Preparation for home Ed in January? What should I be thinking about?

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, My daughter will be 6 at the end of feb and She'll be leaving her school at Christmas.

I'm going to be home educating her and seing how we get on. She may or may not be going back to school. The thing is, she's very un co-operative most of the time. She dosn't particularly like to be taught things.
She also has possible Aspurgers and likes structure and routeen. If the work becomes her routeen, she'll do it even though she's not keen. It's just getting it established really.

Her teacher has said she'll give us some books and show us what she's up to now so that we can continue along the same lines. She has some SEN's and has delayed self help skills etc.

I thought our days could include:

Getting herself dressed as well as she can
Choosing her clothes based on the weather etc.
Then a bit of english, some phonics and some maths.
I thought we could play loads of educational games although she can only understand ones that are from age 3+.
We can do cooking, go on outings etc.

I'm just a bit aware that I'm still a bit vague as to how I'm going to be doing this, and for it to work it needs to have structure or else she'll just do her own thing all day.

What should I be thinking of getting ready now? Should I make a plan with goals at the end and a reward chart for reaching those goals? Should I look for the national curriculum to make sure she's covering everything?

Also, how would I know if she's making enough progress or if she's falling behind? I know since starting year 1, she seems to have lost some of the skills she had in reception, although other things are improving slowly.

As always I'd be greatful for any advice, tips or links to good websites. Thanks.

[minimathsmouse]

Hello,
If your daughter prefers routine in probably makes sense to have a timetable. My son who is midly aspie likes routine. We have a timetable which he has access to and can follow.

My younger son is the same age as lucy. We have been using phonics worksheets from this site which are free to print off. I like them because he is learning to write and read at the same time, they are easy to follow, they build skills sequentially.
www.free-phonics-worksheets.com/html/free_phonics_worksheets.html
We have also been using reading eggs which is a great phonic reading scheme on the net, costs £30 or so for the year. You can have free trial to see if she likes it.
Phonics play is a good online resource, with games for them to practice their skills.
MoshiMonsters is a good all round programme for this age group.
We also use TutPup which is free.

Would your daughter benefit from having a visual timetable so she can read it too. You could make up cards with a picture of the activity and have a time line on the wall, like a poster. Maybe put the cards in a basket each day according to what you would like her to learn. Maybe choose 5 cards a day and let lucy put them onto the time line, so that she feels that she has some control over planning her day.

Some people would advocate being more relaxed but sometimes young children need to learn the basics before they can start to take charge of their learning! Other children will never voluntarily learn anything remotely academic and others need routine. Do what you think is best, you know your daughter better than anyone.

[minimathsmouse]

I wish I had proof read that first!! sorry, very tired.

[mummyloveslucy]

Thank you, that's really helpful.

[Tinuviel]

We are structured too and have a timetable for each DC (3 of them). Every 10 weeks I also do a 'work plan' in Word with a column for each book/course and a row for each week. Then I calculate how many pages/exercises/lessons they need to do per week and fill it in. They then colour over them as they complete them. That way they can access the work independently and can see their progress through their workload. Some things need my input; others can be done independently.

You might be interested in Evan Moor history pockets - they are really good and involve lots of cutting/sticking/colouring. They are American and do include lots on American history (still very interesting) but they do one on Ancient Civilisations. You probably would want the Grade 1-3 ones for a six year old.

www.evan-moor.com/Series.aspx?CurriculumID=7&ClassID=166&SeriesID=64

[mummyloveslucy]

Thank you, I'll have a look at those. The work plan sounds good too. I think she'd like ticking the things off and seeing her progress.

[anastaisia]

Echoing the suggestion minimathsmouse made: Someone I know has a wipe clean board magnetic board for their timetable/timeline; one of their child also loves routine but they didn't want to be completely tied to the same things all the time for the whole family.

They made magnetic lables for all different things they might do, wrote on the things that happen every day - the basics like getting dressed, eating etc - and left spaces for things to be planned later. Then the children selected labels to add each day; things like play/go to the park/bake and stuck them on in the spaces. I can't remember if they all picked one or took days in turn. They didn't put times on; it was a routine/order for the day rather than a schedule.

But anyway, it worked really well for them as they got used to home ed; and the routine driven child was able to handle increasing the flexibility over time, which suited their whole family but may not be a big deal if you only have one?

I'd probably avoid sticking to closely to the national curriculum though because at that age I'm not sure it fits will with one to one learning. You'll probably find that your DD whizzes way ahead of it in the things she's interested in. Could you maybe ask lucy for a number (3? 5?) of subjects she'd like to learn about, then plan trips and activities around them together? So she knows when they're happening and what to expect? Then let her change those subjects whenever she wants so you're not pushing something she's loosing interest in but you always have that number of things to base your planning around but it's led by her?