Inspirational Day #2

Again – blame Violet.

I will answer your questions over the weekend. So keep sending them my way.

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8:45 – make it out of bed. Got dressed, breakfast, packed snack for morning’s outing.

9:30 – left for science thing – Dirty Water – learning about pollution and filtering water. kids built filter, strained dirty water. On the way home, went to 2 banks (1 drive through, 1 I parked right by door, and left kids in car. Don’t call the police on me please).

11:15 – home. kids play, chat to me, I do laundry and clear table and find the right costumes.

12:15 – reading on the sofa

12:45 – lunch prep then lunch. Flip laundry.

1:15 – prep for school (including clearing kitchen table)

1:30 – school. More estimating and measuring. More confident with the idea of estimating and making “better” estimates. My oldest likes to guess 29. We used straws today instead of paperclips. Can’t let them think you can just measure things with paperclips <grin>. Took quick break, then did writing (and reading – I make my oldest read the words he is writing). Today was the letter ‘m’ . Printing words included jam, stamp, my and moon. Younger ones traced a whole bunch of 6’s, then counted things and circled the right number. They also did number recognition (circled all the same numbers in the line). I don’t believe that my younger ones need to do school, but they really want to.

2:30 – school done. kids run about while I get ready to get out the door.

2:45 – leave.

3:00 – visit friend of younger children. older child and i sit and read mostly. I sat on the sofa and read Franklin books to whoever wanted to listen.

4:15 – library

5:00 – barn (left kids in car with new library books while I dumped grain into the feeders and put medicine on horse’s neck)

5:30 – home, frantically get dinner on. We are so LATE!!!

5:40 – dinner in oven, rice in ricemaker.

5:45 – plug in children for their screentime. They watch 35 minutes of sesame street dinosaurs (library dvd) while dinner cooked. I emptied the dishwasher (it ran last night and sat full all day – sigh), dig out the counter, watch some of the Lword on my laptop while I’m in the kitchen.

6:20 – dinner, then a quick tidy and then more reading. We watched a few minutes of youtube (check out the panda’s being born – so cool!)

7:30 – partner home, we do a tidy and I chat on the phone while I put away laundry.

9:30 – everyone asleep. Friday nights are good nights. No prep for next day. Drinking. Peanuts. Nice.

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Inspirational Day #1

Blame this (and the next couple of posts) on Violet.

Please note that this post does not include

– yelling at children for spilling a bowl of cereal on the floor
– hollering “put on your freaking jackets” when they weren’t, um, putting on their freaking jacket
– various arguments and battles amongst the children – there is no sense in wasting space for them – it is ongoing (want more details?)

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8:30 – up late this morning. kids battling colds

9:00 – breakfast

9:20 – 10:15 – kids play while I make bread, do laundry, quick tidy of kitchen.

10:15 – settle on sofa with books and coffee. I alternate one chapter of a chapter book (Bionicles) and then one picture book. This keeps all kids entertained and interested.

11:20 – make snack, flip laundry.

11:30 – back to reading on sofa with snack in bowls. Younger ones done with reading. play around, interacting with us (they are acting out parts of the book we are reading.

12:05 – finished book. Prep for school. Kids free play.

12:15 – School. Math. Introducing “Estimation”. This is a tough concept, according to my teacher friends. Children don’t want to guess wrong. Just one concept today. Estimating lengths in paperclips, then measuring in paperclips. Everyone same lesson. No worksheets for this lesson. Worked through lesson together.

12:35 – free play. Prep for lunch. Younger ones decide to colour for a while. Pack up for afternoon activities.

1:00 – first major meldown of the day. drag one of youngest to room kicking and screaming.

1:45 – leave for skating

3:30 – home from skating, kitty get ready to go out

3:45 – babysitter over. kitty play with ponies. I’m sure the kids play and play and play.

5:45 – home from farm. Plug kids in. (Screen time). Frantically make dinner.

6:10 – serve dinner

6:30 – sit down and eat my dinner. Kids run around when done their dinner. Free play. I scramble to try to find the kitchen counters amid the day’s mess.

7:00 – chores done. One child munching pistachios at table. One “hunting” a doll with a ladder/bat combo they call an “ax”. One is…not sure. I should go check. Oh – he was in the bathroom. Chatted on the phone while cuddling kid on sofa.

7:20 – watched part of Bionicle thing on youtube.

7:30 – pick up living room

7:45 – partner home.

7:55 – kitty out (back to barn – muck out stalls – the joy of a no frills barn)

9:00 – kitty home. Kids already in jammies. teeth brushed. Bedtime.

9:30 – 2 kids asleep.

