For example, we hit spelling full throttle at the beginning of the school year. Everything was going well. The kids were loving it and looking forward to it. And then, next thing I knew, kids were crying, eyes were rolling, etc. I couldn't figure it out. It was all going so smoothly. But, soon I found myself dreading school and especially spelling. Two things that we tried helped us out greatly. First, I moved spelling up to the very first thing (after Bible) that we did during the school day. Second, I slowed us way down. Instead of making it a spelling marathon, I spent a couple days on each new step, making sure that they could fully understand the rule, or new sound, before going on. Once again, spelling is a big hit! They are so much more confident and making fewer mistakes.
I've also implemented the kid's Wednesday Night Wild memory verses into our curriculum. They have to memorize it for that, so why not practice them daily during school. [It's the memory verse of the week on my blog] I have them repeat it 4x a day. Twice at the beginning of the school day and twice at the end. It's much easier on them (and me) to memorize just one verse a week instead of our scheduled verse & their Wild verse. The former way would give me a lot of interesting meshed verses by the end of the week.
One other thing I've learned through trial and error, is giving my kids a snack break in the middle of their studies. They pay much better attention after their snack. I had taken out the snack break after Kindergarten for all three of them. My thinking was, I didn't get a snack break in school after Kindergarten, why should they? They can just trudge through it like I did. Hmmm...realizing how much better they do after that break, makes me wonder how much better I would have done if I would've had the same snack break time in 1st grade on.
But probably the biggest lesson for me is that flexibility is key! I'm one of those, 'I planned it this way. I have to do it this way. And if anyone throws a monkey wrench into my schedule, I'm doomed!' Well, God is forever growing me, because I've had a ton of monkey wrenches thrown at me since our school year has started; I'm surprised I don't have goose eggs all over my head! It seems that almost daily, something comes up, out of my control, that changes our school day. I'm learning to become flexible. -- Notice I said learning and not learned.
Take yesterday for example. Wednesday is my hands-down craziest day of the week. I had to get school in, do laundry (because I heard the cries earlier in the morning how children had nothing to wear), make all the meals throughout the day, get everybody fed and ready for Wednesday Night Wild, go and teach Cubbies, get back and clean up the horrible tornado-mess of a kitchen I had left because I had no time to clean it up earlier, get the kids to do their bedtime routine and get them to bed, then try to spend a few minutes of quiet time before my husband got home from work (the quiet part never happened btw). And somewhere in all that, I needed to take a shower and get some brief exercise in. I knew this was my day. I planned it out in my head the night before. What I didn't plan for, was my husband talking to me at breakfast. That in itself wasn't a big deal, but to me, the content was. He asked me if a former co-worker could spend the night. That meant cleaning my oldest son's room and stripping his bed, washing it, getting it back together, blah, blah, blah. Then he followed that with asking me to help him clean the garage. It really did need cleaned. But I thought, Today? Now? Out of all the days of the week? I realized though, that the disarray of the garage was truly stressing him out, and he really needed my help. I knew it was the right thing to do, even though it threw my schedule way off my self-imposed timeline. God did bless me. I helped clean out the garage, got all of our school day in, cleaned my son's room and changed the bedding, plus everything else I had already planned, with time to spare. Time to spare? That never happens on a Wednesday. But I had finished everything I had to do a half hour before making supper and getting the kids out the door for Wild & Cubbies. It wasn't a quiet half hour, but it was a half hour none-the-less. Thirty sweet minutes to sit down and do whatever I wanted, with a whirlwind of kids running around me.
So in fact I have learned something this year, besides all those history or science facts that I never knew (or didn't remember). I am forever a student. Always learning. And, life is a huge lesson. Always teaching. So I need to do what I always tell my kids to do: Be a good student. Learn your lessons well. Apply them to life. And don't forget what you've learned.
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And for those of you that know me, yes, I've been counting down. Thirty-three days down and only 147 to go!! =)
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