(photos taken by my husband in Boston’s Chinatown for their New Year’s Lion Parade on 2.21.10)
FollowWhat a Monday looks like
March 1, 2010
I know some people are curious about what goes on in our homeschooling life, so I thought I’d post a regular Monday “school day”:
6:30am: I’m up and making coffee, starting laundry and answering emails for Cool Mom Picks.
7:30am: Wake up the kids and jump in the shower. By 8:30, we’re all dressed, beds are made, and we head downstairs for breakfast.
9:15am: Bring D to preschool. Arrive a few minutes late, but they have a “loose start”, so no big shakes.
9:30-10am: Back home to answer some emails and read some blog posts while the girls dance to “their music”. (can I call this Physical Education?)
10am: Start school. Give Jilly her Spelling Workout book and show her which pages to do. While doing her lesson, she’s practicing reading, writing and spelling.
I sit on couch with Belly and watch DVD lesson for Math-U-See Lesson 18 in Gamma Level (multiplying by 7). Belly then takes her workbook and does the first assignment for Lesson 18.
When she finishes Math, I give her a couple of pages to do in her new Scholastic Maps Workbook while I sit down with Jilly to do Math. She is also on Lesson 18 in Math-U-See, but the Alpha Level.
Jilly seems nervous about starting Subtraction today, maybe because the instructor, Steve Demme, so adamantly states that the kids must know their addition inside and out before they move on. To alleviate her fears, we decide to do another review lesson on addition instead of going forward with her lesson.
Jilly does her math review page while I ask Belly her spelling words from the list in Sequential Spelling. She likes this program since she is able to self-correct her work.
Sit down and do a grammar lesson in First Language Lessons with Jilly. We review the “fall months”, and when she sits down to do an activity for the lesson, I start Belly on her new Growing With Grammar book.
When Belly finishes that, she asks to do a page of cursive in Pictures in Cursive to get a little more of her work checked off for the week. I say, ohhhhhh, okay.
By noon, they are playing school with their dolls. We will do science, history and art later this week, and Friday we are taking a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village to attend their Home School Day.
At 1pm, we’ll pick up D from preschool and go to the library for an hour. At 2:30, D has speech and then the girls have gymnastics with friends. By the time we get home, it’ll be time for dinner. Tonight I’ll read to the kids and ask Jilly to read aloud to me a bit. They are all reading on their own now, but they still want a book at bedtime, especially Belly who still loves to snuggle in for her story.
Now a disclaimer:
Not all days look like this, nor do they all go this smoothly. I didn’t tell you that Jilly gave me heck about doing her work this morning. Belly has been easier this year than any other, maybe because she finally realizes how much she can accomplish in just a couple of hours while her friends won’t be home until almost 4. I wanted to have both girls read aloud to me this morning, but their “classroom” of dolls who were waiting to be taught was just too adorable. I can have them read to me at the library or tonight. . .or we’ll just do it first thing tomorrow. We’ll see how the day goes.
Can you live a creative life if you aren’t crafty?
February 27, 2010
I’ve joked that I have ADD of Craft.
What I mean is that I may WANT to knit, crochet, paint, sculpt, sew, or whatever-it-is-the-other-cool-moms-are-doing, but I can’t.
No, really, I can’t.
Let’s take crocheting as an example, although I could replace that word with “knitting”, “rug-hooking” or even “cross stitching”: I decide to give it a go and buy all the supplies: the hooks, the yarn, the how-to book. I sit down and start to crochet. I get pretty good at making a long, skinny snake. But, after 10 minutes, I get hungry. I get thirsty. I want to check Twitter. My back hurts. My foot falls asleep. I get hungry again.
Guess where my crochet stuff is now? On a shelf, collecting dust.
My newest desire is a sewing machine. I could make so many cool things if only I had a sewing machine!
But, I know better.
I know I’ll make a couple of dolls for the kids, maybe even sew something useful, like a curtain. And then I’ll get distracted, bored, stabbed by the needle. It’ll go from being fun and interesting to a chore in the blink of an eye.
Why is this?
I can sit with a book for hours and read, read, read. But drag me to a store to look at yarn or, god forbid, fabric, and I’ll weep like a hungry two year old. I still remember being dragged to a craft store with my mother and wanting to lie down on the dirty floor and take a nap while her and my sister oohed and ahhed over sequins or buttons.
But, I still want my kids to be surrounded by creativity despite my shortcomings.
So I’ll pour my heart into creating themed birthday parties. We will celebrate holidays that aren’t ours by religion or ethnicity. My natural tendency to abandon ship kicks in right around the time the holiday or party is over, so it’s a win-win for us all.
This weekend, for instance, we’ll celebrate Purim even though we aren’t Jewish. I’ll read the story of Esther to them, I’ll make Robin’s Hamentaschen and the kids’ can dress up in their old Halloween costumes.
In a couple of weeks, I’ll throw my newly 7-year-old a Rock Star party and will go all out with crafts and games. I’ll have fun planning it, but will be so glad when it’s over.
But, no matter what I chose to do, you can be assured it won’t involve a knitting needle or shiny new sewing machine.
