They do it twice a day and all I have to do is remind them to get it done. It’s self-paced and entirely hands-off for me.įor my kids with learning difficulties, some of them still get personalized learning therapy, but we’re using a program called Brain Jogging to shore up the processing speed and help with their dyslexia. What a way to kill two birds with one stone! 4. There is no better way to ensure mastery of a subject than to have to teach it. They say that “to teach is to learn twice.” Older siblings can listen to early readers, help check someone’s math or spelling, or even jump into teaching a subject they genuinely love. I provide back-up at home and I stay on top of their assignments and discussions, but the entire burden of the curriculum doesn’t fall to me. What I learned was that having a group of kids to discuss and do projects with made the curriculum a richer experience for my kids. I’m a Master Teacher for Tapestry of Grace curriculum, but when the opportunity to join a Tapestry co-op came along, I found myself out of a teaching gig. Worth every penny, y’all.įarm out the subjects that you feel weak in and let someone who is passionate about microbiology share their wonder with your kids.īut co-ops aren’t just for the subjects you hate. I hired a Mother’s Helper tutor a few years ago to help me get through phonics with my large brood and to do all the grading of the millions of workbooks we cycle through. ( See #4 for how we make up for scheduling issues.) So we’ve learned that when the kids reach a certain level of math, he becomes their teacher. Fortunately, my husband was a math minor in college and fractions get him all jazzed up. They could sense my inner turmoil over math lessons. I’ve learned that my kids pick up my attitudes about a subject, no matter how hard I try to hide it. Sarah MacKenzie of The Read-Aloud Revival talks about her experience with a math tutor here. Look into library tutoring programs, community service programs, or just ask on Facebook. There are lots of poor college kids out there who are stronger in the finer points of algebra than you might be. This isn’t as pricey or as unattainable as you may think. Lucky for us, there are lots of options and lots of ways to help share the burden (and the blessing) of schooling at home! Or perhaps we realize that because of our own weakness in a subject (for me, it’s math), our children are beginning to demonstrate that same weakness.īut we want better for them! We want them to succeed where we have not! Moms and dads get overwhelmed and struggle to juggle all the important responsibilities of homeschooling and keeping a family running. But those choices come with consequences: sometimes it means we can’t do it all. We make the schooling choices we make as parents because we want what’s best for our kids. It’s also totally survivable.īut you might need a buddy to help you get over it. They’d be better off in *insert anything else but home.*”Īnd what I reassured my friend, in between discussions of international boarding schools, is that The Wall is totally normal. It’s the one that says, “I can’t do this anymore. There’s a brick wall somewhere on this road of homeschooling that most families run into at some point. She mumbled sadly, “Something has got to give. My friend was exhausted and sad to her core after a particularly epic meltdown over language arts.
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