The Sweet Rewards of Back to School!
This is my favorite time of year! The winds of fall bring fresh challenges, a renewal of perspectives and clean slates. Unexplored schoolbooks, sharpened pencils, excited children, motivated mama!
I’ve found over the years, that *building up* the back-to-school plunge does wonders in terms of the ripple effect response in my kiddos. So every year I tuck away their new textbooks as they arrive in the mail, saving them for the *big reveal* on the first day’s treasure hunt. Such fun each year to have my girls revisit years past, the best and worst clues, the strange places “mom” found to stash the box of treasure. This year, the girls’ treasure boxes included schoolbooks, art supplies, an alarm clock (!), and extra credit courses like Simply Music and a DVD on soapmaking. Such a simple little thing this back-to-school treasure hunt, but believe me, all this fuss and bother carries our spirits well into November, at which time we shake things up again with new goals and celebrations. It also reinforces the importance of our education being a treasure we’ll carry with us throughout our lives.
Every homeschooler knows how critical to success it is to keep bright minds alert and invested in their education, but it’s especially important to those of us who are juggling additional pursuits as we teach. Sometimes a little something to look forward to is good for us adults as well! Scheduling can be ho-hum, but not so much if you schedule in some things to work toward. As writers, we can help ourselves and our children to simultaneously reach our goals, and then all can enjoy and savor that sweet reward!
Set a monthly goal, one for your WIP and one for your children’s. These goals can vary. For a preschooler, it could be completing everything on their chart each day…making bed, brushing teeth, doing their chores and “schoolwork.” For older children, it could be school oriented goals, or an incentive to work on correcting bad habits or attitudes.
Some simple family rewards could include:
- a treasure hunt, or scavenger hunt
- a trip to the pumpkin patch, or an apple orchard
- a “mystery dinner”
- a progressive dinner (enlist your homeschooling friends or grandparents for this treat!)
- a camp out
- a day fishing or tubing at the lake
- a field trip to the zoo or other area of interest
- a picnic and hike through a state park
- eating out at a restaurant you’ve always wanted to try
Have a younger child decorate a special quart sized jar, and enlist the family’s help to fill it with all of these ideas written on slips of paper. Then let the child who has shown the most progress draw out the winning idea. Or simply draw straws for the honor! A word to the wise, keep your “ideas” doable. If you start doling out trips to Disneyland your little whippersnappers will never be satisfied with a day at the fishing hole!
Having a concrete “fun day” to anticipate is the perfect ace in the sleeve for those of us who want our children’s education to be memorable, while at the same time, struggle to get everything done in a twenty-four hour day. Plus, it’s a motivating step towards independent study, a desirable trait for everyone.
As long as your crew doesn’t spend too much of their schooltime dreaming up new “sweet rewards” when they should be diagramming those sentences!
Best of all, can’t you hear your little darlin’s cheering you on in your daily writing goals? “Hey Mom/Dad, how many words didja crank out today?”
Happy Fall from my house to yours!
