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knowloveserve
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| Posted: May 07 2015 at 7:52pm | IP Logged
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All the 'motivating' articles or books you read about homeschooling say the same thing. When a mother is overwhelmed in teaching multiple age levels, it's an easy fix they say: Start with a communal morning basket type time... then let the older ones go off and do their own work while you focus on the littles who need your attention.
In whose homes is this a viable reality?
In my home, my 12 and 10 year olds want hand-holding through their every assignment. They know how to do a math problem, for example... but they want me to sit down and assure them through every step of the problem. The CAN independently read, but they can't or won't put a pencil to paper unless I'm right there telling them exactly what to do. They want clarification on their grammar lessons. They want help with Latin. They want to discuss their science reading.
Meanwhile, the 5 year old and 3 year old run feral while I try to have some coordinated efforts helping my 8 year old with a fussy baby on my hip.
(I actually do have temporary, hired help with the 5 and 3 year old right now... but am still finding it to be a struggle with everyone else's needs)
Our Morning Basket time goes great on most days. We read good books; we have good discussions; the time is fruitful. But it ends. And then math and writing begin and it's murder trying to get to everything with everyone needing me. Foreign Language has been suspended indefinitely. I just. can't. do.it.
By the time 5 pm rolls around, I'm a waste of a woman and can barely scrap up enough energy to put something on the table for supper.
I feel so run ragged. And I feel like I have so little to show for it.
I would be okay with all this, if I had confidence in unschooly methods more out of principal... rather than out of default which is what we are doing. How do unschoolers master that act of surrender and abandon and trust? How do I stop the self-doubt?
I think all of us, to one extent or another, have our IDEAL homeschooling life in one hand and the REALISTIC homeschooling life in our other... the discrepancy between the two is often hard to accept.
But I'm getting off track here. I'm just really wondering when in the world 'independent work' will actually kick in and I'm not trying to do a hundred things at once. I NEED my bigger boys to take more control of their education, but honestly, they are quite lazy and just want to be carried and coaxed the entire way.
How can I reclaim the beauty of those tender, early years of nature walks, read alouds and copywork with my 5 and 8 year old... when I am putting so much time into the big kids?
Meanwhile, 100 yards from my front door is an excellent, Catholic K-8 school... and while I know that I'd be trading one set of problems for another by enrolling the kids... it sits there like a temptress telling me all my struggle is pointless...
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Ellie
The Bleeding Pelican
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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: May 07 2015 at 10:31pm | IP Logged
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I had a similiar post and got some good advice in this post.
Both my boys improved greatly this year on working independently. I think maturity level plays a big role and that age varies. One at 10 and the other at 13 here when we say big improvements. I do sit and do math with my oldest. I'm hoping that he won't need me at his side for every second of math by the time he graduates! 
There is another post about smooth days that goes along with this topic. It had some great advice too.
Prayers!
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 07 2015 at 10:38pm | IP Logged
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What will your older boys do independently? My oldest does his math independently, but we mostly use Life of Fred (which he loves), which has only 6-8 word problems, and xtramath.com, which is online and teaches math facts--no writing. But, he has been fiercely independent since he was a toddler refusing to let me read to him.  He has asked me to start doing his Latin with him, and I am trying to learn alongside, but it does feel like there aren't enough minutes in the day!
Can you use Khan Academy or a program like Teaching Textbooks? I mean, this program exists and is really, really popular because you are NOT alone in this, yk?
Is it the physical act of writing that overwhelms them? Can they learn to type?
I recently started using English Lessons Through Literature because I needed more structure and help in making sure we were doing dictation and writing and grammar, but it is only meant to be used three days a week. I really like it a lot. Maybe if you only had to put pencil to paper three days instead of five days, you could find a little respite from the daily grind.
Your family is very different from what it was when your oldest boys were 5 and 8. It won't look like that again.  But you can find new traditions and ways to include them. My last two babies have made it practically impossible to read aloud much, so I read a lot less than I used it, but I buy a lot more audio books. We listened to the Little House books narrated by Cherry Jones over the winter, and my oldest learned to knit. We would all sit and listen together. If I need to tend to the baby, I can scoot out without disrupting everything. My 6 year old listens to Little Britches and Black Beauty over and over and over again!
