Monday, March 21, 2011

Length and Depth

Have you ever wondered how long the school day should be for your kindergartner? Have you ever wondered what skills should be included each day? Keep in mind that you are homeschooling, this is not a brick and mortar environment. While the public school student attends classes for approximately 7 hours, many of those minutes and hours are spent lining up to go to the bathroom, lining up to go to lunch, lining up to go to recess or another class. Public classroom teachers spend quite a bit of time passing out papers to 20 children, stopping a lesson to discipline a child, explaining and re-explaining a lesson until everyone understands... These are activities that will not be a time waster for you. The typical day for your kindergartner will be approximately three hours long, or less. Some days might be a little longer and some days might be a little shorter. As far as the subjects are concerned, make sure you include math, reading (phonics), science, art, music, social studies, life skills, physical activity, writing, and whatever else your child is most interested in learning.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Goals

So, you have decided to home school your kindergartner using an online resource. Now is the time to take out a sheet of paper and put your goals down so you can see them in writing. Goals? Do I need goals? Yes, really you do need goals so you can evaluate your progress as you go along. You will have lots of different types of goals-personal goals for yourself, goals for your child, goals about the curriculum... Your goals do not have to be very detailed, just an idea of what you expect. Some ideas for goals are:

Curriculum--easy to use, aligned to state or national standards, challenging without being too hard or too easy, has some form of record keeping system in place, fun, animated, appeals to visual and auditory learners, easy to navigate, quick log-on time, printable resources, phone and email contacts for help or questions, student paced lessons...

Child--can log-on easily, can navigate the lessons without trouble, is able to sit for 30 minutes at a time, makes adequate progress each month, enjoys the lessons, retains information learned...

Personal--watch my child excited to learn something new, watch my child grow in knowledge, witness my child being semi-independent with lessons, maintain up-to-date records of my child’s progress reports, spend less time/more time with my child during lessons, manage my time better with younger children in the family while my older child schools, help ensure my child builds a strong academic base that he can build upon as he continues to school...