I hope your summer is going well so far! Summer is the perfect time to get ready for the next school year, so we are starting a series called Getting Ready for School 2015 in which we will run some oldies (the tried and true tips from thirty-plus years of homeschooling) as well as some fresh, new advice to make this school year great!
Donna Reish, from Character Ink publishing and Raising Kids With Character, answers parents’ questions about children and chores. Donna introduces some foundational diligence training tips that have helped her in her home management for over twenty-five years. She then introduces toddlers and preschoolers habits and chores and then branches out chore sessions, dividing up chores, paying for chores, and much more!
Twenty-five years ago when I was a young mother, housewife, and homeschooler, I had trouble getting all of my work done every day–while teaching a young son to read, keeping a curious preschooler out of everything, taking care of a toddler, nursing a baby, etc. Truly the statement “the days are long but the years are short” was never more real to me.
I had problems that many people who are “self employed” have–plus the added “benefits” of having a lot of littles around making messes and needing seemingly-constant attention. (I really do think they are benefits–but when a man is self-employed, he usually doesn’t have to take care of a home, feed a crew, and provide constant care and supervision to little kids! He just, well, works!)
I have a question about reading to my young kids! I have a 4, 2, and 1 year old. The 1 year old hardly sits still to be read to, but my question is specifically about the 2 year old. He is always asking me to stop reading as he has questions about everything on the page, or wants to ‘count’ something, or he is flipping back through pages wanting to talk about what we just talked about. Again. What do I do? Let him be in charge of how we go through the book and what we talk about – possibly never finishing the book? Or ask him to wait until the end of each set of pages and then not let him turn them back? OR tell him to be quiet the whole time?! Any feedback and suggestions are welcomed
I treated story time much like I treated unit studies (or “subject reading” as Joshua used to call it when he was five!). Here are some basics for that first:
Today I would like to leave you some tips for Independent Work Lists–especially for older students (junior high through high school). These will be in no true order–just some things that I want to re-emphasize from the younger ages as well as things that pertain only to olders.
So here we go:
1. Consider the document or chart that works best for your age child now. Most kids in junior high and high school no longer want cutsie charts. Once you decide you want a genuine paper document, (more…)
