Since my previous post, my son has started getting daily homework, and we are gradually settling into it. He did lose his temper with me today when I told him it was homework time... 5pm is our routine time for doing it--the children have had plenty of time to play together, and I'm pottering about the kitchen, tidying up and starting to get dinner ready. By this time, the novelty's worn off, so even though I gave him plenty of warning that 5pm was coming, he did not want to do it.
At one point, I told him that it was my job to make sure he did his homework, and he told me it was his. I think he was just negating what I said without really thinking about it, but it did give me a moment's pause. After all, I do want to get him into good, *independent* habits. Yet at the same time, we've only just started this, so it's not a habit yet. And it's as important that he have a time to do it that suits all of us as it is for him to take initiative. e.g., he can't decide to do his homework five minutes before dinner, or when I'm doing something with his sister.
Fortunately, once we actually start doing the homework, there's no problem. So far, it only takes him about ten minutes to do homework (sometimes getting him to clear his work off the kitchen table so we can serve dinner takes longer than the actual homework), and it's worked out quite well. I was concerned about my daughter being a distraction, but she has been fine playing or reading by herself, and doesn't seem one whit bothered that her brother's doing something she can't do. This could all change, but for now, all is going well.
One week down, thirteen years to go!
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label School. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 September 2014
Sunday, 7 September 2014
School just got Real
In between my travel write ups (we did too much traveling this summer--I've got New York and Washington DC to add now!), I should catch up with actual goings on. Such as my son's graduation from Children's House to the Elementary Class.
We've kept him in his Montessori School, so he's in a mixed age six-nine classroom, but it's the equivalent to first grade. I.e. moving from pre-school to honest-to-goodness school.
The significance of this transition hadn't occurred to me until August when we got the class supply list, featuring binders and notebooks instead of paints and kitchen roll. It really hit me when we had the parent orientation evening, and we were talked through expectations such as... homework.
In many ways, up until this point, I've considered the children to be at school to learn practical skills and socialisation. Any academic advancements have been a bonus. Yes, I stressed about his reading, but there was always the feeling that it didn't really matter. And now it feels like it does.
It's still Montessori, it's still child-led, so my son will still go at his own pace, and there isn't really a specific standard in each subject that they have to achieve in the three years of elementary. But there is an expectation now that they will stay in line with the rest of the country--and there's an element of preparing them for a non-Montessori academic future, with work-sheets and tests and such like.
And the aforementioned homework. Homework is not really Montessori, which is designed around using materials that are in the classroom and not the home. His teacher's solution to this is to get the children to work at home on the stuff they need to burn into their memories for the long term.
For now, my son's homework is one or two worksheets a week to practice his 'math facts' (multiplication tables, 0-9 sums, etc.) In a few more weeks, spelling will be added to the mix--two nights of studying the words, and two nights of choosing his own activity out of a range from 'write your words from shortest to longest' to 'write a poem using your words.') This will mean something to do every night of the week.
He is taking this development with all due cheer and enthusiasm. I am all anxiety (well, outwardly, I strive for a mask of cool confidence, but inwardly I'm first-world-probleming 24/7). My own homework practices at school were atrocious and thus I am resolved for my children to do better. I want to have a routine time where he sits at the table and does homework, and I am available to help him, discuss it with him or otherwise show interest--but equally, I've got to find something to keep my daughter engaged without distracting him at the same time.
So far it's been very easy because he doesn't seem to have a problem with maths. (That in itself is interesting because up until now, he's always done maths with concrete materials: unit beads, ten bars, hundred squares and thousand cubes, etc. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time he's sat down with a piece of paper and done it in his head--and he can. My husband and I were both mathematically inclined, so this might just be genetic luck easing the transition, but it was fun to listen him read the questions dramatically as if it was the most insane thing he'd ever been asked before declaring: "Well, it has to be [answer].")
I am more worried about how the spelling will go down, but then again, this is just the tip of a fifteen-year long iceberg. It's going to get tough eventually... I should enjoy staying afloat while I can.
The other thing that's starting to concern me is keeping up with his British peers. Technically, he's skipped a year in the US system (it's really a little more blurred thanks to the Montessori system and his early start in that), but in the UK, he'd be starting 'proper' school this year too. The BBC recently ran this article on the new national curriculum, which made me realize I should be keeping an eye on what he's expected to know there.
From my own experience (educated in the US from the age of nine to eleven, before returning to the UK for high school), the US is perhaps more academic than the UK at the primary level... but that was twenty five years ago. To use the examples cited in this article, I know my son will be learning fractions, though computer coding was not mentioned in the elementary class overview! Handily, my husband's a computer guy and I'm sure there are all kinds of apps for that, but what else lurks in the pages of the National Curriculum?
My first thought was to panic, download a PDF of Key Stage One expectations, make extensive notes and start googling downloadable worksheets, to keep my son abreast of the UK standards...
And then there was the second thought which is that I have better things to do with my time, so does my son, and my whole thing about Montessori is that I don't like forcing children to a standard anyway.
So I probably will try to keep aware of what's going on in the equivalent British class. But I'll also acknowledge that there will always be gaps he'll have to bridge when he starts school there. And that's OK. He's going to have huge blind spots in his history and geography, but let's seize the opportunity we have to learn about American history and geography.
Right now, the most important thing is his enthusiasm for learning. That's what I want to celebrate and sustain for as long as possible. Besides, almost six years on from his birth, there are still few things more enjoyable than watching him learn and discover the world around him.
We've kept him in his Montessori School, so he's in a mixed age six-nine classroom, but it's the equivalent to first grade. I.e. moving from pre-school to honest-to-goodness school.
The significance of this transition hadn't occurred to me until August when we got the class supply list, featuring binders and notebooks instead of paints and kitchen roll. It really hit me when we had the parent orientation evening, and we were talked through expectations such as... homework.
In many ways, up until this point, I've considered the children to be at school to learn practical skills and socialisation. Any academic advancements have been a bonus. Yes, I stressed about his reading, but there was always the feeling that it didn't really matter. And now it feels like it does.
It's still Montessori, it's still child-led, so my son will still go at his own pace, and there isn't really a specific standard in each subject that they have to achieve in the three years of elementary. But there is an expectation now that they will stay in line with the rest of the country--and there's an element of preparing them for a non-Montessori academic future, with work-sheets and tests and such like.
And the aforementioned homework. Homework is not really Montessori, which is designed around using materials that are in the classroom and not the home. His teacher's solution to this is to get the children to work at home on the stuff they need to burn into their memories for the long term.
For now, my son's homework is one or two worksheets a week to practice his 'math facts' (multiplication tables, 0-9 sums, etc.) In a few more weeks, spelling will be added to the mix--two nights of studying the words, and two nights of choosing his own activity out of a range from 'write your words from shortest to longest' to 'write a poem using your words.') This will mean something to do every night of the week.
He is taking this development with all due cheer and enthusiasm. I am all anxiety (well, outwardly, I strive for a mask of cool confidence, but inwardly I'm first-world-probleming 24/7). My own homework practices at school were atrocious and thus I am resolved for my children to do better. I want to have a routine time where he sits at the table and does homework, and I am available to help him, discuss it with him or otherwise show interest--but equally, I've got to find something to keep my daughter engaged without distracting him at the same time.
So far it's been very easy because he doesn't seem to have a problem with maths. (That in itself is interesting because up until now, he's always done maths with concrete materials: unit beads, ten bars, hundred squares and thousand cubes, etc. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time he's sat down with a piece of paper and done it in his head--and he can. My husband and I were both mathematically inclined, so this might just be genetic luck easing the transition, but it was fun to listen him read the questions dramatically as if it was the most insane thing he'd ever been asked before declaring: "Well, it has to be [answer].")
I am more worried about how the spelling will go down, but then again, this is just the tip of a fifteen-year long iceberg. It's going to get tough eventually... I should enjoy staying afloat while I can.
The other thing that's starting to concern me is keeping up with his British peers. Technically, he's skipped a year in the US system (it's really a little more blurred thanks to the Montessori system and his early start in that), but in the UK, he'd be starting 'proper' school this year too. The BBC recently ran this article on the new national curriculum, which made me realize I should be keeping an eye on what he's expected to know there.
From my own experience (educated in the US from the age of nine to eleven, before returning to the UK for high school), the US is perhaps more academic than the UK at the primary level... but that was twenty five years ago. To use the examples cited in this article, I know my son will be learning fractions, though computer coding was not mentioned in the elementary class overview! Handily, my husband's a computer guy and I'm sure there are all kinds of apps for that, but what else lurks in the pages of the National Curriculum?
My first thought was to panic, download a PDF of Key Stage One expectations, make extensive notes and start googling downloadable worksheets, to keep my son abreast of the UK standards...
And then there was the second thought which is that I have better things to do with my time, so does my son, and my whole thing about Montessori is that I don't like forcing children to a standard anyway.
