Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

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Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About. Should We Let Them?

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It was a sweet little dream.

All my boys enthusiastically sitting around our red writing desks ready to brainstorm writing genre that was moral, upright and worthy.

Shocking Things that Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About.

Flashing back to my childhood of reading The Secret Garden, Heidi and then on to my favorite, mysteries like Nancy Drew, I just knew their choice of writing topics would mesh with my ideas.

Reality set in soon when my boys mentioned gore, violence and video games.

Wait! We aren’t those types of parents.

We were raising our boys to be peace loving Christian men. Screen time was censored and movies always had to be approved and besides we never allowed things like that in our home.

Writing about blood and guts aren’t topics that I thought were appropriate to write about. And no matter what we did by not allowing them to play with guns, they would still find some way to form a gun out of a peanut butter sandwich or in one case a picture stand.

As I have learned through the years, writing topics boys want to write about are immensely different than what interest girls, including me.

Shocking Things That Homeschooled Boys Want to Write About. Should we let them @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Understanding that boys are naturally curious about topics that are opposite my feminine personality took me a while to scrutinize.

Knowing too that what fills their minds when they take pen to paper is just as important as giving them free choice, I had to devise a plan or standard.

Six Useful Tips Teaching Homeschooled Boys to Write

I learned . .

  • That because of the fact they are boys, their minds go to different places. It means that I need to embrace the differences instead of being miffed over them;
  • I had to let go of the thinking that my feminine writing topics were superior,they are not;
  • That I can’t give them freedom of choice and then take it back the minute they exercise it;
  • That boys, like girls, do need a standard of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable;
  • That instead of writing about gore, I had to let go and let them write about games; and
  • That instead of writing about violence, write about the valor or find virtue in it.

Boys tend to hyper focus on details that are not important to me when I put on my teacher writing hat.

Instead of criticizing their details, I try to find the good in it because I know as boys they do think differently than I do.

Many times in my journey I have come across passages that my boys are suppose to focus on and model in their narratives.

For many years, I wondered why my boys just didn’t get it. I even switched writing curriculum before I could put my finger on what was the difficulty.

It wasn’t the genre they did not get, it was the undertone in the message that bored them, which was a lesson created by a woman teacher for girls.

No, not all of them were that way, but I knew my boys were just not engaged and that is a must.

To be fair, I had to think about this way.

Give a girl an assignment to write about football stats.

Do I hear shrieks of agony and moans of boring? But, that is just what I was doing with my boys. I can put myself in their boots.

Learning to take whatever elements a writing curriculum wanted my sons to write about and then giving them freedom to write what inspired them, I had more success.

No, I didn’t get why some of what they wrote and read to each other they found drop dead funny. I was the one then that felt out of place.

From that lesson, it helped me to change the way I approached writing.

I adjusted, but setting limits on some subjects. Look at some of these topics my boys find appealing and that I let them write about.

  • Video games;
  • Sports. All kinds of sports with football being my boys favorite;
  • Funny things that I don’t find particularly funny, but it’s also the topic they spend the most time on to get the details just right;
  • Describing weapons;
  • Science fiction; and yes
  • Graphic Novels too.

I have read many boy compositions and now find the humor in them because they are expressions of their inner voice.

Are you struggling with a boy writer who just does make a connection to what you want him to write about?

I hope some of these tips will help you to ditch the curriculum and teach the boy.

Boys will lead you to what topics captivate them. Will you embrace the differences?

Hugs and love ya,

 

Teaching Homeschooled Boys How to Read – When to Panic!

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When I began to teach Mr. Senior 2013 how to read, I had read that teaching homeschooled boys how to read was a lot more challenging than teaching girls.  Guess what? It was true in my case but certainly way easier after I learned a few secrets, which I want to share with you today.
Too, sharing my experiences now after my second son is about to graduate, I feel my experiences that I may have shared early on in my homeschooling journey may have been a bit shallow.

When beginning to teach boys how to read, I needed more specifics and to not be told, “Oh well, they will just learn at their pace.”
While that statement is true, there are other specific things I did and did not do to nurture my boys’ love of reading.

Boy-Friendly Environment

Reading a lot about why boys lag behind girls, I understood early on that the learning environment I created could possibly be part of the problem.
In other words, the environment we create may cater to girls that love to sit still, color for hours and otherwise listen.


Of course girls can be wiggly too, but I am speaking generally there are differences in the genders that can be spotted early on.
I had to balance my need for an environment or school room that was organized with my boys’ need to learn out of the box.

