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Today was the unofficial last day of school(ing). Kind of/whatever. My older boys, 7th grade/11th grade, had their learning for the last 8 wks (what there was of it) organized online; 4th grader was mostly left up to me. For the last 8 weeks I taught him, here's what I learned:
Before covid, my 4th grader was not exactly struggling, but not thriving, either. Every single piece of work came home unfinished. Nothing he learned ever seemed to stick, like he wasn't really there; we'd joke that he must be hiding in the bathroom all day.
At home, he's hilarious and engaged, and *loves* to be outside. He's got great concentration when mountain biking or skateboarding or building a skate ramp, etc, so we couldn't figure out what was happening. We just thought that maybe school "wasn't his thing."
Starting at home one on one with me, I decided to only concentrate on a couple of things that were challenging for him: math and writing. He was really anxious, and would freak himself out before we even got started, already worried that he was going to do it badly. Ok, clue #1.
I quickly realized that moving fast--here, do this and this and this--made him completely shut down. Clue #2. So we slowed things down, like way down. Ex: we'd just do like 100 long division problems of every kind, and nothing else. He loved this, and did well.
Elementary school moves very fast, and I think he never got a chance to get good at anything, which ate at his confidence. As soon as he'd start to catch on to long division, they were on to fractions, etc. His math curriculum covered about 275 concepts this year, I swear.
So what happened, I think, is that he never got good at any of them. At home we worked on concepts over and over until he knew them in his body. He got more confident every day. He can do long division now, even story problems, in his sleep.
The other thing I wanted to work on was finishing things. He hadn't finished a single essay all year, and I was determined to show him that it could be done and not to be afraid of it. We took it slowly, one step at a time, making sure he was a pro at one step before moving on.
One thing that really bothered me was his lack of attention to making something good--instead he worried he wouldn't get the next thing done. We did a little project, on The Great Pyramid, step by step, so I could show him how to take something, finish, and then improve it.
His essay is so good, and he is so amazed at himself, what he was able to do when he had the time and wasn't freaking out. Here's the cover he made for his essay, look at that perspective! I'm so proud of him.
One thing I learned while #homeschooling is that I wish elementary school could slow down and do fewer things better. He was about to take off to middle school having "covered" 3 million things, but not having the basic things down that are essential to middle school success.
And I know that a lot of teachers feel this way, too, so maybe this is no big news to anybody. But maybe somebody will hear me: slow down! My son is going to be much more prepared for middle school next yr. because of this time at home. /End
