Welcome to Day 1 of the 5 Days Back to Homeschool Blog Hop.
Today we are discussing one of the beautiful things about homeschooling!
Tailoring our teaching approach to meet our childrens learning needs is definitely a perk in our homeschool journey.
The Lord has blessed me with 6 children to educate and I must utilize my time wisely. I have found that teaching as a group for as many subjects as possible has worked magnificent for our family. I will discuss more on this topic tomorrow.
The children all do table work in the morning except for bible and character study. I work with the individuals and help the older ones when needed with the core subjects during this time.
In the afternoon, I utilize a topical approach rotating usually every 3 weeks between History, Science, and Geography. We usually read books on the specific topic while creating a lapbook or notebook pages to go with our study. My high schoolers usually are studying the same topic, but it greater depths.
Using a topical approach is the only way I can cover all the subjects thoroughly, rather than trying to juggle all 3 subjects per week. This keeps me sane.
If I had to pinpoint the more familiar homeschool approaches, I would say we utilize the Charlotte Mason approach with some principle approach thrown in there, too.
I look forward to sharing why we choose our homeschool curriculum choices for the 2012-2013 school year.
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My children, 5th and 7th grades, have been struggling with math since last year. We’ve had to go back to the basics because they didn’t have a good understanding of how to complete multiplication and division problems accurately. I can’t afford to buy curriculum so I’ve pulled everything we’ve done from free videos like mastermath.com and kahnacademy.com and worksheets from all over the place. They both have math anxiety. Do you have any suggestions for how I can help them overcome the anxiety and where we should go from here. I have followed the state standards as a guideline just to have something to teach them but it seems like a waste of time. I want them to know things that they can use. Your insight would be very much appreciated.
My suggestion is to get the grade level thing out of your mind. I can’t stress this enough. And I know how hard it is to do so!
Have your tried reading math books from the library? This has helped with my children. Stuart Murphy books are really good. Also, try playing lots of math games. Search on line.
Manipulatives have really helped, too!
Right now, we have had to stop and just spend time memorizing facts.
HTH! Please feel free to ask more questions.
Yes, I have been a little hung on the grade thing. This was our 2nd year homeschooling and our first year schooling through the summer. That has definitely helped blur the lines for me.
I’ll have to check on Stuart Murphy books. I haven’t heard of him. I just checked out 2 books with math riddles and my son seems interested in them. What are manipulatives? I’ve seen that word around the homeschool community but I’m clueless. We are doing multiplication flashcards. I think this will help both of them, too.
Thank you for your reply. It eases my mind to hear successful moms tell me to chill out lol
I am so glad to help, Cindy. And I wouldn’t say I am
a successful homeschool mom! LOL!
Manipulatives can be anything from beans to anything that can represent a numbers to count with. We use links, beans, and many other forms. I usually buy things at the dollar store like cute erasers.
Hope I am making sense. If not, please let me know.
Oh, ok. Yeah, I see what you mean. Thanks again!
I like how you responded to Cindy by saying, “My suggestion is to get the grade level thing out of your mind.” I sometimes wish the homeschool books didn’t put an actual grade level (numbers) right on the cover of the books and instead used the alphabet. My kids don’t want any books that show a different grade level than what grade they are in. Some of the lower grade level books are better for explaining and the pictures are usually more cheerful and exciting to look at. 🙂 I look forward to reading the rest of your 5 days of back to homeschool blogging.