Homeschooling Moms
How hard is it? REALLY?
2-3-_? 4! It's 4 dang it!
Me: Can you count to 10?
Gal: Yeah. -she counts to ten easily-
Me: Ok. Finish this. 2-3-...
Gal: 4. (again, done without a problem.)
I give her a worksheet with the same exact excercises and she blows it! I write 1-10 at the top of the page even, and she still gets them wrong. I am NOT going to be holding her hand on work that she is suppose to be doing herself! Ah! I'm so frustrated! She can count to 29, but can't finish a "what comes next" exercise? REALLY? I can't do this. I hate the school system here, and do NOT like that SB48 bill, but I am not doing this every day. I don't have the patience. I have a 16 month old and #3 comng in Feb. I don't have time to do her work for her because nothing sticks in the butterfinger brain of hers!
Replies
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I'm so sorry you're frustrated. She sounds very young, how old is she? She also sounds like an audio/visual learner, in which case (for the very young student) seeing the numbers on a page is completely different from saying the answer orally. It's something that can be improved with age, but if she is an audio/visual learner then she might always have trouble with worksheets. So it's not a teaching problem, just the style of education vs her learning style, if you see what I mean. -
If you know she knows it why are you making her do busy work? If you want her to use that information take her shopping with you & have her count out the items you need off the shelf. Worksheets are just busy work the real learning happens when what is being learned can be used in real life.
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Use hands on things that what works with you oldest girl when she was younger. Use cards Use object
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Even the DIBELS test only expects kids to do 1 of those types of problems in a minute. Relax. This is MUCH harder for her than most people think. Most 5yo are still very auditory learners, they do not "get" the written stuff easily at all. And the missing number thing is very difficult, even the ones that come at the end of the sequence.
She is very teachable. Take a few breaths. You can all do this. Why don't you take a break from this type of exercise for a while? Just count. You start counting a let her count on from where you stop. Count the number of stairs in a flight, the number of leaves on the porch, the number of tiles in the kitchen, the number of steps to the bathroom.
Forget about the worksheets for a while and get back to how smart she is at whatever she is smart in. KWIM?
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If she can't do it on her own on paper, then she doesn't really know it. If she needs me to hold her hand, then she doesn't really know it. If she gets tripped up starting on anything other than the number one by herself, then, well, you know. lol I'm convinced she knows it when she can do worksheets like this. The worksheets are my way of know where she really is. And she actually likes them. She prefers the worksheets. It's the simple concepts that she doesn't grasp that drives me up the wall. >_< -sigh-
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It seems so simple, that's true. I guess she still is on the basics. It's frustrating because we have been doing numbers and letters for a while now. I thought she'd be further ahead. We're not on a curriculum for K to save money so I'm just trying to wing it. Time to take a few steps back.
Thanks.
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Quoting KickButtMama:
I'm so sorry you're frustrated. She sounds very young, how old is she? She also sounds like an audio/visual learner, in which case (for the very young student) seeing the numbers on a page is completely different from saying the answer orally. It's something that can be improved with age, but if she is an audio/visual learner then she might always have trouble with worksheets. So it's not a teaching problem, just the style of education vs her learning style, if you see what I mean.She's 5 (turned 5 in June). She said she likes the worksheets, and has a number workbook she loves. But I guess it's time to slow down.
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She may be a visual learner like my son. If she items in front of her that she can count out, she may grasp the concept more easily. Is a private school an option for you? She would get more one-on-one than a public school? It is quite expensive, but worth every penny, in my opinion.
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It sounds like your daughter learns better by speaking and hearing than by writing and reading. There are 3 main ways children learn; auditory (hearing and speaking), visual (reading and writing), and kinesthetic (doing). Most people are strong in 1 (sometimes 2) predominate areas, and have a weakness in the other. The beauty of homeschooling is that you can up-play to your daughters strengths. If she can recite things better orally, grade her that way. She does not have to complete a worksheet to prove that she knows something ~ if she can tell it to you, that counts as learning. Also, when you are teaching her, keep in mind that she will learn better by hearing it than by reading it. So read-aloud to her, and have discussions with her a lot. When I went to college, there was a girl who would never take notes in class; she would knit the whole time the professor lectured! But you know what, she aced the course because she was a strong auditory learner, and that's how she soaked everything in. You can look up more about these 3 learning styles, along with Gardner's Multiple Intelligences online. You will be able to see right away what kind of learner your daughter is, and how best you can teach her. Best of luck! :-)
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I agree with the replies below. You are too frustrated and showing her frustration is not helping her at all. Take away the paper and count with her in every day life experiences. Go back to the paper once she feels confortable with reading the paper she is only 5 years old!