a lesson in patience

 i have to admit i got caught up in reading homeschool blogs about all the amazing art and science projects other kids are doing. i might have even drooled over some pretty awesome learning corners that were recently featured on some blogs i frequent. maybe i am just new to the game but i definitely haven't found a homeschool blog yet that actually talks about how tough homeschooling can be. instead i am greeted constantly with cheerful, excited posts that are meant to be encouraging but ultimately end up making me feel like less of an awesome teacher and more like i am in a contest that i am destined to fail. i'm not saying that is anyone's fault but my own, by the way. it's just frustrating. i want to be that person that has everything in the bag. 

i have definitely been blessed with a lot of gifts, but patience is so not one of them. ask me to sew you a bag, psh. easy. ask me to drive at 40km an hr behind a car for 3 blocks? ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. it is a constant struggle for me to be patient with myself - let alone anyone else. i get impatient even thinking about things, let alone doing them. i am impatient with the toast. do you get the point? 

actually, when i think about how impatient i am i have honestly wondered how insane i am to homeschool. especially my spirited-high-needs-sensitive-super-active-always-curious-never-sit-still-or-stop-talking almost-six-year-old. especially with a 3 month old. 

i used to think that every person that homeschooled must have a perfect house that was clean and dinner was always on the table at the same time every day. they'd have beautiful hair and smell lovely and bake cinnamon buns first thing in the morning. their children would get up, dress themselves, eat breakfast without complaining and hold hands and dance and sing around the living room about how much they loved their parents and learning. and the best part of all: somehow they had become enlightened when they chose to homeschool and now oozed patience. weeee! (if you or your children are actually like this...got any tips?) 

i have now learned that homeschooling doesn't (usually) look like this. i have learned this through experience, not through reading blogs. oh, i had high hopes for the first day of school. high expectations. but honestly? i rolled out of bed late. and then derek took zao and hung out with haye for an hour so i could sleep more. *ahem*. our kitchen was and is a total disaster zone. there was no singing, and i slept on my hair funny and i'm pretty sure i smelled like a baby. literally. not to mention i had to bribe haye to eat his oatmeal with chocolate chips. (don't knock it 'til you try it. two bowls!) and...i'm pretty sure haye stayed in his underwear for a large amount of the morning and still has no idea how to do up his own pants. so there. 

also: it's not like me being impatient is a new thing that i have just discovered either. i'm pretty sure anybody that knows me semi-well knows i struggle with this immensely. actually, i'm pretty sure the person driving 40 km/hr in front of me knows this. but you know what? being impatient is not a valid reason to choose not to homeschool if you feel called to. at least for me it isn't. just because i'm impatient doesn't mean i shouldn't try and change that, right? i mean really, what a cop-out it would be for me (and ultimately, haye) to choose to live in impatience instead of doing what i know is right for us. what is right for him. i suppose i could paint this experience as super easy but that would be lying. 

after a lot of encouragement yesterday from my friends who homeschool, unschool, or just plain love our family, today went a lot better. i especially enjoyed reading this blog post that my friend, sarah, sent to me. which brings me to today. instead of waking up and getting right into curriculum, we hung out. haye played some wii and we played UNO and had breakfast and then we sat around on the couch reading books and playing with zao for an hour. then we went on a field trip to the bird sanctuary near our house. (well, really it was a walk with derek's SAHD friend and his wife and their 10 month old baby, but it fit right into our science curriculum: we're learning about what plants and animals need to survive this week.) school is so much funner (yes, i said funner) when you are outside. and look, the boys even found a baby turtle!

(you can click on the photos to make them larger, you know)

on the way home haye said "you know what the worst part of that field trip was? when i got poison ivy on me. i HATE poison ivy!" (it was stinging nettles, i think)

when we got home, we played wheel of fortune and then derek went to work. haye watched ice age and i nursed the baby to sleep and sewed. we did some science and language arts. i can see how spelling is going to be the hardest part of the year because haye finds it hard to sit still long enough to write out words. but you know what? it was fine. we even had fun! there were trying moments for sure. but when i tried my hardest to be patient and encouraging, it actually worked. (take that, spelling!) when i let my impatience get the best of me, it does the opposite of what i want to happen. there is no sense in becoming impatient with a child just because they are impatient. that's like hitting a kid when you want them to stop hitting. kind of redundant.

we decided to skip the math for the day and go to the park instead.

it was a good choice.

so, how about you? did homeschool get off to a rough or unexpected start? are you an exceptionally patient person with wisdom to share? any ideas on how to make spelling fun?

we read books

I was going to make a book post every week but I think I'll just post the books we've read when we are going back to the library instead because we will be reading a lot. Most of these books Haye read with very little help  despite them being above his grade level. Even if he needed help with some words he quickly picked them up and remembered them later on in the book. So here they are according to him from his least favourite to his most favourite. 

