Day 2 of the Return to Schoolwork.
It was day two of returning to schoolwork. I feel embarrassed talking about "returning to schoolwork" because I really wish that schoolwork wasn't something we did. I wish it was just a part of life, and not something we would take a break from or anything. Yet, in many ways, we needed this break, and in another way, we need to return to it. What we took a break from was me directing the kids activities as much. We needed that. I was in a bad place. But at the same time, without me directing more, they tend to get really stuck in ruts. One voice inside me argues "but maybe those ruts are where they need to be?" That is countered by how destructive the ruts end up being. The kids spend way to much time begging me to play but without us actually able to get playing, and they fight way too much. It just... its not nice.
The thing is, on good days, the schoolwork does flow out of being schoolwork and into just being life. We do some math and some reading and writing. We read some history, and I find something for them to do as a science experiment. Sometimes things go well, sometimes they flop. On a good day, I don't end up finishing my planned activities, because the kids end up suggesting even better things. Today Merritt had better ideas for science than I had, so we went with his plan. On good days my stuff can be the push that gets the playful adventures going.
Yesterday and today have been very good. Alex has been determined to do schoolwork just like his older brother, so I end up setting him on one math task (like stacking blocks on number cards to match the numbers) while I play a math game with Merritt. Then I put Merritt on a math task while I play a math game with Alex. When Merritt is doing writing practice, Alex wants to too. He'll get out a sheet of paper and a pencil and go "what's my words?" And so I've given him words to practice - mainly ones with the letters s, a, m, t, b, and today I introduced e.
My main goal for Merritt right now it to try to get him to realize how capable he is at everything. I'm giving him really easy math worksheets because I want to get him into the habit where he feels confident doing math worksheets. I want to encourage a sort of "bring it on" attitude about them. And with games we're going to slowly work through the multiplication table. I'm going to stick to multiples of three this week and then slowly work our way up. With writing, I just want him to realize he can do it. With reading, I want to teach him more of the rules for figuring out what sounds are what but also just give him more practice to develop fluency. I think I want to introduce simple puzzles and games and try to encourage him to find new ideas and solutions to things.
With Alex: I'll slowly introduce him to the letters, using the method in All About Spelling. He wants to write, but he also wants to hold his pencil in a fist still. Is that okay or should I fight with him on that? Or discourage writing? Or? With math, we're working on getting a sense of the numbers one to ten, but probably soon I'll also introduce him to the idea of one ten, two tens, etc. I also want to encourage practice cutting things. And Alex wants a lot of special attention right now. He wants to be held lots, and told how much I love him, and he wants me to make crafts with just him. So I'll try to do that as much as possible. He's into nursery rhymes too, and songs, and little games.
The thing is, on good days, the schoolwork does flow out of being schoolwork and into just being life. We do some math and some reading and writing. We read some history, and I find something for them to do as a science experiment. Sometimes things go well, sometimes they flop. On a good day, I don't end up finishing my planned activities, because the kids end up suggesting even better things. Today Merritt had better ideas for science than I had, so we went with his plan. On good days my stuff can be the push that gets the playful adventures going.
Yesterday and today have been very good. Alex has been determined to do schoolwork just like his older brother, so I end up setting him on one math task (like stacking blocks on number cards to match the numbers) while I play a math game with Merritt. Then I put Merritt on a math task while I play a math game with Alex. When Merritt is doing writing practice, Alex wants to too. He'll get out a sheet of paper and a pencil and go "what's my words?" And so I've given him words to practice - mainly ones with the letters s, a, m, t, b, and today I introduced e.
My main goal for Merritt right now it to try to get him to realize how capable he is at everything. I'm giving him really easy math worksheets because I want to get him into the habit where he feels confident doing math worksheets. I want to encourage a sort of "bring it on" attitude about them. And with games we're going to slowly work through the multiplication table. I'm going to stick to multiples of three this week and then slowly work our way up. With writing, I just want him to realize he can do it. With reading, I want to teach him more of the rules for figuring out what sounds are what but also just give him more practice to develop fluency. I think I want to introduce simple puzzles and games and try to encourage him to find new ideas and solutions to things.
With Alex: I'll slowly introduce him to the letters, using the method in All About Spelling. He wants to write, but he also wants to hold his pencil in a fist still. Is that okay or should I fight with him on that? Or discourage writing? Or? With math, we're working on getting a sense of the numbers one to ten, but probably soon I'll also introduce him to the idea of one ten, two tens, etc. I also want to encourage practice cutting things. And Alex wants a lot of special attention right now. He wants to be held lots, and told how much I love him, and he wants me to make crafts with just him. So I'll try to do that as much as possible. He's into nursery rhymes too, and songs, and little games.