Friday, July 30, 2010

train up the child, the way he's already gone...

9 comments:
 
I have a kid that doesn't talk. He can, and he could, but he won't. Instead, he chooses the most logical means for a mostly-blind child to communicate: sign language. Anyway, if you were at my house, you would understand 3 things.
1. R2 is HUNGRY
2. R2 wants to LEAVE
3. R2 wants to GO TO SCHOOL.

He "tells" me, and anyone else who comes by to, you know, deliver the mail or whatever, all the time. Glory be, school starts in 2 weeks. I haven't told him yet because he can only handle a day's notice before the waiting really stresses him out.

It's not just school for him, though. I mean, we'll pack him a lunch and send him off to the custody of the state for 8 hours a day or whatever, but this year somebody else is going to school, too.

Toby is starting homeschool, approximately when R2 gets on the little yellow bus and goes to tell his teacher he's hungry. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to Toby, ever. And honestly, I'm geeking out a little myself. He's just such a natural learner that I am stoked to really try to teach him.

I mean, I teach all the time, good things and bad things. But starting in 2 weeks, I'll be teaching stuff like writing and adding and random facts he doesn't already know and such. I've been preparing for a year or so, buying preK-1st workbooks and random school and art supplies (thrift stores, Walmart, Target, and jackpot: Dollar Tree!), and squirreling them all away. Most of them have already been breached, since he's a sneaky little son of a gun. Anyway, now I have everything in basically one cabinet and I have high hopes of making some kind of lesson plan or goal or something prior to my start date.

If you hang around here much, you know I'm not terribly self-disciplined. I'm shooting for an hour a day, and I'm not nailing that hour down yet, since plans give me hives.

I've also bought a few beginner workbooks for Bean, since she can't read yet, even though she's 3. This gives Toby a huge superiority complex. "You're not going to homeschool, Brynn," he says loftily. "You're going to preschool."

Unlike everything else he says, this doesn't seem to bother Brynn. She's just excited about being able to draw with markers without getting in big trouble. I hope to encourage her artistic tendencies, and maybe channel them toward paper, since she prefers walls as her primary canvas. I know, I'm so uptight!

9 comments:

  1. great jess... I know you all three will do well....

    the only thing I have ever been able to teach any grandchild is that deliberate disobediance equals spanking, always. Of course with the really smart guys this only means that they actually get ONE spanking their entire lives cuz they get it.

    I have always wished I had the patience to teach readin riting and rithmatic, but I find it impossible. I was not created to be a teacher and that is ok.

    You on the other hand are a natural and I know that you will enjoy this coming year and that Tobias and even Brynn will continue to amaze you... maybe R2 also. He is himself amazing in so many ways.

    I love you .... have fun

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  2. Wait....Brynn is 3 and not reading?! I think you need to get on that. Starting yesterday. Slacker.

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  3. A couple of good comments here, I have had no internet for a while so I have just caught up on the last week or so.

    1. Thank you for describing my organizational skills as joie de vivre. That is exactly what it is. I DO enjoy life. Although the other sister may also enjoy life, I get to before I do the dishes.

    I have noticed this pattern with Viking Granny calling Toby, Tobias.
    This disturbs me, I realize that is his whole name, but it makes him sound like a folk singer or some kind of Rap King. I mean it is a great name, but what is with all the formality here, Viking?

    With all Love
    G

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  4. Besides, what is the big deal about organization anyway? I know where everything is. It's under the couch where it belongs._g

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  5. amen, g. and then they put it in a drawer somewhere and you don't find it till you move.

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  6. We're gonna start homeschooling Ethan this year, too. I'm so organized, everything I need is lined up alphabetically on a shelf, in a store, somewhere in Missouri, I believe. Perhaps I should begin making purchases. I think I'm in denial because he starts at the same time I start going back to college. Whew boy, it's gonna be a good year!

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  7. Tobias Tobias Tobias./..

    I love the name.... Tobias Paxton

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