The Transition

I'm sitting here wrapped up in my leopard print birthday Snuggie with the laptop.

I just wanted you to have a visual.

If you read Carissa's blog, you know she is really good about transitioning her kids in school. What I mean is, when Krash, her current pre-schooler, needed to move from "Tot School" expectations to "Pre-school" expectations, she had a whole plan and spent time going through those changes with him. She didn't just say one day, "OK.You're 4. Time to get to work!"

That's very wise and S and I have been talking about the need for Sweetheart (5th grade) to transition into more of an independent student. Unfortunately, I'm ahead of Carissa in children's ages so I can't just use all the awesome printables and downloads and units she will be sure to come up with when her children are this age. Shoot.

I know that there won't be a grand "now you are in middle school" feel to Sweetheart's school experience seeing as how she'll still be sitting in the same homeschool room with me and her little sister. Not too much frightening about that. We're considering shoving her in the closet some mornings on her way to the homeschool room and making fun of her each afternoon just so her experience will be authentic.

Anyway, it really hit me that this is the second half of her 5th grade year and it's time to start a transition. So, after talking it over with S, this is what we came up with.

We used to start our morning doing all of our "together" subjects (Bible, History, Science) in one fell swoop. Then, the girls had contact papered charts of what they needed to do the rest of the day so they could check things off with a marker and re-use the chart the next week too. Some of the subjects were independent and some required me. It didn't matter to me what order they did them in but they couldn't both work with me at the same time, obviously. This was working just fine. But it's the new year and I wanted something fresh.

Now, I have a binder for Sweetheart with all her independent work inside. This took more effort on my part than just going day by day but it's worth it. She begins her school day at her desk under her loft.

Uh, it's cleaner now.

And I begin the day with Little Bit in the school room doing reading, spelling, journal and handwriting with her. Little Bit LOVES having me all to herself first thing in the morning.

Here is what Sweetheart is doing in her room:

1. Read one chapter of the Bible. (Right now she's reading John and I made a list for her to check off. Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc.)

2. Write in journal. I made an assignment sheet for the week. Yesterday's assignment looked like this:

Wednesday  January 5, 2011
Write a story about a baby ladybug. You may draw a picture at the bottom of the page when you are through.

So, the date is right there for her to copy into her journal and each day has a new assignment. Since she read over them all on Monday, I know she's been thinking about what she wanted to write ever since then. And that's a good thing because her story about the ladybug had all the story elements in it.

3. Grammar. Here is where she does 2 boxes on a Drops in the Bucket sheet.

4. Math Practice. I printed a bunch of practice worksheets for her (way more than one week's worth) and just let her pick one to do each day. I check it the next morning.

5. Handwriting. One sheet in her Handwriting Without Tears book. I will probably begin to alternate this with copywork next week.

The first morning all this took her 30 minutes. Can you believe that? She LOVED working by herself and knowing exactly what was next. She's already asked me if she had to do things in order and I told her she did not. At a real job, you work on whatever needs doing and no one really tells you "first this, then this" so I'm letting her choose. If her math papers are continuously wrong, we may discuss the need to do math first. We'll see.

Then, the rest of the school day is spent alternating between "together" subjects and individual subjects. The only independent subject Little Bit has is computer time. But that's only because she's in first grade. Doing things this way breaks up all the reading I do and the listening they do in History and Science so that's easier on Little Bit.

So far, so good. This is the first step in having a more independent student. Don't ask me what the next step is, because I haven't a clue.