Sep 8, 2010
Welcome to the world of school-aged children.
Today marks Orison’s last day of being a preschooler. Tomorrow he enters into the 13+-year commitment of being school-aged.
Technically he’s been doing school for a couple years, but it was preschool. This rite of passage into Kindergarten feels much more significant.
So last night we had our first homework assignment. However…
- school hasn’t even started.
- somehow it was me & Abraham doing the assignment.
The assignment was to construct a little “All About Me” box with a few things in it to help the teacher and other students get to know each other. Cute idea, I’m totally behind it. But when I think about the assignment, I keep thinking about it from my perspective, because I ended up doing most of the work!
Part 1: Find a suitable box.
Part 2: Wrap said box (because I couldn’t just schlep him off to school with a bare cardboard box with Amazon labels all over it). I chose to just use a brown paper bag so he could decorate it in his own style (AND I didn’t have enough of any one kind of wrapping paper).
Part 3: Decorate the box (we did this together today).
Part 4: Help him think of things that would be good for the box. (Which also means steering him away from some of the more, um, how do I say?… creative ideas he came up with.)
Part 5: Print out a picture of our family for the box.
This is getting kinda labor-intensive if you ask me! Last night it took me and Abraham working together about 15 minutes to get the box wrapped. I turned to Abraham at one point and said,
‘Welcome to the world of school-aged children. This is just the beginning, you know. Soon there’s going to be science fairs and colonial bizarres. This isn’t going to end for a looong time.’
Now, I’m not complaining. I value education. I value that I have options and I’m not homeschooling right now. I value that he’s going to a school where he’ll learn new and wonderful things.
But I realized last night that soon I’ll be doing homework for with 4 children. (Sigh…). I am entering into the world of the school-aged mom.
My oldest son is now a first-grader and I’ve found that there’s nothing like your kids having your old teachers to make you feel as old as the hills. One of my step-daughter’s teachers told me last year that every time she saw my son the hall, she said, “There goes Kay!” I’m only 26 and yet that comment made me feel a lot older!
Enjoy kindergarten!
it’s even more fun when they’re older and you help them with their projects and then they (you) don’t get a good grade! yikes!
Haha! As a teacher, I understand the assignment, but as a mom, I COMPLETELY sympathize! :) Sounds like you guys did a great job on his “all about me”!
If, at some point, you start to slack off and feel guilty about it, just come talk to me and you’ll feel better. I am the Queen Slacker when it comes to staying on top of school stuff. Pitiful. Awful. Embarrassing really.
Guess I should save our shoe boxes for you guys…dioramas baby!!!
Welcome : ) I look forward to reading about your experiences and laughing because I’m going through the same things! (Hopefully we’ll both be laughing more than crying…!)
Ah, what a wonderful adventure it is!
Please be sure to enjoy every single second of every minute of it because it is all so precious!!
Even continue enjoying it when you are going through it the 2nd or 3rd or 4th time. I still remember the 2nd time around through the Bible Quiz box of cards. We had memorized all 1000 plus verses together (it might not have been quite that many, but it sure seemed like a lot). A few months after our son finished the box of verses (a two year mission), it was our youngest daughter’s turn to start. The box of memory verse cards seemed so much bigger the 2nd time around, but hearing her say those verses in her little voice was priceless.
I can’t wait to find out what grade you and Abraham get on your assignment–oh, but they probably don’t give grades in Kindergarten :-)
Speak the word, sister. At our school, the second graders have big projects on things like rockets and dinosaurs, where they have to create a model out of … something (could be anything) and then write a story about their creation.
I kid you not, one kid brought in a life-sized stuffed dinosaur. (Yeah, I’m sure she stayed up late to sew that herself.) Kids have been known to bring in rockets that can’t fit in the doorway.
My poor kids are getting by with toilet paper rolls and yarn, because that’s the extent of Mom’s crafting skills.
Oh GIRL. There is a giant pickle jar of dead bugs about three feet away from me right now, waiting to get stuck on the board for the fourth-grade insect collection. Which I am NOT, incidentally, involved in–that one is all Hubs and the fourth grader. I draw the line at dead bugs.
please!! At least you are incredibly smart! I still break out into a TOTAL SWEAT when asked a simple math question. Seriously, not exaggerating, I get really nervous with addition and subtraction to say nothing at all of algebra and trig which if pressed, I am not sure I can really even explain what they are. Also, as you can most likely tell from this post, I have no idea how to actually use a coma in a sentence either. It is amazing that I have a child.
Haha! Most of my grade school projects (& my siblings projects) became “family projects.” My mom used to color things for me while I did the written portion of reports. Even in college I was still calling my dad to help me finish programming and debugging my computer science assignments (due by midnight, usually!) At least you get to work up to the hard stuff ;)
My daughter has been in school for 8 years now (a big 8th grader this year) and with the help of my parents, we’ve been doing homework with her since Day 1. I’ve been blessed that I started reading to her when she was a baby and doing the ‘simple’ things to help her vocabulary early on. You strike me as one who has done the same and beyond. You’ll be fine…enjoy the projects. I feel like I’ve returned to school myself thru all this, but wouldn’t trade it for anything.
I can certainly relate. While I do homeschool, though, this is the first year that I have 2 children I need to actively teach. A 1st & 2nd grader. I also have a 4 year old who needs some Pre-k type instruction. It’s been a tad overwhelming some days, but I’m not complaining. It’s just a new season…not a better one than a non-school season, but a different one. Lots of chaotic, time consuming, yet FUN times lie in store. :)
Hi Molly,
I also just posted a blog about homework…. http://www.vanboxtel.org/weblog/160-en-dus?lang=en
Us doing it in our best French…
The blind helps the crippled in our case :)
Good luck… You’ll be free in about 16 years (sigh…)
Love
I am just dying to hear some of those more “creative” ideas!
Molly,
I’m a longtime lurker, but I had to come out of hiding to say how much I love that you wrote “colonial bizarres” instead of “bazaars”. When it comes to kids in school and homework assignments (I’m remembering several late nights last year completing a Hardy Boys BOOK costume for my oldest daughter), truer words were never spoken.
This is my first year with 4 in school-there definitely is a lot to help with, but now the older 2 can amazingly do most on their own! :)