I have been on a kick lately, I get these every once and again little obsessions that I must carry out. They have ranged from scrap booking too this blog you are reading. Mostly I get engrossed for about three weeks then I abandon it for some other pursuit. I am terrible about it, I really wish I could stick with things but I am just a wishy washy person, flaky if you will. I know this about myself, and I would say it is my worst trait, but I digress.My latest pursuit is a summer enrichment program for the boys so that their minds stay sharp during their two month sabbatical from school. I checked out a bunch of books from the library on activities that are fun and educational. I bought several workbooks on reading comprehension and learning word families. I have been googling up a storm trying to find home school curriculum's I can use for my little summer program.
I was feeling super great about it. I was totally going to stick with this and they will rise into kindergarten and 1st grade well ahead of the game. Then I had this conversation with Cody and I had my doubts about my abilities. There was an activities in one of the books I read called "Story Builders", a fairly common game. The premise is one person (the parent or teacher) starts a story and then passes it on to the other person (the child or children). I had Cody in the minivan waiting for Colton to get out of school ( I get to his school about thirty minutes early to ensure I am one of the first cars in line, otherwise Colton panics and thinks I am not coming to get him, but that is a different story for a different day) I thought this was the perfect opportunity to try out our new game.
So I started
"Cody lets play a game I will start telling a story and then you add some to the story and together we will make a great adventure" (in peppy I am such a great mom voice)
"Um No thanks, "
"It will be fun we have a while to wait still , play the game with me" (pleading and stinking of desperation)
"OK!" (exasperated)
"Ok There was once three little boys who wanted to visit their Grandma so they backed a suitcase and... ok what happened next"
" they got there and the grandma was dead and they were sad"(in a bored voice)"ummm... that kind of ends the story there buddy" (extremely worried at her morbid child)
*silence*
"Ok lets do a different story , Once there was a little duck who liked to play in the rain...." ( interrupted with a loud STOP!)
"Mom! Stop! Ugghh! You are so boring! I just will tell you a story! The dead grandma she a frog now, then she hop hop hopped away and swoop! there come all the bats!"
"oh-no bats?"
"shhhhhh yes bats and they eat up dead grandma frog and then they go swooop to see the three little bears and they been breaking all their chairs an ouch ouch ouch burned they mouths on the cereal"
"I thought it was porridge?"
"no! it is bear food also called cereal, ugghhhh I so just done now lets just be quiet for a second."
At this point the conversation was over and I was torn between amazement at his imagination and the fact he incorporated out lesson from yesterday . ( I checked out three different Little Red Riding Hood themed stories and we read all three then discussed how they were the same and how they were different, yes I was very proud I had thought of this one on my own thank you very much.) Yet there were so many parts that disturbed me, I have gotten used to his penchant for the morbid but it still can catch me off guard at times. I guess I just wanted it to be like the commercials for learning they show on Nick Jr where the parent and child are mutually enjoying the game. I feel my patience wearing thin I wish I was blessed with never ending patience and that being told to shut up and stop did not bother me. But it bothers me and then I just feel myself shutting down, and start thinking maybe I best leave all the teaching to the professionals. Then again I feel like I am doing good, that some of what I am doing is sinking in and helping and I just can not get frustrated.
So how should I approach this? I definitely want to continue with my little program but how do I develop techniques for myself not to get frustrated in the process?
