Reply to Any advice on how to homeschool an independent, resistant learner?

Forum Index » Homeschooling

Reply to "Any advice on how to homeschool an independent, resistant learner?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I homeschool my three kids, and one of them, my ten year old son, sounds a lot like your daughter.  He is bright and a quick learner.  He's curious and enthusiastic about a lot of things.  But he also has a strong preference for being self directed, and if I don't structure things clearly, he while whine, or dawdle, or turn in half hearted efforts that don't respect his best work.  Because of this, our homeschool runs best when it is highly structured.  Here's how we do it.

First of all, I thought about my kid and what his "currency" is.  That is, what things motivate him to work hard.  For my kid that list is easy: He is motivated to win, so activities that are competitive work well; he is motivated by having choice and control; and he is motivated by video games.  He's also motivated by sugar, but I'm not willing to set up a system of food reinforcers.

Then we set up the following structure:

In our house, on Monday through Saturday until the dishes have been cleared from the table after dinner, and on Sunday until the dishes have been cleared from lunch, it's considered "school time".  During "school" you can only do educational things, which we define very broadly.  There is a list on the fridge of "school activities" which has things like

Read (a book, comic, magazine, etc. . . )
Make art
Build something (legos, woodworking, and cardboard boxes are his favorites here) 
Cook something
Make lego robots
Take an online Taekwondo class 
Facetime a relative
Go outside (they can do anything outside, other than bringing their iPad outside to play video games)
Attend a religious service
Watch a science or social studies documentary from an approved list
Use certain iPad apps that teach coding, math (for my 10 year old, Beast Academy is his favorite), or science (he likes something called Uzzinggo) or board games (one of his siblings likes online chess, and Go puzzles) 
Play a musical instrument, including watching instructional youtube videos

etc . . . It's a long list, and my kids are frequently coming to me and asking that things be added to the list and the answer is almost always yes.

The "not school" list is basically TV and video games, but of course they can do "school" things when it is "not school".

Then, I watch what they do spontaneously.  I have an idea in my head of what I want them to accomplish in a week or month or school year, and I sort of track how that compares to what they are choosing to do.  So, for example, I want my kids to read at least 30 minutes a day.  One of my kids reads way more than that on his own, two don't.  I want my kids to learn to cook.  My 10 year old loves to cook and chooses it a lot, but my oldest doesn't.

Once I see what they are doing, I make a list of tasks for each day.  I try and keep the list short, and to make sure that I give a very clear picture of what "done" means.  So, I don't write "clean your room", I write "wipe down surfaces and baseboards, run the vacuum, empty trashcans and take the bag to the curb".  If possible, I'll give two choices on how to meet a goal, so it might say "do the next two pages in your math book OR play fraction war with mom for half an hour".

I generally aim to have my 10 year old's list have about 3 - 4 hours of work.  His list includes things that are academic, but also chores.  So, for example, on today's list it says that he needs to make lunch for the family.  On tomorrow's list it has him washing his clothes.  Take a shower, and brush your teeth are on the list every day.

On Sunday evening, my kids and I sit and look at the lists for the whole week.

The each day the kids need to finish their list.  "Not school" time doesn't start until the dishes are cleared, and the day's list is done.

This works really well for my kid who sounds like yours.  He has gone from whining about every assignment, to working efficiently so he can get back to making his own choices.  Because he's motivated by control, he'll also do things like spontaneously picking science activities, so that I leave science off his list. Because he's motivated by winning, he'll try and race his siblings, e.g. by doing things before they're due.  They can move almost anything up (e.g. do all 5 math packets on Monday and then have a math free week), but they can't, for example, take 7 showers on Monday and have a shower free week.

So far, it's working. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics