Bonjour everyone! We have been struggling with homeschooling our second grader, Jack, on many fronts. I wondered if other families have found focus, organization, etc., to be challenges--and have you found any strategies that have helped? /Sara Clemence
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We are struggling with Octavia as well -- yesterday we didn't finish until about 5p and didn't even do 100% of the work (I can only take so much abuse). The default mode is to push back and dig in her heels with me, whereas the time on videoconf with the teachers is smooth and productive... different type of relationship I guess. To that end, we started joining the afternoon "optional" French vidconf with Caroline and it's a revelation. I now consider this de riguer and we'll start joining the afternoon English as well. SO MUCH EASIER.
I would urge the school to move toward more "live" remote classroom, more web-based assignment, and less paper/notebook-based work, which Octavia (at least) can't seem to handle without extensive intervention by us. Taking (lousy) webcam photos of the schoolwork is a pain too, and I'm not sure it's even legible at all on the other end. Perhaps the lost art of cursive will suffer somewhat, but I think Google Docs-based writing and other interactive web-based exercises will work better. And seriously, they need to learn to type anyway.
bon chance!
We're having similar issues with refusal and pushback. But we're also trying to have Jack do more on paper--and take the iPad away during that time, since he gets very distracted. Sometimes he wanders into a game, and others he's just...swiping around a lot. Also, now he thinks he's entitled to screen time afterwards too! Maybe it's a question of offering different options, and we can choose the ones that work best. We're going to try the optional chats.
Indeed. In 5th grade, we're still having a struggle about how to keep focused. I'm working toward having a schedule and planning the day. I am not getting much cooperation with that. It's hard to even know what assignments he has, unless I log into his Chrome account myself. Probably my biggest challenge is helping my son resist the pull of Google Chats. This is fifth grade, without a lot of adult supervision, and when I look over his shoulder, a lot of what I see is quasi-toxic drama. I know that the school is aware of the challenge. I suspect most of the parents are vaguely aware of it too. I would like to hear whether anybody has come up with some remedies or preventive measures. Note: Not all the kids are involved. But for the ones in the middle, I think could potentially be a problem. Seems best to get on top of it. I think it could be amenable to some curricular hints to our students too.
Oh no, that's really challenging. We don't have the chats yet, but working on the iPad presents a lot of distractions. We have to be sitting with Jack to make sure he doesn't wander off into a game. We tried disabling access, but it created problems with accessing his assignments.
ha, we keep the ipads quarantined so they can be used as a reward after the schoolwork is done (ish). all the schoolwork is done on a desktop mac, which makes it less easy to sidetrack into games etc.
as for gchat, I see my 4th grader doing it but it's harmless "hi!" stuff at this point. will keep my eye in that for sure.