A major frustration of mine is that Jordan cannot stay on task to get his stuff done. In my ideal world I have scheduled for him about 4 hours worth of lessons/independent work each day (gotta make the education police happy...) and I swear we have not had a day yet (in 2 years!!), where we have completed EVERYTHING. Weirdly enough, science always gets the short shrift, even though that is Jordan's favorite subject. Each day, at about mid-afternoon, I reach my utter frustration point because there is still a mound of school work to slog through, and my own work load hasn't been attended to even in the slightest, save the load of laundry that was thrown in the wash before I came down to make breakfast. And there it sits, festering in the washing machine, long forgotten...
Well, I came up with an idea this afternoon, just after I escorted Rylan to her room for her nap (she wasn't exactly a willing party). I needed to spend some time in the kitchen to whip up some meringue for a pavlova tonight, and I thought to myself how nice it would be if the rest of the day were mine. I could get done what I needed to get done, without any guilt of what I should have been doing for/with Jordan. Several weeks ago, I made some changes to how we schedule our day. A fellow homeschooling mom gave me some advice (thanks Dalliss) about how she got her kids to do their daily chores. She posted a list for them to refer to so that they wouldn't be constantly in her hair. I took her advice to heart, and configured a list of my own. I had also been reading up on Rebecca Rupp's Home Learning Year by Year, to make a database for myself (to feed my quest for order in the midst of chaos) for what kinds of items we needed to address as far as Geography, World History, US History and Science goes. We have had such a spotty record for staying with a routine (having a baby in the midst of all of this did not help much) that I needed to get an idea of where exactly we were and where we needed to go. So, I came up with this.
We have had a good first run with this, but it needs some tweaking. "The List" seems to dominate the entire day. I added the 'Independent Work ' list for good reason: Jordan desperately needs to develop some self-management skills. He seems to do much better when he has the list to refer to and keep him on track. It also stresses the need for him to take some responsibility in his daily work. The months that passed between the final weeks of pregnancy and throughout Owen's infancy were left unstructured. Jordan (and Rylan for that matter) was pretty much left to his own devices about what he would learn and when. I guess you could say it was an experiment in unschooling. It did not go well, in Jordan's case. He would wander aimlessly about all day, and if he cracked open a book, it was a miracle. And it was not like interesting stuff wasn't dangled in front of him. We went to the library weekly. Yet all Jordan wanted to check out was Garfield comic books. He was not motivated to learn anything of consequence. All he wanted to do was to play video games, and I was not going to give in to that. Here we are about a year later, and Jordan has matured quite a bit. He will pick up his chapter book frequently (without being asked) and he will constantly rummage through the picture books (which is a complete library in it's own right...). We began to structure our days again around mid-January, and it has been better for all of us, ever since. Since the inception of this schedule, it has removed much of the burden from me of seeing to it that Jordan is on task and trying to remember what else it was that he should work on. It also meant that subjects like Earth Science wouldn't be shelved for weeks on end. We have a different version for each day of the week (so that all subject areas are addressed over the course of a week), and each day has it's own rhythm. Each day has been printed out and housed in a plastic sleeve. We use a wet-erase pen to mark things off as we go - it just washes off at the end of the day.
Well - back to the thought of the day. My complaint is that the burden of completion falls squarely on my shoulders, when it really should belong to Jordan. My portion of the work, the 'Lessons' part, is my only sole responsibility. It can involve any number of things - demonstrating a skill, reading out loud, handling materials for an experiment, ect. . It is this box that is continually left undone, when it is (IMHO) actually the most important box as far as keeping up with the knowledge base we should be continually building. It occurred to me today that I should enforce a time limit on this box in order to preserve a portion of the day for me that is 'lesson free'. If I say that it needs to be done by 3 pm, then I can ensure that my part is done, and I can go about my business for the rest of the day. It stands to reason that we should make good use of the portion of the day that Owen will take a reliable nap. Since Owen will typically nap from 11am - 2ish, that is the best time frame within to work in our lessons. Addressing the subject of History (World & U.S.) during lunch time works especially well, because we can read & discuss while I am making lunch. Our world map also makes for a nice 'tablecloth'. One fun game is toss a spoonful of peas across the map and see how many different countries you can land a pea on...
I admit it may sound like over-the-top authoritarianism, but structure is what holds the tears/frustration at bay in our home. Jordan's ADHD is very difficult to manage (at times). I have done my best to come up with solutions that we can all live with. We opted for homeschooling because of all of the problems that the ADHD behaviors presented in the classroom. The most frustrating of which is impulsivity and high-distractability. Having a schedule to refer to helps to suppress some of the impulse to get up and mess around. Some days though (like today) are absolutely impossible, no matter what tools are in place. Sigh.
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