The most important thing I had to let go of was thinking that because my boys had the need to move, learn hands-on and have a lot more physical activity that something was wrong with them.

Embrace a boy’s natural desire to get rough, move and be rowdy when teaching them to read.
I see that I had to let go of reading activities that required very little movement and include more creative tips for learning their letters and sounds.

Some boys learn well on a iPad, Kindle and leap pad, but again because of their need to move, physical activities have spanned the years as far as the best tips.

Look at some of these tips I did when letter burnout loomed overhead.

  • Use balloons. Can’t say enough good things about them.

What is there about punching anything that makes a boy get interested?

Yes, it took some time to blow up the balloons, but I got a lot of mileage out of them.

I would write letters on them with a marker and they would have to hit them up in the air while saying the letter.

Then I used them for vowel sounds, or diphthongs and later on for recognizing numbers.

  • Boys like hopscotch too. Either use chalk if you do this outside or use tape if you have to do this inside.

Tape off a section and use tape for the letters to go inside the hop scotch squares.

Too, I went and got discontinued carpet square samples and wrote on them with a permanent marker for sight words, letters or sounds.

  • Giant Puzzles.

Just to sprawl out on the floor and move around to put together a giant puzzle that is related to what you are learning was something that two of my sons looked forward to.

  • Empty plastic bottles equals endless games.

Again, anything that requires a crash and burn like throwing a ball or rolling a ball into empty plastic bottles marked with what I wanted my boys to learn was an all time favorite.

  • Never, never forget the ball in a hole activity also.

I remember one cold winter in teaching Mr. Awesome to read that the kid just loved shooting hoops anytime.

I bought a new clean plastic trash can and lots of small balls that I labeled with sight words. As he shot the ball in the basket, the word “bam” always followed the sight word on the ball.

  • Jumping off the couch, clapping their hands in the air and yelling the word.

Letting go of the no jumping off the couch rule when we schooled, Mr. Awesome thought this one of the most awesome things we ever did for the day.
It was like he was getting away with something when I let him jump off the couch, clap his hands in the air while saying the sight word I flashed at him.

Not every activity we did had to be so action packed but it always helped to sprinkle moving activities in with quiet time after sitting still.

No amount of worrying on my part could hurry the process of being ready for reading. Unless your son has a learning disability, it is normal for boys to read anywhere from between 5 to up to 9 years of age.
One of the biggest mistakes I made was focusing so much on how to read and not setting enough of an example of how to enjoy reading.
What you do not say is just as important.  Quickly, I figured out that I wanted my boys to view reading as pleasurable and not a chore.

Do not fill your reading time with always laboring over letter recognition, sounds and sight words.  Make that a part of your day, but also make part of your day reading something that your sons want read to them.
Boys do have a timetable to learn to read on and it normally is not in sync with girls.

Teaching reading is very similar to their developing into young man.

I have no control over the timetable of when my sons would have a deep voice, shave every day now and have broader shoulders but can only savor the moments of being a partner with my sons as they have grown to just not being avid readers but to young men who truly love reading for the sheer enjoyment of it.

What about you? What boy friendly activities work for you?

Also, look at these other tips. What Makes Reading Painful for Homeschooled Kids. Let Go of Busywork to Raise Lifelong Readers, Help! I Can’t Teach My Homeschooled Child How to Read – 5 Step Checklist and Teach Your Homeschooled Child How to Read in 20 Easy Lessons.

Hugs and love ya,

Tina 2015 Signature

Treasure the Moments of Homeschooling Testosterone Armed Teen Boys

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I don’t want to sound cliché, but I treasure the moments of homeschooling testosterone armed teen boys. Thinking back when all the boys were real young, my sis came over to my house one day with her girls, which are about the same age as my boys. We were not only discussing how to homeschool boys, but also how we could join forces to homeschool our kids together.

How to Easily Homeschool Boys

When we looked up, my boys were outside in the yard with tree branches fighting and her girls were inside coloring pages, inside the lines no doubt.

(Boys to …………..

I didn’t speak out loud what I thought of her girls, but she did later about my boys.

She discussed with me about putting my boys on medication and I silently thought she had beaten the life out of her girls to the point they had no personality or energy either one.

I didn’t really speak out too because deep down I had a nagging fear that something might actually be wrong with my boys.

