Balancing learning/playing

[nova147]

I'm having a tough time figuring out how to balance homeschooling with my 4 year old son, and we haven't even started yet! Like everyone else, I'm looking at curriculum for the fall, thinking about what we'll be doing. I'm torn because I know he has learned so much just playing in our home environment in the past 4 1/2 years (he's reading very well, understands addition/subtraction, multiplication/division, and even fractions -- all without direct instruction). But there's this part of me that feels that once we "start school", we have to do things "the school way". Does that make sense?

Anyway, I just don't know what I should do. Part of me says to just continue following his interests with books, games, toys, videos, activities, etc until he's ready to move on to something new. Another part of me wants a curriculum to follow -- finish X topic this week, then go on to the next. I suppose I'm sensing a difference in my teaching style and my son's (current) learning style. (I believe all young children learn this way and that he may or may not continue to prefer this method of learning.)

Any suggestions for this newbie?

[Spy Car]

By what means did he come to understand addition/subtraction, multiplication/division and fractions?

And welcome to the forum :)

Bill

[LisaDSB]

That's probably a normal feeling when you first start homeschooling -- after all, you probably went to school yourself and have an idea of how that is supposed to look!

This year was our first year homeschooling. My kids have just turned 7 & 9 and therefore need a little bit more structure, perhaps, than a 4 year old. We started off the year with all sorts of schedules and plans, but I honestly felt that it was not the way to go with such bright kids (maybe any kid?).

Both of my boys seem happiest when they are allowed to pursue their passions in depth. We still have a plan in place for things that they should learn, and I squeeze that in here and there, but their joy of learning is far more intact when I keep it all less rigid.

If your child is like mine are, he is so intellectually curious that most of his interests are "learning". I honestly wouldn't try and stifle that, but rather let it flourish. At his young age, I would keep things fun and interesting and just gradually add in more formal subjects (maybe that's contrary to WTM and I'll get booted out of this forum, but that's what I think).

FWIW, here's what I have done: I have totally gone overboard in planning things I want my kids to learn in many different subjects. I've pulled from WTM and Charlotte Mason and ideas of my own. I've got educational resources overflowing the shelves in our "learning lab" (aka classroom, but I'm trying not to make things seem too "schooly"). I have a plan for each subject area of where I would like to see us go, so I always have a sense of what's next.

What I have NOT done is schedule everything. I let my kids choose what subject they want to learn, and then we explore that subject according to the plan. I make sure that we touch on all of the areas before moving on to a new plan.

For example, we'll do a small segment of history, a part of speech in grammar, a chapter of chemistry, a lesson in french, etc. They choose what they want and I am ready for whatever they choose. I may have to push them a little bit to do some penmanship or other less-desirable tasks, but they do get through them all and they seem far happier with this approach than when I started off telling them what they had to do each day.

Since it doesn't matter when we finish the group of items (not being on a tight schedule) I don't feel stressed when they go off on learning tangents of their own from time to time. I just try to make sure they're covering at least a few of the things on my agenda each day, and I try to make those things as interesting as possible. I'm not worried about falling behind, since they're naturally already so far ahead of their peers.

Exceptionally bright kids need to feel like they are somewhat in control of the process of learning. They don't need someone to tell them it's time to learn, because it is already such a basic need for them -- right up there with breathing.

I think the goal should be to keep the joy of learning alive -- not to micromanage it so much that it becomes a chore. My guys are so opinionated and argumentative that it was also straining our relationship to struggle so much over keeping things on a certain schedule.

It doesn't mean you have to "unschool" or flounder about without a plan -- it just means that the plan has to unfold more on their terms than in accordance with your own sense of timing.

Just my opinion -- YMMV.

Lisa in Ontario

[nova147]

By what means did he come to understand addition/subtraction, multiplication/division and fractions?

And welcome to the forum :)

Bill

I'd love to know that myself, honestly. I'm sure I could come up with stories about the first time I realized he knew these things, but only one comes to mind right now (multiplication).

He was about 3 1/2 and was playing in his room while I was in the next room with his sister. He came in and told me "Mom, four threes are 12". Astounded, I told him he was right, but asked how he knew. He showed me that he had been playing with a set of 12 tiles - each has a picture of an animal body part (4 animals total - broken into head, middle, and bottom sections). Within a day of this, he was able to apply it to other situations. We would asked him how many cookies there would be if 4 friends each had 2, or 2 friends had 5, etc.

[nova147]

Lisa -

Thanks for you input! I want to be sure I understand what you're saying. You have plans for your subject areas and let the kids choose which area to study, but make sure they cover all the areas within a given time frame. Right? What time frame do you use?

