Staying Motivated
Staying Motivated
When working from home, the search for motivation is sometimes difficult. There are days when being a self-starter is the last thing you want to do. Curling up in your favorite chair and reading a book, working out in the garden on a beautiful day, taking a drive in the country, watching a movie, or maybe going to the beach can all sound better than sitting your children around the table for school lessons. It takes a lot of self-motivation to homeschool, or for that matter, to help a struggling student with their homework when they don’t want to cooperate because the work is “too hard.”
So, what are some ways to conquer the motivation issue as the parent-teacher?
One of my favorite things to do to stay motivated anytime is to make a list the night before of the things I need to accomplish the next day. It’s amazing how much more I get done. I put everything on my list. The daily routine stuff as well as all the other things that need attention, including the errands, which I try to clump together.
Making a list of schoolwork that needs to be completed on a given day would be helpful to the student as well as to the parent. I would suggest listing the assignments for each subject on a whiteboard. Let the student erase each assignment as it is finished. Let your student choose the order in which the assignments are completed. If one of the lessons is an experiment or hands-on activity, guide your student to complete at least half of the other assignments before stopping to do the hands-on activity.
If you have errands on a particular day, and your children are young and need to go with you, I suggest going around lunchtime and adding a lunch stop somewhere your children enjoy as a bribe for continuing schoolwork in the afternoon.
As the parent-teacher, you can have your student’s assignments on your to do list also. Cross them out as they are completed. You may be able to get to some of your other things on the list while your student is doing schoolwork. Hopefully, by the end of the day, everything will be done. If not, add the leftovers to the next day and move on.
With homeschooling, it’s important to add in some field trips to interesting places nearby. If you have a zoo close by, it’s a great place to go. For years, when I was teaching full-time, I kept a zoo pass. I compiled questions that could be answered from the signs posted by each exhibit. When I taught biology in high school we went to the zoo. I gave my students a worksheet to fill out so I would know that they all walked around and learned something. (Just a note: That was the huge San Diego Zoo. The San Diego Zoo is a 100-acre wildlife park that is home to over 14,000 rare and endangered animals, representing more than 700 species and subspecies.) Without a worksheet, high schoolers looked at the field trip more as “party time” with their friends. With the worksheet, it became a time of competition between small groups to see which group could complete it first. For homeschoolers, taking photos of a certain number of animals and then looking them up and writing about them would be an appropriate assignment that even younger students could do.
Other suggestions for field trips might include museums, botanical gardens (when studying plants) and any other place that is relevant to something they are studying. One of my all-time favorite places to go to was a Gold Mine that gave tours to students. Check what’s available in your area and go from there.
Another motivational idea is to give a small reward, or points that add up for a bigger reward, on days when all schoolwork is completed by the end of the day. It’s important to try to stay on track with assignments.
Before each school year started, I went through each subject and did a rough plan to know how many days it would take to complete each textbook. I always built into my plan several extra days for catch-up, field trips, or unexpected things. My view was that it was okay to finish a subject early, but NOT to not finish the textbook, because the next year builds on what was learned the previous year. (Just a note: This is why the school lockdowns were so devastating to our children, and why there was so much learning loss.)
Make sure to take short breaks during the day but try to stay on track with the lessons. At the end of the day your student will feel great about completing all the day’s assignments. As the parent-teacher, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment also. Then it’s time to make your list for the next day.
Beginning Sight Words
I to he
can me look
for some many
have and with
his this where
from says done
the go is
of what good
goes any should
we you little
they help who
Mr. could again
see do she
said put come
your would was
a my does
want has Mrs.
as been there
like are how
hear play walk
Note to Parents:
Remember when teaching sight words to your child, it’s best to put them on 3”x 5” cards and start with 5 at a time. When your child is comfortable with the first 5, add in 2 or 3 more at a time.
I would probably look at the list with a reading book in hand. Start with the sight words that they will need to be able to read fluently in their reader. Since different readers have different sight words, this is the best way to get started.
You can start by having them just read the word. When they are proficient with remembering the word, you can also have them learn to spell it. That is the goal: reading and spelling each sight word correctly.
Important Kindergarten Skills to Practice During the Summer and Beyond
A lot of kindergarten work is oral. There are only a few things on this list that requires writing. Here are some ideas to help you get started:
1. High Frequency and Sight Words: (Put them on flash cards if you can)
a. List 1: I, am, see, a, can, we, the, in, and, go, to, like, said, you, is, it, here, come, up, look, at, me, on, this, my
b. List 2: she, was, he, went, by, out, big, little, yes, with, no, not, going, down, where, are, they, from, have, for, run, his, will, one, of
2. Practice identifying upper and lowercase letters and their sound, including the digraphs ch, ck, sh, th, wh.
3. Practice writing their name legibly.
4. If your child knows his/her sounds, they may practice sounding out CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words. To do this say each sound and then put them together to say the word. Here is a list of sample words to start with: mat, bam, map, Sam, fat, tap, cab, pig, rim, ban, tag, gap, nag, bin, am, pin, rat, lip, at, hit, cat, rat, sat, fig, dog, jam, lid, dim, bog, dip, dig, kid, cob, cub, gum, us, wax, quit, wag, ox, cut, yum, path, neck, chin, rock, back, rush, chop
5. Work on Rhyming Words. Examples Set One: mat, bat, sat, cat, etc. Set Two: jump, bump, lump, etc. Set Three: sing, ring, bring, etc. Set Four: run, bun, fun, etc. (Rhyming words are strictly by ending sound and not the spelling such as fun and done.
6. Math Skills:
a. Practice counting from 1 to 100 by 1’s and practice counting by 10’s to 100.
b. Practice writing numbers from 1 to 20.
c. Practice adding numbers reaching 5, such as 1+2=3, 2+3=5, etc.
d. Practice recognizing flat shapes: triangle, square, rectangle, circle, hexagon.
e. Practice 3-D shapes: sphere, cone, cylinder, prism, cube.
7. Besides these academics, working on small motor skills is also critical for kindergarten children. Suggestions include:
a. Practice cutting with scissors – straight lines and curves
b. Coloring – Staying in the lines
c. Playdough – pinching and shaping
d. Any other activity that requires using fingers with small things
Spending 10 to 15 minutes each day practicing some of these things will really help your child excel.
