As September rolls around again

Well, it's almost time for the start of our fall term, which officially starts the day after labor day. This will be the first year that I'm officially schooling two, a 4th grader and a K. Over summer term we worked out some scheduling kinks, finished off all the goals for third grade, and got an idea of how Ian learns and what he likes and dislikes.

We have some issues to work out as we gear up for a new term, though. We've taken about 3 weeks off from school for vacations, the garden, and mental health time for mom. However, in that time I've allowed some really bad habits to creep in. The kids have been watching way too much TV, we are slipping on consistent obedience, and there has been a lot of fighting between the boys.

The TV is pretty easy to remedy, I just need to turn it off and leave it off. We will start that today. I let them watch some cartoons this morning, but it is going off for the rest of the day. Let the whining begin! They will ask for it for a couple of days, and then forget about it again, if past experience is any guide. The surest way to ease the transition is to send them outside and don't let them come in for a few hours, except for potty breaks, drinks, and meals.

So, after I finish this post, that is where they are going, while I work on getting the house clean. Hubby is gone to drill this weekend (they changed weekends so they can do security for the moving Viet Nam Memorial Wall), so I'll have the day to really get things done, and to look at our cleaning schedule for the fall. When I get all the schedules finalized, I'll post them here.

Then, tomorrow, with a clean house and no TV, we can work on obedience. I'll start with Mary, as she is the oldest, the least stubborn, and the most likely to behave. Once I get her back in line the boys will likely follow with less stress, as she tends to set the tone for the littles. I'll probably give her some chores, hang around to make sure she does them, and then reward her with a game or something. It doesn't take long to get her back in line when she falls off the wagon, but it does require intense supervision. Call it tomato staking, if you like. A few days of that and she will be back to normal, I hope.

I also need to revise the chore schedule for the kids, because I've noticed that recently I've been giving a lot of chores to Mary, and almost none to the boys. It's a path of least resistance kind of thing. Once I'm done tomato staking her, I'm going to lighten up her load a bit and work with the boys (Ian more than Alex) on doing things consistently. I'll probably get MOTH down off the shelf and dust it off for this. Also, I finally scraped together the money to buy The Latin-Centered Curriculum, so it should be coming in the mail any day now.

As far as the fighting, I think it's mostly a developmental thing. Ian just turned 5 and Alex is 3.5. They are about the same weight (although Ian's got a good 3-4 inches on Alex) so scraps between them are a pretty even match. I can take the wrestling and arguing, a bit, but the name calling, kicking, etc., has got to stop. I'm hoping that getting on a good schedule and less TV will help curb this. Otherwise, I'm going to be doing a lot of refereeing.

Lest you think that I hyper-schedule, I'll point out at this point that I use schedules as more of a guide than anything else. I like to have everything down on paper nice and neat, so that when we deviate from the plan (which is most days) I know where we are supposed to be and we don't loose something in the shuffle.

On the Mom Continuing Education front, not only will I be reading The LCC, but I am also going through The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sr. Miriam Joseph. I'm currently about half-way through the second chapter. The book is a bit of a crash course in the Trivium subjects. It was written in the 30's for a class the Sister was teaching to college freshmen who had little or no exposure to Classical education.