I wish I'd have known this starting out. I wish I'd have known that it's actually LESS work to just homeschool your child, than to be an "involved parent" at school.
We've enjoyed elementary school with our older boys. *Most* of the teachers were actually pretty competent and caring (the others, I save for another blog post, another day...). We had the children involved in extra activities like the Spanish Club or Service Club, or choir, and they got a fair bit out of the experience.
But it's a LOT of work.
You get about a ton of worksheets that must be done by a certain time. Usually on a day when you're sick or have no time. You get the phone calls about this or that, and about a zillion sheets per day that sometimes contain important news, so you MUST go through them daily. The schools also *love* to throw in half days, teacher in-service days and early dismissals. Not so bad, unless you have children at more than one school and the schedu…
Woodjie has a schedule on the pole in our family room. It's attached with sticky velcro. Usually I will put only one or two things on the schedule and tell Woodjie "ball time" and stick the icon back on the pole before beginning. His speech therapist also has little schedule icons for things like playing bubbles and reading books. I use sticky velcro on the sides of the pole to hold all the icons we're not using.
Awesome! Samuel has had a visual schedule for a few years now. I have a binder with pages and pages of "icons"! I have pictures of it posted on my blog somewhere. How does Woodjie like his schedule? Using one for Samuel has made getting through our day so much easier!
ReplyDeleteI think I need one of those schedule poles! Maybe then I could keep on task?
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