If you’ve visited this blog with even semi-regularity, you know the concern that all-day, every-day school has caused me. When my crappy immune system decided that it would be best for the twins to go to school every day (maybe I should stop calling my immune system names and it would be nicer to me too), I began to obsess.
What would happen with the twins at school all day? Would all those hours away from home change them completely? Would they come home quoting iCarly and singing Lady Gaga? Would the rigamarole of school completely dominate our lives? Would our PJ Days be replaced with uniform-washing, school projects, homework, and lunch-making? Would they be needy and whiny and hate all those hours in class? Worse, would they realize they LOVED school and didn’t need their old mom one bit?
Well, yes. All of that has happened. Not iCarly or Lady Gaga, but all of the rest.
Mostly, our family focus is very school-heavy now. And that’s mostly because the twins actually have HOMEWORK!
Besides the inappropriateness of starting the lifelong homework battle too early, the at-home projects have been family-centric and fun. If not a bit of a pain.
In this picture, Sam and Elisabeth (more on that name change later) are taking care of Cross, the Dog. He goes home with a different child each weekend. They feed and walk and play pirates with him (at least that’s what we did). Then our family (me) fills out a journal about what we did with him. The kids draw pictures and mommy writes narration. Mommy takes pictures, prints them, adds them to a class photo album, and writes narration. On Monday the twins present the book to the class and use our pictures to TELL A STORY.
A-ha! Pre-reading skills. They’re learning to use picture clues and their enthusiasm for an activity to share a story with their peers.
Brilliant!
AND all of the writing and printing and organizing for me ensures I’m every bit as needed as I ever was. Just a bit more behind the scenes.