So I probably will try to keep aware of what's going on in the equivalent British class. But I'll also acknowledge that there will always be gaps he'll have to bridge when he starts school there. And that's OK. He's going to have huge blind spots in his history and geography, but let's seize the opportunity we have to learn about American history and geography.
Right now, the most important thing is his enthusiasm for learning. That's what I want to celebrate and sustain for as long as possible. Besides, almost six years on from his birth, there are still few things more enjoyable than watching him learn and discover the world around him.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Settling into the School Routine
It's been a few weeks now since both children started back at school: my two year old daughter to the old school, less than five minutes from our house; my four year old son to the new school, twenty minutes from the house. We've managed to get the school run down, and I'm finding it less tedious than I expected. I download podcasts to listen to when I'm on my own, and on the way there, when it's just me and my son in the car, we talk.
It's a twenty minute stretch when neither of us is distracted by anything else that needs doing or anybody else that wants our attention, and it's an absolute delight. Mostly we talk about how he's going to be an astronaut one day, (I have instructed him to video-chat me from the space station and told him he'd better not bring me his laundry when he gets back to Earth), but all kinds of topics come up as we discuss things he's trying to get his head around.
For a while now, I've been vaguely worried about how to bond with my son now that he's outgrown the cuddly stage (which my daughter is delightfully ensconced in). As it turned out, all I needed to do was to find some peaceful one-on-one time--though that's no easy feat!
Anyway, my son has settled into his new school, although he is not impressed by having to work in the afternoons as well. He was absolutely shattered for the first couple of weeks, though that seems to have eased, thankfully. He's still starving when he gets home, and packing the lunch is an ongoing problem (I can't find an acceptable sandwich alternative to peanut butter, and it's looking like we might just have to do pasta everyday.)
Still, I'm pleased with the level of communication I'm getting from his teachers, and although we're still feeling our way into the school, so to speak, I think we made a good call. I'll be going in to observe in another couple of weeks, and this weekend, I am volunteering to help at a school event.
Surprisingly, the transition was harder on my daughter. There was a last minute class-change, and now she's in a different room with different teachers and a much bigger class. She misses her old teacher and still doesn't seem to have transferred her affections to her new ones, which is a great shame. On the other hand, she has adjusted to the new routine now, and I was able to observe her last week which reassured me that she was perfectly comfortable in her new environment. She has a 'best friend', and unlike her brother, she likes to talk about her day, bubbling over with the same litany, regardless of what actually happened.
More regrettably, she's sort of dropped her nap. Not completely, but she used to go down without a problem between 12:30 and 1. Now that's not happening, and unfortunately, we have a limited window before we go to pick her brother up. If she's not asleep by 1:30 (and maybe even that would be too late), it's not going to be worth it for her to go to sleep. So I've given up putting her down and instead she sleeps in the car when we do the afternoon school run.
It's frustrating because she doesn't get to sleep out in the car before we have to wake her, and then she always wakes up insanely cranky. Still, it's working quite well as an interim step, when she's not really ready to drop her nap, but no longer needs the full ninety minutes either. Now I've just got to get used to a daily routine that doesn't include getting my daughter into bed after lunch.
Also to an afternoon routine where our starting location for activities is at my son's school. There are plenty of parks along the route home, so generally we pick a playground, spend an hour there, then head home to tidy up and get dinner sorted. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's surprisingly jarring to be at a different end of town, and I don't feel that we've quite streamlined the process yet.
So to sum up: much change to our daily routine; we're still getting used to it.
Further to my last post on Disney Princesses, we're going to be doing Disney on Ice this weekend, which I'm genuinely excited for, since I've always liked ice-skating and I hear good things about the show. I also hear bad things about the attending merchandise onslaught. Fingers crossed we survive it!
It's a twenty minute stretch when neither of us is distracted by anything else that needs doing or anybody else that wants our attention, and it's an absolute delight. Mostly we talk about how he's going to be an astronaut one day, (I have instructed him to video-chat me from the space station and told him he'd better not bring me his laundry when he gets back to Earth), but all kinds of topics come up as we discuss things he's trying to get his head around.
For a while now, I've been vaguely worried about how to bond with my son now that he's outgrown the cuddly stage (which my daughter is delightfully ensconced in). As it turned out, all I needed to do was to find some peaceful one-on-one time--though that's no easy feat!
Anyway, my son has settled into his new school, although he is not impressed by having to work in the afternoons as well. He was absolutely shattered for the first couple of weeks, though that seems to have eased, thankfully. He's still starving when he gets home, and packing the lunch is an ongoing problem (I can't find an acceptable sandwich alternative to peanut butter, and it's looking like we might just have to do pasta everyday.)
Still, I'm pleased with the level of communication I'm getting from his teachers, and although we're still feeling our way into the school, so to speak, I think we made a good call. I'll be going in to observe in another couple of weeks, and this weekend, I am volunteering to help at a school event.
Surprisingly, the transition was harder on my daughter. There was a last minute class-change, and now she's in a different room with different teachers and a much bigger class. She misses her old teacher and still doesn't seem to have transferred her affections to her new ones, which is a great shame. On the other hand, she has adjusted to the new routine now, and I was able to observe her last week which reassured me that she was perfectly comfortable in her new environment. She has a 'best friend', and unlike her brother, she likes to talk about her day, bubbling over with the same litany, regardless of what actually happened.
More regrettably, she's sort of dropped her nap. Not completely, but she used to go down without a problem between 12:30 and 1. Now that's not happening, and unfortunately, we have a limited window before we go to pick her brother up. If she's not asleep by 1:30 (and maybe even that would be too late), it's not going to be worth it for her to go to sleep. So I've given up putting her down and instead she sleeps in the car when we do the afternoon school run.
It's frustrating because she doesn't get to sleep out in the car before we have to wake her, and then she always wakes up insanely cranky. Still, it's working quite well as an interim step, when she's not really ready to drop her nap, but no longer needs the full ninety minutes either. Now I've just got to get used to a daily routine that doesn't include getting my daughter into bed after lunch.
Also to an afternoon routine where our starting location for activities is at my son's school. There are plenty of parks along the route home, so generally we pick a playground, spend an hour there, then head home to tidy up and get dinner sorted. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's surprisingly jarring to be at a different end of town, and I don't feel that we've quite streamlined the process yet.
So to sum up: much change to our daily routine; we're still getting used to it.
Further to my last post on Disney Princesses, we're going to be doing Disney on Ice this weekend, which I'm genuinely excited for, since I've always liked ice-skating and I hear good things about the show. I also hear bad things about the attending merchandise onslaught. Fingers crossed we survive it!
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Decorating the School-bag (Or the things I can do if I put my mind to it)
All this week, my son has been going to orientation at his new school. This has been kind of a pain for me, because he's been going for a couple of hours a day, a.k.a. half the morning, which has made it very awkward to plan activities for myself and my daughter. On the other hand, I'm pleased the staff are so careful to settle the incoming children before the returners get back.
My son has, to all appearances, really enjoyed it. I attended a parent Q & A / meet your fellow parents event on Monday, during which my daughter sat on my lap and entertained herself by asking me: "Where are your nipples?" (Currently, nipples are her favourite part of the human anatomy--possibly just because of the sound of the word.) Thank-you, beloved child, for helping me face my fear of embarrassment in social situations.
However the real disaster came earlier on Monday morning, when my son's teacher handed him a brand new schoolbag, told him he could decorate it however he wanted--and then pointed to a little girl's bag by way of example. Said girl's bag had caterpillars and flowers painted on with glitter and was completely adorable. My son was captivated at the thought of transforming his bag similarly; I was horrified.
I am not really artistic in any practical way. I'm always nervous of art projects more complicated than 'give child materials and leave them to it.' It's probably no coincidence that my son is rather behind in art himself. At age four, he's been writing his letters for over a year, but he only recently started actually drawing things, and colouring in our household means scribbling an abstract mass of colour through which the line-art underneath shows through. At any rate, I knew that the visions my son had were beyond us. Besides, we were all out of paint and our glitter glue stock was low.
So when we got home, I got out the markers (felt tips) for my son and told him to draw whatever he wanted, hoping he might surprise me. He let his two year old sister in on the action, and the result was a colourful scribble all over the back of the bag. I told myself that at least this was his creation, not mine, but the truth was that this was a bag he was going to be using for years to come, and it would be distinguished from everybody else's by being... a messy scribble.
I fretted over this for the rest of the week, and eventually came up with a plan.
The Plan
Today, I gave my son a spray bottle of water and a scrubbing brush. We squirted the bag thoroughly and then he scrubbed over the markers, blurring the washable inks across the canvas to create a watercolour effect.
Once that was dry, he picked out a simple picture of a rocket ship from a colouring book and I copied that onto the bag in first pencil, then Sharpie. Then he painted it (I'd restocked on paints)--and for the first time in his life (and without me mentioning it!) he carefully painted each element of the picture a different colour. I helped a little, but mostly filling in the main body of the ship when he got bored and moved onto the wings. I also painted in the flames at the back when he was unsure how to do it.