I also think that you need to fill your cup, too. I realized I was running on reserves for too long and in danger of running out! I started a Well-Read Moms book club, starting singing in a church choir again (with an amazing director), and started doing 15 minutes of TTapp in the morning. Now, this morning, the baby did not allow it this morning, and I'm just getting to the place where he lets me get up early more often than not, so believe me, I know it is not easy. But I feel so much better!
That leads me to your question, "How do unschoolers master the act of surrender and abandon and trust?" I am no master, but the masters I see seem to do it through immersion in the lifestyle. They read regularly about education and learning naturally. And most of all, they model the behaviors they want to see in their children. They model curiosity for the world, reading to learn to do things, acquiring new skills and interests, etc... It is actually a ton of work! I kind of think I'm too lazy to unschool 
So, my unschooling side tends to look like making plans so that my children can do their work as independently as they are able but organizing them in a way that they can always just pick up where they left off and not freaking out if we abandon formal lessons for a day or two knowing that we can pick them up again and keep going.
Sorry if all that was jumbled and random. You are not alone in your struggles, Ellie. Just the other day, when trying to leave the house for piano, I texted my husband and swore that if someone did not start getting everything together to get out the door with just the teeniest sense of urgency, I was going to put them all in school. And no, the irony of such a sentiment is not lost on me. 
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: May 08 2015 at 1:08am | IP Logged
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I think the first one is the hardest.. once you can get one of your kids to do some work without you (and praise it and reward it etc) the other kids will see that going on and want to do it too.
Also, I find that really, they need to be about high school age.. or close to really manage it. BUT fun school games (stack the states app, doing mathisfun.com stuff) are a good way to entice the kids to work on their own. It's fun and computer time is considered precious (yes you'll have to watch that they're doing what you've set for them) but they'll be more inclined to do that on their own.
And I also rarely just sit with the kids. I'm there. I am often going from child to child to help just like a classroom teacher, I simply can't just sit with one child. But I may also be standing around folding laundry while they're working. So I'm there but I also look busy so I look less available, though they can certainly get my help at any time.
I guess it's in small steps so even if I'm coming back to check each problem when it's done they're still getting the idea of working without me right there.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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SallyT
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| Posted: May 08 2015 at 10:30am | IP Logged
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I'd echo what Lindsay and Jodie say. Beyond that, I hesitate to offer actual advice, because I have far fewer moving parts in my home than many of the rest of you, especially now.
BUT: my 11 and 12yos, who are my youngest children at home right now, DO work largely independently. I help with math when needed, and I'm anticipating a lot more face time with my 12yo for pre-algebra next year, because I think he'll need it, but also because I CAN. I don't have littles also needing me.
BUT (again), to a great extent I do have, and always have had, children not needing me right there every minute at this level. Like Jodie, I'm around, I'm in the vicinity, I might be folding laundry (or writing this to you right now), so if someone needs help, I'm there to provide it. But starting around 3rd grade, I begin to try to wean them from the idea that their learning depends on having me right beside them. With one kid, it was literally a matter of removing myself by degrees -- "Oops, wait a minute! I just have to get this laundry out. You reread the directions and think about it for two minutes while I put the laundry on the bed, and then I'll be right there." And then it would be three minutes, then four. Eventually he figured out that nine times out of ten, it was quicker to figure things out himself than to wait for me.
As Lindsay says, a lot of this game is choosing materials that make self-teaching easier. Right now I'm putting both my middle-schoolers through "Fractions Camp" using the Key-To series, because although sometimes I do need to drop in to explain/teach something, generally the lessons are very clear, build on each other, and enable a child to work alone with confidence. That too is part of my "weaning" process.
And then much of our "work" is reading. If one child needs me, I can send the other one to read.
I realize how stupidly easy this sounds, because I'm talking about two kids. At maximum capacity, I had four all at home and schooling, not eight or ten, so my game has always been different from many people's -- though my four are over quite an age spread, so I did have high school, middle school, preK and K all vying for me at one stage.
