{"id":1757,"date":"2013-10-04T06:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T13:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/?p=1757"},"modified":"2013-10-01T07:17:56","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T14:17:56","slug":"5-ways-to-take-the-stress-out-of-homeschooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/2013\/10\/04\/5-ways-to-take-the-stress-out-of-homeschooling\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to Take the Stress Out of Homeschooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taken from\u00a0http:\/\/www.hsclassroom.net\/5-ways-to-take-the-stress-out-of-homeschooling\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"hs<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>The following is a post from contributing writer\u00a0Tanya from Finding the Teachable Moments<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t make school a chore<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n

Last year I made the rule that there would be no TV or video games until school was finished.\u00a0 Being our first year of homeschooling, I thought my children would come to accept it and it would become part of our daily routine. Instead, school time became the \u201cbad guy\u201d that kept my kiddos from enjoying their favorite pastimes.\u00a0 Learning together became a chore rather than a journey.<\/p>\n

So now we have an overall daily limit on screen time that can be used anytime from morning until bedtime.\u00a0 If they choose to take a break from school related activities to watch an episode of Curious George, that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 Sometimes a break is needed.\u00a0 Having the freedom to make independent choices within limits is important too.\u00a0\u00a0 As an added bonus, it is also teaching them to budget their time. My oldest son intentionally saves his TV time for evening.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s his choice not to watch TV during school, not mine.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying whining and complaining over limitations goes away, but it becomes a protest against a household rule and takes the heat off of school.<\/p>\n

Is there a way you can make school less of a chore in your home?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let go of rigid schedules.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It\u2019s good to have a basic idea of what you want to accomplish on a given day or week.\u00a0\u00a0 But if you try to have a strict hour-to-hour account of what you want each day to look like, it becomes frustrating and stressful when interruptions throw your plans out of whack.<\/p>\n

In a traditional school setting, everything happens in scheduled increments of time. Having structure like that can be appealing to Type A girls like me and it\u2019s tempting to strive for the same type of order in our homeschool life.\u00a0 But we don\u2019t have a school nurse when someone gets sick or a janitor to clean big spills.\u00a0 Things happen that are not on the schedule and that might mean mopping up paint when you should be teaching nouns.<\/p>\n

You also don\u2019t want to miss a chance to take advantage of teachable moments that might come up spontaneously.\u00a0 Don\u2019t miss out on a precious learning opportunity because you have it written down somewhere that it\u2019s time to practice spelling words. \u00a0I try to think of my daily plan as a rough outline that is subject to change.\u00a0 That can be really hard for us \u201cplanners,\u201d but I believe it will lead to a much more relaxed and rich homeschool experience.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t let curriculum dictate how you \u201cdo school.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If you hand me a curriculum with 100 lessons, I naturally feel obligated to complete all 100 lessons, exactly as they are written.\u00a0 And if there are 20 questions on a page, I want my child to answer all 20.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Type A thing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve come to learn that it\u2019s okay to leave some answers blank. It\u2019s also okay to ditch curriculum all together at times and count cooking as math or writing a thank you note as writing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve learned to use purchased curriculum as a suggestion rather than a requirement.\u00a0 It\u2019s okay to use the general scope and sequence of your chosen curriculum and find other ways to teach a concept from time to time.<\/p>\n

Give your child a voice.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Some of our best days last year came when we sat down as a group and talked about what we would be learning.\u00a0 I asked the kids what they knew (or what they might guess to be true) about a topic, wrote their ideas down, and posted them prominently.<\/p>\n

The kids love feeling that they are an important part of what we are learning. That might sound like a no-brainer, but it was a lesson I had to learn.\u00a0 I thought planning a lot of hands-on learning activities would be enough to engage them, but they craved more. \u00a0We all want to feel we\u2019re an integral part of the big picture.<\/p>\n

Spend one-on-one time with your child unrelated to school.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Go out for ice cream, take a walk together, go shopping together.\u00a0 Spend some one-on-one time with each of your children in some way that has nothing at all to do with organized school time.\u00a0 It will go a long way toward building relationships.<\/p>\n

I made the mistake of believing the one on one time I spent with my kids for school was \u201cour special time together.\u201d\u00a0 It is special, but it doesn\u2019t allow as much opportunity to get personal and strengthen emotional bonds. \u00a0Be intentional about spending time with your kids. \u00a0Enjoy them!
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tanya, a homeschooling mom of three who is passionate about hands-on learning, can be found writing at\u00a0Finding the Teachable Moments<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taken from\u00a0http:\/\/www.hsclassroom.net\/5-ways-to-take-the-stress-out-of-homeschooling\/ \u00a0 The following is a post from contributing writer\u00a0Tanya from Finding the Teachable Moments. Don\u2019t make school a chore. Last year I made the rule that there would be no TV or video games until school was finished.\u00a0 Being our first year of homeschooling, I thought my children would come to accept it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,47,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classroom-help","category-informative","category-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1759,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansashomeschool.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}