« My Daughter's Memory Problem »
February 16, 2012 14 Comments Choosing to educate my children at home is a radical, out-of-the-box, and arguably strange decision to some people. It’s a decision I made with more than a little fear and trepidation. I thought about it, prayed about it, fought it, denied it, avoided it, put it off, researched it, defended it and for whatever reason, finally gave in to the fact that my children didn't fit in a normal school setting.
Homeschooling my children has been relatively smooth. I began last year when I realized my daughter was struggling in school and not getting the individual attention she needed. She and private Christian school did not fit well together. At home, she and I worked well together last year and I got her back on track academically. This year, my son decided he wanted to homeschool as well. I had planned on sending my little one to Kindergarten but her school closed two weeks before school started. Thus, I am homeschooling three children this school year.
My son is a gifted child and very easy to teach. The only issues I am having with him at the moment is he just simply doesn't want to do the work. My little one is also extremely easy to teach. She is excited to learn whatever I present to her. It is actually very rewarding to sit with her and watch her little eyes light up with joy and discovery.
My daughter, however, is another story. While she and I had a great rhythm going last year, she has been completely derailed this year with her siblings home. Especially in math.
When explaining new concepts and teaching my daughter, it’s easy to assume that there is an unobstructed pipeline between me and her. I explain something—like the concept that “subtraction is the opposite of addition” or "subtraction is the difference"—and I expect that she will automatically file that little tidbit of information away and remember it in the future (or the present would be lovely as well). I assume that, since I taught it, she will “get it,” and my work will be done. (because it was and is that easy to teach my son)
As nice as that would be, it isn’t always the case in real life. Sometimes I feel as though my daughter just isn’t “getting it,” or I worry that the lesson went right over my her head. Or through her head and out her ears or eyeballs. I look at her and I know she has no clue what I'm trying to teach her. Even though we've been doing it for months, even though it is an already learned skill.
She is struggling with whatever curriculum I present to her. She struggles no matter the manipulative I incorporate. I am at a loss where to head with her. I don't even like to bring up math to her anymore and if she even sees a math book, she usually starts to cry.
I think we are at a point in homeschooling that I need to get my daughter a math tutor. My teaching style is very much auditory. While I have not quite grasped what my daughter's learning style is, I think a math tutor will be able give me more insight on this issue.
le sigh.
homeschool, photo challenge, photography, tutor 
Reader Comments (14)
My older son is in a blended program for school. Its partially home school, partially class room work. Hes SUPER easy to teach, vrery gifted, and like your son- doesnt want to do a dang thing. I think its mostly boring for him. So we only do about 1/2-45 minutes of work each day (thats all its takes and he has completed his daily tasks) and we move on to toher stuff.
Maybe you could try a different curriculum for your daughters math work? A friend, whos child is in my sons class, was having difficulty with her son and the language arts curriculum we are using. She was able to order some workbooks from another company and he has caught on and caught up and is doing well now. Good luck to you both!
My older son is in a blended program for school. Its partially home school, partially class room work. Hes SUPER easy to teach, vrery gifted, and like your son- doesnt want to do a dang thing. I think its mostly boring for him. So we only do about 1/2-45 minutes of work each day (thats all its takes and he has completed his daily tasks) and we move on to toher stuff.
Maybe you could try a different curriculum for your daughters math work? A friend, whos child is in my sons class, was having difficulty with her son and the language arts curriculum we are using. She was able to order some workbooks from another company and he has caught on and caught up and is doing well now. Good luck to you both!
My older son is in a blended program for school. Its partially home school, partially class room work. Hes SUPER easy to teach, vrery gifted, and like your son- doesnt want to do a dang thing. I think its mostly boring for him. So we only do about 1/2-45 minutes of work each day (thats all its takes and he has completed his daily tasks) and we move on to toher stuff.
Maybe you could try a different curriculum for your daughters math work? A friend, whos child is in my sons class, was having difficulty with her son and the language arts curriculum we are using. She was able to order some workbooks from another company and he has caught on and caught up and is doing well now. Good luck to you both!
My older son is in a blended program for school. Its partially home school, partially class room work. Hes SUPER easy to teach, vrery gifted, and like your son- doesnt want to do a dang thing. I think its mostly boring for him. So we only do about 1/2-45 minutes of work each day (thats all its takes and he has completed his daily tasks) and we move on to toher stuff.
Maybe you could try a different curriculum for your daughters math work? A friend, whos child is in my sons class, was having difficulty with her son and the language arts curriculum we are using. She was able to order some workbooks from another company and he has caught on and caught up and is doing well now. Good luck to you both!
My understanding of math is that it should be as concrete and represented with real life objects as long as possible. My son's teacher get's them to do a math "story' first. I had one car, mum gave me three more cars, now I have four. then represent it as a sum, 1 + 3 = 4. For subtraction, something like, there were 6 fish, 3 swam away, now there are 3 fish left, 6 - 3 = 3. With tens and units you can use straws and bundle them up with string.
Hope you can get back on track. If it's become a struggle maybe getting a third person in for a while is a good idea. Good luck! :-)
I only homeschooled my own kids for a short while and I remember trying to teach my oldest to read - the whole learning process is an amazing thing, isn't it! You get the book out, teach it and they have NO CLUE what you just said. You wait another couple of months, read the same pages and they are like "oh yes of course!" there were definitely times teaching my oldest that I'd be thinking "if this doesn't just click I have no idea what I'm going to do!!" good luck with this :) This is one of those things where I like to say "This doesn't feel hard because I'm weak, or doing something wrong, this feels hard because this is HARD" hang in there! I'm sure you'll find the best thing for your daughter sooner or later.
Thanks so much for sharing your lovely daughter's photos with us,
Lori
P.S. Thanks for linking up with thelongroadtochina.com!
Tiffany