Thursday, September 3, 2009

Hooked On Doing As Much As Possible Together

One of the best sanity savers for me during our structured school-times is to do activities together. I thought I'd pass along a couple examples of how we do activities "together":

* Our history is mostly oral. I read and then Anna (and sometimes Chris and Lydia) respond to the review questions orally (a great way to check to see if they "got" it). Anna narrates to me some of the main ideas from the reading. During the actual reading, Lydia and Christopher practice "sitting quietly"... this is actually a much needed skill since we don't do nursery on Sunday nights and they stay in service with the adults.


*After the history reading we do an activity. This week they painted the coloring page and we were able to talk through what was in the picture as they painted.



*Science is done together, too! Like today (as an introduction) we were able to search through some of our animals books looking for certain animal characteristics... fur, # of legs, where they live, etc! The kids had fun coming up with things we should look for. When we really get into it, Lydia and Chris will "read" with us and then color and draw while Anna fills out the animal questions.

*During math Anna gets to use manipulatives. It's nice that during Anna's math time, Lydia and Chris can "play" with the same manipulatives and learn shapes, numbers, build stuff,etc. And they don't feel left out.

*Anna also has to practice counting as part of her lessons with Saxon Math. It's funny to hear Chris jumping in there trying to count to 50-100 with us:) Good practice for him to learn the names of the other "counting by 10's" numbers:)


Maybe it's just the homeschooling Momma's way to "multi-task" by keeping everyone close and busy on the "same" activity at the same time. Or maybe that's another beauty of homeschooling... learning and doing stuff together?

Whatever it is .... working together is definitely a Sanity Saver for me these days:) And I'm glad the kids and I get to enjoy these times together.... yes, even when we're busy "doing school":)

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3 comments:

Jenny said...

That's great that you are able to include the younger ones into the homeschooling. They might just be playing, but they are learning too!

Meg said...

I love your homeschool style! My husband and I were both homeschooled growing up and we plan on doing the same with our little guy when he is older. But your schooling style is pretty much what my mom did with my siblings and I and we loved it! We all felt a part of everything! As we got a little older she let the older siblings lead the younger ones in a simple lesson such as an art project. I loved it! Hope your school year is a blessing!

The Pennington Point said...

Isn't homeschooling the best?! I do some of the same things...choosing projects that can include several of the kids and keeping the littler ones busy close by. Great job Mom! Lisa~ www.livingmybestlifeii-lisa.blogspot.com