The first of many!

We have completed our first year of homeschooling.

There were a plethora of highlights , joys and successes and few struggles and difficulties.

Many of these struggles were recoverable.

The greatest joy for me was to experience Jethro growing into a happy and more content child who is able to work with his strengths and work at his weaknesses at his own pace. He has learned an enormous amount and wholeheartedly enjoyed learning in many ways. We have experimented with different methods and tried a variety of approaches. Some we tossed out, others we gathered.

Doug and I are continually amazed at the son we have before us. It is profound and we are deeply grateful.

Our History curriculum was a South African system called Footprints on our Land. We loved it and so enjoyed immersing ourselves  in our South Africa.

I am not one to write negatively about our school system and National Curriculum.  In part, this is because we have children in the system or are thriving and growing and learning. They are critical thinkers and great kids. It is also because I have worked with our CAPS Curriculum . the textbooks are great. the information relevant and child focused and the information is like any other collection of information.  It has its faults, of course but it is none of these; the system nor the Caps curriculum that we rejected outright. I am a firm believer that there are and must be a variety of educational options for children because we are individuals and different ways suit different kids.

I am grateful we took this plunge and have been privileged to make this option available to Jet.

We are super excited about 2018!

The space to do the "other"

I thought I would write a note about space. One of the joys of homeschooling has been the space it has provided. The breathing space. The time space. The calm, no urgency space. All of these provide, for us, some time to do those things we just never seemed to get to.

One is to join OT. Jethro has been learning so much from his OT. Once a week, set apart, for discovering what his body can actually do.

Joining the gym. We have both joined up so we can swim. He has FINALLY discovered a happy space exercise.

Space to spend time with his family. Now he is relaxed and has more energy, Jet has time to share life with his brothers.

Space and time to pause and take stock of actual learning.. We can take a breath to assess, seeing where he might need to recap or practice something. He can also be a part of this process.

Space to just really get into something. Last week Jet wrote a three page legend. It took all morning. He could just settle into it with vigor.

Space to take brain breaks and be creative.
We get to bake and do science experiments or just read, well, because.

Space. That beautiful gift that has sharpened and lengthened Jet as we know him.

And we are back

The holidays passed with lots of good family time. Time to connect and enjoy each others company. One of the things I love about holiday times with our big, busy family.

We are back and we are having fun. This term I decided we are going to make a lot more things. This will give us hands on experience which is great for learning and memory and also those times where we can just have brain rests. I have tried several different ideas for brain rests for Jet and some work while others just do not. Hands on activities are awesome and work well.

We have said goodbye to the 1820 settlers and are moving on to discover the world of the Voortrekkers and the Great Trek.

A friend noted last night - " Do they still do The Great Trek?"

I totally get her reluctance. We were fed a steady diet of skewed History in relation to these events. However, the approach that the History curriculum we are using has taken, is a liner approach. it builds up events from the beginning and moves through the events in a timeline kind of way. One thing overlapping and or leading to the next. I love this approach as we are building a complete picture of time and events that will lead us to the present day.

So, we have marbled paper, baked rusks , drawn an ox wagon and read a whole lot. 

#learningisfunagain

Books Galore

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It is not that he did not read before we home schooled.

 No, that is not quite it.

It is just that he his reading has more than doubled. I am talking about reading books FOR school. 

I struggled to decide on our English Language curriculum for Jet and as yet am struggling to settle on anything really excellent. However, the one thing that our Language program introduced us to, was some different sorts of books.

In addition to the 5 books in the program, I ordered a whole stack of other books from another selection. We are gradually making our way through those. In addition to these books, jet has read some books from our History Program and of course we are reading aloud the books that introduce the history to him ( and myself) through literature. 

I have a whole stack of excellent reads that I am giving him to do some theme thinking and book reviews  on and he is ploughing his way through those too. 

The thing with ADHD kids is this one difficulty with reading. If they love reading, then the tricky thing is to find books that hold their interest. Jet loves reading but we often struggle to find books that will grip him.  He struggles to try a new book, especially if it might not look as if it will grip him. This approach to school, for him, is excellent because he is getting exposure to a wider range of books that he might not have read by choice. 

Right now he is devouring the excellent read , "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio. I doubt he would have read it before but as his school reader, he is devouring it and loving it. This after having read a Footprints read alone book which is part of our History program and whilst reading a book , just for fun! Three at once. That is unheard of for this chap.

We are so enjoying this excellent way of doing school with books and stories. The books are exposing him to some great , new language and ideas.  Reading for learning is definitely a win.

Language is indeed an art

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English language as we call it in SA is known as Language Arts in the USA. It took a while to get used to this in the world of homeschooling.

We settled on an American curriculum called Learning Language through Literature. The purple book level is what we decided on for Jethro. There are 5 books that are to be read throughout the course of the study.  It has been good fun getting into some American literature  including some poetry. The work has a weekly method to it and includes skills such as letter writing. It has been good but it has not totally hit the spot for us. 

Alongside it I have been using our Platinum Caps grade 5 textbook and Oxford textbook. A couple of weeks ago we embarked on a poetry slot. First we set off with Caps poetry and ended with a section from LLATL. Boy, what a poetry blast we have enjoyed. Jet has been writing up a storm of poetry. We have really enjoyed learning and sharing all sorts of poetry types including Gcina Mhlophe live poetry and of course some modern Slam Poetry, South African style. Jet has found his happy place!

I am in search of some good South African books for kids ages 12-15. If you know of any, please share them with us.

Loving homeschooling with English - the South African way!

Crazy Kid

This is Jethro,, actually known as Jet by those who love him.
He is a great kid, full of fun and adventure. The thing is, we didn't know that about him, until we homeschooled him.
Today we visited a market. It was noisy, full of people and weird food. All the things that would have previously been enormous barriers to entry for him.
Before we went, I talked him through it.

Afterwards he concluded that it had been fun doing something new.

What has shifted for THIS kid.

Two things....

Trust.... He trusts our judgement all the more deeply since we decided to bring him home.
Energy.... He has way more energy to deal with difficult situations. School sucked his energy daily and now he has freedom to try the new. This has been an enormous shift for him and for us as a family.

Thank you Lord.

Jonny Clegg... Here we come.

The snapshot!

The first term of homeschooling with Jet is done and partially dusted.

It has been a good learning experience for us both.

Snapshots of my learning.

#plan a more end in mind planning structure for the term so we work with the whole picture in mind. This is indeed the most tricky thing for me as I am not necessarily a big picture thinking, yet.

I sat down yesterday and planned ahead with the end in  mind so that we can know where we need to get to. 

# . I have gathered a far wider understanding of the history of our country. Thank you Footprints and also the beautiful Platinum  Caps textbooks. ( yes I do love these!) They are designed for kids to read and so are full of colour and good information as well as excellent pictures and activities to build on.

# a renewed respect for teachers who have a classroom of kids to get much work done with.

# it has been a joy and an absolute pleasure to work with this kiddo. we are having enormous fun learning about microbes in our science group and about Barty Dias in History as well as working through some great geography lessons on South Africa. 

Maths and English are simply full and exciting. 

These photographs are all from our outing to the Slave Lodge in Cape Town . The art is from the wall in the section on democracy. The photograph is of a man whose heritage is from slavery. His surname gives this away. He is named after the month of one of the ships bringing slaves arrival at the Cape.

Snapshots of Jethro's learning include...

# what it feels like to be happy in learning and to enjoy school

# seeing that he actually can learn something he thought was just too difficult

# finding out his strengths and areas of "yet" for himself.