...and now for something completely different.

Day 3: ...and now for something completely different.

I have come to the realization that I am going to have to wean my children off of the silver spoon. That is to say, for the years that they have been in school, their time has been scheduled from bell to bell. They have essentially been fed their assignments with the expectation that they will fill in the blanks by a given time. Now, I completely understand that there are exceptions to that "rule." Some projects have had room for creativity, and some teachers are better at giving the children academic license to roam than others. But in my experience, school (both public and private) is a factory system with stricter rules and guidelines than I'm sure some teachers apreciate. But how else would a teacher possibly be able to educate so many children at once? (Teachers have my utmost respect. I say that in all honesty.)

I digress. My point is that my children do not know how to feed themselves! I thought that writing down their daily "requirements" in a planner would be enough. They could do their work when they pleased throughout the day and everything would be wonderfully layed back and simple. Uh-huh. Chalk it up to blissful ignorance on my part.

When left to their own devices, they watched Netflix and played on the computer. When the time limits on those were severely curbed, they chased eachother around the house screaming until someone got hurt. (Only a flesh wound.) Today I had that wonderful project, you know the one where we made "wanted" posters of Medieval social positions. I was so excited about this project, I knew they would love it!

They didn't. Sure, Cady loved the cutting and gluing.... She made a fashion model princess who dressed up babies and sent them down the runway. NOT what I was looking for! I wanted a princess with a thought bubble that said, "Duh, it's my job to look pretty and lavish," or "Mommy Queen, I'm fourteen! I should be dating, not getting married already!" You know, something that shows what they've learned about people of the Middle Ages!

And Asher, well... he just cut out pictures of characters from "Halo" claiming he wanted to make up his own assignment. I asked him what he'd do for that. When he said he'd just glue them to our Medieval City (which was, alas, starting to shape up), I said that wasn't quite what I had in mind.

Finally, an invitation to attend our neighbor's scouting group at 7:00pm, and the demand from me that their planner work be finished if they wanted to go, sent them into a self-propelled work tizzy! Whew, Asher finished a math worksheet, a half hour of silent reading, two Medieval figures and dinner all in an hour and a half! Aha, they have clearly exposed their motivators!

And now for that something completely different. Tomorrow we are going to get up and ready to go by 8:30am (Asher has been hitting his snooze until ten.) We are going to pack our backpacks and head to Barnes and Noble where Asher will complete all of his online lessons on my laptop, and Cady will complete all of her worksheets and language/reading work before we do anything else. Then I think I'll have them each pick out a math workbook... they both need to brush up on their basic skills.

Maybe we'll become regulars at the book store. Or maybe this won't work at all. At the very least, I'll start my morning with a good cup of coffee!