Time tabled structured approach

[morethanpotatoprints]

Has anybody any experience of a structured approach. I don't mean English at 9.30 monday morning, Spanish 2.30 wednesday. More making use of the available time rather than allowing dcs to lead the way. My problem is dd doesn't seem to want to do much except for music (alot) or watching tv. I would like to get a spark from somewhere. If she has all day to herself she sort of lingers and doesn't naturally find things to occupy herself. I find myself saying why don't you do xyz. She is off school today with a sore throat/ skiving. With H.E in mind I got her to write a list of things she enjoys doing, or would like to try etc. That kept her for about 15 mins, she drew a quick picture and is watching RUBBISH on tv. I know they learn from t.v but I'd rather her want to learn something specific.
My point is How do I encourage dd to want to have an enquiring mind, is this something innate or do all kids have this but it needs to be harnessed.

Sorry meant to say do all kids have an enquiring mind, but some not use this ability. Do some not have it at all. Is it about how we nurture them.

A lot of people take a structured approach to HE - most of the local friends I have do to some extent. We often have a timetable.

At the moment we are in a more relaxed mode but the DCs know that they have to do handwriting and maths first, then we do work on our World War 2 project, which includes writing a diary followed by other stuff including baking, make things, researching, timelining. They also have to read an 'agreed' book for at least 1/2 hour a day. We also meet up with others for French and the boys do Chemistry every week with another HE mum.

The hard thing for them at the moment is that as we are 'living' through WW2, there is no technology - so no TV/PS/gadgets (apart from computer for project related stuff). They are finding this challenging but so far haven't cheated and are playing a lot more board games!

We'll continue with the relaxed mode till September (but do less in the school holidays) and may well go back to a timetable. DS1 struggles to motivate himself and has various problems with time management, decision-making.

I think you either have to do the academic structuring and then let her do what she wants the rest of the day or just let her do what she wants. She's not HE yet so she'll need time to discover what she likes but she probably won't do that until after she's been HE'd for a while.

I've listened to a lot of advice and am going to have lots of things on offer. So I may start cooking (my hub will love me!) and OH and I are talking about getting an old rust bucket of a car and doing it up with DS.

Tinuviel. Thank you. I have told dd about your ww2 project and her response was awesome, can we do that. I can remember seeing a few families do this on tv, it was a while ago. I suggested we did it with ds's but they weren't interested.What was interesting was how much the dcs enjoyed the experience.
I am stuck between autonomous learning and time tabled approach. But I'm sure like anything else you can try anything to see if it works. I'm a bit all or nothing really and forget that theres more than one way to skin a cat. Apologies to cat lovers everywhere.

Colleger, it seems like you and I meet again and I like your forward positive ideas, especially cooking. Have you ever considered a musical instrument or do you do this already. DH bought me a clarinet a couple of years ago and I'm really bad at making time for it. I hope to start again to provide a good role model for dd, rather than leaving it to gather dust.

I started oboe lessons last year and got to grade 4 in twelve weeks! But then it sat in the cupboard for nearly a year costing me £30 per month hire. OH has just taken it back to Howarths!

Is there really no way you can get DD to JD sooner than 11. I know the London ones have younger string groups.

We're fully timetabled but we've kind of evolved to this point and it was far more flexible when ds was younger (he's 13 now). It's mainly because he wants to do three IGCSEs next summer and if that's to happen he needs to schedule the time to work. As his AS/ADHD mean he has very little in the way of organisational time management skills, it works best for us to have a timetable with blu-tacked subjects stuck to it which we can move around as necessary.

We also have some tutor sessions and obviously they have to be scheduled into a regular slot. Tutors are less flexible than we are .

Ds isn't the type to pick up 'work' things and be self-motivated. He really would do nothing but watch tv and play on the xbox if left to his own devices. Ironically he's pretty miserable when he does that and I need to give him a kick occasionally to remind him that he actually enjoys the satisfaction of good work. It's one of the things I blame school for - he was like a sponge when he was little, always learning, but then school turned him into a Bash Street Kid whose aim was to avoid any kind of learning and it's a hard habit to break .

