What's Working Lately

Today I'm linking up with Our Busy Homeschool for a new link up called: Sharing What Works!

Every one knows that each of their children learn differently. Some people call these learning styles, some call it individuality, whatever you want to call it we've certainly run into it here at Homeschool Camper. I've done each of the kid's preschool here at home, never having wanted to pay the prices most preschools ask. Elder Cracker Jack would fly through sometimes twenty pages a day while his then two year old sister played around him and he always seemed to "get" it. Younger Cracker Jack, who's eight now ... no longer two (pout pout), was a bit more difficult and preschool took her a bit longer but if you set whatever you were trying to teach to song then she instantly learned it. She still knows many words that way because she learned how to spell them to song.

Peanut, oh my precious Peanut. This is my "other" child. You know, the one that doesn't fit neatly into any of those styles the experts talk about. Where one thing will work one day or week and won't work the next. She's taught me to just go with the flow and be as creative as I can. Some concepts she just "gets" ... things that I thought that she might have issues with. Other concepts need to be shown in different ways and talked about and integrated into our daily living until she does get it.

What's working this week is my handy-dandy button stash. She learned to count with these a few weeks back and then lost interest in them. Now, we were struggling earlier this week with "one less" and "one more" but mostly the one less part. Out came the buttons when a light bulb came on over Mommy's head. I put five buttons on her left side and four buttons on her right. I talked about how many there were on each side and we counted them. Then I slid one button away from the left side saying, "Now, we'll make 5 one less so that it's..." I held my breath... no answer. "Count them..." Peanut counted both the right and left side buttons and said, "They're both four Mamma..." GIANT PRAISE. "Now, how do you think we could make one of these piles one less than four?" She thought about it and thought about it and then shook her head. We did this over and over again until there was one button on each side. Again I asked, "How do we make one side one less?" ... Holding my breath, YCJ looking on, and suddenly the light came on in Peanut's eyes. She reached out with her little hand and slid one of the buttons up and to the big pile across the table. "That's one less, Mamma. Zero is one less than one." HUGE GIANT PRAISE. We danced around the room, we clapped, we announced it to Daddy who then took the opportunity while she helped him with dinner that night to ask her about one less without buttons. She knew it! I absolutely love my button pile.

We've also moved ECJ back to his own desk in his room instead of at the kitchen table. He'll be in there next week as well. He'd been slipping behind in his History lessons and taking much to long to do his book work each day. So, we removed the distractions by having him move his work back to his room. Sometimes he needs to work away from everyone else, sometimes he needs to be right under my feet in the thick of things. With Halloween coming up and the "newness" wearing off of the school year he was allowing himself to get distracted. The ADHD monster had reared it's ugly head again. For now this is working for him... next week? Who knows.