Homeschool head butting

It happens in the smoothest of households. With the easiest of students. They seem like they're doing beautifully in all their work.

Then BLAMMO! You switch to another subject - writing, for example. Original writing is tough enough for some minds. If you're still struggling with the whole "forming letters, arranging said letters into words, and lining all that up into a sentence" thing, writing becomes a big fat roadblock in your day.

I'm being extra mean about it today, too. Sometimes, if he needs to write something long, I take dictation, and then we look it over. But today he has to write a whole PARAGRAPH. HIMSELF. He's been groaning about how he can't think of anything to write about for 15 minutes. I get that putting thoughts on paper can be tough, but when I ask him out loud "What happened in The Swiss Family Robinson?" he can tell me. So I ask him questions, and when he answers I tell him to write it down. Oh, the torture! Flopping over, moaning.

We need to work on typing, I think. Once he's familiar with the keyboard, typing will be much faster than handwriting. Maybe writing will be easier for him then.

We use allinonehomeschool.com as our curriculum. It's well organized, includes all grades K-12, and it's free and available online to all. I recommend it to anyone interested in homeschooling for the first time, since it helps if you're worried about lesson planning and covering everything.

Oh! In the time that it took me to write this post, he's ALMOST finished his paragraph! Woot! Then we can move on to testing how many pennies a tin foil boat can hold before sinking.