Home School Struggles
It is now ten days since my two boys have not been able to attend high school due to immigration issues. So we have been home schooling them in that period So far there has been significant struggle in home schooling my kids but they has been some wins.
The biggest struggle we are facing is getting the kids to focus and do what we have assigned for them to do. We live in extended family with my parents and brother all living in same property so there will be always jobs that they are doing in which my sons want to be involved in. As being human we love having our children around especially at this stage when the mainly listen to what we say. So they end up doing other activities e.g doing volunteer work to strip computers, assist with church newsletters, move furniture of friends, clean up garden of friends. Create a Fijian underground oven for my oldest son's birthday. But I suppose all those activities could be counted as learning activities.
The best way so far to get my kids to concentrate is to actually take them to the library in which they end up reading. The library services here are great and besides Khan Academy my kids have access to intrepica which help them in english, student edition of Britannica Online which is a much better resource for them to research topics instead of wiki. The problem with wiki is that it is written for reading levels usually greater then year seven and nine.
Some of wins have been transplanting tomatoes and planing another three trays of vegetables in garden beside daily weeding and watering activities. Learned how to play Aussie Rules and my son will be playing ruck this weekend. Even though he has never watched a live Aussie Rules game in his life. They have also learning how to play piano and starting with local football song. The have also drawn maps of travel routes to some of the main places we go to here.
I have been constantly told that for home school we need to develop a routine and currently it seems to be just in time learning experiences. That is probably what is causing the biggest issue in them studying as they are not focusing on lessons that we have planned.
The elephant in the room though is that if we are to home school our kids effectively, we the teachers need to prepare properly and that has been a struggle for me.
The biggest struggle we are facing is getting the kids to focus and do what we have assigned for them to do. We live in extended family with my parents and brother all living in same property so there will be always jobs that they are doing in which my sons want to be involved in. As being human we love having our children around especially at this stage when the mainly listen to what we say. So they end up doing other activities e.g doing volunteer work to strip computers, assist with church newsletters, move furniture of friends, clean up garden of friends. Create a Fijian underground oven for my oldest son's birthday. But I suppose all those activities could be counted as learning activities.
The best way so far to get my kids to concentrate is to actually take them to the library in which they end up reading. The library services here are great and besides Khan Academy my kids have access to intrepica which help them in english, student edition of Britannica Online which is a much better resource for them to research topics instead of wiki. The problem with wiki is that it is written for reading levels usually greater then year seven and nine.
Some of wins have been transplanting tomatoes and planing another three trays of vegetables in garden beside daily weeding and watering activities. Learned how to play Aussie Rules and my son will be playing ruck this weekend. Even though he has never watched a live Aussie Rules game in his life. They have also learning how to play piano and starting with local football song. The have also drawn maps of travel routes to some of the main places we go to here.
I have been constantly told that for home school we need to develop a routine and currently it seems to be just in time learning experiences. That is probably what is causing the biggest issue in them studying as they are not focusing on lessons that we have planned.
The elephant in the room though is that if we are to home school our kids effectively, we the teachers need to prepare properly and that has been a struggle for me.
posted by George at 9:06 am
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