I'm not very good at remembering this blog, am I? :)
Let's see, what's happened in the past month and a bit... My most resistant one is reading more and more, which is great. We are getting more and more work done, but he relies on me so much to actually work. There's a part of him that thinks he should be off the hook from working if he can't have my undivided attention. There's so much he can work on on his own, he's just so unmotivated. Or scared. I'll have to work on that more.
This week, the two oldest are going to be expected to plan out a bit more what it is that they want to get done this week, then all will work on personal daily plans. I'm not expecting anything highly detailed, although the oldest (11 and 14) who have the least amount of homeschooling and Montessori experience, really need some sort of framework, personal goals, to keep them going so that they don't drop everything when they've finished their first work item and turn to me and ask, "What can I do now?" They need to think more about what they want to do and have it to fall back on when they don't have something capturing their attention.
As much as I've always hated many of the "Montessori" work plans that I've heard of, I'm leaning more and more towards them being vital for the two oldest. The two middle children have only known homeschooling and my Montessori attempt at it during their 'mandatory schooling' time (grade 1+). They are quite self-directed and are usually fine when I make a request of a certain type of work from them. They can go with the flow quite easily. The two oldest have a number of years of public school behind them, plus they're older, so I just think I need to meet their needs in a different way than the two youngest. I don't want to tell them, "Do this, do that" but at the same time, there are things that will be forgotten or put aside that I really think they need to work on (ooh, the big Montessori question--what 'should' they be working on?) And I think they just need more structure, and I hope that they can self-impose a structure that will work for them.
