Tips For Home School Parents

Tips for Homeschool Parents

 For the veterans of this endeavor, you have come to the close of another academic year and are looking ahead to the next. Most children learn best through touch, sight, and sound so these need to be a big part of each lesson. Merely reading and answering questions alone are the least effective means of learning.

While on your vacation keep in mind the topics in next year's curriculum and be on the lookout for anything you can use to enhance their learning. These will help them get a better visual understanding through artifacts, games, puzzles. collect maps as well.

 As a former schoolteacher, I would sort these things by category into small boxes and label them.  When discussing the hardships of picking cotton, for example, it was helpful to pull out a branch of cotton so students could touch the sharp prongs surrounding the fluffy cotton ball. Also look for period soldiers, weapons, costumes, and pictures. If you're visiting shrines or churches, gather photos, biographies of Saints, pictures of stained-glass windows. Did you know that the first approved Marian apparition shrine in the United States is in Champion, Wisconsin and the shrine of the North American martyrs and St. Kateri Tekakwitha is an Auriesville, New York. Just

For those just starting on this venture I would say, be not afraid! The most important job in the universe is parenting, teaching, and preaching. Homeschoolers get to incorporate all three of these ministries into their day.

Grades K - 3 are the skill building years. Children will love or hate school by the end of the third grade depending on the quality of their teachers. Too many teachers are boring and just talk. It is the teacher who engages the whole child, who imparts the love of learning. By the end of grade 3, a child should have mastered the phonics rules and reading, at least to grade level, as well as mastery of addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts. Their response time to a number fact should be three to five seconds. So, drill, drill, drill! Use games, music, card games and peer-teachers, if you have other children. Make practicing fun. Give rewards frequently. Keep in mind that most children have a very short attention span. Pushing instruction beyond that will not have good results. All day long alternate between active and passive learning.

 See the chart below for attention span times and the maximum length of a lesson.
ATTENTION SPAN

                             AGE                                                                                           TIME

                             5-6                                                                                              12-18 min.

                             7-8                                                                                              16-24

                             9-10                                                                                           20-30

                             11-12                                                                                         25-35
This is why middle and high school classes are 45 minutes long.

 Retention occurs with repeated practice other than writing. Spend more time on learning the facts than using the facts to solve problems. Children dislike doing worksheets all day. The ability to study alone begins around junior high.

As the teacher, no matter your personality you need to learn to be an actor or an actress. Be dramatic! Read aloud using various voices, even dress the part of historical figure sometimes. A teacher who can make history and literature come alive through student and teacher dramatization we'll develop to kids who will like history. Even the Bible stories are full of drama. Act them out. I used to keep a trunk full of costumes for my 10th graders to act out Old Testament stories. They loved it!

Now to new homeschooling parents over the summer think about your teaching space and especially for storage and posting visuals. You will need a large USA map, a world map or a globe, a whiteboard, boxes for writing, coloring, pasting, /and cutting supplies, as well as crafting materials.  Manipulatives for counting will be useful, preferably color-coded. You can use Lego pieces, bingo chips, poker chips, and regular playing cards. Keep them in containers not to be used for play.  It helps some children to shift their perceptions between home and school, if you ask them to call you Mrs. “Smith” versus mom when in session. That allows you to take on a more professional persona. Another shift from home to school could be to set up school-like routines, for example standing at the door of the classroom until Mrs. Smith tells you to enter, stand for morning prayer, and the flag salute with a patriotic song or a hymn. You Can't Sing?  Use CDs.

Before beginning a class, get out all the materials that you may need. That will make the lesson go more smoothly. Start by telling them what they will learn and what you are doing. At the conclusion ask them questions about what they learned. Tape the alphabet and number strips to the desk if they are very young. Sometimes you may need to allow dolls in the classroom, as if they were students and include them in question-and-answer sessions.  I'm not a fan of homework for young children but if needed, assign short drills of frequently missed math facts or spelling words (10 minutes maximum time)

Making learning fun is not the same as playing but allowing children to laugh at the absurdity of spelling cough as COUGH instead of the more logical and phonetic form of COF releases the tension of having to learn by rote things that make no sense.

Some critics say teachers have easy jobs. As a parent you may have degrees in literature or engineering but analyzing why your child is struggling in a certain area and seeking alternative modes of teaching is a matter of constant problem solving, not much different from a scientist. The teacher’s job is to find an avenue to teach that best suits how the child learns. If the child isn't learning, look to yourself first. What could be done differently? Don't blame the child. Teachers need to be masters of show and tell and do, not just telling. Teachers need more tricks in their bag than a magician!

 There are many ministries in the church, it says in scripture and teaching is the third one not engineering or business management. You can do it! Have fun! It is the most rewarding job after parenting.

 Want more tips or have questions?  Text me at nlessard6@protonmail.com