When that was dry (huzzah for a sunny day!), I broke out our glitter glue. This was the only time I over-rode his wishes in design, since he just wanted to scribble any colour anywhere, and I insisted that we had to match the colours already on the ship. I was afraid that if I let him have his way, we would end up with the same messy scribble we started with. Besides, I wanted the glitter glue to act as a sealant, since the paint was washable and this bag is going to get rained on at some point.
I'm not entirely sure how you're meant to use glitter glue, but we found that we got the best result by squirting a line and then spreading it with our fingers.
The final result:
It's not Monet, and I still worry about what's going to happen when it rains, but this is, I feel, a bag he can be proud of for the next few years (and an artwork that we can gladly keep in the memory box once he's done with the bag). I am tremendously proud of him for putting so much care into it--and have resolved to be less scared of doing art with the children going forward.
I am, however, already worrying about what we can put on my daughter's bag when she joins the school next year...
My son has, to all appearances, really enjoyed it. I attended a parent Q & A / meet your fellow parents event on Monday, during which my daughter sat on my lap and entertained herself by asking me: "Where are your nipples?" (Currently, nipples are her favourite part of the human anatomy--possibly just because of the sound of the word.) Thank-you, beloved child, for helping me face my fear of embarrassment in social situations.
However the real disaster came earlier on Monday morning, when my son's teacher handed him a brand new schoolbag, told him he could decorate it however he wanted--and then pointed to a little girl's bag by way of example. Said girl's bag had caterpillars and flowers painted on with glitter and was completely adorable. My son was captivated at the thought of transforming his bag similarly; I was horrified.
I am not really artistic in any practical way. I'm always nervous of art projects more complicated than 'give child materials and leave them to it.' It's probably no coincidence that my son is rather behind in art himself. At age four, he's been writing his letters for over a year, but he only recently started actually drawing things, and colouring in our household means scribbling an abstract mass of colour through which the line-art underneath shows through. At any rate, I knew that the visions my son had were beyond us. Besides, we were all out of paint and our glitter glue stock was low.
So when we got home, I got out the markers (felt tips) for my son and told him to draw whatever he wanted, hoping he might surprise me. He let his two year old sister in on the action, and the result was a colourful scribble all over the back of the bag. I told myself that at least this was his creation, not mine, but the truth was that this was a bag he was going to be using for years to come, and it would be distinguished from everybody else's by being... a messy scribble.
I fretted over this for the rest of the week, and eventually came up with a plan.
The Plan
Today, I gave my son a spray bottle of water and a scrubbing brush. We squirted the bag thoroughly and then he scrubbed over the markers, blurring the washable inks across the canvas to create a watercolour effect.
Once that was dry, he picked out a simple picture of a rocket ship from a colouring book and I copied that onto the bag in first pencil, then Sharpie. Then he painted it (I'd restocked on paints)--and for the first time in his life (and without me mentioning it!) he carefully painted each element of the picture a different colour. I helped a little, but mostly filling in the main body of the ship when he got bored and moved onto the wings. I also painted in the flames at the back when he was unsure how to do it.
When that was dry (huzzah for a sunny day!), I broke out our glitter glue. This was the only time I over-rode his wishes in design, since he just wanted to scribble any colour anywhere, and I insisted that we had to match the colours already on the ship. I was afraid that if I let him have his way, we would end up with the same messy scribble we started with. Besides, I wanted the glitter glue to act as a sealant, since the paint was washable and this bag is going to get rained on at some point.
I'm not entirely sure how you're meant to use glitter glue, but we found that we got the best result by squirting a line and then spreading it with our fingers.
The final result:
 |
| It's flying past a nebula or something... |
It's not Monet, and I still worry about what's going to happen when it rains, but this is, I feel, a bag he can be proud of for the next few years (and an artwork that we can gladly keep in the memory box once he's done with the bag). I am tremendously proud of him for putting so much care into it--and have resolved to be less scared of doing art with the children going forward.
I am, however, already worrying about what we can put on my daughter's bag when she joins the school next year...
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Pre-school Decisions
So as I stated in my last post, we've made the decision to change schools. This wasn't an easy decision, because there are many things we (and they!) love about their current school, but in the end, our reasons for leaving were non-negotiable.
However, I was adamant that we were staying in Montessori education, so I asked around and got a recommendation for another school from somebody who had worked there as part of their training. I visited it, loved it, and fortunately, that decision was a very easy one. It's twenty minutes away instead of two minutes away, but I always knew I wasn't going to find another school so close. I'm just going to have to make that adjustment. (I am very unenthusiastic about the school run taking the better part of an hour instead of its current ten minutes.)
Complication number one was that they don't take toddlers. They aren't licensed to change diapers or even help a child undress and clean themselves after an accident. All children must be potty-trained with no more than two accidents per month. While it's possible that my daughter might be at that level by September (though I doubt it), I certainly don't think she's ready to tackle the full-blown children's house class yet (three to six year olds).
We pondered our options, of putting her in daycare or just taking her out of school altogether until January. In the end however, we have decided to let her continue on at her current school, for one more term. Come January, though she won't quite be three, she'll have done a full year in the toddler class, and I expect she'll be fine for Children's House, though we can revise our options again when we get there. (I am fairly sure her current school would change her to the full year if we asked.) Right now, she's perfectly happy where she is, and I don't see the need to change her routine for a single term.
Complication number two was an odd one. The new school wanted my son to start on their kindergarten programme.
To Push or not to Push
Just for background here, my son is four and a half. Going on the national standard, he would not have been expected to start kindergarten until the fall of 2014, so this is effectively skipping him a year. Kindergarten hadn't even been on our radar.
On the other hand, the Montessori system doesn't synch perfectly with the standard one--that's why it's a kindergarten programme, not a kindergarten class. By morning, he will be in the same 3-6 year old mixed class that we intended to enroll him for. The difference is that the older children stay through the afternoon as well and have a second, academic-focused, work cycle after lunch (plus some other opportunities).
Now, while I naturally think my son is extremely bright, I don't think he's any sort of child prodigy. The old school had not talked about starting him on kindergarten this early (although they tended to err later rather than sooner with such things). My initial reaction on hearing this news was that I did not want to push him. It wasn't that I thought he wasn't capable of handling the work so much as the load.
His prospective teacher admitted that he was younger than she had originally thought--probably because he was friends with one of the boys in her class. Said friend is only a few months older than my son, but he has an August birthday. I had never really appreciated before that, technically, they were in different school years, even if there's not a big difference between them academically.
For Montessori purposes, they are in the same class and will be doing the same work--the friend is a little ahead of my son in most areas, but they could certainly work together on several materials. And when my son came in to work with the teacher, she felt he was where she expected her kindergarteners to be.
I did wonder if it would make more sense to start kindergarten in January, when my son would be five and would have completed two of the expected three years in the Children's House. This would let him settle in to the new school before making the switch to afternoons as well. However, when asked, my son (who was utterly dazzled by his new school) was quite excited at the prospect of staying at school through the afternoon. I think he's aware that this is a big kid thing, and is eager to be so grand.
The teacher said that he could start the extended day in January if I wished, but she thought he was ready now. She also assured me that if she changed her mind after a few weeks, he would be able to switch back to mornings only. Finally, she told me that the school had a number of four year olds in the kindergarten programme, so he would be with his peers.
That last was what decided me. I feared being a pushy parent, but even if he was exceptionally gifted, I would want him to stay with children his own age as much as possible. I was also a little wary that the school might just be trying to get him in the more expensive programme to get the extra tuition fees, and obviously I can't be sure that this isn't the case... but I don't think it is.
Finally, whenever we do go back to the UK, his education is going to be interrupted for a short while anyway, so I'm more than happy to have him a little ahead of the curve. It feels like we have a buffer against future problems.
I do feel a little ridiculous saying he's starting kindergarten in the fall, but I need to get over it. This is going to be nothing compared to university applications.
Logistics, Ahoy!
Having him stay at school until 3pm will completely change our daily routine though. Up until now, our afternoon plans have hinged on when his sister wakes from her nap. Now they'll start from when we pick him up and they'll have to be accessible from his school. We're not going to be able to keep their gym class up, for a start, and I don't yet know if we'll change classes or change gyms. Fortunately, we don't do any other extra-curriculars.
Of course, this is only going to get worse in January when my daughter starts at the school as well. It's going to be one thing driving ten blocks to pick her up from school at lunchtime and then going back out for her brother at three. It's going to be quite another to spend forty minutes on the round trip to drop them off by 9, forty minutes to collect her at 12 and forty minutes to collect him at 3.
The most convenient option is to have her lunch and nap at school, so I'm picking them both up together, but that's a lot of extra fees for her to sleep through. Also, I don't think there's any alternative should she drop her nap. In other words, the nap will be enforced on her whether she needs it or not, which could create a different set of problems for us in the evenings.
