Introducing, My Homeschoolers

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These are my homeschoolers. That’s S, on the left, C in the middle, and M on the right. S and C are five-years-old and are just starting a structured homeschool year. M is 2 and will be 3 soon. I make sure to keep worksheets and projects around for her, too. Wouldn’t want her to feel left out.

There is one huge advantage to having twins that has remained true for their entire lives thus far: They entertain each other. These days, that has allowed me some time to get my planner together, accumulate some worksheets, and do some research. But on the flip side of that is a problem.

They distract each other and rely on each other. When we’re doing lessons that involve me explaining anything for more than a minute, they find something funny in what I said and it can be hard to get them back on track. I’m sure other moms remember from their own childhood, how sleepovers got out of hand when it was time to go to sleep. If you have a friend laughing with you, it’s hard to stop. Then, if there’s a math problem or reading, S will wait for C to get the answer, and then jump on board with her, even when C is wrong, instead of working it out for herself. In that sense, it’s just like public school, except she’s not getting away with it for an entire school term and failing to learn anything for herself.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my kids asked why they’re not going to school. I explained (in so many words) that public schools often have 15, 20, maybe even 30 kids in a classroom with one teacher and that teacher has to keep up with all of those kids. The teacher’s job is to make sure that all of the kids understand each concept, and they’re limited to about 7 hours per day, and 4 or 5 days per week, so other kids are often working at the pace of those who are slower to grasp a lesson. And while I don’t expect to never have days or weeks or months when one of my kids is considerably behind another in a subject (even though they’re the same age), I do believe having only a few kids to look after, and having much more time available to me, allows me to make time to teach each one on her own level.

Yesterday, at Ikea, two different women directed this question at one of my five-year-olds, “are you in kindergarten?” The first time, the woman got a baffled look and a nervous smile, and I had to explain, “they’re homeschooled, and we just started, so they haven’t really figured out that not ‘GOING to school’ is still school.” The second time, my daughter proudly announced, “I’m homeschooled!” 

This post linked to iHomeschool's  *Not* back to homeschool blog hop