Just started home ed, feel overwhelmed and anxious

[Hther]

Hi

I have home edded before for a short period as i couldn't get place at a local school. I worried my (now 6 year old )daughter would end up not knowing anything and it would be down to me! Anyway she started school a few weeks after the end of last term last academic year and her teacher last month said she has hardly any progress at all. She is on school action plus and is currently waiting to have special needs assessed by specialist services.

My other daughter started school in september too, she is a year younger and got on really well, wasnt bullied like her sister, made lots of friends and in top group for reading and maths although hs been really naughty since being at school (was an angel before) but due to continued problems and after evenetually arranging a meeting with head who kept interrupting and wouldn't listen, i removed them both.

The first day went really well and though i found it hard last time, I was hoping it would continue but it's not, my youngest dd is so clever i don't want to risk her falling behind. I have 2 toddlerstoo, youngest i think has special needs too and he is so demanding, books get ripped out of my hand, he bites and climbs and jumps on me when we ae trying to work etc.

My daughters are happy and behaviour has improved but I am still wondering if i did the right thing. Also although i have nothing against autonomous home ed, i would prefer to do structured, and I don't know what they should be learning and at what level at their age and this is causing me so much stress. I would feel much happier if i knew what they would be doing in school

You can find out what they would be doing in school by looking at the National Curriculum.

What is your younger DD doing? At this stage, doing lots of reading (you to her; her to you or to the toddlers, if they like that) is really valuable. You can get KS1 workbooks for Maths and English from WHSmith (or your local big supermarket, probably). Practically everything you pick up in Early Learning Centre or a bookshop for this age will be directly related to the NC.

Some people like Mathletics. It is not very expensive and I know there are already EHE groups on it, which makes it even cheaper. If you are interested, post again and I'll see if I can find you a group to contact.

Do you go to any group activities (home ed or otherwise)? Where in the country are you?

If trying to do structured stuff is so stressful with the toddlers, why not have another look at a more autonomous approach for a while - maybe the summer - to see how it goes? It can be far less stressful in some ways than trying to do structured stuff when you have children of different ages around, when some of those children are very young. I know if mine ever want to do workbooks with me, I end up tearing my hair out while I try to help the big ones at the same time as trying to stop the little ones causing havoc!

If you want some structure, I agree with SDeuchars about engaging the computer for those bits, maybe, where they can do it without your help?

You can pick up lots of work books for age related primary for maths and English - keep your eye out for them. They are useful to be able to gauge age relevant work. You don't have to follow them exactly but use them as a base as to what to do.

I would try to do lots of project based work - a study of penguins - where they live (maps etc), what they eat, different types. You can do reading up about them, drawings, etc - whatever suits your kids. If they don't read well then do lots of reading to them, and lots of fun reading - hopefully they will want to pick it up as well over time.

You can make it structured in as much as aiming at set times a day, and set aims in what to do in those times. But go with the flow and don't worry if you don't stick to those times. Take a bit of time to go back over what you have done every few days - it is a good chance to realise how much you have done (and how varied), work out if you are missing any areas, and plan what you want to do next. Involve them in is at much as possible.

thanks, i did buy a couple of workbooks ages 4-6 years, they both worked on these the school basics one was completed in just over a week and the reading readiness one they struggle with. I also bought an englis age 5-7 which my eldest one couldnt do and my youngest coud do some of but didn't enjoy. However, in the english book there was a reading comprehension thing about a desert and they were interested in the fact that camels store water in their humps and we ended up learning about animals and geography, etc

I have had similar ideas to your penguin one, we have guinea pigs and i was thinking of doing an animal they liked, talking about the anials, what thye eat, where they come from, what the weather is like in that place, the country's flag etc, and make a scraobook about them. I am also planning a zoo trip soon and thought if there is any animal they ae particularly interested in, we can research it.

I have asked them if they want to do projects - i said we could choose an animal or country etc, they shouted yes please - France, so I think we will probably do that. I do have lots of ideas but not sure if they will actually be interested when it comes to doing them and also I have so many ideas i don't know where to start! Which is why i think I will go with their idea of France. My eldest has learnt a few words of french too.

My younger daughter is pretty good at reading, eldest can't read anything other than her name and cat and can't write her name yet.

I don't think it helps that so many people warned me how hard it will be with so many young ones, i didn't ahve much confidence before that!

I hope I don't annoy you saying this, but I do think you are making your life harder by trying to impose a structure. I know I would go out of my mind if I did. Whenever I plan something to do with the children and try to do it at a pre-planned time, it just all goes to pot because toddlers just don't 'get' waiting and are unpredictable as to when and why they'll need me! Far easier (in some ways) to go with the flow and do things when you get the opportunity in a way that works round everyone.

I'm not a home edder but I do agree with MrsW. My DD is 3 and after feeling for ages like a boring mummy - we never did anything fun - I was desperate to do more with her. I noticed pretty quickly that it's much better to let her lead the way.

I've found the balance now I think. I keep thinking up new things to do and preparing them, but if my suggestion is refused that's fine (you have to learn not to take it personally!) I just put it away for later. If she has an idea, we try and do it, if she's bored I'll suggest something from my armoury.

for example we just got paperclips and I made a magnetic fishing rod - she spent ages just picking up paperclips with it. I cut out shapes and attached paperclips to them so we can do "find me a hexagon" etc - but by then she was bored, so we've put the shapes away for next time.

