Recently, I was expressing to a friend of mine how I was so disappointed in my ability to home school my daughter. It wasn't that we weren't moving right through the curriculum, it was a lot of disappointment in myself. It is a complete struggle for me to set aside what I categorize as what needs to be done to do what would be fun to do.
Somewhere along the line I became consumed with going from one task to the next. I suppose some of it came from only having one child and needing to feel as though I had it all together. Which leads to my disappointment, because we weren't having the fun I had originally envisioned we would have. It was a huge decision for me to take her out of public school and take on the commitment myself. Most of my friends and even an organization I belong to are mainly teachers. We live in a small town, so it's not like I could pretend we moved or anything. But, when I began homeschooling, I had grand ideas of crafts, sewing, cooking, crocheting and just chugging through one project to the next along with the required curriculum.
Only, with working part time and my daughter being somewhat of a procrastinator (I'm pretty sure she's going to have a Mary personality) it takes a very long time to complete the schoolwork. This tends to stress me out, because I wanted her life to be so much richer with knowledge than just the books.
So, as I was venting to my friend (another woman with 4 boys - in fact, 3 of my closest friends each have 4 boys...that may be another blog subject) and she just simply suggested that I start with the fun stuff once in a while. Hmmm. But, I was trying to use it as a motivation - which wasn't working, I might add. But, I wasn't so sure I was ready to give up my right to be right. It's awfully hard. So, we switched up our process a bit and implemented a "sliding drawer process" - I thought this would work for multiple children and not so well with one single child. However, we've been doing it about a week and it has been going smoother than expected. Basically, I have a rubbermaid set of 7 drawers that are clear. I place something to do in each drawer. This also includes fun things like exercise with mom, snack and computer time. And, of course, it also has the required work as well. I have a piece of Velcro on the front of each drawer and laminated numbers that have Velcro as well. There is a sheet that has my daughter's name on it, along with pieces of Velcro that she chose to put in the form of a smiley face. As she completes a drawer, she takes the number and places it on the smiley face. When she is done with school for the day, she has a completed smiley face, which is rewarding.
Being such a stickler for details and fear that I am not educating my daughter to the best of my ability, I was leery about putting fun things in some of the drawers. But, my friends words haunted me, so I dutifully put in the 4th drawer exercise with mom last night. Well, we have lots of snow on the ground, so the exercise of choice was sledding! Boy, am I glad I had put that in the drawer, because it is a sort of unstated promise and I had to do it. Our yard is at a slope, so even though we didn't go lightning fast, we still had fun and laughed a lot. This taught me a lesson, unfortunately, I will be quick to forget it. But, snow usually doesn't last in our area but a few days and it's gone. We are lucky to get 2 or 3 worthwhile snows a year. My lesson was to stop and smell the roses.
And, since it was in the middle of our school day, she had already completed her Bible lesson, devotion and learned how to pray for the missionaries in Mongolia. She also worked on her geography and read about the grasslands of Africa. Now, after the snow fun she will finish her math lessons of yard - foot - inch conversions while adding and subracting them, spelling, her reading about David Livingstone. She will also do a typing program on the computer. This one I am a little prideful about, because she will be one of not too many fourth graders that can properly type.
So, though I may poke fun at Mary just a bit - I honestly am jealous. I know that God designed us all differently, I just wish it wasn't such a struggle for me to sit back and enjoy life rather than do, do, do. But, I am blessed beyond measure - and it's not the big things - it's the little things. But, because they are little, I think I cherish them so much more!
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