Folks I need some suggestions..

[RayJr]

Ok so we are in our first full year of homeschool, we ended up going with ace which I really think I like, so far. Now for the problem, my son is taking forever with his work, he has problems with his mind wondering and he lets things distract him from his work, wether he is at the kitchen table or in his room at his desk. any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks..

[Lee-Anne]

Hi. We are doing ACE and have one just the same. :Green :roll What is working for us is that my husband has put him on a strict timetable. For example; 8:30 - 9:30 Math; and so on. He is not allowed to deviate from the timetable. If he doesn't finnish during the perscribed time he has to leave it and do it when he finnishes his other work. It has helped him tremendously and given him further accountability. Also my son reports to my husband. It has taken a load off me :Green as I am schooling our three other children as well and I am teaching our youngest to read.
Hope it helps. We have nearly finnished our first year of schooling at home. The Australian school year runs from February to December. It has been an enjoyable journey.

[Annie]

Ray, can I ask how old your son is?

EDIT: OK, I looked at your avatar and saw that your son looks old enough to keep on track. (I just wanted to be sure you weren't talking about a kindergartener here.)

I am hesitant to give rewards for schoolwork, since I think learning is its own reward. However, when one of my children is working on a character issue needed for schoolwork (like diligence, neatness, carefulness, etc.), I've found that incentives can help. In your case, I might put a checkmark or sticker on a chart every time that your son stays on track for an entire period (or a certain amount of time). Or, I might say that if he finishes his work in a particular subject on time or earlier (given a reasonable amount of time), he may have a fifteen-minute break before moving on to the next subject...or he may earn more free time at the end of the day.

One thing is for certain: a negative approach will only bring discouragement to both parents and son. Simply saying that he has to finish the work later is, IMO, not a good solution, since his mind will probably want to wander even more during that time...and will his work even get done then?...and then what? a spanking every evening? It might have to come down to a spanking at some point, but I'd try positive approaches first...

"You know, Son, you seem to have a concentration problem here. How do you think I can help you with that? Neither of us wants to see you taking all day for school. I know you don't want to do that, but that's what is happening because you're not sticking with the task. Let's try this..."

When I was a classroom teacher, I had some "ADD" kids in my class. I would put a small cup (like Communion cup-size) on the corner of their desks, and put a popcorn kernel into the cup whenever they were on task. If I saw them "off task," a kernel would come out. When the cup was full, something good would happen (popcorn party, extra recess, whatever).

To be honest, I think one of the weaknesses of ACE (which I have never used) is that it is not appealing to children who are not internally motivated to get through the paces. My children are able to do a lot of work independently, but I think the teacher-student interaction is invaluable, especially for certain subjects that would be as dry as dust without such interaction and discussion.

[RayJr]

Thank you Lee-Anna I think she has thought of that but not tried it yet I will let her know of your succes and see how it goes

Anne he will be 12 friday the 19th

[Anon]

Our kids go to Christian school but we've had this battle with our oldest (now 8) son. There are many different things you can do....I would try a timer. When the timer is up, then there are consequences to not having a certain amount of work done. You could even do a reward too, when the timer is up (doesn't have to be big, a piece of candy or something). With my oldest son, what worked best is that if he didn't get work done (because he was goofing off) he got double work. After a few nights of like 3 hours of homework and late dinner, he learned fast. The punishment will depend on the child, but the timer method works great.

[RayJr]

thanks Kita for the suggestions

[Annie]

Thank you Lee-Anna I think she has thought of that but not tried it yet I will let her know of your succes and see how it goes

Anne he will be 12 friday the 19th

OK...I edited my post above, since I saw his pic in your avatar...

[RayJr]

Anne thank you for the suggestions, we'll figure it out if I am gratefull to all for you ideas, think of anything else let me know.

[Lee-Anne]

Hi. To answer Annie my husband didn't put him on a timetable as punnishment but to help him set smaller attainable goals. The time frame helps him stay on track. His learning style is kinetic. My other son and oldest daughter are very self motivated. We try to allow time for hands on learning for him which he enjoys. He tends not to be be self disciplined and this is the character quality we are trying to instill in him. My husband understands him; for they are very similar in temperament and learning styles. I agree that ACE is probably not optimum for him; but we are slowly tring to add and round it out for him.

[Trish]

one incentive that we used in the past was giving extended break times. For example, if 10 to 11 was for English and science, then when they were done you got free time untill the original breaktime was up. We found that positive reinforcement worked better for our girls than neg. We tried the timer and do it later thing and it just discouraged them more. Then we were dealing with attitude on top of school work. He's probably still adjusting and things will smooth out soon I'm sure.

[Anon]

one incentive that we used in the past was giving extended break times. For example' date=' if 10 to 11 was for English and science, then when they were done you got free time untill the original breaktime was up. We found that positive reinforcement worked better for our girls than neg. We tried the timer and do it later thing and it just discouraged them more. Then we were dealing with attitude on top of school work. He's probably still adjusting and things will smooth out soon I'm sure.[/quote']

Yeah everyone is different...we find with our boys we need to have both positive and negative, because alot of times, the positive isn't enough. They would figure "Oh well I don't need free time, I'd rather just goof off now."

[Guest Guest]

I wouldn't concentrate well either...ACE is super boring...maybe he has a different learning style? Maybe reading and filling in the blanks (which is pretty much all ACE is) isn't the way he learns.

[Anon]

ACE is cheaper than things like ABeka video....maybe they can't afford other curricula. I think he wanted advice on how to make his child get his work done rather than criticism of the curriculum they chose. :smile Anyway, it shouldn't matter if something is boring...everyone has to learn to do boring things. My son thinks half of school subjects are boring and he is in school with other kids.

[Pastorj]

I am sure everyone knows my position on ACE so I will speak to the original post only and not the curriculum.

1. As stated there is a need for positive re-inforcement and Scriptural discipline. Both aspects are part of training children.

Both are necessary and part of nurturing and admonishing your child. We give incentives to our son (Playstation time, computer time) for completing his work with a good attitude. He gets a spanking for not completing his work or not completing it with a good attitude.

2. Scheduling your day will be a tremendous help to your children as children need to understand their boundaries and that includes time.

This is one of the biggest problems with many homeschoolers: They have no schedule and do whatever they want, whenever they want to. The child gets to college and can't deal with schedules. (This is a generalization, not necessarily applicable to every student so don't hammer me on this one). It is based on our experience, discussions with home schooling parents, and school and college administrators.

Think about schedules, they are a part of life
Your on a schedule in School
Your on a schedule in College
Your on a schedule at Work

3. Expect more from your child. Children who are not paying attention or doing their work are usually bored and need to be challenged.
4. Don't give in to the child. If he thinks you will not stick to it, he will not change.

[Danny Carlton]

First of all it'll be really helpful for you to read this post, viewtopic.php?f=13&t=21504&p=336147&hilit=rabbit+turtle#p336147

Then understand that your son gets distracted because he's obviously a rabbit learner. He's bored because he's under challenged. Break his homeschooling into smaller segments, and give him shorter deadlines for each segment, with a reward for completing the segment within the time frame. If there are 15 problems, break them up into 5 groups of 3 with 5 to 10 minutes to finish each grouping and an appropriate reward for winning each challenge. The trouble is that this takes a lot more work on your part, but it will be successful because rabbit learners love challenges but they need to be within reasonable grasp of their abilities as their attention span.