Homeschooling Day 1 – An Inauspicious Beginning

January 5th, 2009
Homeschooling Day 1 – An Inauspicious Beginning

What not to do the night before your first day of homeschooling? Get a stomach bug. I went to sleep pretty early (10pm!) for me at least, with high hopes of being rested when RocketBoy demands that I wake up. Well I was up at 3 am sweaty and nauseous. It just got worse from there. At one point I remember sitting on the bathroom floor trying to think if there was any sort of cushion I drag in so I could sleep comfortably near the toilet all the while missing my first tiny on-my-own in NYC apartment with the bathroom so small that one could sit on the toilet while comfortably leaning one’s head on the sink.

I could have given up on starting that day, but I decided to stick with it, heavily leaning on my friend the DVD player since my father was working and my husband was 500 miles away. We went through the cards, RocketBoy choosing “Reading and Writing” first. Hooray! In went a DVD of World World. I sat RocketBoy with his notebook and instructions to write seven words that he wanted to learn and draw pictures of them. That bought me about 30 minutes more sleep and a trip downstairs where there was some immodium stashed. I mustered enough energy to really work with him for the next half hour. He picked his favorite word from the seven, “cake” and we made a list of all the –ake words we could think of, then made up a story using them.

Next he wanted “Science and Nature.” In went the DVD of Winged Migration and I got another desperately needed nap. He came and sat on the bed near me and we talked about why birds migrate and why some don’t. We talked about geography and why some places are warm year round. Considering how not with-it I felt, I think we did smashingly. Next came lunch. I was starting to feel hungry and had some oatmeal, with happy results, but I lost all energy afterwards. When RocketBoy asked if he could play UNO I said sure. I could sit in a cushy chair and play for a while – it was about all I could do. I feel I have to justify that at the kindergarten/1st grade stage playing UNO is a math lesson, really it is. I swear.

A little later grandpa came in and suggested a trip to the beach. I was feeling much better by then since the immodium was clearly working. Even so, I kept swinging between feeling fine and feeling utterly drained. I relaxed in the car while my dad drove the 25 minutes of back country roads to the beach. Downeast Maine is nothing but coastline, but much of it is bay or lake or private property. Even though we can see water from the porch of the house, we can’t actually access a public ocean beach for quite a distance. There are lakes and inlets closer, but most of those are iced over – we wanted a proper beach. The drive was fine by me. A long car ride means RocketBoy got to listen to a book on CD (Magic Schoolbus Wild West) and I got downtime.

RocketBoy loved it there and spent ages just throwing rocks into the ocean. After lots of running and throwing (exercise time!) I got him a bag so he could collect treasures from the shore – perfect for tomorrow’s lesson. We had to cajole him into the car after 45 minutes. Apparently he was having so much fun, he didn’t notice that it was 25 degrees out. The rest of us did. I wish I had had the werewithal to take pictures, not this time.

We hit the grocery store and got back home in time for dinner, a bath, and some Wallace and Grommit.

Not bad for our first day.