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Showing posts from 2020

Reward System

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Plenty of evidence shows that when parents learn how to use positive feedback and rewards, their kids’ behavior improves. Before homeschooling, we've been using reward system that Ariel and Teagan can collect "stars" or "flowers" to exchange for rewards. We hung these boards in the bedroom.  We evaluate what they've done each day before they go to bed. During this time, I will ask them questions like "Did you show consideration?" and "why?" I noticed that they learned to pay more attention to what they're doing through this daily practice.  They could be punished by taking back their collected stars/flowers if they  misbehave. They learned to be responsible to their own behavior through this exercise. Moreover, if they perform really well, we do give them more than one star/flower for each action/behavior. I read some articles and books on how to setup a good reward system. Some of them encouraged to use non-monetary ...

Classroom = Office

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We intentionally make k ids' classroom and our office the SAME one, so that we can take care of (supervising) them while working. Luckily our study room is quite spacious. We put two computer desks, two ergonomic chairs, a kid's table, and two kids' chairs in the study room. Ariel and Teagan do their assignments, read books, use tablets and even make crafts here in the classroom/office. We use a trolley for  stationery. They can find pencils, erasers, crayons, scissors, etc on the trolley. Two benefits of using a trolley -- it's easy to move (they do doodling or painting outside the classroom sometimes), and it's very organized as we store different types of stationery at different layers. Since they use tablets during some classes, we have a charging station in the room so all the tablets will be charged fully after each use. We do have a clock hung on the window so that kids (at least Ariel) can tell the time. However Teagan do...

Daily Schedule

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>>> Both parents working full-time from home + homeschooling for 4 and 6 y/o kids... >>> Is it possible?? It's super challenging to keep both our 4 & 6 y/o kids at home while Angus and I need to work from home. Ariel and Teagan will come to us every 30 minutes (sometimes shorter!) for TV, for tablets, for snacks, for toys, or even for play ideas. And it looks like this COVID-19 situation will continue for months. Playing at home all the time is just not going to work for such a long period. We need a sustainable plan for sure, especially when they can not even go out to parks or playgrounds. Therefore we decided to try homeschooling with daily schedule. The following is our Monday schedule: ------------------------------------- 8:00 Breakfast ------------------------------------- 9:00 Free Play 9:30 Academic: Math 10:30 Creative Time 11:30 Educational TV Time ------------------------------------- 12:30 Lunch ------------------------------------- 1:30 ...