Structure – musings

When J first came out of school he oscillated between wanting to be totally free and wanting to follow school structure, even to the extent of asking for healthy fruit snacks, like they have at school, which he wouldn’t eat (just as he didn’t eat them at school) because he doesn’t like fruit!
We gradually came to a compromise of doing maths (Singapore maths) and English (Beyond the Code) each day and pootling apart from that, only for him to then rebel against doing any set work at all 😕
I suppressed my concerns and my conviction that some set work is what will suit him best and waited for him to realise it for himself and I think he finally has – but it’s so hard to do! How much should I impose it on him? Some days it seems to take forever for him to do even a single page and yet another day he’ll sit and do 10 in a few minutes!
I keep telling myself that things will get better when K is no longer at preschool, as the half hour walk there and 20 minutes back for drop-off, plus 20 mins there and half hour back for pick-up, really disrupts the day and limits what we can do and how much freedom J can have in when and how he does things. I guess I’m kind of assuming that everything will be easier once I have two of them to sit down and work together, but then I suddenly start to panic and think I’m just kidding myself 🙁 and things will be even more chaotic but without the enforced exercise we currently get each day 😆
I suppose I shouldn’t really complain as the usual reason I can’t get J to do things (and that we are late everywhere) is that his nose is constantly glued to a book!

2 thoughts on “Structure – musings”

  1. This sounds very similar to things here. Catie’s never been in school but I try to impose some kind of order on her learning and our day, she tries to filll her day with as little as possible and the result is somewhere in between. Her default activity is playing, rather than reading though. And we have a similar relationdhip with Megan’s Montessori nursery, that she finishes at a week on Tuesday – her going there really breaks up the flow of the day, but teaching two at home will be a whole new challenge

  2. I know what you mean. M hasn’t been at school and I’ve found without some order to our day we all get even more frustrated. M’s default activity of choice is playing on the computer, which gets him wound up. I try and get him to do some maths and English every day and then something purposeful – be it cooking or history project or something arty or some science. Natural routines like meals and naptimes and imposed walks etc are useful because at least they don’t tend to get argued over!

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