February 21, 2012

Homeschooling. . . .Assignment Books

Repost:  I wrote this post almost a year ago.....since then my blog has really increased in 
size, so I wanted to share it again with all of you who homeschool or are considering it.




I definitely get  a lot of interesting responses when people find out that I homeschool......I once sat beside a woman at a spaghetti dinner fundraiser....she was a complete stranger who looked at me and said, "What makes you think that you are qualified to homeschool?"  Hmm....how do I answer that one? 






Another frequent question that I am asked is.....how are you able to homeschool multi-age/grade levels.....I find this question very interesting because it make an assumption about the public school classroom....it assumes that all 20-something students in a public classroom are operating at the same skill level in the same grade.......which they are NOT! You can have a very wide range of skill and reading levels....especially in an elementary classroom. 

Honestly.....one of my fears about homeschooling was looking at the minimum 6 subjects per child and multiplying by 3....that would be 18 subjects per day??  How would that be possible??  Wouldn't I completely lose my mind trying to do that??





I came about our current system that we use by accident....My son spent a couple of years in public school and his first grade teacher had a great idea for how she had students complete their morning work....each morning she would have a "to do" list on the board. 


Students would work their way through the list and check-off the work that they completed.......the problem that our son had was that he would finish his work very quickly and then spend the rest of the morning making 11 trips to the library to check-out books.... he ended up spending a lot of time in class "waiting" for the other students to get their work done.


I use a variation of my son's first grade teacher's "To Do" list.....




I write out a daily list of work for my kids to complete....I make little check boxes that they cross off (or scribble out!) when they finish that assignment.  I always write History and Grammar or Science and Grammar last because they complete those assignments with me.  They also always do Math with me.


I have combined my kids together for science and history so that cuts down on 2 subjects for each.....and a lot of their work is completed independently with me looking over their shoulder and making corrections.




I also keep a master lesson plan book for each of my kids.  Usually in March or April, I start to plan for the following year.  I pull together all of their curriculum and start writing lessons plans.  Donna Young has amazing free printables......here is the link for the lesson plan forms.

 




My plan book keeps me on-task and helps me to see the bigger picture of where I am going....assignment books allow my kids to start their work even if I get tied up throwing in a load of laundry (or writing a blog post??).


How do you making homeschooling work in your family?



4 comments:

Lil Mama Stuart said...

but wait, you didn't answer the two questions!!

RHome410 said...

I've never been this organized...Tried and came close a couple of times. ;-) Maybe I'll try again with your inspiration. I think now that I'm down to 3 at home, I might make it work.

Meghan Carver said...

We love to homeschool, and I've found that the older they get the more independent they are. Our sixth-grader is pretty much on her own with her lesson plans, and she checks in with me when she needs to. That frees me up to work with the younger ones and develops responsibility in her. Thanks for the encouragement today!

Lisa said...

I have often wondered how one would juggle all that responsibility. You seem to do it quite well. I work in a high school in one of the offices and have seen students who come back to public school very ready for a rigorous curriculum, and some who are not but then again we see that from school to school, district to district even state to state. Seems like the deciding Factor in all of these is the commitment on the parents part. Your children are fortunate to have you as their educational and parental leader.
Ps love your blog!

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