On Independence & Seeing The Positive

At some stage during their school years children need to move into independent learning mode and it is our role as their guide to assist them in achieving this.

Each child will be different in regards to their ages and stages of independence. But to ensure our children lead successful lives they must be able to work and live independently.

For today I'm going to focus on independent learning and how I am fostering that in my youngest child who is turning eight shortly.

I've used a relatively simple approach with all three of my children. I always ensure they know and understand exactly what is expected of them. This has taken approximately 12 months of sitting side by side with my seven year old holding his hand so to speak and working directly with him. During this time the older two are off doing their independent work.

Once I felt he had some level of confidence I began to distance myself. In the very early stages it is as simple as 'here's  your math practice, please make a start while I visit the bathroom and I'll be right back'. I got very good at finding lots of little reasons to leave the room more and more frequently.

Each time I come back I assess how he is and he has coped with what he was required to do. Thankfully he is a relatively calm child when it comes to structured work. This process took a great deal longer with my daughter, but my eldest had a similar experience to my youngest. Maturity, self motivation, learning styles and other factors can and will come into play for each child.

As his reading improves so will his level of work independence. Moving things in this direction as a slow, gentle pace has meant we've had no tears or frustration whatsoever and he is well on his way to becoming an independent learner.

Homeschool Tip #9

Gently move your children to independent learning.

Being around our children all day every day is such an amazing blessing. We truly get to experience so many wonderful things that parents of public school children miss out on simply due to time.

However with the all the wonderful there is also of course a bunch of not so wonderful. One of those being, we see every single little infraction from each of our children.

This can easily become something that wears the home schooling parent down because they are always feeling as though they need to correct all of these infractions. With so much correcting to do you may begin to feel as though there isn't much positive to see.

Parenting is hard work, parenting and homeschooling with kids that push the boundaries and exert their personalities every moment of every day is trying for even the best of us.

I urge you though to see past the minor infractions and the feelings of constant correction and remind you of a wonderful saying ~ Don't sweat the small stuff ~ but choose to see all of the wonderful positivity that your delightful home schooled children bring to your lives.

Homeschool Tip #10

Choose to see the positive. Look past the minor infractions and don't allow them to bog you down.

More Tips For Homeschool Parents

Each day this week I am sharing links right here to the other bloggers that are joining in with the Tips For Homeschool Parents blog hop.

The blogs I link to will also be different each day so you will find heaps of variety and you never know, you may just find your new favourite blog!

Melissa @ Grace Christian School  ~ Michele @ Family, Faith and Fridays  ~ Missica @ Through the Open Window  ~ Monique @ Mountain of Grace Homeschooling  ~ Rebekah @ There Will Be A $5 Charge For Whining  ~ Renita @ Krazy Kuehner Days  ~ Sarah @ Renaissance Mama  ~ Sasha @ Such a Time as This  ~ Tawnee @ Adventures in Homeschooling  ~ Tiffany @ The Crafty Home  ~ Tina @ Desperate Homeschoolers




Happy Homeschooling Friends,
Kylie

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Five On A Friday #4

Here we are, Friday has rolled around again! Wow this has been a busy week, I'm so thankful that we are on school holidays.

In The Home

Over the past year I've been working my way through ten years of toys, games, puzzles, books and home education resources. Now that my youngest is turning eight it is time for many things to go.

Once I actually started I truly had no idea just how much stuff we had. My garage is over flowing. So we are having our first homeschool resource garage sale next week. I've invited all of my local homeschoolers along to grab a bargain or two.

We've been busy sorting and pricing everything, with still a great deal more work to do yet.

In School

Technically we are on school holidays, so apart from any review items that I currently have we are taking things easy around here. Just relaxing, catching up with family and friends. Doing pretty much as we please.

Out and About

Over the Easter long weekend we attended a kids fun Easter afternoon at my in laws new retirement village. So lovely of them to put that on for all the children of the local residents.

We enjoyed a very long brunch with my family on Easter Sunday and on Monday we spent the afternoon with our very dear friends wandering around JC Slaughter Falls park area and admiring the views from the Mt Cootha Lookout.

On The Net

I've been admiring all the hard work being done over at Frangipani Bloomfields and in particular the FREE downloads available for National Curriculum Checklists.

On My Blog

This has been a huge week for me in regards to blogging. I think I 've written and posted more than I ever have.

