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lilac hill
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Joined: Feb 15 2005
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| Posted: March 09 2007 at 11:53am | IP Logged
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I am seeking your points of view on managing the varied interests of my dd12 and her bookwork.
DD#3 is the only child homeschooled and I have plenty of flexibility with my schedule.
DD is listed as a 6th grader, was a late reader and still is not a quick reader, and she does not enjoy too much academic work. Most of her lessons are done with a timer, set on 30 minutes for 6th grade (I add 10 minutes each school year).
DD has great interests with a nice balance of group and individual, artistic and physical, and volunteer opportunities.
With all the activities , does a very active child catch up with the academics?
We have a very bare bones curriculum here, I have sought the fleshing out with the extras and I have been truely blessed with incredible opportunities for DD.
I guess the real question is, does it work?
 I know I am asking for a crystal ball, but when DD is slow with her math facts or asks, "What is ....?" about some basic historical event , I get a bit worried.
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Viv
Wife to Rick (7/83), Mom to dd#1(6/87), dd#2(1/90), and dd#3(6/94) in central PA.
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Kathryn UK
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Location: England
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| Posted: March 09 2007 at 1:40pm | IP Logged
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Viv, I think - I hope| - you are on the right track. What you are doing is very similar to what is happening with my dd who is just turning 12. Her schedule is also dominated by extra-curricular activities. Her interests are dance, music, computers, and small children. She currently takes 6 dance classes a week and is teacher's helper for two others (for 3 and 5yos). She plays in a brass band which involves three practices a week and spends Saturday morning at music school. She has previously spent one morning a week as "mother's help" for someone with a 2yo and a small baby, and next school year she will be working two sessions a week in our local play-group (preschool for 2.5 to 4yos) as a volunteer. Oh, and she helps out a lot with her baby sister  . She spends a lot of time doing constructive, creative stuff on the computer - making movies, building websites, editing music, using Powerpoint and so on.
Like your daughter, she has an increasingly bare bones academic curriculum. Academics do not interest her, though she is quite capable academically when she tries. She reads, but is not a big reader. Chances are that whatever she chooses to do in life will be connected with dance, music, computing or children, and following her interests now is going to be better preparation for her than battling our way through an academic curriculum that she would resist and resent.
Like you, I feel we have been blessed in the opportunities that have presented themselves - her brass band costs less than the equivalent of $1 a week, for which she gets both tuition and the loan of a good instrument; the playgroup opportunity is only available because it is run by our neighbour who is prepared to be responsible for our dd. The way I see it, the flexibility of homeschooling has given her the option of pursuing her interests in a way she could not do if she was at traditional school and it would be wrong not to take advantage of that flexibility to tailor her education to her individual needs. If her interests change dramatically in the future and she suddenly needs more formal academics, I'm confident she would pick up what she needed once she was motivated to do so. I'm glad to hear we are not the only ones taking this route, though!
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Kathryn
Dh Michael,  Rachel(3/95) Hannah(8/98) Naomi(6/06)  (11/07)
The Bookworm
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Balancing extras with academics
