Ship Full o' Pirates

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I‘m getting lots of,  several,  enough comments about balky children and rough starts for the new “school year”.  (What an artificial phrase.)  Anyway, I thought I’d share some thoughts on re-starting your academic season.

First off, turn off the TV.  I know, they are only watching educational stuff.   But really, just turn it off.  I am reminded of some of the quotes I found at The Quote Garden.

All television is educational television.  The question is:  what is it teaching?  ~Nicholas Johnson

TV.  If kids are entertained by two letters, imagine the fun they’ll have with twenty-six.  Open your child’s imagination.  Open a book.  ~Author Unknown

Secondly, read to your children.  Do more reading to them and less of the activities where they put pencil to paper, at first.  Then ease more written work back into their day.  Obviously, you want to read the good stuff, like some History or a good Usborne for Science.  Read them something worth your time and effort.  Not Captain Underpants (which I cannot abide) or even Time Warp Trio (which I happen to love).

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.  ~Groucho Marx

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.  ~Mark Twain, attributed

O for a Booke and a shdie nooke, eyther in-a-doore or out;
With the grene leaves whisp’ring overhede, or the Streete cryes all about.
Where I maie Reade all at my ease, both of the Newe and Olde;
For a jollie goode Booke whereon to looke is better to me than Golde.
~John Wilson

And finally,  start slowly.  This first week back to academics is not your model week.  Add one subject this week, say math.  Then next week add Phonics to that.  Then on the third week, if all is going well, you might add copywork and poetry.  And continue adding gradually, but stop adding subjects well before you think you should.  No small child benefits from having an overachieving SUPER TEACHER MOM.   And you’d just end up all burnt out anyway.  The children benefit most from a slow, steady trickle of instruction.

You can learn many things from children.  How much patience you have, for instance.  ~Franklin P. Jones

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.  ~John Quincy Adams

My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.  ~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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