I am participating in the Homeschool Review Crew blog hop - Tips For Homeschool Parents. You can access all my posts here in the introductory post. There are also hundreds of other tips being posted by other bloggers, be sure to check the links out for those.

I posted a mammoth review of a truly fabulous language arts product called Logic of English.

On our family adventure blog I posted about our recent visit to Bestbrook Mountain Resort and shared one from our travel diary on the Royal Australian Mint. 

Thankfully it is school holidays otherwise I never could've done all of that, it was huge!

How was your week? I'd love to hear about it.

Happy Homeschooling Friends,
Kylie

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Visit Our Worldwide Classroom's profile on Pinterest.  

On Fresh Air & Journals

Welcome back to day four of Tips For Homeschooling Parents. Did you have a read through some of the tips from the other bloggers yesterday? You can find their links at the end of this post.

I hope you will continue to join us every day this week for more great Tips For Homeschooling Parents.

Fresh air, we all know and understand that our bodies and minds simply can't function without lots and lots of fresh air.

Generally, this is never an issue when our children are young. Their minds and bodies crave and beg for the outdoors, if they aren't outside playing, they are often at the park with siblings or other homeschooling friends.

As our children age, their book work increases and generally the amount of technology they have access to also tends to increase, heading outdoors often becomes much less of a priority to them.

However, I feel that being outdoors during these tween/teen years is crucially important for both our kids physical and mental health.

In fact a recent survey showed quite alarming results in regards to how much time our kids actually spend outdoors!

We must not allow ourselves to become part of the ever growing 'nation of the great indoors'.

Homeschool Tip #7

Make it a priority, in each and every day, to spend as much time outside as you possibly can. Take the books out with a blanket and enjoy reading in the sunshine.

If you're anything like me, record keeping is just another one of those pesky chores that you'd ditch if you really could.

Throughout the years I've always jotted down the things the kids needed to get through in a day, but we don't have a calendar of must do's laid out for us for the remainder of the year.

Exactly how I have done this has varied from a few notes on a single sheet of paper that is discarded at the end of the day, to a typed up weekly spreadsheet that we printed on a Monday and checked off the tasks as they were completed.

All of these methods have been quite fickle, simple yes and simple is what I need and although they served a purpose at the time there was no long term value in them. I needed a way to not only set out the required tasks for the day but a way to keep records on that, without double handling.

Some time ago I saw a post mentioning the use of spiral notebooks but my first thought was of lost notebooks, never to be seen again and therefore needing to be continually purchased new. Which again puts us back at square one with the fickle system.

That is, until I saw a standard A4 lined notebook, simply bound with staples but that is also hole punched and can fit neatly and securely inside the kids ring binder folders which we use to hold their daily and weekly work.

Perfect! I bought a pile of them.

These notebooks, without a doubt have been one of the best organisational tools that I've added into our homeschool in a very long time.

The secret to these though is to ensure you are using the K.I.S.S system with them. Don't make things any harder or more involved than what it needs to be.

I simply date the page, list what needs to be done and we tick things off as they are completed. I also aim to record other things that we do, excursions, co-op days and the classes covered, household chores, all right there on the same page.

This makes for a simple record of structured learning, free range times and out and about activities and excursions.

I love that I can easily look back and find what we were doing on any given day or week. If wanted or needed I can also easily add in our outcome codes for certain activities right there on the page.

Homeschool Tip #8

Introduce daily work journals to set tasks and keep records all at the same time.

More Tips For Homeschool Parents

Each day this week I am sharing links right here to the other bloggers that are joining in with the Tips For Homeschool Parents blog hop.

The blogs I link to will also be different each day so you will find heaps of variety and you never know, you may just find your new favourite blog!


Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break  ~ Latonya @ Joy in the Ordinary  ~ Laura @ Day by Day in Our World  ~ Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road  ~ Lisa @ Farm Fresh Adventures  ~ Lori @ At Home: where life happens  ~ Meg @ Adventures with Jude  ~ Megan @ My Full Heart  ~ Melanie (Wren) @ finchnwren  ~ Melissa @ Mom's Plans




Happy Homeschooling Friends,
Kylie

Come on over and join me at

Facebook ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Google + 


Have you looked at my Pinterest Boards lately?


Visit Our Worldwide Classroom's profile on Pinterest.