Did you run into topics they just weren't into (say Egyptians or magnets)? If you did, did you just let it go, figuring you'll cover it some other time? This is my biggest fear -- I'll buy a curriculum, introduce a topic, he'll be uninterested, but I'll have a tough time just moving on to something else!

MJ

[Spy Car]

I'd love to know that myself, honestly. I'm sure I could come up with stories about the first time I realized he knew these things, but only one comes to mind right now (multiplication).

He was about 3 1/2 and was playing in his room while I was in the next room with his sister. He came in and told me "Mom, four threes are 12". Astounded, I told him he was right, but asked how he knew. He showed me that he had been playing with a set of 12 tiles - each has a picture of an animal body part (4 animals total - broken into head, middle, and bottom sections). Within a day of this, he was able to apply it to other situations. We would asked him how many cookies there would be if 4 friends each had 2, or 2 friends had 5, etc.

Absolutely fascinating!

Do you have any thoughts yet on how you are going to approach math?

Bill

[nova147]

Bill -

I sent you a PM!

MJ

[LisaDSB]

I probably wasn't terribly clear in my post -- sorry about that. Honestly, I've wrestled with these same issues myself all year, and only just in the last couple of months have arrived at this current system (which seems to be the one that has clicked at our house).

So, I have an agenda I have prepared which I call "Weekly Goals", although it is physically impossible to get it all done in a week. It might be more realistic to complete in two or three weeks. I don't fuss too much about how long it takes, although there is a part of me that would certainly like to see more progress made than we sometimes do. When we complete everything, I prepare a new agenda with new goals in each subject area.

The subjects include such things as language arts, literature, music & arts, science (we're doing chemistry, a subject which they both chose and which they are happy to slowly plod through with lots of bunny trails), math, history (following SOTW, although I backed it up to pre-history and we spent much of the year on dinosaurs, which they both love), geography, French, Latin, logic, art, nature studies, technology, character development (and a few more :tongue_smilie:). Like I said, I tend to overdo it and you can see why we don't get through it all in a week, lol.

There isn't anything they really dislike, other than perhaps the penmanship. I've managed to find curricula that inspire them in all areas, although I've had to discard a few things along the way (they detest too much in the way of workbooks and I've tried to find things that are more suited to gifted learners).

I suppose if they really hated something, and it wasn't a core subject, I'd leave it alone until a later time. Usually I consult with them about what they want to do (they chose the science topic) and I still encourage other interests even though I don't "teach" them (such as astronomy, which my oldest boy is really into -- I just let him do online courses on his own).

My eldest doesn't like to write, but seems to be enjoying Writing Strands. That would be the type of subject that I would say he still had to learn even if he balked (I want him to be able to communicate well in writing some day, so it's not an option).

At the start of the year, my kids weren't interested in studying any human history. They were only interested in dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals. So, rather than start with SOTW, which I wanted to, it still sits on my shelf, along with all the associated resources, waiting for us to get through the Stone Age (it's taken all year since the Big Bang, but hey, we covered 13 billion years, lol). Now, as we have started talking about early humans, their interest has been sparked and I know they are now eager to move on to ancient Egypt and the like. (BTW, we study pre-history with a critical eye.)

I hope that helps a bit. Everyone has to tweak these things to their own children and their own personalities, but this is what seems to work for us.

HTH,

Lisa

[Donna]

My dd is a lot like your son. She always seems to know everything before I get around to teaching it to her.

What I do is follow her lead but also provide lots of opportunities for her to chose and suggest those she might not think of (like grammar). I have lots and lots of resources in the house. She has her own shelf for her school materials...math text, workbooks for this and that, etc...then we have all the others where she can reach them. Everything from math manipulatives to books to art supplies to classical music CDs and computer programs for language learning are within reach.

I do have a basic idea of what comes next for her, an outline of sorts. We fill in the details depending on what she is interested in. Math and foreign language are done at least 4 days a week and violin practice is daily. She is a motivated kid so gets to all other topics at least once a week. We follow the WTM for history and science and she is on a slightly different rotation from her brothers so she often sits in on theirs and also does hers. If we find a topic she likes we study it longer and those she is uninterested in are done quickly.

Learning can be play when you homeschool. Explore museums, play around with math, read fun stories then make plays or artwork about them, experiment for science, etc... We did dissection and planted gardens for biology, went to Yellowstone to learn geology, do chemistry through experiments, etc... Kids learn so much more by doing and when they are little, they are sponges as you are already aware.

You can forget the school mindset. It was developed to handle multiple children of multiple learning rates and styles in a classroom. You only have your learner (and siblings?) so everything can be individualized.

My dd tends to be a nightowl so will often drag out all her school materials at 9pm and decide she wants to work. She can do this because we homeschool. If she wants to do school on weekends, that option is available as well. Some days, she wants to do art all day or read books or only play her violin and those are fine as well because it all evens out in the end.