It's all gone a bit wrong!!

So we have been home educating for 6 months now and our Semi-structured approach is really not working.

Kye is getting so frustrated with the work and in order to make sure there is as little writing as possible for him, seeing as he is so averse to it, I am spending all my free time putting together worksheets for him, that has all the relevant information, along with fun activities that as much as possible does not involve excessive writing.

As a result of this I am barely getting any writing done myself, on my current WIP and despite the lack of writing Kye is still struggling to get absorbed by the work.

So what can I do? Well, I have decided to try a method that at first I was very unsure about. Free schooling I believe is the correct term, but I could be wrong. Essentially, you allow the child to lead the learning process, by looking at things he is interested in and trying to learn more about it.

I am really not sure how this will work, because when we have done this on occasion in the past, Kye had still ended up getting very bored, very quickly with whatever subject matter it was that he was interested in.

We'll be trying this out for a month to see how it goes, starting on Monday. I have to say I am really nervous about it and pretty sure that Kye is simply going to choose to play instead of learning something, but I guess time will tell.

One thing I did find recently that Kye really enjoyed was heading down to the park and playing the games on the GPS that was loaned to us.

Essentially you need a nice big field or open space and a gps that comes with games, there may even be some apps that might work in the same way, I'm not sure. So, you stand in the centre of the field and start the game. Using the GPS the child has to move around the field collecting flags in a maze, or dodging mosters while collecting flags, so on and so forth.

Kye had a blast with this and it kept him amused for ages, although I am not altogether sure what the educational value of this is, other than plenty of exercise and fresh air. Both of which I think are very important.

It also allowed me to relax for a little while and enjoy my book, without the constant interruptions that I tend to get, since starting to HE.

So here is a question for all you lovely people out there. Have you ever HE'd a child or do you still HE your child?

What approaches have you tried and found to be effective?

I look forward to hearing from you,
love and hugs Joss.