Thank you streaky. dd doesn't have any additional needs I am aware of, well none I could label. However, she is exactly the same, great once she gets going but expecting her to find things to do of her own accord and she just vegetates. Strangely enough except for her music. I so want her to have a good standard of basic education and anything on top of that is her own choice. I am thinking time table consisting of compulsory subjects, non compulsory subject choices, and completely free choices/ time. She does seem to like someone organising things for her, but this could be the influence of school. We resisted peer pressure where gaming was concerned, as ds2 didn't know when to stop, no way were we allowing it again. She very occassionally uses the wii but not her thing at all, lol.

Colleger, I'm not sure she would benefit from it personally to be honest. She has danced since age 3 and appeared in shows, passed exams etc. She does know that one day she will have to choose between the two as there is only one saturday in the week. However, I want that choice to be hers and at present she is working for the new show. She has gone from the lead in her classes dances to the back row, as she has shot up all of a sudden and is no longer the smallest, but one of the tallest. This coupled with a love of singing which she has only done officially since oct 2011, will be enough to help her make her choice. I don't want to say you have to stop this for that. She will start a new string group in september and there is another specialist choir linked to a professional orchestra in our area she hopes to audition for next year. (Will pm the one, if you haven't guessed). Her choir does concerts and she also enters local YMOTY competitions, so there are lots of opportunities for her to perform. I won't hold her back, she will reach jd at 11 as she is determined but until then, its up to her. I have told her she could go sooner if she wanted to audition.

Our timetable is a sort of 'pebbles in a jar' system. We put the immovables in first - karate training, tutor sessions, dentist appointments etc that HAVE to be done. Scheduled social meets are included in this, theatre bookings etc. Then we fit in the 'should do' tasks, like work to support the tutor sessions, reading, dvd etc and more random social arrangements. The rest is extras and these can be fairly flexible. I'm fairly rigid about the things done that need to be done not too worried if they need to be shifted to another day.

Even though we discuss each morning what we have to do that day, ds will still have forgotten about most of it by lunch time so we need the timetable just so he doesn't expect me to remind him - I can just refer him to look at the wall.

I think it can be hard and quite frustrating when your children aren't self-motivated, and this seems to be more the case as they get into their teens. Their brains are rewiring and they can't think straight half the time. Perhaps you could start by doing some of the scheduling for your daughter to get her started, so you're not expecting all the motivation to come from her, then see how she adapts to that. She may just need to be set off in the right direction.

Does she just 'vegetate' because it's her down time from school and activities? You might find that she's far more proactive when she has time to get a bit bored and think about how she might like to fill the time - which it doesn't sound from your posts has much opportunity to happen at the moment because she's involved in so much

Streaky, fantastic way of doing it, and of course I do need to set her off in the right direction. I forget ds's were not much better in high school.
I like the idea of the HAVE to be done as there are obviously priorities that need to be seen to. Now all I have to do is start a time table. Not difficult for most, nearly impossible for me. I do lists, but end up with wrong times/ boxes etc. One of my difficulties, will get kids on it, lol.

Anastasia, I think you have a valid point I hadn't considered. She does so much, alot more than many of her peers. Perhaps once we start HE she might drop one or two as she finds out where she wants to specialise.
Why is it that people on here can make you see things so clearly, and the answer, sometimes the solution is so simple, lol.

Potatoprints, I have a template timetable and subject tickets which might set you planning. I can email them to you if they'd help, and you can easily adapt them to DD's interests once you get started.

You might also find that as soon as you have made a plan, it gives her something to react against and she will come up with all sorts of creative interesting reasons not to follow the plan...(this only works if you actually go ahead and make the plan and believe in the plan first...)

Brilliant idea Fiona, I can tell you've done this before.

Streakybacon, yes please and thank you v.much. A template is brilliant as I can make as many mistakes as I like. Will pm with email as haven't a clue what I am doing on here.