The School Year Has Started. What We Do to Supplement Learning in School.

Alright, a lot of you reached out after we shared the homework goal sheet Mason and I made. I put a free link for it down below. How we use it: every time Mason does 8 pages of his workbook, he gets to color a picture. Once all pages are colored, he gets $20 for his piggy bank. It takes him about a month or so to finish, so a month of not fighting him to do homework is well worth $20 IMO. You could tweak this in so many ways. It could be just completing school homework. Or maybe it is working on some sight words. Whatever it is, it keeps the kiddos in a routine of working on school work. Before we had this sheet, I made a different chart with chores and schoolwork. Mason has been doing something similar to this for over a year and it has paid off. Now, homework is a routine task. It is no longer a question of what we do in the evenings. We just devote at least a few minutes each (most) night(s) to focus our brains on learning. Sometimes it is while we are cooking dinner. Other times it is while we are settling down for the night. Either way, it’s no longer something we need to beg him to do. He even asks to do it so he can check off his list. So, we made it a nightly routine. Yes, even in the summer. The kids will thank me later (hopefully).

In full disclosure, we struggle to get Addi to work on learning projects. We have had to get creative so she thinks we are just doing arts and crafts. She does not have the same dedication to learning that Mason has, yet. She will eventually get in a routine. Or at least she will better understand bribery when she gets older and then be more inspired to do "homework" to earn Target spending money.

Every kid is different and every home situation is different. What works for my kids may not work for yours. This isn’t me telling you how to parent or teach your kids. This is to show what works for me, not what works for everyone. Heck, I’m not even a teacher. I am just a mom who wants to encourage her children to have a passion for learning and I want to help others who may be looking for ways to simplify teaching at home. In my opinion, this is the first step: creating routine and motivation. Parenting is hard enough, so I don't want to gatekeep some tricks that worked to make homework easier for us.

My qualifications: nothing relevant. I am a retired attorney who now runs a kids boutique, flips homes, sells homes, creates content on social media, and makes these mediocre blogs. So why are you still reading? Perhaps it is that you are also a mom trying to find a balance and teach your kids like me. Well, I can’t guarantee it will work, but this has worked for the last year for one of my kids. (It will probably stop working as soon as I publish this, because, well, kids).

What works for us?

-Here are the books we use for the kiddos. Mason has been using the BOB books to learn to read, and the workbooks for reading and math. (Amazon resources)

-Both kiddos now use this homework chart to stay on track (free printable PDF). There are 28 pictures to color in. The theory: some days my kids do more than the goal for the day and color in more than one, some days we don’t do any, but overall, it averages out to homework most days.

Bottom line: do what works for you and talk with the licensed professionals. They know better than some mom friend you met on the internet. But these things work for me, and I hope to help you in your motherhood journey as well.

As always, thanks for popping by. Talk soon.

XOXO,

Ash