Hello everyone! I'm new to homeschooling this year. My son is 9 and in the 4th grade. There are tons of reasons why I chose to home school this year and it started off great. Now it seems we are always yelling at eachother. My son is the baby and I guess somewhat spoiled when it comes to certain things. But I've never had any problems with his behavior and he doesn't even say things like OMG. (We don't allow it) But I don't feel like I'm doing a good job and am afraid he's not going to reach his potential. That and he's having a hard time grasping division. I've even offered to hold our class time in the evenings, since he seems to like that idea better. Any suggestions on how to get him interested again? Oh yeah, my son suffers from extreme allergies. So any activities associated with dirt,plants,tress,grass,animalsor prolonged exposure to wind are out. No wonder the kid is miserable huh? Thanks for any advice -Matt's Mom
What math curriculum are you using? We use Math-U-See. Before division, MUS makes sure the child has mastered multiplication first. If they have mastered multiplication, then division is an easy transition: same facts, just different application, or the reverse of multiplication. So sorry about the allergies. My dd10 has angio edema and can react to something--or nothing--and swell in the throat. She has not had a severe reaction in several years. I hope your son grows out of a lot of his allergies as well! Glad that you can homeschool and prevent some of that for him.
Welcome. Glad you joined us. Allergies are so awful. My oldest had tons of allergies when he was small. He finally outgrew most of his. We love Teaching Textbooks here. This is our first year using that program and we started our youngest in the sixth grade book. So far it beats anything we have tried. She normally does not like math but she seems to like TT to my great relief!
If you find you are always yelling at each other, maybe he's getting to that age where he'd like a little independence. If that's the case, it might help to give him a little more control over the lessons and schedule. Maybe you could give him a list of the things he needs to do for the week and have him put them into a daily schedule. One thing I did with my 4th grader when she was learning long division was to write the steps down and tacked them to the wall above her desk. I actually wrote the steps as symbols: division symbol, multiplication symbol, subtraction symbol, arrow pointing down. It really helped her. Here are some videos that may help with long division: http://www.neok12.com/php/watch.php?v=zX71711b7f42705f61424002&t=Division http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHTH6PKfpMc&feature=youtube_gdata http://www.neok12.com and http://khanacademy.org are great, free video tutorial websites. Hope that helps!
Thanks for ur ideas and support! I feel a little better knowing I can ask some "Veteran" homeschooling moms. As for curriculum, we're using the C.O.R.E program. At least, that's the program that's offered in our area for his age/grade. I would have liked to do something that was more of a christian based program, but I didn't even know where to start looking for that. I was lucky to get him into the program I did. As for his allergies, it was strange how one day last Dec. he woke up with a swollen face and it was all down hill from there. These days he's on 2different allergy meds plus 2 different types of inhalers for "allergy induced" asthma. And if he has a flare up that's 2 more medicines that day. He unfortunatly wasn't able to tolerate the allergy shots. I hope that one day he will out grow them. Thanks again for everyones advice.
Hello and welcome! Jump right in and start a thread about the math! I'm sure you'll get a lot of great ideas. One thing about homeschooling, once you've committed to it, you can do whatever works! So don't be afraid to try a few things and find what works best for you and your son! If you start a thread, I'm sure you'll get tons of ideas!
About allergies...it took us a while to figure out what was causing dd's allergic reactions. Have you kept of log of food and other exposure? I'm assuming since you said you tried shots that you are aware of some of you ds's triggers. We ended up finding out that our home had tons of mold/mildew in the old siding. Once we replaced that and gutted the bathroom, she was virtually reaction free. We were able to deduct thte cost of the remodel on our taxes since the doctor had recommended it as a medical necessity. If you want to send me a private message, I'd be happy to talk to you about this some more. Our dd was on that many medicines as well, and now she only takes benadryl when she has a reaction, which are never the swollen lips/throat like they used to be.
Have you looked at accupuncture and/or accupressure (combined with kinesiology) for the allergies. One school of thought is that allergies occur when the immune system has mistaken an innocuous thing as dangerous. And, to reduce this reaction, they combine safe exposure to the substance with good reinforcement to the nervous system. It helped me a lot, so it might be worth looking in to. It's also drug-free. I'm in Australia, but I'm sure we're not the only country with this treatment. Your boy's too young to be destined to live like that.
Have you done any "de-schooling"? Often when the kids come back for the first time, they kind of need to be "de-programmed" to get out of that "school-mode". I didn't have to do this, as my kids have never attended any school but mine, but it is something you hear again and again. You've really just put him through a BIG change! Take a deep breath and STOP WORRYING THAT YOU ARE SCARRING HIM FOR LIFE!!! Sure, you'll miss something that you'll later think, "OH NO!!! HE HASN'T STUDIED CLASSICAL GREEK YET, OR HASN'T WON THE NATIONAL SPELLING BEE AND I STILL BUY MY BREAD FROM THE STORE INSTEAD OF GRINDING MY OWN ORGANIC WHEAT!!! I'VE RUINED HIM!!!" Lol! But seriously, none of us are perfect moms, wifes, or homeschoolers. We do our very best with the info we have, and I KNOW that our kids will be coming out ahead of those in "regular" schools. Heck, if we do HALF as good as they do, they'll come out ahead (and I can say that, 'cause I'm a former teacher, and my dh still teaches in a public high school!). So relax, do a lot of "fun" stuff, let him follow his interests for a while. You can "make up" the academics later, after a year of learning to love to learn again! BTW, my son turned 10 yesterday and is also in 4th grade. Phillip HATES math and language!!! But he usually does it without too much fussing, because being raised in a homeschool environment, he knows he doesn't have much choice that way. Occassionally he'll have a melt-down, and I sure wish we lived somewhere where I could let him run and be totally un-schooled. He'd thrive on it! Right now, he's out hunting with his dad and older sister.
Hi, Matt's mom! I so sympathize about the allergies -- our son (age 27) still suffers with really bad sinus allergies, as he has all his life. Not nearly to the extreme that your child has, but miserable nonetheless. I really wish I'd had his adenoids out when he was 3, but I didn't. I wish now that he'd go to an ENT about it, but right now he has other fish to fry... When we were homeschooling him, we had plenty of battles! And yet right now he's wanting us to school HIS ds! As far as a more Christian-oriented, more independent curriculum, you might like to look at Christian Light Education. The website is www.clp.org and there are samples to look at. Please do have your ds take the diagnostic tests for LA and math before ordering, if you decide to go that way. The really nice part is that you can order only a couple of workbooks at a time and try it out first without having to commit to a year's worth of materials.
