The Start of Home School

So Home School has been under the way for a couple of week, so what have we been up to?

 

I have been teaching a range of primary ages now for 10 years and one thing that has always been apparent: The first week is exhausting.

 

Time and time again I have seen children looking drained where they have been thrown back into a schooled environment and expected to process work after a long break.

 

I knew with my two that this would be difficult to avoid and actually looking back at my home school posts from last year I found this photo:

 



 

This picture is of William 3 weeks into Home Schooling and about half an hour after he broke down in tears because he was so tired.

 

With this picture in the back of my mind I didn't want a repeat of it with both of them. A strict Schooled environment can be very tiring and I felt it best that we eased back in to a routine without such intensity. (Even if we are quite relaxed in our approach)

 

 

I kept with the idea that we would start our morning routine of Literacy and Numeracy and have a relaxed Unschooled afternoon.

 

James, being Reception age, has been covering his understanding of sounds and then within that his ability to link a sound with mark making and writing.

 

 

 

James has done very well at formulating the alphabet and then linking them with his phonics knowledge. He even managed to copy the sounds out independently something he has previously shown to find difficult.

 

William has been cementing his understanding of spelling by working out both phonemes and graphemes within words. He used several activities where he had to read the word and identify the sound in the middle then fill in the blank.

 

From that point I was getting him to formulate sentences with those words and trying to spell independently every word.

 

In Numeracy we have just been doing basic counting games and within that stretching how far we can count. In each stage we have discussed teen numbers, tens and units and counting backwards.

 

The start has been far from stressful and actually both boys have seemed to find it engaging; both have achieved a good knowledge to continue and start the term properly. With this I can't wait to open up and delve into our topics.