right balance as time goes by.

The only textbook we are now using is for math and for this we are using Saxon Maths. According to others who have been using it much longer than us it can be quite heavy going so for now I just split each lesson in half. This is another example of where I think I am not expecting enough of ds13. However we have agreed that since this is our first year with Saxon he will just do half a lesson a day this term but that next term he will have to do more. We are aiming for 3 full lessons per week next term and 4 full lessons the term after that. He will have to structure how he fits this in for himself so long as it is completed by 5pm Friday. If not he will have to do it on Saturday instead of having PS3 privileges. At the moment he seems quite happy with this arrangement.

For everything else we are taking a unit study approach which I have a variety of guides and resources for but which I mostly plan and teach myself with the help of the internet and some of the lesson plans available on there for free. They have to do a daily writing assignment in relation to our reading but most of their learning is done through discussion and listening with some fun hands on stuff thrown in too.

Ds13 also has a research assignment of his own to do in his own time. I assigned the last topic and for his next one which he will start this coming Monday he gets to choose his topic. Last time he had to do a research report but this time we will be focussing on essay writing using the IEW principles of essay writing. He will have to hand in a 5 paragraph essay but visual aids are optional. He has to do two of these research assignments per term and has about 3 - 4 weeks to complete each one.

I feel that these days our family is being knit back together as having all the kids working in their own books at their own levels on their own topics seperated us and meant I had to split myself into 4 pieces to meet everyones needs. I do however think they did a lot more 'work' back then but this was probably more 'busy work' than anything else and not neccessarily actual learning. they are certainly retaining more this way thatn I think they did over the past 2 years of packaged curriculum learning.

 

We did a stint in the first couple of weeks this year with LLATL and if I had just one child this would have been perfect but with 3 kids at 3 different levels it was too hard to juggle plus they weren't interested in all the books for the book studies so getting them to read them was a bit of a struggle. These days I am using these books as read alouds and they are enjoying them immensly so obviously they just didn't want to read them for themselves.

Our 'focussed learning' takes a lot longer these days as it involves lots of reading aloud by me and then discussion and chatting about the days reading and often we go off on a tangent when something in particular that we have read appeals to us. However because it is a much more laid back approach and it is to do with a topic that is of interest to us we don't seem to mind the length of time we are spending on what I call 'focussed learning'.

Ds 13 manages his own time pretty well these days and schedules in his research project and math when it suits him so long as everything is completed by 5pm when I start dinner and become unavailable and incapable of focussing on anything else.

So all up things are as I said 'Going pretty Well' or as we Kiwi's like to say...

 

"Sweet As Bro!"  or "It's all good mate!"