Anyway, we are very much crossing that bridge when we come to it. Thankfully, it's going to be a relatively short term problem, but it's going to be a royal nuisance as long as it lasts.
Also a problem? Finding a week's worth of packed lunches for my son when peanut butter sandwiches are banned. It's not a huge surprise, since most schools don't allow peanut butter these days, but his current school doesn't have a problem with it, and they're just about his favourite thing to eat. I am going to need some serious research on packable meals before September rolls around.
But right now, I'm trying to deal with the thought that tomorrow is his last day at the old school--something which is giving me many more pangs than it is him. I really need to take a leaf out of his book and be excited about what's to come rather than mourning what will never be again.
However, I was adamant that we were staying in Montessori education, so I asked around and got a recommendation for another school from somebody who had worked there as part of their training. I visited it, loved it, and fortunately, that decision was a very easy one. It's twenty minutes away instead of two minutes away, but I always knew I wasn't going to find another school so close. I'm just going to have to make that adjustment. (I am very unenthusiastic about the school run taking the better part of an hour instead of its current ten minutes.)
Complication number one was that they don't take toddlers. They aren't licensed to change diapers or even help a child undress and clean themselves after an accident. All children must be potty-trained with no more than two accidents per month. While it's possible that my daughter might be at that level by September (though I doubt it), I certainly don't think she's ready to tackle the full-blown children's house class yet (three to six year olds).
We pondered our options, of putting her in daycare or just taking her out of school altogether until January. In the end however, we have decided to let her continue on at her current school, for one more term. Come January, though she won't quite be three, she'll have done a full year in the toddler class, and I expect she'll be fine for Children's House, though we can revise our options again when we get there. (I am fairly sure her current school would change her to the full year if we asked.) Right now, she's perfectly happy where she is, and I don't see the need to change her routine for a single term.
Complication number two was an odd one. The new school wanted my son to start on their kindergarten programme.
To Push or not to Push
Just for background here, my son is four and a half. Going on the national standard, he would not have been expected to start kindergarten until the fall of 2014, so this is effectively skipping him a year. Kindergarten hadn't even been on our radar.
On the other hand, the Montessori system doesn't synch perfectly with the standard one--that's why it's a kindergarten programme, not a kindergarten class. By morning, he will be in the same 3-6 year old mixed class that we intended to enroll him for. The difference is that the older children stay through the afternoon as well and have a second, academic-focused, work cycle after lunch (plus some other opportunities).
Now, while I naturally think my son is extremely bright, I don't think he's any sort of child prodigy. The old school had not talked about starting him on kindergarten this early (although they tended to err later rather than sooner with such things). My initial reaction on hearing this news was that I did not want to push him. It wasn't that I thought he wasn't capable of handling the work so much as the load.
His prospective teacher admitted that he was younger than she had originally thought--probably because he was friends with one of the boys in her class. Said friend is only a few months older than my son, but he has an August birthday. I had never really appreciated before that, technically, they were in different school years, even if there's not a big difference between them academically.
For Montessori purposes, they are in the same class and will be doing the same work--the friend is a little ahead of my son in most areas, but they could certainly work together on several materials. And when my son came in to work with the teacher, she felt he was where she expected her kindergarteners to be.
I did wonder if it would make more sense to start kindergarten in January, when my son would be five and would have completed two of the expected three years in the Children's House. This would let him settle in to the new school before making the switch to afternoons as well. However, when asked, my son (who was utterly dazzled by his new school) was quite excited at the prospect of staying at school through the afternoon. I think he's aware that this is a big kid thing, and is eager to be so grand.
The teacher said that he could start the extended day in January if I wished, but she thought he was ready now. She also assured me that if she changed her mind after a few weeks, he would be able to switch back to mornings only. Finally, she told me that the school had a number of four year olds in the kindergarten programme, so he would be with his peers.
That last was what decided me. I feared being a pushy parent, but even if he was exceptionally gifted, I would want him to stay with children his own age as much as possible. I was also a little wary that the school might just be trying to get him in the more expensive programme to get the extra tuition fees, and obviously I can't be sure that this isn't the case... but I don't think it is.
Finally, whenever we do go back to the UK, his education is going to be interrupted for a short while anyway, so I'm more than happy to have him a little ahead of the curve. It feels like we have a buffer against future problems.
I do feel a little ridiculous saying he's starting kindergarten in the fall, but I need to get over it. This is going to be nothing compared to university applications.
Logistics, Ahoy!
Having him stay at school until 3pm will completely change our daily routine though. Up until now, our afternoon plans have hinged on when his sister wakes from her nap. Now they'll start from when we pick him up and they'll have to be accessible from his school. We're not going to be able to keep their gym class up, for a start, and I don't yet know if we'll change classes or change gyms. Fortunately, we don't do any other extra-curriculars.
Of course, this is only going to get worse in January when my daughter starts at the school as well. It's going to be one thing driving ten blocks to pick her up from school at lunchtime and then going back out for her brother at three. It's going to be quite another to spend forty minutes on the round trip to drop them off by 9, forty minutes to collect her at 12 and forty minutes to collect him at 3.
The most convenient option is to have her lunch and nap at school, so I'm picking them both up together, but that's a lot of extra fees for her to sleep through. Also, I don't think there's any alternative should she drop her nap. In other words, the nap will be enforced on her whether she needs it or not, which could create a different set of problems for us in the evenings.
Anyway, we are very much crossing that bridge when we come to it. Thankfully, it's going to be a relatively short term problem, but it's going to be a royal nuisance as long as it lasts.
Also a problem? Finding a week's worth of packed lunches for my son when peanut butter sandwiches are banned. It's not a huge surprise, since most schools don't allow peanut butter these days, but his current school doesn't have a problem with it, and they're just about his favourite thing to eat. I am going to need some serious research on packable meals before September rolls around.
But right now, I'm trying to deal with the thought that tomorrow is his last day at the old school--something which is giving me many more pangs than it is him. I really need to take a leaf out of his book and be excited about what's to come rather than mourning what will never be again.
Monday, 3 June 2013
Stay At Home Mum Revisited
This week will be the children's last at school, which means two and a half months of summer holiday--or the end of my mornings to myself! Seems like a good excuse for a retrospective on being a stay at home Mum with school-age children.
Bear in mind that my intention for 2013 was to return to work although I should note that my hope was to be able to work at the same school as my children. and this did not pan out. I did have a brief stint covering for another teacher, but since February, my children have been going to school every morning while I stay at home. Initially, I was very much looking forward to the experience of having three hours to myself every day--it seemed so decadent and so full of opportunities to Do All The Things.
Children Get Sick
In fact, it started off with me acting as nursemaid as the whole family got sick with the round of winter bugs. The children (mostly my two year old daughter) continued to be sick off and on until the beginning of May, but certainly February and March were almost completely taken up with one child or another being off school. Meanwhile, I felt almost permanently under the weather as ear / eye / throat infections caused interrupted nights, and the stress of not getting other things done translated into insomnia.
Coming right after my month as a substitute teacher, this was something of a wake-up call, as it was starkly obvious just how difficult February and March would have been if I was working. I could hardly have taken half the week off every week.
Obviously, in that situation, my husband could have taken days off as well--in a pinch, he could probably manage to work from home, although that wouldn't always be feasible. Also, there were days when I erred on the side of keeping a weepy child home; if we were both working, I'd be more likely to send them into school and hope for the best.
Even so, it made me appreciate just how difficult it is logistically when both parents are working with no alternative childcare. For that seven week period, there were at least two days of every week when somebody (usually my daughter, but we all suffered off and on) had to stay at home, which would have meant either my husband or myself (and a couple of times, both of us) would have had to take a day off work.
Millions of families manage it, so no doubt we could as well, but that doesn't mean it's easy, and I don't suppose anybody really succeeds in keeping all the plates spinning without dropping one from time to time. We could afford a nanny, but considering where my interests lie, we don't personally gain much advantage from paying my salary to somebody else to look after our children.
Time Abhors a Vacuum
Once the children did start getting into reasonable stretches of wellness (and we weren't going on trips around the US), I finally got into a routine of free mornings. That has been wonderful. It's a tremendous luxury after four years of infant and toddler-care, and I love it!
Still, it's interesting noting the disconnect between what I envisioned and reality. One of the things you learn as a parent is that you can get a phenomenal amount of things done if somebody takes the children away for just a couple of hours. Whenever I needed to completely reorganise a room or had some other grand housework job, I would get my husband to take the children out at the weekend while I got the job done.
Therefore, I vaguely assumed that five such opportunities every week would mean that my house would be eternally spotless, I could tackle all those projects I'd been meaning to do, and still have time to go out and just enjoy shopping or maybe take a weekly swimming class or something. Not to mention, with that daily break from childcare, I'd not only be able to stay patient with the children, but I'd have boundless enthusiasm for our afternoon activities.
