Teaching to be taught!

I always hated school, well there was a time when I liked it but that soon faded once we moved to a new school and my grades started to drop and continued to drop until I hit grade 11 (I have my husband to thank for helping me to achieve better grades in both 11 and 12 grade). 

When we decided to homeschool I wondered how it would work with me being the primary teacher and feeling like I wasn't the smartest one in the bunch.  Well as we finish up week three I can say it's not so bad. Yes there have been ups and downs I've had to be taught a few lessons myself so far (and this is only kindergarten) but it's been fun. My husband continues to laugh at me at my lack of knowledge on some things but I laugh right along with him.  The biggest thing that I am learning is that indeed all kids do learn at a different pace and some things come naturally and others not so much.  One thing that I found most exciting this week was when my son finally understood something that I was teaching him and his entire face lit up and that same thing happened again today.  I am sure there will be many more of those moments but that first one just melted my heart. 

Starting today I introduced a reward chart because we were having some struggles getting through our phonics and reading, the math seems to be a breeze but maybe it's because it's only 2 pages and the phonics/reading is between 4 and 6 pages (even though 1 is me reading to him).  It started out with him being interested in everything around him instead of the work we had to do so we moved from the dining room into the office so he wouldn't be distracted by stuff but now in the office he just complains non stop of being tired non stop (but yet he won't have a nap although I have had him sit for a quite time only to hear him every 3 minutes "Is it time to get up yet").  So in comes the reward, if he sits without complaining and finishes his work with a good attitude he gets a sticker and at the end of the week he gets a quarter for every sticker he's received and when he's earned enough money he gets to buy a toy he's had his eyes on.  I can happily say that today IT WORKED!  I was amazed at how well we got through it and he actually seemed to enjoy it a bit. Lets see how next week goes.