Thursday, March 1, 2007

When plans fall through....



What do you do when your kids don't want to do what you have planned?
There were a couple of us in my preschool homeschool group having this
type of issue today. I had planned to do "Pig Day" today and had wanted to
begin reading "Charlotte's Web" etc (scroll down to see my full plan).
Princess wanted none of it! She was willing to make one pig craft, but only if
we made it a "princess pig" with a crown. :-)
She was willing after that to write PIG for a little while.
The rest of my plan scrapped.
She does not care for "Charlotte's Web" at all. Am I expecting too much?
I wasn't trying to get her to read it..just listen to it.
I couldn't even turn to my online friends for support because Yahoo was down
or something and I could not get online!!!!
Yeesh! What a day.

9 comments:

Wisteria said...

At 4, you have to expect some days that aren't right on schedule. I found (the hard way) that if you over plan and push the young child he would perceive the activity as work and resist. If you read Charlotte's Web at bedtime as part of an ongoing story, however, the pigs in the planned activities will take on a more exciting "Wilber" existence.

You seem to be providing a wonderfully diverse environment for your Princess. Children learn all the time regardless of our plans and big ideas. Remember to leave her time to just be.

Anonymous said...

I remember the days when it used to upset me when things didn't go as I planned. Now, I am so much more relaxed, and know that they often learn better when Mom hasn't planned so much. One of the greatest things about homeschooling is that our children get to have a voice in their education!! It is hard to always remember that, especially when you have such great things planned (I'll come do Charlotte's Web with you if I'm not too big!) I also plan in broader sweeps...a week at a time, so that if one of us is having an off day, we can do somethign else and make it up later.

Garden State Kate said...

Thanks Gals! I needed to hear that.
I do try to do things over the week, but we only do "school work" as she calls it on Tuesday and Thursday.
I try to incorporate the learning in fun ways through out the week or more if an idea takes her fancy.I need a lot of things planned just in case she likes it and wants "more,more".
She gets frustrated if I don't have another "activity" planned and ready to go.Some days it's hard to remember she won't "fall behind" by having time to have a childhood.
Kate

Rockin' Moroccan Mama said...

I always feel I need to be prepared. the other day we randomly did a craft and Zachary asks, what next? I said oh that's it, we only did this one. he looked at me funny, like your kidding Inkow you have a stash of activities somewhere LOL I realized I need to let it go for awhile.

Anonymous said...

I have to do everything on my daughter's terms. Citcat must be in control. I find it best for us to have school whenever she is interested. I love the idea of doing school on two or three days and that is what we do however it is when Citcat is willing. I think it goes back to a question that Jennifer asked at Cozy as Spring-What do you count as school? I count everything and every moment.

I feel your frustration about wanting to read Charlotte's Web. I would just put it away and talk about it every once in awhile. Talk about how you loved such and such. Make it something she is begging to do.

How did you just whip up the crown for the pig. It looked like it was always meant to be part of the project.

Could you read a different pig book? Could you do a survey of all the different stories of the Three Pigs? One pig picture book that I really like is Don't Be So Noisy? It's about a pig how asks too many questions but in the end his curiosity saves the day.

Hope things are better next week.

Garden State Kate said...

LOL,Thanks Nina.
Actually we have been reading lots of other books the last couple of days. I just thought it would be nice to read Charlotte's Web to her a bit that morning and then before bed every night. She loved the movie
(cartoon version) so when we saw the ad for the new movie I thought she'd enjoy it. Oh well. I put it aside for another time. The crown I printed off
of http://www.dltk-kids.com/
I just typed in "crowns" in the search engine. I agree with you that we count every minute as "learning time", but I started the 2 day "school time" because Princess asked for it as so many of her friends go to school on those 2 days. lol I think I'll just feel less guilty about dropping it if she is not into what I picked out.
lol I'm going to try to list our new favorite books tonight or tomorrow morning.I found some good ones last library trip!

Anonymous said...

I am just now posting a new sidebar of this week's favorites. I am going to changing it every week or 10 days. I look forward to reading your list.

Rockin' Moroccan Mama said...

We started doing school 2 days a week as ds was asking to go to school. He's like Portia. he calls me teacher as well. After school he'll say, "Are you still teacher. " I ask him no now I am rachel ray preparing lunch. Then I go into character and pretend I am on a cooking show. LOL He loves to pretend.

Garden State Kate said...

LOL, You should see mine pretending
to be a "chef" on t.v.
She "prepares" her dish and pops it into the oven or microwave part of
her kitchen and then says "after this message we'll see how that came out".
LOL Her faves are Tyler Florence, Bobby Flay,and of course Giada cause she's sooo pretty.LOL

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Plato said...

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent .