Saturday, September 29, 2012

Tortillas, Tigers, and Terrible Twos

Our preschool curriculum is here!  Dominic had been waiting and begging me to begin his "schoolwork" as he calls it.  When it arrived he was all grins and was soooo excited as his pastime as of late has been coloring, painting, drawing, and asking how anything and everything is spelled.
Here he (they) are with the newly arrived materials.  

So my first year of back to teaching has begun. At the start, homeschooling seemed much easier than the conventional/traditional schooling I previously taught within.   It was a little tough getting into a routine, but things seemed to be going swell until...  
... well, I think the picture says it all.  Joanna definitely needs attention, wants to do everything her big brother does, and did I mention potty training and terrible twos??  So not only is there prep work for a little preschooler, there's also the "Now what will I have Joanna do while Dominic does his schoolwork?" question.

We are getting ready for week 6 and Dominic is doing quite well mastering new skills and reviewing old ones. In fact, even before officially beginning he was writing his numbers and spelling things like Dad, Mom, additional names of family members, map, ball, zoo on every paper in sight.  In fact, the other day at a garage sale, he started writing his name on the lady's price notebook.  That kid!

For a preschooler, mastering eye/hand coordination, and learning the tripod grasp while writing is very important and meticulous.  He is such a perfectionist, however, that any little mess up is a HUGE deal to him. I decided that we needed to address this issue before it becomes a problem: 1. now in learning the basic skills of writing correctly  2. later in a classroom setting where he could fall behind if he's too worried about making mistakes or always fixing them which could distract from learning and 3. life in general-it's not perfect-some things you can change, others you have to 'Let go and Let God.'  So right now, we are working on approaching screw-ups in different ways.  Because children learn through many different senses, several times a week we practice writing numbers/letters in salt.  This has created a more relaxing approach to the issue-he has to "erase" to write a new letter/number/shape whether he messed up the previous one or not.  (toddler's love this too!)

    action shot
 At the time we first started using the salt technique, we were studying the letter T.  We used a tiger game to emphasize the /t/ sound.  The tiger purred when given a word that began with a T and growled when fed a word not begging with T.  (This was an entertaining game.)  
                                           

I also decided to make homemade tortillas that I had been wanting to do for quite some time.  Little did I know that this would turn into more than just learning the /t/ sound.  As you can see in the following picture, I had trouble rolling them into circles.
                                                   
                                                              First attempt at tortilla making

The perfect opportunity arrived to show him (as he was watching me roll them out and cook them)  that sometimes things don't turn out the way we want.  Some things take practice to master; others we have to accept that it will never be perfect.  We learn from our mistakes.  Another important thing I think we often forget in our daily lives- hardships, shortcomings, imperfections can be offered up in union with the sufferings of our Lord.  (Even failures have a bright side!)  Complaining, giving up, or throwing fits does not get us anywhere.  In fact, whether we are a child or not, it simply sets us back a step or two in one way or another.
                                              
                                                    I think my tortillas got a little better with practice.  
                                     
                                                                They were still roll able. . .   
                                     
                                                 . . .  and no one seemed to care as we chowed down our burritos


God gives us so many teaching opportunities-for ourselves and others-in our daily lives.  You are responsible for your actions or lack thereof.  You will be held accountable at the Last Judgement, not only for yourself  but you must also remember for those to whom you were given to teach and model a Christian life (homeschooling or not).  Your children do learn from you.  Let them learn the holy life from you- for if they are not molded by you, society will fashion them.

Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; 
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; 
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; 
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr


Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your 
ways acknowledge him,and he will direct your paths.
Proverbs 3, 5-6