Taking a step back

This last week, there has been a lot of frustration at our sit-down learning time, both from Bear and from myself, because we keep having moments where Bear struggles, but often with something that I already know he understands or knows... His first instinct when he doesn't know an answer or doesn't understand something is to get upset, which in turn frustrates me because I know there is nothing to get upset about, and that we are always learning... I have explained that so many times to him, but we still get tears.

Somehow, despite me being so sure that it wasn't the path I wanted to follow, we have found ourselves using workbooks for our intentional learning time, and usually, the books are aged at 3+ and then 5+. Obviously, as Bear is five now, I have been choosing the 5+ books, as the 3+ ones seem mega easy and he knows most of the information in them. However, I think that's where we are coming unstuck as the 5+ ones have too much in them that he doesn't yet know or understand, and that is a wall too steep to climb right now.

Bear is pretty bright, and picks things up relatively quickly, sometimes with very little input, so I think I might be overdoing it at a level too high for him right now. Since my realisation, I have backed off a little, coinciding with the five days mentioned in my previous post where we were so busy we barely had time to sit down for anything like this. I have gone back to reading and writing for fun, but have started to put more emphasis on how I read, pointing to the words as I read them, and getting Bear involved with words that he does recognise, or can sound out and blend easily.

From here, I am going to go back to games, reading and much more hands on learning for a little while until I see his confidence in his ability rise a bit, and then go back to the books, but maybe not as often. Use them as a base and then develop activities to learn the sounds etc, rather than use the workbooks as the learning.

This is one of the reasons I chose Home Education to begin with - the ability to work at the right pace, at the right time, for each individual child! Right now, Bear needs more hands on, fun learning, not sitting down at a table every day with a workbook and pencil in front of him, and by learning at home, we can do that. I can accommodate his needs.

So, moving forward, I am going to follow his lead a little more and see where it takes us!

How do you get through the main subjects, if you do? Phonics and numbers are what I concentrate on right now... I'd love to hear what you do with your littles, especially if they're of a similar age!

Mama Bear