This sucks.
Ok, that’s not what they said. But day one of our official Summer Education schedule did not go over well.
Last Friday (the first full day of no-school), I realized that WOW- I’d better get something going for summer education for the kids! Usually we have a camping trip the last week in June, so I never start out Summer learning until July…but we’re not getting an breaks this year- we’re diving right in.
I referred back to my post from last summer and used that as my guideline.
On Sunday I started compiling everything we’d need: math worksheets, summer learning workbooks, checklists, etc. That afternoon I typed up the tasks for Monday and Tuesday- one of the kids walked in on me and was excited to see what I was working on. “I remember that from last summer, that was so fun!” (Honestly, I don’t remember if that was Trevor or Riley, but I remember being surprised. I think it was Trevor (which would be more of a surprise than Riley).
Anyway, this morning, Monday, I set up the black boxes, labeled them, tacked on the to-do list, filled the folders with worksheets for the day and figured I was done.
No.
The kids needed help with a couple of their sheets, which I can’t really stop to help them when I’m working, so I had to encourage them to help each other.
They expressed discontent that there were SO MANY math-themed worksheets. (Well, it’s MATH MONDAY, remember????)
They expressed discontent that I couldn’t remember off the top of my head what the typing lesson website was….and when I couldn’t drop the daycare responsibilities to help them right then and there, they got irritated.
Whoah. Hold up. Take a breath, relax, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll get this figured out.
As the daycare kiddos ate lunch, I found a GREAT typing website that allows me to be a teacher and assign students so I can go in and check their progress (and time logged, etc.) I highly recommend this site (so far). http://www.typingweb.com
I got Trevor set up at the computer for his “1” typing lesson (which took all of 5 minutes). For TYPING TUESDAY it will be a full 30 minutes of lessons, per child.
Anyway, everyone is eating lunch and I’m sitting there grading papers- thank goodness for answer keys!
But I notice they had all chosen to ignore at least one, if not two, worksheets. Um….you guys are doing these!
“But Mom, it’s like 4th grade math.” Yep! All the easier for you to do! (It was turning percents into decimals, and vice versa, and a worksheet of 50 multiplication problems).
Then I noticed nobody had checked anything off their checklist. So I pointed it out…
“MOM! Really? We have to do that again this year? Ugh. It’s summer vacation! Why are we doing this?” (insert annoyed teen / preteen whiny voice sound here).
Look, yes, it’s Summer Vacation, but it’s important to keep up on basic math, basic grammar, typing, handwriting, etc. We WILL be doing something every day. You WILL have assigned chores to do every day. And you WILL get those things done before you play with your ipod, or go play with friends, or go swimming.
Yeah, so much for that. It’s 1:00 and they are all at the pool. Worksheets unfinished. But I cut them that slack….I prefer my house to be QUIET during quiet-time and if that means giving them a free pass for a couple hours, so be it.
Here’s how their checklists looked when I sent them to the pool:
So Day One is a fail in my opinion, but I also only had about 15 minutes to put it all together. Tomorrow is a new day and should be a lot easier, I hope.
Elisa's Ramblings 