Friday, January 18, 2013

How to get "Outside my Box" !!

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I am admitting that I can't seem to "be" creative !! I'd love to be more of an exciting teacher but I am somehow still stuck in this annoying "pencil in hand an sitting on the chair" method of doing school and right now it's very frustrating!! and so I'm once again brainstorming of how to make teaching more exciting and less school'ish and still be satisfied with myself at the end of the day that, yes we've learned and accomplished something!! Writing this comes over as very stupid to myself because I love Arts/ Crafts, being creative etc. and I do tons of stuff for myself but when it comes to educational creativity for my boys my brain somehow freezes.. I'm thinking maybe I should go cold turkey and ban all books for a week except maybe handwriting and learn to have fun with my boys, educational fun, well understood.. I feel as if something has to unlock in my brain for me to be able to loosen up and I'm still waiting for that event to take place. I can't possibly be the only one having had that issue.. anyone? 


Just a thought on a friday night.. 

Myriam

4 comments:

  1. I feel like it is so easy to be overwhelmed with homeschooling. This is our first year really "doing school." Although, it changes daily what it actually looks like. My kids are still quite small, 4 and 2, so I am trying to stay mainly with an interest led approach. Oh, I still have a curriculum, we use Sonlight which is a literature based curriculum because my kids love listening to stories. But, I try to seek out what is interesting to them. I want them to have a love of learning, and want them to seek out information to help themselves.

    As far as crafty stuff goes, I realized early on that my kids don't want to hear my perfectly laid out plan for a craft, they want to get messy, they want to experiment and do it themselves. I find that they have more fun, are occupied longer, and enjoy the experience more if I just put out some supplies and say, have at it! I don't put everything out at once, but I do let them create how they want. As long as they aren't repainting the walls, I am happy :-)

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    1. Hi Heather *again, smile* first of all congratulations on the decision to homeschool your kids! I love teaching them, doing research, prepare the lessons etc. my kids are my career and so my time is well invested :-) I was okay with my first one and having my second boy in grade K now I found out that he's very challenging to teach, i.e. anything I'd do with him just is boring .. even cutting glueing, etc. It's a challenge to find the best way to meet him halfway and keep studying exciting but a challenge I know is absolutely worth it :-)

      thank you for stopping by

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  2. We have a serious case of 'post-holiday humdrum' ourselves. I spent more the week looking for better options. Math has been the worst. I can get creative with a lot of it, but right now we are working on memorizing addition facts and there's not much more to be done with that. I did pick up some window markers I was going to let the boys have free reign of the sliding door writing their own math practice (well, tris will be, trace will just be scribbling). Today I am exhausted and about an hour ago I called a halt to the day's plans and got out some scrap paper/foam, glitter glue, kids sissors and paint brushes and let them have free reign. Not so much a lesson, just art time lol.... and some very sparkly boys.

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  3. Hi Calyn, good for you, I'm sure the craft activity took the tension off your day.. I did feel that lack of enthusiasm after our winter break!! But well, here we are and from the time I wrote the post to now I do feel more confident again "thank God" !! haha.. I'm reading Catherine Levison's Book at the time called a Charlotte Mason Education and it is a great reminder how easy teaching can be for the kids to still learn so much

    Good luck to you as well, and thank you for stopping by!

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