9:45 – last child down. Normally all are down by 930. But one fell asleep with the babysitter, so bedtime was delayed.

10:00 – the scurry begins. Dishes, tidy, pack up, get ready for the next day. laundry, more dishes, send partner out to play hockey. talk on the phone, sort laundry, do more dishes.

At some point….I go to bed.

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How much time…

(Inspired by Violet’s musings about schooling issues, and all the comments about homeschooling.)

Please note: I’m not saying that Violet should do things my way. I was just inspired by her post. And the great goddess knows how little I am inspired to write these days. Oh – and you do too. Seeing as I never post anymore…

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How much time does it really take to teach a child something?

I have a friend who has a son in grade 3. He goes to school every day, walks to his babysitter after school and then is picked up by his mom between 430 and 5 pm.

She spends 1-2 hours each day on homework. Seriously. After spending all day at school, they spend 1-2 more hours on schoolwork. Mostly math and reading.

She needs to review everything that they did in class in order for him to complete his homework.

It takes so long because he is burnt out, exhausted, and just plain done.

This 9 year old boy spends 7-8 hours a day doing “school”. Now granted, some of that is fun, some of it is lunchtime and recesses. He even gets gym a few times a week. But it is school. It is work. It is tiring. Not only is he expected to learn, he needs to make friends, and fit in, and worry about being cool, and wonder if the girl next to him likes him. This is work. And he spends all his time working. Add in the recommended 10 hours of sleep, and this child has 6 hours left to eat breakfast and dinner, do personal care stuff, get ready for school, run errands, watch TV, go to his tutor (he does this once a week for 2 hours), and…oh yeah. Play.

I’m not anti-school. Honest. But does it really take 8 hours a day to teach a kid something? Many homeschooling families who’s children had been in school at some point give this as the major reason that they pulled their kids out. Why should busy parents have to re-teach, re-explain a days amount of work in order for the children to accomplish assigned homework?

It takes less time to just do it “right” the first time. And there is the biggest advantage of homeschooling. What is “right” for one child may not work for another. What is “right” for one family may not work for another.

My eldest does his schoolwork in 2 increments during the day. Sometimes, it is broken out more than that. If he is working on a tough math concept, he will take ball breaks. He bounces a ball around the house. In nicer weather, he scooters up and down the street.

He comes back centered and refreshed.

On good days, we complete school (my “lesson”, his math, his writing and the younger kids “schoolwork”) in under an hour.

On tougher days – it can take up to 2 hours.

That is of course, just the “formal” schooling part of our day. Every day is filled with teachable moments that we take advantage of.

Kids are smart – often times, the ones who struggle in school are the ones that can’t separate the useless crap (why does he have dunkaroos and I don’t) from what is actually being taught.

They have to sift through so much information, that their brains cannot process the things that they are actually supposed to learn.

By simplifying life, we can simplify learning.

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Falling in love

I was nervous making the drive to meet him for the first time. The closer we got, the sicker I felt.

I still wasn’t sure if I wanted him to be the one, or if I was just wanting another quick disappointment so that I could at least get back home quickly without wasting too much time. It was hard to keep spending my “spare time” away from my busy life trying to find the right match for me. It really is time consuming.

I consoled myself that he looked great on paper – he had all the qualifications I had required. He was supposed to be tall, strong and reliable. I wasn’t too keen on his photo, but I have long since learned that photos on the internet are at best misleading – particularly when trying to show off positive qualities.

I arrived earlier than arranged, and let myself look around and get familiar with the meeting place. New places make me antsy. Disadvantaged. Uncomfortable. Threatened. In other situations, I would be likely to go overboard with jokes and false confidence until I felt more secure.

I started to be noticed. I looked up – that doesn’t seem like him.

A different set of eyes looking at me, watching my reaction.

He took my breath away. It hurt.

I try to shake the instinctive reaction away. This is not the time to be caught up in fairy tale feelings. Attraction was good. It was important. But it wasn’t the only thing to consider.

We spent some time getting to know each other. Chatting, keeping things light. Sensitive areas were discovered and skimmed over. There would be time to explore those later. He passed the test. I did too. I arranged another meeting.

We spent the rest of the week getting to know each other better. The more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. He had his faults (don’t we all). He was pushy. But responded well to me asking him to respect my personal space.

By the weekend, I was sure he was the one. I was not in love with him yet. I was, however, very much in like with him.

Definitely falling in love.

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Survived the sickness

Thank goodness that it is over.

I honestly don’t know how much longer I could have lasted. Washing 8 loads of laundry a day, smelling like vomit (and worse), not sleeping more than an hour at a time.

It was like having a newborn again.

Without the nice, sweet, newborn smell.

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