So hard to teach with this distraction

Just as you are getting ready to dive into a new world of learning with you older children your preschooler says, "I am booorrreeed." Does this sound familiar to you? Or how about this scenario, all gathered around talking about your studies for the day, all the children are interested and learning with amazing attention. Until, the 4 year old starts to run crazy, screaming, throwing their arms about. Now, you have lost the attention of all.

Being young is a time of magical imagination, and exploring. Children learn through play. Young children have a strong curiosity and desire for attention.


Well, after talking to a very good friend of mine, another homeschooling mama, an idea has unfolded. She said preschool daily activity boxes and my mind filled with many wonderful thoughts. Here a few of those thoughts.


How about a daily box, bin, container of your choice?. Label each one clearly on the outside Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. (April, I am awaiting the pictures.) Make sure the container is labeled clearly and large enough to be easily read. Now we are ready to begin filling the containers with material to awake the imagination and creativity of a youngster.





Now what should we fill them with? So many ideas are running through my mind, I must slow the thoughts down to make any sense of it all. Inhale, Exhale.... okay. Maybe we should put pages in each one corresponding with the days of the week. That way they will be coloring, tracing, copying Monday on Monday, Tuesday on Tuesday etc. I would also include some pages with the child's name written upon them in each box. Do not forget anything special for the week, for example is there a holiday that week.
(Here is a good site to use)
http://www.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm






Some other ideas would be one day of the week can be dedicated to colors. Put crayons in this box with coloring sheets. (Another good link) http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/colors/single-worksheets.htm

Maybe some play dough in this box as well. Here is a recipe. http://www.kiddinaround.com/NEWS/Play_dough.html
You could have a whole day dealing with colors, or you could divide this to one color per day.


Now shapes, again either a day for shapes or one per day. Here is a good link for shapes. http://www.akidsheart.com/threer/lvl1/shapes.htm
I think if I was doing a day on shapes then I would choose this day to include construction paper and scissors. If you are doing one color per day, one shape per day then make the whole box say red and circles. Then you could add a ball to this day, or anything else you come across that is red and a circle. If you are doing a day of shapes blocks would be a good thing to include within this container. http://www.kidslearningstation.com/preschool/teach-shapes.asp








Another idea, how about a dress up day? Lets pretend we did a container for Monday of color, Tuesday was shapes, Wednesday can be dress up. Include within this box dress up clothes appropriate for your child. For example, for a boy I will include a cowboy hat, boots, a vest. Along with these I will include a song about cowboys and some coloring pages about cowboys. Would my son like to be a doctor? Maybe a pirate hat? My son might want to be a prince, I could include a crown. (made by him of course). Michael's has many inexpensive crafts that could be used. http://www.michaels.com/art/online/displayproductlist?categoryid=75520&pageNumber=1eNumber=1


The possibilities with dress up are endless.











If your child is old enough to work on a craft independently then maybe make the Thursday container a craft day. Include any age appropriate crafts for your child. I would set my child at a small child's table away from my other children as to not interrupt them.








Friday, now we have one more day to fill. This day could be so many different things. Maybe a puzzle day. Fill with many different puzzles, include a challenge such as a Rubik's cube. Allow them to make their own puzzle. This website tells you how to make your own photo puzzle, but you could have the child color something and make that into a puzzle as well.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5864855_make-large-piece-photo-puzzle.html


Friday could also be a day to draw pictures for grandma, grandpa, etc... give the child plenty of materials to create art work that you later send to friends and family.


OR, Friday could be a day for videos. There are many videos available to teach young children Sign Language, or a foreign language. Check with your local library to see if they have DVDs that can be rented. Another idea for Friday could be a music day. Include some musical instruments.
Have no fear about spending money to buy some, there are many you can make at home. Here is a great site telling you how. http://www.familycorner.com/family/kids/crafts/9_musical_instruments.shtml


You could also include some music to learn by on this day, many titles are found on the following site. http://freekidsmusic.com/
A good Classical music for children site is http://www.classicsforkids.com/

There are several other things you could do with these daily containers. These are just a few ideas. Let your imagination get away from you. Your little one will be delighted to have something new and different to play with and this will allow you the time needed to help your older children.


This idea can be adapted for even younger children as well. If you have a very young child, as I do, then you can simply divide different toys into separate labeled containers. Everyday will be a new and exciting day of new toys. This will help entertain even the youngest of sibling while you are busy with the older children.

If you have more ideas please feel free to share!

Why Home School?

Many people want to know why I have chosen to homeschool my children. Well, there is no ONE answer. More a collection of many reasons. While there are many wonderful schools, both private and public, as well as many wonderful teachers, I have come to realize that my children do not fit into the conventional "mold". Homeschooling has given my children the opportunity to learn "outside the box". While we strive to teach our children morals and values in an immortal world it becomes more difficult upon a daily basis. Homeschooling has given us the freedom to further explore interests and have a deeper learning on many subjects. We do not have bells that signal the end of one subject and the beginning of another. Once we have come to understand and are able to master a lesson then we are able to move on at our own pace, as slowly or quickly as necessary. I can not imagine sending my children to a place for them to learn from strangers where I have no idea where their values or priorities may fall. Nor can I imagine being denied the opportunity to learn daily from my children.
So when does our "school day" begin and when does it end? My children are given the gift of curiosity and are taught to continue to learn through out the day. From asking questions, to learning a new skill, or maybe by reading a book, and many times from not knowing what something means or how to spell it and looking it up in the dictionary. I can not remember how many times we have asked one another a question and had to go to the world wide web to look it up and research it to find the answer. Some people wonder things and leave it at that, we wonder and find out daily. So again I ask, when does our school day begin and when does it end? Well, I hope to learn new things until I take my last breathe. My goal is to have my children also have that unquenchable thirst for knowledge as well.

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List

The Bitter Homeschooler's Wish List By Deborah Markus, from Secular Homeschooling, Issue 1, Fall 2007.
1. Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?
2. Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.
3. Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class, 4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever gets to socialize.
4. Don't assume that every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.
5. If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV, either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.
6. Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We all hate you, so please go away.
7. We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.
8. Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.
9. Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for religious reasons.
10. We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.
11. Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.
12. If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond in kind.
13. Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in "homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and holidays when it's crowded and icky.
14. Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we don't have to gear our lessons to the lowest common denominator.
15. Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them. I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.
16. Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get some sleep now and then.
17. Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified. One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.
18. If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class, you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we couldn't possibly do a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.
19. Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid around academically and bossing him around the way I do about everything else.
20. Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.
21. Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because she's homeschooled.
22. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I homeschool my kids.
23. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I homeschool my kids.
24. Stop talking about all the great childhood memories my kids won't get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because you went to school.
25. Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about homeschooling, shut up!