New member saying hello!

[janda]

Just stopping by to say :wave: !

I recently joined this board and am looking forward to learning more about homeschooling in SC. We moved here from CT about a year ago, but the time has flown and I feel like I'm just now getting more with it. We use Calvert, but I'm finding my son is not as excited about it as I'd hoped. Although it can be adjusted to fit him better, I am always interested in knowing our options. One of my biggest challenges is having school time with my son while my 14-month little girl is up and running. I try to do most of our "school stuff" while she's napping, but those naps are getting shorter and shorter! I hope to have more children and am wondering how do other moms fit everything in with multiple young children?????

[SChomemomof3]

That is the hard part. Unless you can get her to watch tv or color or something like that. I have had that problem in the past too. Now all 3 of mine are schooling.

[Dianna]

Just stopping by to say :wave: !

I recently joined this board and am looking forward to learning more about homeschooling in SC. We moved here from CT about a year ago, but the time has flown and I feel like I'm just now getting more with it. We use Calvert, but I'm finding my son is not as excited about it as I'd hoped. Although it can be adjusted to fit him better, I am always interested in knowing our options. One of my biggest challenges is having school time with my son while my 14-month little girl is up and running. I try to do most of our "school stuff" while she's napping, but those naps are getting shorter and shorter! I hope to have more children and am wondering how do other moms fit everything in with multiple young children?????

Janda, how old is your son? I'd be able to give better advice if I knew his age/grade level.

Dianna

[janda]

Janda, how old is your son? I'd be able to give better advice if I knew his age/grade level.

Dianna

He's young (4, mostly pre-K level), so we don't need a lot of time now...a good hour works fine. I guess I'm really just nervous about the future...balancing his school needs with having little ones around. I know it can be done, but I"m just struggling with the logistics of schooling while entertaining my toodler and, as our family grows, eventually caring for an infant. I guess (as my mom would say :smile2: ) "it all comes out in the wash," but I'm interested in knowing how those who have been there have handled it.

I would appreciate your input!

[janda]

That is the hard part. Unless you can get her to watch tv or color or something like that. I have had that problem in the past too. Now all 3 of mine are schooling.

Thanks for the ideas! I was wondering ... did you find that the younger kids wanted to "do school" because they saw the older one doing it?

[Dianna]

He's young (4, mostly pre-K level), so we don't need a lot of time now...a good hour works fine. I guess I'm really just nervous about the future...balancing his school needs with having little ones around. I know it can be done, but I"m just struggling with the logistics of schooling while entertaining my toodler and, as our family grows, eventually caring for an infant. I guess (as my mom would say :smile2: ) "it all comes out in the wash," but I'm interested in knowing how those who have been there have handled it.

I would appreciate your input!

Janda, regarding your son's unease with Calvert - 4 years old is very young for a structured program. With my children, I always waited until at least 1st grade before starting anything structured, and even then it was very light structure or none at all until they were older (each child was a little different). The only structured things I usually do in elementary and middle school is math and language arts. Everything else (science, history, social studies, etc) is very unstructured - field trips, children's literature, magazines, experiments, educational television, videos from the library, good discussions, etc). Do you think your son would just enjoy playing at this age, and you reading good books to him? There are even books about math that you can read to him (M & M counting books - and others - where he can learn basic math skills and have a treat at the same time!).

About homeschooling with younger children - as homeschoolers, our time is flexible, so we can do any structured learning during younger children's nap times, or when they're quieter during the day (or even at night after they've gone to bed for the night). Younger children tend to also want to imitate older siblings and want to "do school", too. Take advantage of that by getting coloring books and creative play stuff and having them on hand for "school time" if your younger child wants to do school. They'll hopefully become engrossed in that and leave you and your older children some time to do any structured learning. Your younger children may enjoy sitting in on unstructured learning activities - you can read aloud a good science-related book for science to your older and younger children at the same time. :smile2:

I hope this helps!

Dianna

[BeckyB]

Hi Janda!

Regarding what to do with toddlers while homeschooling siblings, I found this info at Paula's Archives helpful when my youngest was 2 and I was trying to homeschool the 6 year old. She has lots of great ideas!

http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/preschool_activities.htm

Becky B :wave:

[Jenlaana]

I'm super new to homeschooling, and having a similar issue. My son is 11 and ending 5th grade and I just pulled him out of school about 6 weeks ago. Every time I try to help him my baby needs me (she's 6 mos but doesn't nap well without me near) Its frustrating. I decided to just let go of structure for a little while, and get things 'in gear' next year since we're so close to the end already. I hope thats an appropriate way to go. The only structured "classes" that I'm hoping to have are math and english, with the rest research and curiosity led (my son is really into science and social studies even without my guidance). My fingers are crossed that I can find some sort of self study for them though so that I don't have to "teach" it all myself. (I'm not that great in math either) I ordered a demo of Switched On Schoolhouse (I think thats the right name) but am combing past posts for other ideas.