Home Ed Program 2017

Straight off the bat, nobody likes doing bookwork, not even the primary homeschooling parent (that would be yours truly).  I have the books mainly so I know what they're technically supposed to be doing if they were at school (and it would be a handy syncing device should they ever decide to go to school or if I need to chuck them in there for whatever reason).  So I'll be getting English, Maths and Science books from my usual source for these things once I have money to do so.  We have been doing ChoreMonster on another homeschooler's recommendation which has been working out better for longer than other things I've tried.  However the bigs are getting to an age where I want them to be a bit more responsible with how they manage their time and the things that need to do (rather than me telling them what they should be doing and then nagging them because they don't want to do it).  To that end the bigs and I are now giving Habitica a go as we're all gamers and roleplayers so the idea is a bit more appealing than the simple reward system that ChoreMonster is.  The bigs have copied their bookwork into the daily list and the other chores into habits, and I've told them they can add whatever else they like.  Unlike ChoreMonster where I assigned how many points each chore was worth, they can assign how difficult they feel each task is and reap the rewards (or the punishments if they fail to complete their dailies).  We're still in early days and change is hard on anyone, they currently don't like it and want to go back to ChoreMonster possibly because the interface is a lot more complicated and there are in-game consequences for not completing tasks (the character loses health) and the sudden responsibility is a bit overwhelming.  They have since added their own todos and habits and dailies on top of the ones I've given them and we're on a quest to defeat the Dust Bunnies, and 12yo actually scarpered to bed when he realised what time it was as one of his habits was to be in bed by 9:30pm, so it might go all right.

12yo (Year 7)

High school this year, ack! This year we're going to keep trying to push the maths and physics and other such related things as he's still interested in engineering, though at this stage it's looking like he wants to join the hoardes of people trying to eke a living on Twitch.  He's still pretty on par with English as far as reading, comprehension and research skills goes (he reads young/adult fiction and non-fiction every night, and regularly researches computer problems he encounters when trying to troubleshoot, and also will look up anything he happens to find interesting, and watches endless docos on everything), we just need to find some way to make writing relevant and also need to work on his time management skills a bit more as they seem to have lapsed a lot. 

Weekly activities

• 2x 1hr football training
• 1x football game
• 2x2hr gymnastics
• 1x kung fu
• 1x 30min swimming lesson
• 1x visiting great grandmother

10yo (Year 5)

10yo is the easiest of the bunch to work with as she is most likely to comply with bookwork requests in a timely fashion.  Everything is on par, could probably push her a bit more in English if we were in a setting where grades are more important than anything else, but as is I'm quite happy to let her be on par with everything while she experiments with makeup artistry (including making her own beautiy products), traditional art, and video editing (she has her own Youtube channel) and spends an inordinate amount of time practising gymnastics.  She also enjoys cooking and both follows and invents recipes, and has taken over certain dishes because she does them best out of anyone in the family.  She may end up cooking entire main meals this year.  This year will be making sure she's keeping up with major areas (we're starting to struggle with maths, I suspect she may  have similar issues to me) while getting adequate exposure to a broad range of experiences.

Weekly activities

• 2x 2hr gymnastics
• 1x kung fu
• 30mins swimming practice while brothers are at lessons (she doesn't want to do lessons anymore and swims well enough for pool and calm beach)
• 1x visiting great grandmother

8yo (Year 3)

At the beginning of last year, after discussing some learning issues 8yo had been having (his reading and writing skills had been progressing really well and then suddenly he hit a brick wall), she suggested that he might be autistic.  It put some of his behavioural issues into context and after receiving confirming opinions from his gymnastics coach, swimming teacher and other parents with autistic kids, we started doing all the hoop jumping and due to the waiting list, have booked him in with a private paedietrician and will know in March what we're dealing with.  In the meantime we've been able to make a few more accommodations for him (before we were accommodating him age appropriately but otherwise dealing with meltdowns as that of a spoilt brat who is simply angry about not getting what they want) which has really helped on the behaviour and learning front.  Also, Magic: The Gathering (and also Pokemon but the former gets played more here) is great for motivating him to learn how to read.  Right now I'm focusing most on getting him reading and practising his writing (which is actually all right, he just can't read what he wrote unless it's his name or his brother's name), he's brilliant at maths and finds most things really interesting so new experiences and going over old things in a new way is rarely a problem.

Weekly activities

• 2x 2hr gymnastics
• 1x kung fu
• 1x 30min swimming lesson
• 1x visiting great grandmother

We didn't go out nearly as much as I would have liked last year mostly due to aforementioned behaviour issues with 8yo but now that we have a better idea of what we're dealing with, I have a survival kit (food, his ipad and he's also my Pokemon Go and Ingress sidekick, and I'm trying to source a very specific pink curly tailed pig stressball/focus object), plus with maturing and brain development, I think we'll be better this year.