Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Lightbulb Moment

Homeschooling during one's first year is full of adjustments. The plan on paper during August and the detailed schedule looks so neat...so workable. However, reality sets in quickly as the dynamics of personalities, actualities, and learning styles collide.

One such collision has come in the form of an overactive imagination (on good days) and simple absent mindedness (on tired days). The result is a upturned schedule. What "should" take 10 minutes (on a writing lesson for example) easily turns into 40. It can be humorous to watch (on a good day) or downright frustrating beyond belief (on tiring days) as he writes one letter....pauses...writes another...puts his pencil down...writes another, oh wait, looses his place...forgets what he is doing...writes one more letter...on and on.

I have tried just about everything I could think of: rewards for finishing before x amount of time, consequences for taking too long, encouragement, cheering, walking away and letting it take however long it takes, etc. It seems we talk about this more than anything else in school.

This said, you can imagine my surprise when Jake suddenly shouts, "MOM!! Guess what!? As soon as I finish with one letter, I am just going on to the next one...and I'm almost DONE!! Isn't that cool?!"

I guess some things you just have to learn on your own. We all need our light bulb moments now and again.

8 comments:

Kellie said...

hahaha Jake, you are one of a kind and we love you :)

Eyes_Wide_Open said...

So...is it all better now? That's too funny.

The Singlers said...

Jake is just too cute.

Unknown said...

Well...we'll see. That was one day.

Mainely Me said...

LOVE that lefty photo! And yes, we ALL need "our" light bulb moments! Oh, the patience of our loving Father.

Sheri said...

love it! He can ALWAYS make me smile. I hope he always retains a measure of "just being Jake".

Unknown said...

Love it. :)

Leah said...

Someone passed your blog along to me because I'm in a similar situation. My husband and I are adopting a little boy from Ethiopia, and a few months into the process, I found out I was pregnant. So, now we are blessed to be expecting two little ones close in age. I look forward to following your blog. :-D