In which the routine returns
The weeks before Thress Stags were hectic, crazed, and productive. They were also completely focused on two things - Evan in school and Three Stags. It was a relief to be home for the month of August.
Both projects have been fraught with challenges - it seems that very little was easy with either kindergarten or Three Stags. The hard physical work ended once we got home on Monday, but now the hard parenting has begun.
I don't think it was that difficult to get kids established in school when I was Evan's age. We thought that once school began, the routine would be something of a relief, but the routine has turned out to require a lot more maintenance that we would have believed.
It seems that our kid is a little immature for kindergarten. No wonder, he's a boy, and he's 10 months younger than most of the kids - his birthday is in May. He's not yet interested in reading (we wonder how that could happen in our house) and his academic skills were somewhat below the average for incoming kindergarteners according to the baseline tests. (The baseline tests seem to be somewhat inflated from the reality of our childhoods.) So, we've embarked on a literacy crash course for Evan. It's requiring a lot of dicipline, mostly on the part of the adults.
Evan gets home at 4:00, and he has an hour of literacy stuff - Leap Pad DVDs, Leapster games, etc. - before supper at 5:00. Then more literacy stuff, like worksheets, practice writing, or games, until Bath at 7:00. In bed by 8:00. In the morning, if there's time between tooth brushing and school, he can watch educational DVDs.
It's working - he's really picking up the letters, sounds and concepts, so I know his brain's ready for it. But his butt's not. He can't hardly sit still. He can't concentrate on anything more than a couple of minutes. He is, in a word, immature. This means that a lot of what we're teaching isn't just letters and words, but how to be a student. It's taxing on all of us.
Imagine my relief when I got to turn attention to traveling 1300 miles east to Rochester, NY. Airline travel and two weeks dealing with reluctant trainees seems like a walk in the park compared to pushing a reluctant kindergartener toward literacy. I work, I eat, I watch TV or read, I sleep, I eat, I work, I may shop a little.... Yes, it's away from my bed (and all that means) for far too long, but this roI woutine is a known quantity, and thus easier in so many ways. In a week, I'll feel differently, but right now, I'm pretty content where I'm at.
Both projects have been fraught with challenges - it seems that very little was easy with either kindergarten or Three Stags. The hard physical work ended once we got home on Monday, but now the hard parenting has begun.
I don't think it was that difficult to get kids established in school when I was Evan's age. We thought that once school began, the routine would be something of a relief, but the routine has turned out to require a lot more maintenance that we would have believed.
It seems that our kid is a little immature for kindergarten. No wonder, he's a boy, and he's 10 months younger than most of the kids - his birthday is in May. He's not yet interested in reading (we wonder how that could happen in our house) and his academic skills were somewhat below the average for incoming kindergarteners according to the baseline tests. (The baseline tests seem to be somewhat inflated from the reality of our childhoods.) So, we've embarked on a literacy crash course for Evan. It's requiring a lot of dicipline, mostly on the part of the adults.
Evan gets home at 4:00, and he has an hour of literacy stuff - Leap Pad DVDs, Leapster games, etc. - before supper at 5:00. Then more literacy stuff, like worksheets, practice writing, or games, until Bath at 7:00. In bed by 8:00. In the morning, if there's time between tooth brushing and school, he can watch educational DVDs.
It's working - he's really picking up the letters, sounds and concepts, so I know his brain's ready for it. But his butt's not. He can't hardly sit still. He can't concentrate on anything more than a couple of minutes. He is, in a word, immature. This means that a lot of what we're teaching isn't just letters and words, but how to be a student. It's taxing on all of us.
Imagine my relief when I got to turn attention to traveling 1300 miles east to Rochester, NY. Airline travel and two weeks dealing with reluctant trainees seems like a walk in the park compared to pushing a reluctant kindergartener toward literacy. I work, I eat, I watch TV or read, I sleep, I eat, I work, I may shop a little.... Yes, it's away from my bed (and all that means) for far too long, but this roI woutine is a known quantity, and thus easier in so many ways. In a week, I'll feel differently, but right now, I'm pretty content where I'm at.
posted by Melanie Unruh-Bays at
3:22 PM
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