i feel your pain! my children are 7 months, 4 years (with downs syndrome) 5 / k 7/2nd grade-ish and 9/ 4-5grade ish
it can be very difficult to teach letters, phonics, basic reading and early lititure all at the same time, so usually we dont! my son with downs has an ot/st/pt (in home therapy) theripists here from 9-11 every weekday so i use that time to my advantage, my 5 year old can choose between diffrent activites that i know he can do alone... Journling, handwriting, computer 'games' or finishing up projects from the day before. this gives me about an hour to get my older two started for the day. we go over all their indepent work.. what they have to read, which worksheets need to be done today and other lessons that they can do with minimal assistance.
once they have started on somthing sam (5) and i can work together for another hour with only occasional intruptions to help explain somthing or answer questions from 'the big kids'
after lunch when we have everyone working together is when we do all our hands on projects, most of our science and art... but for the hard stuff you deffiantly dont have to have everyone working on the same subject at the same time!
with only two kids you could try doing "fun stuff" science experiments, art, and anything else that they can do together during one part of the day, and then later, say, after lunch let one child have a break (not a tv zombie break, just an unstructured time break!) to go play in his room, or read or persue his own intrests for a while and have one on one time with your other child, work on the stuff they dont do well together then, after 30 minutes, or an hour, or however long works for your family, swap kids and do the same thing. one on one you can acomplish alot in a small amount of time and the kids really enjoy having mom or dad all to them selves for a while, at least mine do!
sorry that got a little long winded, but i hope that it helps. let us know how things go for you ↑ |