And when I had them all at home, it was important to me, for the overall peace of our homeschool, for them that could to take responsibility for their work, so that I could keep the little ones from tearing the house down, which they would have. They were maniacs. So I was motivated to find any methods I could that enabled my olders to take charge of themselves. For my now-17yo, for example, it was Khan Academy to get him through three years of Saxon pre-alg and algebra. For my now 21yo, it was Teaching Textbooks. For any older child in my house, it's always meant that I put my time and energy into devising simple lesson plans that they could follow on their own (or, if I hadn't had that time and energy and desire to write lesson plans, which I do have, I'd have bought prepared ones that I could hand to my middle- or high-schooler and say, 'Here's your copy. I have my copy. Go to town."). For the upcoming year, I'm making out a weekly grid for each child (the plan is always just "read the next thing/do the next thing"), and I'm including things like "take your sketchbook and find a sit spot and outside, and stay there for half an hour drawing and writing what you see."
At the same time, I don't think it was bad for the littles ones to have to give way to the older ones at times, either. That's just the give-and-take of family life, and younger kids probably do learn that in different ways from their older siblings. They did learn to rely on each other more, which is maybe one reason why it's been relatively easy to "independentize" them in their schoolwork.
I have a couple of kids who have never wanted to be taught by me, so on one level that's made my life easier. OK, fine. Here's your work. I'm on call if you need me. With the other couple, the "togetherness" children, independence has been a matter of deliberate training, which took years but has paid off. And I do think it's a worthwhile lesson. In her first year of college my oldest daughter remarked that the best thing homeschooling had given her (besides Beowulf) was self-motivation, and the confidence that she could learn without necessarily having to be taught or led. So it is a life skill, which some kids acquire more readily than others. For those who don't acquire it so readily, some teaching is necessary and justified (which may be another way of thinking about this besides seeing it as "unschooling" -- sometimes you teach by backing away, and that's as deliberate a pedagogical choice as using black-eyed peas to teach addition).
It is all different, though. Different kids, different season of my life. My younger kids in many ways have had a very different childhood from my older ones . . . and that's just the way life goes. On one level I do miss "the way we were," and wish I could even remember all the things I did with my oldest that seem to have worked, so that I could do them with the younger ones. But the younger ones are such completely different people . . . I don't have much choice but to mother them as they are, and as I am. And pray a lot.
So -- again, none of this is advice. It's just thoughts and my own experience. I know I'm one of those people who do often say, "Send older kids to do their work" and assume that that's easy, when in fact in my own household it hasn't been always easy or automatic.
Sally
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Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
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countrymom
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| Posted: May 09 2015 at 6:37pm | IP Logged
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I have found great help with resources like teaching textbooks and enrolling in some courses with homeschooling connections for my olders. They have someone else to be their guide and hold their hands.
I have always stressed that we are working toward independence, so they need to be self directed. In my one older child, this was natural, in my other, not so much. That child has benefited immensely form HC.
In my 10 year old, she has seen this going on for years, so she knows what to expect. I also try to choose other resources that don't require much mom time. I like Sequential Spelling, a piano or fiddle teacher and our chapels Catechism lessons. I don't have to teach any of those things.
The rest, I just leave alone. Yes, Id love foreign language or biology or Logic, but its not going to happen. Id love to do a million projects with the littles, but math, phonics and catechism is what they get from me. I know my limits.
and that brings me to your question about surrender. I unschool the rest.
I do know that I ask God daily to give me the graces to do my duty in my state of life and to educate my children for the vocation God is calling them to. This is the best I can do with my limited resources. Our homeschool is very inspired by St Therese and her little way. I do what I can, and that is good enough because that is what God has given me the ability to do. To wish to do more or to beat my self up because I am not providing a Seaton education to my children is akin to not trusting that He has given me all I need for the souls he has given me charge of on this earth.
Our goal is to raise children who will hear a calling to a vocation if that is what God has planned for them, or to raise real Men who aren't afraid of handwork and are ready to go out and establish a Catholic home. And for young ladies the same.
(i cut and pasted part of this from a response I made on another message board this morning...seems to be the topic of the day  )
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ekbell
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| Posted: May 12 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged
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I've learned that to maintain sanity I need to focus on the child I'm working with and ignore the other lazy kids until it's their turn. (and if they won't work until I'm paying attention to them that means they're free to help with the toddler  ). It makes for longer but saner days (and I do do chores during discussion and between problems).
It's taken a bit of training but they now know when to ask for help and when to wait.
BTW I only plan lessons for Mon. Tues. Thurs. Fri. so that I can spend Wed. working with any child needing extra attention.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: The Myth of Independent Work