The reality? Well, my personality is such that I get fixated on things. So if I decided to reorganise the filing cabinets or archive all the photos or write, I would do that. I would not do any housework. Moreover, when the children got home, assuming I had not finished my current project, I'd be thinking about it, twitchy to get back to it and... yes... irritable with the children for distracting me from my ongoing task.
It probably took me a few weeks to figure this out. Damnit, cognitive dissonance. While realising this means I can work around it a bit, it is always going to be a problem for me, it's something I will have to keep watching out for, and it will certainly always be one of the flaws in my parenting.
The truth is, of course, however much time we have, we expand our activities to fill it and thus constantly feel that we don't have enough time. I never did take up that swimming class, and I haven't done much shopping outside of necessities either--though, to be fair, I don't really like shopping that much, and right now, the novelty of being alone in the house hasn't worn off. I'd much rather treat myself to twenty minutes of watching How I Met Your Mother in peace than of looking at clothes on a rack.
Social Guilt
The irony here is that I've always been an advocate of the stay at home mother, yet personally, I felt that I could not justify my unemployment once both the children were at school. It was always my intention to return to work at this point, so that I would be contributing to the household finances and so that I would be focusing on myself and my career plans--i.e. so that I wouldn't 'just' be a Mum.
Had things worked out and I'd been able to take up the job I originally wanted, this would probably be a post about getting to grips with parenting and career. Instead I've spent the past few months wondering if I should find a Plan B without actually starting the jobhunt.
Part of this has been because we have been finding a new school for the children (more on that in another post) and we agreed both that that should take priority and that there wasn't a lot of point in me finding a job until we had that settled and we knew what my time commitment to the children would be. Working at the same school would have solved a lot of logistical issues regarding hours and holidays; we've still got to account for those.
Yet a lot of my procrastination has been due to my own re-assessment of my value to this family. I appreciate more than I did before that having one parent who doesn't work is a huge asset (even if it does come with unfortunate housewife connotations). And while any family can benefit from a second salary, we're very very lucky that we can live so comfortably off my husband's current income.
It doesn't mean I'm giving up on my career, but I can still plan for it, research my options and prepare myself. I fully intend to earn money again, but it's going to wait another year, maybe longer. (Around this point in reading the blog, my husband is probably having a great time devising snarky comments--I do it all for you, dear.) Again, I'm in a fortunate position here, in that I'm not looking to climb a lengthy career ladder. I've read plenty of blogposts from mothers who would like to stay at home longer, but whose job aspirations prevent them from putting their careers on hold.
Fortunately, the other lesson I've learned from the past few months (and indeed, the past few years) is that being a stay-at-home mum doesn't mean that I've lost my identity outside of the children. The internet in particular has been a great outlet for that--thank heavens, I've always been a geek! Serendipitously, this assuages some of my income guilt because at least my hobbies come free.
The Long and the Short Term of It
And that, in a nutshell, is how I've learned to stop worrying and love being a Stay At Home Mum. (Well, maybe I'm still a little defensive.) What I don't yet know is how long this situation will continue. Until both children are out of pre-school? Until my daughter's immune system kicks into gear? Until an unmissable job opportunity presents itself? Or perhaps until after we've left the US, which is another nebulous deadline we talk about occasionally.
I hope this doesn't become one of those things where I wait for a right moment that never comes, but certainly, here and now, it makes sense to keep ourselves adaptable. Perhaps I'll have new plans for 2014.
Right now, I've got a week left to relish my mornings, before I go back to being a full-time mother over the summer vacation. I suspect I might be feeling quite jaded about that in another month or so, but for the time being, I'm excited about taking the children on days out so I'm going to capitalise on my enthusiasm while it lasts!
Bear in mind that my intention for 2013 was to return to work although I should note that my hope was to be able to work at the same school as my children. and this did not pan out. I did have a brief stint covering for another teacher, but since February, my children have been going to school every morning while I stay at home. Initially, I was very much looking forward to the experience of having three hours to myself every day--it seemed so decadent and so full of opportunities to Do All The Things.
Children Get Sick
In fact, it started off with me acting as nursemaid as the whole family got sick with the round of winter bugs. The children (mostly my two year old daughter) continued to be sick off and on until the beginning of May, but certainly February and March were almost completely taken up with one child or another being off school. Meanwhile, I felt almost permanently under the weather as ear / eye / throat infections caused interrupted nights, and the stress of not getting other things done translated into insomnia.
Coming right after my month as a substitute teacher, this was something of a wake-up call, as it was starkly obvious just how difficult February and March would have been if I was working. I could hardly have taken half the week off every week.
Obviously, in that situation, my husband could have taken days off as well--in a pinch, he could probably manage to work from home, although that wouldn't always be feasible. Also, there were days when I erred on the side of keeping a weepy child home; if we were both working, I'd be more likely to send them into school and hope for the best.
Even so, it made me appreciate just how difficult it is logistically when both parents are working with no alternative childcare. For that seven week period, there were at least two days of every week when somebody (usually my daughter, but we all suffered off and on) had to stay at home, which would have meant either my husband or myself (and a couple of times, both of us) would have had to take a day off work.
Millions of families manage it, so no doubt we could as well, but that doesn't mean it's easy, and I don't suppose anybody really succeeds in keeping all the plates spinning without dropping one from time to time. We could afford a nanny, but considering where my interests lie, we don't personally gain much advantage from paying my salary to somebody else to look after our children.
Time Abhors a Vacuum
Once the children did start getting into reasonable stretches of wellness (and we weren't going on trips around the US), I finally got into a routine of free mornings. That has been wonderful. It's a tremendous luxury after four years of infant and toddler-care, and I love it!
Still, it's interesting noting the disconnect between what I envisioned and reality. One of the things you learn as a parent is that you can get a phenomenal amount of things done if somebody takes the children away for just a couple of hours. Whenever I needed to completely reorganise a room or had some other grand housework job, I would get my husband to take the children out at the weekend while I got the job done.
Therefore, I vaguely assumed that five such opportunities every week would mean that my house would be eternally spotless, I could tackle all those projects I'd been meaning to do, and still have time to go out and just enjoy shopping or maybe take a weekly swimming class or something. Not to mention, with that daily break from childcare, I'd not only be able to stay patient with the children, but I'd have boundless enthusiasm for our afternoon activities.
The reality? Well, my personality is such that I get fixated on things. So if I decided to reorganise the filing cabinets or archive all the photos or write, I would do that. I would not do any housework. Moreover, when the children got home, assuming I had not finished my current project, I'd be thinking about it, twitchy to get back to it and... yes... irritable with the children for distracting me from my ongoing task.
It probably took me a few weeks to figure this out. Damnit, cognitive dissonance. While realising this means I can work around it a bit, it is always going to be a problem for me, it's something I will have to keep watching out for, and it will certainly always be one of the flaws in my parenting.
The truth is, of course, however much time we have, we expand our activities to fill it and thus constantly feel that we don't have enough time. I never did take up that swimming class, and I haven't done much shopping outside of necessities either--though, to be fair, I don't really like shopping that much, and right now, the novelty of being alone in the house hasn't worn off. I'd much rather treat myself to twenty minutes of watching How I Met Your Mother in peace than of looking at clothes on a rack.
Social Guilt
The irony here is that I've always been an advocate of the stay at home mother, yet personally, I felt that I could not justify my unemployment once both the children were at school. It was always my intention to return to work at this point, so that I would be contributing to the household finances and so that I would be focusing on myself and my career plans--i.e. so that I wouldn't 'just' be a Mum.
Had things worked out and I'd been able to take up the job I originally wanted, this would probably be a post about getting to grips with parenting and career. Instead I've spent the past few months wondering if I should find a Plan B without actually starting the jobhunt.
Part of this has been because we have been finding a new school for the children (more on that in another post) and we agreed both that that should take priority and that there wasn't a lot of point in me finding a job until we had that settled and we knew what my time commitment to the children would be. Working at the same school would have solved a lot of logistical issues regarding hours and holidays; we've still got to account for those.
Yet a lot of my procrastination has been due to my own re-assessment of my value to this family. I appreciate more than I did before that having one parent who doesn't work is a huge asset (even if it does come with unfortunate housewife connotations). And while any family can benefit from a second salary, we're very very lucky that we can live so comfortably off my husband's current income.
It doesn't mean I'm giving up on my career, but I can still plan for it, research my options and prepare myself. I fully intend to earn money again, but it's going to wait another year, maybe longer. (Around this point in reading the blog, my husband is probably having a great time devising snarky comments--I do it all for you, dear.) Again, I'm in a fortunate position here, in that I'm not looking to climb a lengthy career ladder. I've read plenty of blogposts from mothers who would like to stay at home longer, but whose job aspirations prevent them from putting their careers on hold.
