Joyschool

Our Joyschool:

 A mother and I have started a Joyschool for our children. We had attempted to get together a bigger group of kids, but we have my child and a neighbor boy participating, which makes it a very small group. We decided we would like to focus on learning letters/reading along with other life themes. Just as importantly, we want to give our children an opportunity to interact with other kids their age and be exposed to a school-type setting.

Learning about "A" and Fiction/Non-fiction

Today I taught my first Joyschool lesson.  I wrote up a simple and sort of sloppy lesson plan, and I am sure glad I remembered to include an "Engage". This really helped get us started when my own son was causing problems. 

The boys were playing with toys, and I asked them to clean up. When my son refused, I mentioned that the person who I saw cleaning up the most would be able to pick the first object out of my bag. That got everyone moving. Both he and the other boy got to pick at the same time because they were both cleaning up really well. I was surprised how much they enjoyed coloring the page I printed off for them, and I was happy with the worksheet, that it allowed them to color inside block letters as well as tracing the A's. I think it gives good exposure to the structure of the different letters.

Today's theme was Literacy, so we read some books about Alligators (since Alligator starts with "A"), and talked about Fiction/Non-fiction. We made up our own fiction and non-fiction stories together. I was surprised at how well this went, that the boys grasped the procedure and went along with it. 

Further Reflection:

I wondered if I should have focused on teaching procedures more, rather than spending all the time on a lesson, but I think it went well. I have not sat down and figured out any specific rules or specific procedures. 

Keeping Younger Children Happy

One problem/distraction we had came from my youngest son, who was screaming because he wanted to bring his strawberries into the living room. After trying to calm him down and give him other options, I took him upstairs to cry and let him come back down when he was done crying. He did. So it all worked out. He did participate in each stage of the lesson, and that kept him engaged aside from his own personal issues of the day. I will always prepare enough materials for him to participate as well. He is a little young for complete participation in some of the activities we have, so perhaps I will need to take this into consideration and provide similar, but separate, materials to participate with. I should take care of personal business before Joyschool starts. For example, I think he was fussy from teething. Perhaps I should have given him medicine before class started.

Transitioning into the Classroom

My children are probably always going to be playing with toys while we wait for the other child to show up. So when he gets here, it is natural for him to join in. Perhaps next time I will let them play for a few more minutes instead of expecting them to clean up right away. I will set a timer for five minutes, and then we will clean up. I will always want to have an engage ready to get them excited about moving to the next activity.

Place for Instruction

Our lessons will vary, but one problem we had was that everyone was crowding me and trying to get the bag first. There needs to be a form of order. After they are done cleaning up, I will have them sit on the couch, or on the floor, depending on what we are doing, so that I can explain the procedures for our engage/lesson. It would probably be best just to keep one place so they can go there without me needing to remind them.

Raising Hands?

I don't think I am going to enforce raising hands because I feel like that will cause more problems enforcing than it will solve when we only have two children. I want them to be able to interact and be a part of their learning.