Homeschooling: What's Working, What's Not

One good thing about a break from school is that it gives me time to step back and evaluate how the year is going.

Things have been tough as I've not felt well for months.  However, I am past the pregnancy nausea and exhaustion and feeling quite perky.  It's exciting!  I am hoping to have a very productive 3 months of school, while realizing that there will be frequent interruptions. We never get quite as much done as I hope, and that is fine.

So, really most things are going well. 

Naomi is doing well. We are working together to keep her challenged, while she also is diligent about some material that is somewhat dull.

I can see progress in Isaac's handwriting, and his bad eye has improved significantly in the last year.  Lydia has made significant progress in math, and can now do long multiplication problems.  Her big issue is that her handwriting isn't very neat and sometimes she makes silly mistakes when lining up numbers.

I have been doing midline exercises with both boys because they are "mixed dominant" and their handwriting has issues.  Mixed dominant means that they are left eye dominant, right hand dominant.  Actually, that's not true -- Isaac is right eye dominant, right hand dominant -- but the way he writes his letters indicates he's a natural lefty who chose to use his right hand. When he was younger, he would switch between hands.  Now he has settled on right, but he draws "o" counterclockwise which is typical of a lefty. And his handwriting still isn't good.

Ok, let's talk about this mixed dominance thing.  According to Dianne Craft, a teacher who has worked extensively with right brain/left brain issues, 80% of the world's population is right eye dominant, right hand dominant, or left eye dominant, left hand dominant.

Naomi is right eye/right hand.

And the next FOUR children seem to be mixed.  I don't know about Angela and Sarah yet.

What's with that?  We are WAY out of the statistical norm.

Actually, I'm going to give Kevin the credit.  He is fairly close to being amnidextrous and is a skilled drummer. I think there is something in his gene code -- his sister and father are lefties.

So anyway, there we are.  Mixed dominant children have a higher chance of struggling with handwriting and sometimes other things as well.  I believe we are seeing improvement in several areas after months of doing exercises, so we'll keep on keeping on.

I haven't done much school with Miriam (just 6 this week) and Angela.  And that is Ok.  Next year Miriam will officially be school age and I'll need to be more focused.  She is already learning to read a bit, and has some obvious math gifts.  I think she'll be relatively easy to teach though she may also have handwriting struggles.