a post by Jenni {aka Mom}
(I'm part of this week's Weekly Wrap-Up over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers! Click over to check out all the other posts, full of tips and tidbits that work in real life.)
I’ve
found that life is very much a cycle of adjustment, balance, and repetitively pulling
oneself and one’s family back on track. Can anyone relate?
fitness
We made
it to two out of three of our scheduled gym days this week, a first after the
last few weeks of illness. The boys were thrilled; they’ve been bugging me to
go for some time. One of our local fitness centers is wonderfully kid-friendly,
and I’m able to take my children (over age 8) with me anywhere on the cardio
floor. They have designated wrist bands and equipment that they’re allowed to
use. There are many other opportunities available to us there, that I’ll have
to share with you sometime (I'd really like to write a review and maybe snap some pics there...we shall see). Anyway, we have a place to get in the habit of
regular exercise together, and it’s wonderful! It fits our family’s needs and lifestyle
so much better than trying to squeeze in gym time for me plus sports/other physical
activities for each child. It also gets the boys into the habit of making the
time to keep fit now, which means it will be way easier for them to maintain
when they’re grown (most people don't maintain involvement in sports once they finish high school or college - but many do make a habit of regular exercise outdoors or at a gym).
On a
personal note - I didn’t regress from our time off!! I only began running for
exercise a couple months ago, and I was surprised to improve as much as I have.
I was really, really worried that after 3 weeks off and holiday feasting I’d be
in a world of hurt this week. But, praise God, today I ran the same interval
workout I’d run the last time before our lapse and it went really well! What an
encouragement!
fine
tuning
One of
the activities the boys and I do to help with their auditory processing is a
program called Fine Tuning. It
includes two types of exercises at levels of increasing difficulty.
In the first type of
exercise a grid of numbers is given to the child, and the teacher reads a
series of instructions, one at a time, without repeating them. These
instructions direct the child to draw lines between certain numbers, circle
certain numbers, etc. Once all the instructions have been completed, a picture is
revealed.
The
second type of exercise is my boys’ favorite. The child is given a table that
looks a lot like a blank multiplication table. Down the left hand column is
the alphabet, and across the top row are sequential numerals. Again, directions
are given one at a time without being repeated, this time telling the student to
write a letter in a certain box (i.e. in square B-4 write an “L”). At the end
of the directions, a saying or message is revealed.
It’s
sometimes fun to allow one of the children to read the instructions to the
others, and this week the boys tried a new twist. They wrote out their own
phrase on a blank grid, and then gave their brothers directives in order to
reveal their custom phrase.
This,
and other activities, have really helped them to pay closer attention to what
they’re being told. It’s been nice to include all three boys in the exercise,
and not isolate the “one” with the “problem”, if that make sense. Sticking
together for “therapy exercises” really helps the boys to view them in a
positive light.
family
Between
moving this summer, being sick several times since (welcome to the
neighborhood! yeesh…), and being just plain busy, our long standing tradition of
Family Night had gotten pretty minimal. Part of it is my own fault - I can kind
of justify not spending an entire focused evening with the family when I’m with
all or most of the family all the time anyway, and when I have so much work
that needs to be done. Not that I skip out altogether, I just sometimes opt out of
part of it and catch up dishes or laundry or paperwork instead. Well, “justified” or not, it’s not okay. Non-school focused family time is way more important than those things!
So Hubbie and I had a talk
this week, and decided we need to prioritize Family Night again. There are many
driving forces behind our Family Night tradition - one of them is the desire
for closeness as a family even after the boys are grown. The Boyer family is
one great example of this. Their grown kids who still live nearby bring their
families back home for family night! Neither I nor my husband have any such
opportunity with our parents, and we’d love to give the gift of closeness to our
children. I can’t expect them to take their busy evening to spend with family
once a week, if I won’t consistently give mine.
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