Читать книгу Homeschooling For Dummies - Jennifer Kaufeld - Страница 43

It’s 8:15 a.m., and you’d rather do anything than open that textbook one more time. These are the mornings I look over the children’s heads, catch my husband’s eye, and ask if he thinks the taxi could be here by 8:25 — in time to take the children to the local school. Of course, the answer is no: Who ever heard of a taxi arriving within ten minutes? But the question releases the tension, and I feel a little more ready to face the day.

Everyone has those can-I-call-the-taxi days. Sometimes the best antidote for low enthusiasm is to make yourself open the books and begin the day. The very motion of doing what you don’t want to do acts as a kind of therapy, and you find that you become interested almost in spite of yourself. Sounds stoic? Perhaps, but it works.

If the taxi urge comes on you because your children wake up in a less-than-amiable mood, you may want to turn the day upside down and begin with an exercise in creativity. Pull out the construction paper and scissors, the clay, or the recorder flutes, and have at it. Dance and wiggle to some upbeat music. After everybody spends some time creating and the juices start to flow, math looks much less reprehensible.

Once in a while, nothing settles the nerves but a day off. This is the day to play in the snow, picnic in the park, or go to the zoo. (If you visit the zoo and talk about what you see, it counts as a field trip!) After a day of rest or field tripping, you feel more refreshed and ready to hit the books again.

If you really and truly took the day off without doing anything educational, remember that you may need to teach an additional day at the end of the year to meet your school-days quota. However, when the doldrums hit in January or February, it’s worth an extra day or two in late May. After all, who can put a price or time limit on sanity?

Getting used to a lack of stimuli may take your children awhile, especially if you bring your kids home after they spend several years in the school setting. Everything is programmed in a school setting. You eat at a certain time, open your math books at a specific point during the day, and place all the day’s homework into your to-take-home folder.

Homeschool isn’t like that. After the day’s work is done, children are free to pursue new interests or continue old ones. During the first few months at home, you may find your students wandering aimlessly around the house wondering what to do with themselves. When I see that behavior in my own kids, I present them with a list of available options, such as painting, crafts, dolls, model trains, and so on, to remind them that they do have activities that they can pursue if they like. I always end the list with “… and you can always clean your room.” Funny — in all this time, they have never selected the room option.