Ish

Haye, what was your favourite part about Ish?

That his sister liked every picture.

What was your least favourite part?

Ish.

What? You don't like the word?

No.

Just A Baseball Game

What was the best part of Just A Baseball Game?

That it doesn't matter who wins.

What was the worst part?

That they didn't win.

>_> well then.

Dump Trucks

What was the best part of Dump Trucks?

Dump trucks are so cool because they can lift stuff that is heavy and the first one they made was like 1000 years old and 92 days or something. 

A Sick Day for Amos McGee

Tell me about your favourite part of Amos McGee.

That Amos had friends that were like elephants.

Waiting For Wings

Remember Waiting for Wings?

Yeah. It was one of my favourites.

Why?

It's cool. It teaches you all about butterflies and what they eat.

What are we going to grow next year?

A butterfly garden!

Wait and See

What was so good about Wait and See?

All of the parts where she whispers something and then it comes true. And then she wishes for rain and her Mommy and Daddy are cooking like hot dogs and then their BBQ and his hat is like filled with water and they were sitting outside and it was raining. But like pouring crazy!

Here comes the big, mean dust bunny!

What about Here comes the big, mean dust bunny? What did you like about that one?

He keeps saying CAT!

Jupiter

Why did you like Jupiter so much?

Because it has gas!

What did you learn in this book?

Jupiter is the biggest planet and it is like way, way bigger.

How many moons does Jupiter have?

47!

The Tiny Seed

Why was The Tiny Seed your favourite book?

Because the seeds blow away. I want to keep it!

You can't keep it because we have to give it back to the library. We have it in Edmonton actually.

Was there anything you didn't like about The Tiny Seed?

Nothing! It was my favourite! It was cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Mom! Write that.

(Actually, I read The Tiny Seed to Haye.)

the best thing about homeschooling so far is...

being able to wear a hat and have a puppet and your sock monkey, jacoby, in your school pictures. 

no, seriously. so far homeschooling...kind of stinks. i realize it has only been one day and technically we are ahead of everyone else because they don't start until tomorrow, but i am feeling a little overwhelmed and impatient. haye is also feeling a little impatient. maybe we both expected a little too much as far as how amazingly fun and easy it would be. maybe i set him up for a bit of disappointment because i painted homeschool in a fantastic light compared to how kindergarten in private school was. not that kindergarten was all that bad or anything. 

we woke up and ate breakfast and prayed about school and went to the park to take photos and play on the playground. a friend came over to play just as we were entering our yard to start school, so i told haye he could play for 10 minutes longer. he told his friend all about how excited he was to homeschool because we could work for half the time as kids in school could and how we could go to lots of field trips and eat during school and listen to music etc etc. his friend is starting grade 4 and was extremely jealous. he countered with "well we get to have a party!". haye looked at me and i shrugged and said "we can have a party too!" haye smiled at his friend and said "can we make CAKE?!" i said sure. around 11:30 we came home and trudged through a couple pages of handwriting without tears. and that's exactly where the fun stopped. 

every few minutes haye would dramatically lay on the table and sigh loudly. or he'd say things like "I THOUGHT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN! THIS IS NOT FUN AT ALL! WHEN DO WE GET TO GO ON A FIELD TRIP?!?" or "i'm HUNGRY! i'm STARVING! i am SOOOOO THIRSTY!!!" also, i'm fairly sure he dropped his pencil 8000000 times and i had to sharpen it 6 times because he kept breaking the lead. finally, after a banana and some cold water, we finished those sheets and moved onto phonics. psh. easy peasy. haye might have even enjoyed his worksheets. he worked on partner letters (Aa Bb Cc...).

and then the fun stopped again when i pulled out the spelling and he had to write a list of words twice. after tons of complaining, disobeying, waking up zao and just (well, honestly) ticking me off, i sent him to his room for some quiet time. did i mention he had only written "an" out of that entire list? =___= derek came home and took us out for coffee and to the dollar store to buy mechanical pencils. when we got home he did spelling with haye and i went upstairs to sew. 

so yeah. it's 4:25 pm and we've done language arts. i think we'll probably just work on science and math and go play at the park after dinner before bed. uh...it gets easier, right? !