Fortunately, the other lesson I've learned from the past few months (and indeed, the past few years) is that being a stay-at-home mum doesn't mean that I've lost my identity outside of the children. The internet in particular has been a great outlet for that--thank heavens, I've always been a geek! Serendipitously, this assuages some of my income guilt because at least my hobbies come free.
The Long and the Short Term of It
And that, in a nutshell, is how I've learned to stop worrying and love being a Stay At Home Mum. (Well, maybe I'm still a little defensive.) What I don't yet know is how long this situation will continue. Until both children are out of pre-school? Until my daughter's immune system kicks into gear? Until an unmissable job opportunity presents itself? Or perhaps until after we've left the US, which is another nebulous deadline we talk about occasionally.
I hope this doesn't become one of those things where I wait for a right moment that never comes, but certainly, here and now, it makes sense to keep ourselves adaptable. Perhaps I'll have new plans for 2014.
Right now, I've got a week left to relish my mornings, before I go back to being a full-time mother over the summer vacation. I suspect I might be feeling quite jaded about that in another month or so, but for the time being, I'm excited about taking the children on days out so I'm going to capitalise on my enthusiasm while it lasts!
Sunday, 17 February 2013
Goodbye work, and welcome growing up!
So what I have not been doing in all my newfound freetime is writing this blog! Covering the class at my children's school came to an end a few weeks earlier than originally expected. On Monday, I started a new era of dropping the children off at school, then having three hours entirely at my disposal before picking them again. It turned out to be timed rather well, since I came down with a cold and then my daughter caught it, and then this weekend she's had a stomach bug... To sum up, knowing that I have three hours that I can spend in a vegetative state has been a most welcome thought.
Early reactions to the shift have included the utter thrill of getting in and out of the car without having to worry about anything more than my handbag and keys. Also going round the supermarket and feeling absurdly lonely. Rehabilitation might take longer than I thought...
My last day of school also marked my daughter's second birthday, and since then, she's continued at the school every morning without me and adapted beautifully. Of course, my last week was a transitional week, when both I and the new teacher were working together, so she had time to develop a rapport with her. Reportedly, she's asked for me a few times off and on, but it's not upset her, and every morning, she heads up the steps without a backwards glance (my son at least waits for my goodbye kiss). I am almost a little offended!
It's a huge thrill to see her old enough to go to the toddler class, the class that I helped to establish six years ago! I remember being just as thrilled when my son started, but in my son's case, part of that thrill was watching him hit the age that I was familiar with. After I'd got over the first shock of "Babies are Hard!" it seemed to me like I spent his first two years watching him grow towards the level of maturity that I knew and was comfortable with. I felt no pangs watching him leave behind the baby stage and welcomed his blossoming into toddlerhood.
It was only after he turned two that I really understood what people said about not wanting their children to grow up. I felt definite pangs when we reached his third birthday, along with the apprehension of leaving familiar territory... I have some experience with three to six year olds, but not so much, and anything beyond that might as well be labelled: "Here there be dragons."
My daughter was born when my son was twenty-six months, and because we have always felt confident that she is our last child, the baby stage was that more precious. I still welcomed the passage of the first months (sleep deprivation makes me into a person I don't like), but I clung to some little things for that much longer, like carrying her in my arms instead of on my hip...
Now though, the needle has swung the other way again. I struggled a little with my son's transition from toddler to child, this post being a good example, but I've got used to the change in his outlook now, and become aware of just how much I like it, how much I like him. The conversations we have, his independence, those unexpected flashes of responsibility. It's delightful.
Meanwhile, my daughter benefits from my experience. I didn't look at the number on the birthday cards and fret that I only have a year before I have to learn new things again (though I had a moment of grief for one, which really is a lovely age). I remember the milestones my son hit, I look forward to her growing independence, and how we will all benefit. After all, in another few months she'll be potty trained, and we won't have to carry nappies and wipes with us.
We are definitely leaving the baby stage of our lives behind us, and I'll miss so much about that (like how my small daughter fit against me as, sorry and sick, she cuddled close on the sofa). But having children means we can expand our horizons further. This year, when planning an upcoming holiday, I can look for short walks that aren't stroller friendly. Next year, those walks can get longer, and we won't even own a stroller to pack. The year after that, we probably won't have to account for an afternoon nap...
Judging by how parenting works, I'm fairly sure that I'll continue to switch between: "Yay for growing up!" and "Don't get any older!" Already, I've had a few friends talk darkly about the moodiness of five years old... and god knows, the teenage years continue to hold terrors for me.
But right now, I'm loving that my children are growing into themselves, and I'm looking forward to all the new adventures our family can experience.
Early reactions to the shift have included the utter thrill of getting in and out of the car without having to worry about anything more than my handbag and keys. Also going round the supermarket and feeling absurdly lonely. Rehabilitation might take longer than I thought...
My last day of school also marked my daughter's second birthday, and since then, she's continued at the school every morning without me and adapted beautifully. Of course, my last week was a transitional week, when both I and the new teacher were working together, so she had time to develop a rapport with her. Reportedly, she's asked for me a few times off and on, but it's not upset her, and every morning, she heads up the steps without a backwards glance (my son at least waits for my goodbye kiss). I am almost a little offended!
It's a huge thrill to see her old enough to go to the toddler class, the class that I helped to establish six years ago! I remember being just as thrilled when my son started, but in my son's case, part of that thrill was watching him hit the age that I was familiar with. After I'd got over the first shock of "Babies are Hard!" it seemed to me like I spent his first two years watching him grow towards the level of maturity that I knew and was comfortable with. I felt no pangs watching him leave behind the baby stage and welcomed his blossoming into toddlerhood.
It was only after he turned two that I really understood what people said about not wanting their children to grow up. I felt definite pangs when we reached his third birthday, along with the apprehension of leaving familiar territory... I have some experience with three to six year olds, but not so much, and anything beyond that might as well be labelled: "Here there be dragons."
My daughter was born when my son was twenty-six months, and because we have always felt confident that she is our last child, the baby stage was that more precious. I still welcomed the passage of the first months (sleep deprivation makes me into a person I don't like), but I clung to some little things for that much longer, like carrying her in my arms instead of on my hip...
Now though, the needle has swung the other way again. I struggled a little with my son's transition from toddler to child, this post being a good example, but I've got used to the change in his outlook now, and become aware of just how much I like it, how much I like him. The conversations we have, his independence, those unexpected flashes of responsibility. It's delightful.
Meanwhile, my daughter benefits from my experience. I didn't look at the number on the birthday cards and fret that I only have a year before I have to learn new things again (though I had a moment of grief for one, which really is a lovely age). I remember the milestones my son hit, I look forward to her growing independence, and how we will all benefit. After all, in another few months she'll be potty trained, and we won't have to carry nappies and wipes with us.
We are definitely leaving the baby stage of our lives behind us, and I'll miss so much about that (like how my small daughter fit against me as, sorry and sick, she cuddled close on the sofa). But having children means we can expand our horizons further. This year, when planning an upcoming holiday, I can look for short walks that aren't stroller friendly. Next year, those walks can get longer, and we won't even own a stroller to pack. The year after that, we probably won't have to account for an afternoon nap...
Judging by how parenting works, I'm fairly sure that I'll continue to switch between: "Yay for growing up!" and "Don't get any older!" Already, I've had a few friends talk darkly about the moodiness of five years old... and god knows, the teenage years continue to hold terrors for me.
But right now, I'm loving that my children are growing into themselves, and I'm looking forward to all the new adventures our family can experience.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Working and Mothering
So, a couple of weeks into the job, I should probably talk about how it's going.
Back to Teaching
I have resumed my old class from before my son was born, teaching two year olds at a Montessori school. I'm basically acting as a supply teacher, covering until the end of February, something I offered to do because I had the experience and knew the materials / routine. After February, it seems fairly unlikely that I will be working before September, although I have learned not to make assumptions!
It has been absolutely wonderful to be back in the classroom. A little chaotic as I re-adjust, especially since I was accustomed to co-teaching that class, and now it's just me mostly (there's another teacher two days a week). But the adjustment has gone pretty quickly... the only thing I'm really out of practice on seems to be potty-training, or at least remembering to send the potty-trainees to the potty on a regular basis!
Still, I've been figuring out where the classroom control was breaking down, adjusting the situation accordingly (e.g. introducing more calm-down areas, such as a play-doh table that faces a wall, getting one child to 'read' to the others while I'm doing the diapers in the bathroom), and of course, familiarising the children with me and just how far I can be pushed! I noticed the first moment of classroom harmony (as opposed to me managing crises!) after a week, and this is now happening regularly. So are the crises, of course--they're toddlers, after all! But I'm at the point now where I can start assessing the children more individually and presenting new work to them.
It's all tremendously stimulating and reminds me how much I thrive in a prepared environment for these short bursts of time, as opposed to when I'm doing the child-care in my own home 24/7.
