Today was a rough school day. It was a very rough school day. It started badly, with me frustrated and yelling and only got worse.
Ila was being difficult and annoying, Kairav was being clingy and annoying, Ulka was being obstinate and annoying, and Ishaan was completely unmotivated and annoying. I was incredibly mean and annoying. A rough day.
By 1:15 we had barely accomplished much more than a bit of reading and a bit of writing and a lot of yelling. I gave up and told everyone to pack up their stuff, the school day was over. It is not unusual to be finished with lessons and work by 1:00, but we normally have a whole lot more to show for it. Today we just had a lot of hurt feelings.
I complained to Andy that I was cranky and that the kids were uninterested. I was feeling like no matter what I do I can’t seem to make school fun and exciting these days. It feels like we are plodding through work just to get it done. I was feeling like I might as well buy a pile of workbooks, circle “to do” pages everyday and leave it at that. But I know that is NOT the way I want to homeschool. One of the reasons we are homeschooling is because we want the kids to enjoy it and we want it to be fun and interesting. So when I feel like I am failing at that it all falls apart.
Then Andy calmly said “it’s Monday”. Every Monday is just like this. You need to change the way school happens on Mondays. And it suddenly dawned on me. It’s true, every Monday is like this, especially if it’s been a busy weekend and I haven’t done enough planning for the week.
Now my challenge is to re-think Monday morning school. Do any of you have this same Monday re-entry issue? How do you handle it? How are your Mondays different?
With the warmer spring weather quickly approaching I am considering starting the day outside, giving us all some space to get our heads in gear for the week. There is plenty of yard work to do and gardening to get started. We could also head out to the local nature preserve and take a hike. I’ve thought about walking to the library and looking at books, but I think that might be too controlled for what we need.
I’d love to hear your suggestions! Now, Monday is finally over. On to Tuesday which is bound to be better.
