Getting Ready for School
Reposted from August 2004Well, it’s August and school is just around the corner. Several schools went back last week and more go this coming week. I’m pretty much ready to start schooling from an organizational standpoint, but I want to wait until after labor day. I grew up on the East coast and I just couldn’t catch on to the Midwestern idea of starting school in August. To me August is still summer time.
Anyway, to get me and the kids ready for school we started doing a little bit each day last week. I started with some fun brainteaser work sheets, added a little math the next day and then spelling the next. I’m trying to wake up their brains from the long summer break and introduce them to things we’ll be doing during school. Next week I’ll try to add Bible in the morning and I really want to be consistent with it. My two youngest start preschool in two weeks and that’s when I’ll have a run through of the days subjects to see if there are any kinks in the scheduling.
Chris, my fourth grader, has already whined and complained about some assignments I’ve given him, but for the most part he’s been motivated by the sticker chart and ability to earn prizes. I just have to figure on an approriate reward system and be consistent. But that’s what this week is for also. Our character study for this week or month or however long it takes is Obedience. If I see them displaying first time obedience or obedience with a happy heart, they get a sticker. They can earn a prize after 5 stickers or combine their stickers for bigger prizes like these neat videos I found at the dollar store.
I know we’ll have our good days and our bad days… in fact at the beginning of the week we had three good days and then two bad days. I just hope the good out weigh the bad. I’m also slowly weaning them off of food with artificial colors and flavors in hope of reducing their hyperactivity and unpredictable behavior. If looked into the Feingold diet when Chris was in first grade but never followed through with it. It means I’ll be doing a lot more cooking and baking and relying less on fast food and prepackaged chips and snacks, but it’s worth a try.
Sigh! I was really an idealistic homeschooler when I started out. I made so many wonderful plans and attacked school hard the first year. I still can’t believe what I made Joey (then 2nd grade) do. I wouldn’t even consider making Timmy (going into 2nd grade) do all the writing I made Joey do. But Joey seemed older academically at the time and Timmy is less motivated and seems younger to me. I guess that just proves each child is different and that’s the great thing about homeschooling.
Will I miss all the cool homeschool stuff like the good days when we dug into history and everything just clicked? Yes, absolutely. But I won’t miss the stress and tears. I wish I could have been the homeschooler who just loves to homeschool and be with her children 24/7 and longs for lesson planning. But that’s not me and I’m finally okay with it.
Maybe homeschooling will be apart of our future again. (Sooner than I hope if I homeschool Grace for kindergarten) But if it’s not, that’s okay. I can still be a great mom, supplementing their education like I have always done! I’m okay with letting go of the control. In fact, I’m looking forward to it!
