Adding Fun Back into School

We're in Week 7 of homeschooling and I feel that I'm starting to move beyond some initial "shock and awe" to learning some positive lessons. I'm sure that down and up cycle will continue--for years!

One struggle has been getting the other child to play quietly in the room while the first child is having a one-on-one lesson. One solution has been negative consequences. But another solution is bribery: sometimes I am letting them play Starfall online during the interim moments. This also incents the child having his lesson to move through it with alacrity in order to have his turn on Starfall.

One problem I realized during my tearful Week 6 is that there wasn't much fun in my homeschooling. I looked at other Kindergarten curriculum and they were full of seeming fluff. I'd been doing Kindergarten-type games, arts, crafts, and projects for several years now! And now that I could finally do "real" school, we were going to crack open the books! Well, you can imagine how well almost exclusively doing book work have been going over with John. So, now I've remembered that Kindergarten still is almost entirely about playing and remains a year that isn't even required in school. Time to add some fun back into our curricula!

This week I've been starting our school mornings by playing Fundanoodle's Muscle Movers. Each card has a letter of the alphabet on one side, and an animal on the other side with directions, such as "stomp like a rhinocerous" or "slither like a snake." We throw ten cards or so on the floor, the children take turns picking a card, and then acting it out, which results in wild hilarity.

Then the children come to the white board and try to write the letter before switching turns again. This very silly game has been wildly popular here and now makes the children run shrieking with delight when I say it is time for school time. Let's just say that's a big change in attitude.

My favorite choice remains All About Reading for phonics. Such an excellent program!

Mary reading out of her primer

Even though John can read better than Mary (to be expected), I find it hilarious and exasperating how much more management he requires to sit and read just one story. Continual redirection is required on my part. Also, I thought this video was a good glimpse into how divided my attention is because of homeschooling with a three-year-old and one-year-old in the background. The background noise is often high, and there are sibling tussles to break up, occasional injuries to soothe. This aspect of homeschooling is very challenging for my patience, so I should be grateful for the many little opportunities to increase that virtue!

Dressed as a monk and a nun, the children work on their handwriting.

I treated us to buying some oil pastels and real pastel paper (which we will save for special occasions, I explained), so that is what the children used to illustrate their Bible story that day, which was about Jacob and Esau. Reading Bible stories and illustrating them to create their own Bibles has been one of my favorite ongoing projects (taken from Mother of Divine Grace).

No, Margaret, you may not use the oil pastels--it's crayons for you!

Having fun with puff balls: keeping a 17-month-old entertained is a real ongoing challenge

Doing math: Sometimes Mary follows along with the lesson, sometimes not. (I just found her a math curricula better at her level, as she can't keep up with John, of course.) That day, the girls were occupying themselves with "counting bears" while John and I did math-math.

We recently paid the $35 to have annual access to More.Starfall and so far I think it is well worth it. For example, there is a full Kindergarten curricula on there! Not that I'd want to rely on that, but it's there! There are approximately a zillion computer games to teach reading and mathematics. (As a side note, the environmentalism that we believe goes beyond good stewardship of God-given resources straight to earth worship that is rampant in many educational programs, computer and televised, today does not seem evident in Starfall, except for one limited game about Earth Day . . . and our kids just don't play that! That's a plus to me.)

The "teacher's lounge" at More.Starfall is an amazing resource. It has, again, approximately a zillion printables that can be custom made if the parent wants. So, when I print out a color-by-word or a word-search, I change some of the words to ones that thrill the kids, like "JOHN" and "MARY." "Mama, it's my name!!! How did that happen?!" I've been printing out a lot from the teacher's lounge and it is inspiring the kids to want to do way more school time than they were doing before. Plus it is a useful tool for me to buy time by giving them handouts to do at the table while I cook a meal, for example.

Taking a rain walk: Why, yes, that is a worm dangling from the stick! Moments later, the sky began pouring and we had to retreat home . . . where, of course, the kids continued to play in the driveway until they were soaking wet.