Teaching My Own Children
The crossover between home and school is my daughter, who's joined the class--fortunately, she's the only new pupil this term. I wasn't sure how this would work out; back when my son joined the class, I was volunteering as classroom assistant for a short period, because there was an influx of new children who needed more attention than one person could give. He found it very difficult to accept that although I was there, I had to help the other children. In that situation, the classroom teacher tried to attend to him as much as possible, to give him the idea of another caregiver, but for the few weeks I volunteered, he was very clingy with me in the classroom.
In my daughter's case, she hasn't been particularly jealous of the other children, nor has she needed to assert herself as entitled to any special treatment. However, it's very much been a case of: "You're my mother. I know I can push you further than that!" If, as this morning, she's slept badly and is crabby, she'll point blank refuse to put her work away, or her jacket on (thanks, sensory issues!) and will start throwing a tantrum over it, just as she would at home.
That's terribly difficult for me, because what works on the other children won't work on her. I always describe the difference between parental authority and other authority in these terms: the child knows their Mum won't kill them; they can't be so sure about their teacher. Fortunately, her lack of discipline is not infecting the other children, but I fret that it's setting a bad precedent for her... that this is how she can (indeed, will!) behave in school, and that she'll continue in this vein even once I'm no longer her teacher.
On the other hand, she's so young (technically too young for this class still), and I know full well that she's always been headstrong. Chances are, she'd have been disobedient anyway, and I've seen plenty of similar children pass through the toddler class who develop beautifully--they might always test the boundaries of authority, but they learn self-control and become better at picking their battles, and it rarely hurts their social standing or academic interest.
I'm not going to turn around and pretend her behaviour is a positive--it might be indicative of leadership abilities and thinking outside the box or whatever, but it's still a problem if I'm spending half the morning on getting her to put her work away. Nobody's getting the benefit out of the class that they should be in that scenario. However, I do need to learn not to get so twitchy just because it's my daughter. In retrospect, I wish she'd started the class under a different teacher, but this is not a sentence of doom on all her schooldays.
My son, incidentally, has loved having me at school. I don't have much to do with his classroom, but I act as playground monitor at the start and end of the morning. The toddlers obviously require a shorter work cycle, so they get more playtime, but the Children's House (3-6 year olds) can come out and play more or less at individual whim while the toddlers are having their playtime. Because I'm a big believer in getting children outside as much as possible, even on rainy days, I cram everybody onto the covered porch and do warm-up exercises and stand-up action songs for as long as I can hold their interest.
Anyway, my son likes the outdoor play in the morning, and he gets a big kick out of the fact that I'm his Mum. We did have one incident in the first week where he tried to use this to go to the front of the line, but otherwise, he's not expected any special attention. He's just excited that I'm there.
It's going to be very interesting to see how both children deal with me stopping work in March.
Work and Housework
The juggling of work and home has not really gone well. I had settled into a good groove by the end of 2012, in terms of keeping the house going, parenting and keeping some me-time, but as I said in my previous post, I'm a morning person. That's my productive time, and I used to do a lot of the housework in the mornings. Now I'm at school in the morning, which is great, because my productivity goes into my job, but by the afternoon I'm wiped.
The problem is because I know this isn't permanent, and I can go right back into my old routine come March, I'm not motivated to figure out a new routine. Instead, I've remembered the lesson of my children's newborn days and gone into survival mode. For the next six weeks, the things that have to be done will get done, but most other things will not be done as often as they should be, and as much as possible will be put off altogether.
What I'm saying is that I work only twenty hours a week, and I still can't do the housework on top of that. Do not come looking to me for advice on how to do it all, and I am thoroughly humbled by those of you who manage even my standards in a full-time job.
Parenting, on the other hand, is going well. I always tried to keep the afternoons for activities with the children. Now, I have to do a bit more worrying about housework and we have errands to run, but we're still getting out to a playground or the zoo or the botanical gardens a couple of times a week.
The only thing that's really been lost is one on one time with my daughter. My son gets individual attention during her nap, but it's unusual to have just my daughter and myself working or playing together. Right now, I don't think it's a problem, especially since she's getting so much new stimulation at school, but I will probably start making the effort to get some alone-time with her after I've finished working.
So there we go. That's how things stand for now. Come March, it'll be a very different experience again, as I try the role of Stay at Home Mum with both kids at school in the morning (there's no point in pulling my daughter out of the class at that stage). I freely admit, I'm looking forward to having so much time to myself, and at least we're fortunate enough that this won't be a financial burden. Still, I'm hoping that this will be as short-lived a phase as my current position. I'd like to have a much clearer idea of where I am heading in the long term.
Back to Teaching
I have resumed my old class from before my son was born, teaching two year olds at a Montessori school. I'm basically acting as a supply teacher, covering until the end of February, something I offered to do because I had the experience and knew the materials / routine. After February, it seems fairly unlikely that I will be working before September, although I have learned not to make assumptions!
It has been absolutely wonderful to be back in the classroom. A little chaotic as I re-adjust, especially since I was accustomed to co-teaching that class, and now it's just me mostly (there's another teacher two days a week). But the adjustment has gone pretty quickly... the only thing I'm really out of practice on seems to be potty-training, or at least remembering to send the potty-trainees to the potty on a regular basis!
Still, I've been figuring out where the classroom control was breaking down, adjusting the situation accordingly (e.g. introducing more calm-down areas, such as a play-doh table that faces a wall, getting one child to 'read' to the others while I'm doing the diapers in the bathroom), and of course, familiarising the children with me and just how far I can be pushed! I noticed the first moment of classroom harmony (as opposed to me managing crises!) after a week, and this is now happening regularly. So are the crises, of course--they're toddlers, after all! But I'm at the point now where I can start assessing the children more individually and presenting new work to them.
It's all tremendously stimulating and reminds me how much I thrive in a prepared environment for these short bursts of time, as opposed to when I'm doing the child-care in my own home 24/7.
Teaching My Own Children
The crossover between home and school is my daughter, who's joined the class--fortunately, she's the only new pupil this term. I wasn't sure how this would work out; back when my son joined the class, I was volunteering as classroom assistant for a short period, because there was an influx of new children who needed more attention than one person could give. He found it very difficult to accept that although I was there, I had to help the other children. In that situation, the classroom teacher tried to attend to him as much as possible, to give him the idea of another caregiver, but for the few weeks I volunteered, he was very clingy with me in the classroom.
In my daughter's case, she hasn't been particularly jealous of the other children, nor has she needed to assert herself as entitled to any special treatment. However, it's very much been a case of: "You're my mother. I know I can push you further than that!" If, as this morning, she's slept badly and is crabby, she'll point blank refuse to put her work away, or her jacket on (thanks, sensory issues!) and will start throwing a tantrum over it, just as she would at home.
That's terribly difficult for me, because what works on the other children won't work on her. I always describe the difference between parental authority and other authority in these terms: the child knows their Mum won't kill them; they can't be so sure about their teacher. Fortunately, her lack of discipline is not infecting the other children, but I fret that it's setting a bad precedent for her... that this is how she can (indeed, will!) behave in school, and that she'll continue in this vein even once I'm no longer her teacher.
On the other hand, she's so young (technically too young for this class still), and I know full well that she's always been headstrong. Chances are, she'd have been disobedient anyway, and I've seen plenty of similar children pass through the toddler class who develop beautifully--they might always test the boundaries of authority, but they learn self-control and become better at picking their battles, and it rarely hurts their social standing or academic interest.
I'm not going to turn around and pretend her behaviour is a positive--it might be indicative of leadership abilities and thinking outside the box or whatever, but it's still a problem if I'm spending half the morning on getting her to put her work away. Nobody's getting the benefit out of the class that they should be in that scenario. However, I do need to learn not to get so twitchy just because it's my daughter. In retrospect, I wish she'd started the class under a different teacher, but this is not a sentence of doom on all her schooldays.
My son, incidentally, has loved having me at school. I don't have much to do with his classroom, but I act as playground monitor at the start and end of the morning. The toddlers obviously require a shorter work cycle, so they get more playtime, but the Children's House (3-6 year olds) can come out and play more or less at individual whim while the toddlers are having their playtime. Because I'm a big believer in getting children outside as much as possible, even on rainy days, I cram everybody onto the covered porch and do warm-up exercises and stand-up action songs for as long as I can hold their interest.
Anyway, my son likes the outdoor play in the morning, and he gets a big kick out of the fact that I'm his Mum. We did have one incident in the first week where he tried to use this to go to the front of the line, but otherwise, he's not expected any special attention. He's just excited that I'm there.
It's going to be very interesting to see how both children deal with me stopping work in March.
Work and Housework
The juggling of work and home has not really gone well. I had settled into a good groove by the end of 2012, in terms of keeping the house going, parenting and keeping some me-time, but as I said in my previous post, I'm a morning person. That's my productive time, and I used to do a lot of the housework in the mornings. Now I'm at school in the morning, which is great, because my productivity goes into my job, but by the afternoon I'm wiped.