Hi looks like you need some support, we home ed and these are some of the websites we use, most are free unless says different

woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk
spellingcity.com
educationcity.com (about £40 year) *free trial period
primaryresources.co.uk
enchantedlearning.com
contemplator.com (Old English Folk Music)
royal.gov.uk
bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11
learninggamesforkids.com
bbc springwatch
miniclip - anagram magic (for older kids)
conquermaths.com (older kids - have to pay helps with GCSE)

Also its worth considering joing Education Otherwise (about £25 a year)a charity that also offers support and information to home ed parents.

There's absolutely loads of websites when you start looking into it, but they're the main ones we use. The thing is with home ed what you choose to teach is your choice, don't beat yourself up if things don't go exactly to plan, flexibility thats the key.

Hi, sounds like you are having a tough time. Do you have family or friends who would be prepared to help out with the younger children. Even a couple of hours a week so that you could do structured stuff with the eldest children. There is no shame in saying to family, help me, esp when you have your childrens best interests in mind.
I have also found staggered bed times help. My DS1 is 9 years and at home, DS2 is nearly 6 and in school. They often have a gap of 1-2 hrs between bedtimes. So if the tods always rise early, you could try keeping the eldest two up later, they eventaully start to run to a different time table. No school runs for you, so it might help.
In terms of Toddler behaviour, would it work to try and involve them, esp if its painting and crafting.
I work with young children on a 8:1 (with a difference of R-Yr 2) ratio (part time) and I have found that there is nothing they like better than to lead activities, esp the older/more able kids demonstrating their knowledge to the others. All kids seem to love role play too. Is it possible to get the girls to show the younger ones skills such as counting, it will build their confidence and help the youngers ones get a head start. Getting all of them to play shops, make bread etc, they can all be involved.
It will help the younger children to model their behaviour and focus their attention on learning. In the long term in might work to your advantage. Of course I know Toddlers can be demanding but no child can demand the very thing they are already getting if thats lots of attention!
Finally don't worry too much about levels of attainment, the only way to assess a child is on their level of progress and their happiness(not attainment)

Hello.

I am He my eldest ds who just has hust turned 7. I removed him from school in January this year as he was miserable and they were labelling him a failure becasue he was struggling to read to their NC level. He has a vocab of a 10-12 year old, is erally good at numercay and loves animals and engineering.

I started with a more structureed approach (because I felt I should) and it made us both miserable

I am now following a more autonomous approach but we do use Mathswhizz.com for maths and Yes we can read for literacy but everyhting else is project/lapbook based.

Google lapbooks (sorry I cant do links!!!) which I think your dds would really enjoy....lots of scope for learning about topics that interst them but you can also add elements of phonics, geography, history and science!

My ds1 has done one on sharks and we included pics of different types of sharks he downloaded from the bbc website, pointed out their habitats on a map I downloaded for him, wrote about their diet, and other words beginning with "sh" etc etc. He really enjoyed it. We are wokring on another one on eagles but he is mad on boats at the moment so might do one on Titanic or something.

Would receommend lots of websites;
bbc - excellent cbeebeis and cbbc for games
bbc - ks1 games and printouts
starfall.com for literacy
mathwhizz for numeracy (monthly or annual feee)
Google is my saviour to answer questions we cant find in our books

Would second advice about joining Education Otherwise....you will get a members only local contact list which we have found very useful.

Good luck. It is overwhelming in the beginning. It will get easier and you will love seeing your dds grow and flourish.

great info on lapbooking

I've been HE my DD age 6 for about 6 months now, and have DS age 4 and DD2 age 1 as well.

We manage because DS goes to kindergarten (nursery) 2 days a week, and on those days, when the baby naps, we get a lot done - just really knuckle down and do all our 'busy' work which ticks my mental boxes, and then I feel I can take a more relaxed approach for the rest of the week.

Can you find a way of carving out some time to cover what you see as the 'essentials', so that you can feel more confident and chill out a bit the rest of the time?

As for autonomous being easier to manage - well I'm not sure I agree (obviously different strokes for different folks though!).

I was really keen on being very child focussed and interest led (still am in theory!), but just found that with the little ones about I just never had the time to sit and chat with DD about what she'd like to do, and to facilitate lovely explorations of intersting things. I want to do it, but it just wasn't working for us, and my lofty ideals seemed to be all or nothing - and so we did nothing

So now I have writen myself a basic structure for a terms worth of work, day by day.

eg Monday: reading (new book), practice sight words, maths - revise fractions, read non fiction together.

I have also just picked a topic for each week (how things work, the sea, the body etc) and found a science experiment or a craft relating to the topic and schedueled that in.

This is working really well for us. I still have a lot of flexibility and can change plans or tailor things to suit DD's (and DS's) interests, but it saves me from having to think of something to do whilst wrangling a crying baby and trying to listen to DS's constant (lovely!) chatter as well. It also means that if we have a bad day and I really have no time to spend with DD one on one, I still have a few things up my sleeve to get her to do, and so at least feel as though we have covered the basics for the day.

I hope that helps - I always find reading about other people's HE helpful myself. I think it does take a while to settle into, and to find your own way of HEing.