Homeschooling for Grade 1 girls

Post Reply New Topic

Question: Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep a seven year old girl interested in her homeschooling? I have Aspergers, so does my daughter but much more 'severe' than me. I'm homeschooling her, but fairytales and math don't realy go together, well, at least not for my daughter. Any ideas would be very helpful. Thank you.

I found the forum at www.secularhomeschool.com to be very friendly and helpful. Sometimes you have to try a few different approaches to find one she likes (Math U See, Life of Fred, and Singapore Math are all popular choices). Or work the fairy tales in as a reward after each worksheet or certain number of problems.

What about word problems? For example:

Snow White is putting on a party. She's inviting the 7 dwarves and the 3 little pigs, and wants to make sure each of them can have their own plate. How many plates will Snow White need?

I've homeschooled 2 kids for a total of 29 years and this fall I am sending my NT older child to community college for dual high school and college credit. My kids are night and day academically. I'm very much a home-school veteran and have learned these things from other veterans:

#1 - You don't have to re-create the public school classroom. That means your child doesn't have to do an entire worksheet of arithmetic problems every single day, and yes, the math problems can be word problems with fairy-tale characters. Make it fun, not work, especially in elementary school. I have always used a curriculum as a backbone, but I've never been locked into it. I flex it, knead it, stretch it, and pound it until it bears little resemblance to the original and until it fits my child. Unit studies are fantastic ways to integrate a wide variety of subjects, and guess what - you can make your own. Which leads me to...

#2 - Check your state laws, and if they are flexible enough, consider going "minimalist" or even unschooling. In early elementary, you really don't need a formal curriculum if you don't want one and if your state laws don't require it.

#3 - Honor your child's strengths and let her follow her passions. This can best be done once you have a firm grasp of #s 1 & 2. Be creative. What is the one thing your child naturally gravitates towards when she has free time? Fairy tales. OK, that's great for a variety of future occupations - ethnologist, author, movie producer, teacher, artist... So honor that interest in fairy tales because for every interest, there is a career.

#4 - If money's tight, don't spend gobs of money in elementary school on the latest homeschool widgets for every single subject. Invest the money into the subjects you have the most difficulty teaching - for instance I'm a terrible algebra teacher, so I bought a course on DVD. This past year I've been too broke to buy very many books, but I managed to put together some very impressive courses for my older child's sophomore year using mostly library books. It's even easier to do this for elementary students.

#5 - Don't sweat elementary school. Sweat high school. Actually, don't sweat high school either (and if you do find yourself sweating it, I'm sure my friend Lee will help you out http://www.thehomescholar.com ). Let me repeat - don't sweat elementary school. Elementary school is a time for exploration and opening eyes to the wonders of the world and for developing at one's own pace. You'll get the hang of when to push and when to back off and wait, and if you're stymied, you can always yell for help from a variety of sources.

Thank you all for the great advice! The law in South Africa states that a child may be homeschooled, that a child should start formal education (Grade 1) in the year that the child turns seven (our schoolyear being from January to November with 3 short holidays and a long December holiday). The child can start formal education a year later only if advised by a health care professional, that includes doctors and psychiatrists, but excludes Occupational Therapists and any type of Psychologist. And here where we live, the only formal diagnosis I can get for my daugter is from Psychologist. The child-Neurologist couldn't make a diagnosis! Wish so that we could just fly off and me and my daughter go see Dr Tony Attwood for professional diagnosis! But with our country it probably won't be legitimate! They question everything! It's so frustrating! So, getting back to the point, I have no choice than to teach my daughter early math and abc's and teach her to read and write, the 2times table, 5times table and 10times table at least also! It's very expensive, but all natural and seemed to work for my daughter - Melatone. Vitamins to help her focus on the work. Well, wish me luck! And thanks for the great advice!

littlestar, I would try to give more specific advice but I couldn't tell from your post if your child is into math and not into fairy tales or the other way around. Anyway, MotherBear's advice was what people told me when I started homeschooling. I found it so difficult (for my own internal reasons, not because of the law) but in hindsight I wish I follows that advice more. My point for you is that I hope you can internalize MotherBear's advice despite the law. If anything, ASD is a developmental issue. There are many things our kids can do in advance of other kids, but other things they just won't get until they are older. I just know by experience that pounding in things my kid isn't ready for just sets us back. When I set something aside that he finds difficult and hit it later, he learns quite quickly, making up for lost time. I hope that gives you some encouragement.