The problem is because I know this isn't permanent, and I can go right back into my old routine come March, I'm not motivated to figure out a new routine. Instead, I've remembered the lesson of my children's newborn days and gone into survival mode. For the next six weeks, the things that have to be done will get done, but most other things will not be done as often as they should be, and as much as possible will be put off altogether.
What I'm saying is that I work only twenty hours a week, and I still can't do the housework on top of that. Do not come looking to me for advice on how to do it all, and I am thoroughly humbled by those of you who manage even my standards in a full-time job.
Parenting, on the other hand, is going well. I always tried to keep the afternoons for activities with the children. Now, I have to do a bit more worrying about housework and we have errands to run, but we're still getting out to a playground or the zoo or the botanical gardens a couple of times a week.
The only thing that's really been lost is one on one time with my daughter. My son gets individual attention during her nap, but it's unusual to have just my daughter and myself working or playing together. Right now, I don't think it's a problem, especially since she's getting so much new stimulation at school, but I will probably start making the effort to get some alone-time with her after I've finished working.
So there we go. That's how things stand for now. Come March, it'll be a very different experience again, as I try the role of Stay at Home Mum with both kids at school in the morning (there's no point in pulling my daughter out of the class at that stage). I freely admit, I'm looking forward to having so much time to myself, and at least we're fortunate enough that this won't be a financial burden. Still, I'm hoping that this will be as short-lived a phase as my current position. I'd like to have a much clearer idea of where I am heading in the long term.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
On the other side of the fence
Before my son was born, I worked for a couple of years at the local Montessori school, mostly in the two-year-old classroom, plus one term in the children's house (three-six year olds).
When my son turned two, it was a given that he would be going to the school. I don't think that the school is perfect by any means, but I'm aware of what its faults and strengths are. I knew the daily schedule, the usual songs and stories and most of the work.
There had been some staff turnover since my time there, but the head was the same and my old colleague was still in the toddler room. I had an established relationship with the people who would be teaching my children. I had also worked/helped out off and on since my son had been born anyway, deliberately maintaining my connection with the school. I had an inside track, so to speak.
This made it very easy for me to pick a school. I don't know how I'm going to manage for their next school! For what it's worth, having worked as a teacher, my number one advice for a preschool is to choose one where you feel you've got a good rapport with their teachers. At this age, I think it's very important to have a back and forth conversation about where they are with their needs and skills (not just the academic ones)--and both you and the teacher need to be able to be honest.
The transition from teacher to parent has been an interesting one. After two years of monopolising my son's life and knowing exactly what he was learning every day, it was bizarre to say goodbye to him and let him spend three hours without me. Three hours that would become a void in my knowledge of him.
It was also weird to go from being "Miss Sarah" to "Toby's Mom." Actually, some of the older children at school still call me Miss Sarah, which I take great pride in. However, I used to know the name of every child there, and that's no longer the case... although I imagine I still know more than most parents.
For the most part though, I'm comfortably settled into the parent-role now. I still get agitated about what he's doing. I went in to observe him in January, when he moved down to the children's house, and I might just have to do that again soon, but I probably shouldn't get into the helicopter-parenting habit! When I was teaching, I always felt a little silly doing parent/teacher conferences--how much academic assessment does a two year need? As a parent, I've been so grateful for the insight into just what my son is doing all day.
Perhaps my biggest problem now is remembering that my husband isn't as familiar with Montessori as I am and thus doesn't necessarily understand what we're talking about at these parent/teacher conferences. We had our second last week, and the teacher was explaining that our son had pulled out the moveable alphabet of his own accord. I chattered away to her about his abilities with sounding out words, but my husband had no idea what the moveable alphabet was. We took him into the classroom afterwards to show him.
Sidenote, I am so appreciative of my husband making the time to come to the PTCs. I know a lot don't, and it's important to me that he stays involved in the kids' education.
Let's just emphasise a point here: my son is working on the moveable alphabet. That definitely came as a surprise, since I didn't think he had figured out how to break a word into its component sounds yet. I knew he knew all his sounds (i.e. the alphabet in phonics), but it turns out he can pull out the letters to write 'man', 'hat' and 'bat'. He can't read, but he has made that leap to writing.
At home, he sometimes rearranges the magnetic letters on the fridge, but only in a random order. Still, today, I was sorting out a box of language stuff, and he pulled out some phonics cards I'd bought, saying he wanted to do those (not that he had the faintest idea what they were). The card on top was 'ar', and it showed a picture of a car in a barn with a star painted on. He said 'farm' rather than 'barn' but that worked as well.
I dug out some letters from the same box and gave him 'a' and 'r', and we arranged them in order. Then I tried pulling out 'c', 's', 't', 'f' and 'm'. He got 'car' and figured out 'star' much quicker than I expected, considering 'st' is a blend. We never progressed to 'farm' because my daughter started pulling letters out of the bag and putting them on the table. She does like practising her transferring skills.
Considering my previous anxiety on how best to teach him to read, I'm thrilled by this development, and now I've got to try very hard to sit back and not push him on it. He's definitely early on this, but that's OK. He's not a genius by any stretch of the imagination and even in literacy he might average out in another few years. But as his mother, I am so proud of him right now.
And as a teacher? Well, we'll see what next year brings. My hope is that when my daughter starts school, I'll be making a new transition to both teacher and parent. That should be interesting!
When my son turned two, it was a given that he would be going to the school. I don't think that the school is perfect by any means, but I'm aware of what its faults and strengths are. I knew the daily schedule, the usual songs and stories and most of the work.
There had been some staff turnover since my time there, but the head was the same and my old colleague was still in the toddler room. I had an established relationship with the people who would be teaching my children. I had also worked/helped out off and on since my son had been born anyway, deliberately maintaining my connection with the school. I had an inside track, so to speak.
This made it very easy for me to pick a school. I don't know how I'm going to manage for their next school! For what it's worth, having worked as a teacher, my number one advice for a preschool is to choose one where you feel you've got a good rapport with their teachers. At this age, I think it's very important to have a back and forth conversation about where they are with their needs and skills (not just the academic ones)--and both you and the teacher need to be able to be honest.
The transition from teacher to parent has been an interesting one. After two years of monopolising my son's life and knowing exactly what he was learning every day, it was bizarre to say goodbye to him and let him spend three hours without me. Three hours that would become a void in my knowledge of him.
It was also weird to go from being "Miss Sarah" to "Toby's Mom." Actually, some of the older children at school still call me Miss Sarah, which I take great pride in. However, I used to know the name of every child there, and that's no longer the case... although I imagine I still know more than most parents.
For the most part though, I'm comfortably settled into the parent-role now. I still get agitated about what he's doing. I went in to observe him in January, when he moved down to the children's house, and I might just have to do that again soon, but I probably shouldn't get into the helicopter-parenting habit! When I was teaching, I always felt a little silly doing parent/teacher conferences--how much academic assessment does a two year need? As a parent, I've been so grateful for the insight into just what my son is doing all day.
Perhaps my biggest problem now is remembering that my husband isn't as familiar with Montessori as I am and thus doesn't necessarily understand what we're talking about at these parent/teacher conferences. We had our second last week, and the teacher was explaining that our son had pulled out the moveable alphabet of his own accord. I chattered away to her about his abilities with sounding out words, but my husband had no idea what the moveable alphabet was. We took him into the classroom afterwards to show him.
Sidenote, I am so appreciative of my husband making the time to come to the PTCs. I know a lot don't, and it's important to me that he stays involved in the kids' education.
Let's just emphasise a point here: my son is working on the moveable alphabet. That definitely came as a surprise, since I didn't think he had figured out how to break a word into its component sounds yet. I knew he knew all his sounds (i.e. the alphabet in phonics), but it turns out he can pull out the letters to write 'man', 'hat' and 'bat'. He can't read, but he has made that leap to writing.
At home, he sometimes rearranges the magnetic letters on the fridge, but only in a random order. Still, today, I was sorting out a box of language stuff, and he pulled out some phonics cards I'd bought, saying he wanted to do those (not that he had the faintest idea what they were). The card on top was 'ar', and it showed a picture of a car in a barn with a star painted on. He said 'farm' rather than 'barn' but that worked as well.
I dug out some letters from the same box and gave him 'a' and 'r', and we arranged them in order. Then I tried pulling out 'c', 's', 't', 'f' and 'm'. He got 'car' and figured out 'star' much quicker than I expected, considering 'st' is a blend. We never progressed to 'farm' because my daughter started pulling letters out of the bag and putting them on the table. She does like practising her transferring skills.
Considering my previous anxiety on how best to teach him to read, I'm thrilled by this development, and now I've got to try very hard to sit back and not push him on it. He's definitely early on this, but that's OK. He's not a genius by any stretch of the imagination and even in literacy he might average out in another few years. But as his mother, I am so proud of him right now.
And as a teacher? Well, we'll see what next year brings. My hope is that when my daughter starts school, I'll be making a new transition to both teacher and parent. That should be interesting!
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