We both had our first glimpse of the opposite gender of which neither one of us had any experience handling.  Fast forward many years later, I never put my boys on medication because I knew as the mom that they were boys.
What does that mean? It means they learn differently than girls when they are young and it means more noticeable differences happen in the teen years.

Much of my work in disciplining my sons did come when they were younger because I was trying to teach them to sit still when they really needed to wiggle.
When my sis and I would meet together, I would be the one with my hands full as my time was spent beating my boys, mmmm, I meant settling fights and prodding the boys to complete their work.

As my sons have morphed into the teen years, my work as mentor has not stopped.  It has required more finesse, patience and respect of the fact that they are born with an inward need to exercise authority even over me and a some lot of days that set my not so laid back personality in a frenzy.
Because homeschooling is not just an adventure for my boys, but a journey in learning year by year for me too, I want to share a few things that worked and did not work for me as I homeschool teen boys.

……. Men)

1).  Embrace the differences.  As my middle son, Mr. Awesome approaches completing his high school years, his relationship with me is different than Mr. Senior 2013.  Unlike Mr. Senior 2013, Mr. Awesome wants very clear cut guidelines as to what is expected of him in high school for each year.  So I changed the way I prepared his high school curriculum without giving up some of what his father and I required of him in high school.

For example, with Mr. Senior 2013, we planned his high school together each year.  With Mr. Awesome, I planned for two years and he is taking an online school for the next two years.

I still have some classes we do together like geography and some history, but he wanted an outside source.  I admit I was a bit disappointed, but then I have to remember that I have hopefully modeled the art of reasonableness and more importantly considered his needs and differences in high school.

Some things have not been different than Mr. Senior 2013 like my middles son’s need to also question my decision making ability now.

Mr. Senior 2013 and I had many head butting sessions, which only ended with me physically and mentally exhausted.  Having gone through the rooster syndrome with my oldest son, I was a bit more equipped this time with Mr. Awesome.

Blessing and Challenges of Homeschooling Teen Boys

Instead of taking his questioning my authority as a personal assault, I realized his need to start exercising his thinking ability to make good decisions.  If he does not start learning when and how to question decisions now, then how will he be able to make good decisions on his own and then to care for a family later?

Understanding this has helped me a bit more to have patience when I am questioned about every school subject.  It is on the job training for the preparation of the challenges of manhood.

2.) Figure Head of Male Authority a Need.  I sympathize with those single moms, but even they can provide a positive male role model.  It may be their father, uncle or other close friend or family member.  Men just have an unspoken word among themselves when it comes to male bonding time.

It is not that a single mom cannot homeschool a testosterone packing teen, but it sure makes her job easier to have a male figure to turn to.

In all my worry, both of my sons lapped up the influence by my husband and his time as he models the kind of men I want my sons to become.

Too, my husband is able to help my sons to accept the fact that as mom, they need to learn how to accept my authority.

Applying this to homeschooling has not always been easy, but I try to do my part in always listening to what each of my sons have to say no matter how trivial it may seem.

Admitting that I too make mistakes and want them to learn to make capable decisions independent of a woman (though always listening to sound advice by either a man or woman) has always been a good stepping stone to them completing assignments or subjects that my husband and I have planned for them.

This goes back to appreciating the fact that they are a different gender and their need to exercise domination and independence is such an intrinsic part of homeschooling each day.

It is hard to separate the parenting from homeschooling during the teen years.

3.) Create A World Separate From Yours.  Again I noticed the slight differences between my teen boys when it comes to having other teen friends and have had to adjust to their needs.  Mr. Senior 2013 was more content with just a few friends though he still needed a sphere of friends outside of our family.

Mr. Awesome on the other hand has a stronger need for more socialization with teens.  He has a more-the-merrier attitude when it comes to other teens and even other people.

Creating opportunities for both my sons to interact with both teen boys and girls has been some of the hardest work on my part beyond academics.

Our homeschool co-op, church activities, fun sports and group field trips just for teens have been some of my best life saving tips to fill my boys need for the right kind of association.

Coming up in more articles about how to homeschool teen boys, I will be sharing specific curriculum that clicked better for us and more specifics as to how boys learn.

Your turn. Have you hit a brick wall when homeschooling your tween or teen boy?  What tips work for you?

Hugs and love ya,

Want to brush up on some more tips for homeschooling teens?

Guiding Older Children

Homeschooling Middle School Doesn’t Always Mean Middle Way

Homeschool Writing Program for Middle and High School

Homeschool High School Readiness?