April 2009-we had a three month old baby, my husband had been made redundant two months before and was just starting to set up a free lance business from home, our next child was two and we took our eight year old out of school. We had planned to start home educating at that time but obviously hadn't planned the job changes. My lovely plans about having a school room were thrown-a study for dh was more important as were the plans for long trips and I soon found that my plans for short trips, about once a week, to museums in central London just wouldn't work-too difficult with a baby and toddler.
Our eight year old, R, wasn't sure about Mummy as a teacher and especially about the maths. Mummy thought she knew about maths and science but found that the science curriculum that she liked just didn't appeal to our son.
So what, if anything, worked? Praying-lots of praying. I don't think I've ever had to depend on the Lord as much as in those first few weeks.
Practically, the baby, J, was settling into a routine. He conveniently slept most of the morning. Our two year old, A, loves spending time with Grandma who lives with us so when she got bored with watching her brother work, she would wander off to talk to Grandma. Initially, I needed to supervise R very closely. We were partway through a year so it wasn't always clear which topics, for example, in maths, had been covered.
We used some of the same books as school to help continuity. Major changes in curriculum didn't help, at that point.
Reading aloud turned out to be a major success of that difficult first term or so. I initially, used a book that was too hard, then one that wasn't especially well written but after this, hit on "Farmer boy" which was a major success. This was followed by all the rest of the series.
To my surprise, hands on activities were a success. I'm a "booky" sort of person and don't remember finding practicals or art activities even vaguely interesting compared with a book so I almost missed making the salt dough map of Australia, in that first term. I had to learn that our son thrives on activities which re-enforce work and learns in a very different way to me.
This is another continent-in cookie dough, this time.
Eighteen months on, what has changed? Well, the sleeping baby is now a very active toddler. He still sleeps in the afternoon but that lovely long morning sleep has gone. The two year old is now four and keen to be involved in some activities. Thankfully, with time has come independence so now once I have explained the maths, R can usually manage to do a practice exercise on his own while I do "preschool" with the little ones. This is a very informal time of singing, reading, making puzzles, counting, art, cooking and lasts about 20-30 minutes.
This is a recent cookery activity.
Our timetable has simplified from a school-style version with each day different to one where the first hour and a half of each day is the same: Bible reading, memory working and singing followed by maths for R and then his English. We are working on having a set time late morning for Latin. We also have a fixed half an hour after lunch for R to read on his own. This is my time with our four year old when we might do simple phonics and play a number game or puzzle of her choice. Today, she wanted to practice writing "c" in a wipe clean workbook then to have a game of number dominoes, followed by a number puzzle. She is beginning to listen while I read aloud to R and today drew a picture of the world from space which fitted with the book being read.
Challenges-well there are plenty. I always need to fine tune the curriculum. Current work is in the area of French/modern languages and music. We have sent R to various sporting activities but need to ensure that the children have sufficient exercise.
House work-the less said the better.
More important, is the issue of not forgetting why we home educate. I like learning and can easily be distracted into worrying about which Latin curriculum to use and forgetting the more important issues of teaching about the Lord and how He would have us live. We need to live unto Him and pray that we will be good witnesses to our children.
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