3 Sisters 7 Days

Unlike Brenda Spencer, the San Diego high school student featured in “I Don’t Like Mondays,” by the Boomtown Rats, I do like Mondays – almost entirely because my loving spouse is home to help with the kids … and fix dinner

This morning was more hectic than it’s been in a while because we couldn’t go snowboarding. (although there’s still a lot of snow in our local mountains, neither of our vehicles have 4-wheel drive, and I don’t mess with chains). Consequently, I wouldn’t be taking the kids along to campus with me so that we could head for the slopes after class, and had to pull together their lesson plans for the day before leaving.

Reiley and Parker were easy because both had already started working on their lesson plans for the week. My role there consisted of reminding  Reiley to write her essay on “how the world affects me” and assigning her Algebra problems, and adding “review of Island of the Blue Dolphins” to Parker’s language arts assignment.

Olivia’s plan for the day was more involved because although she’s nearly finished the kindergarten math textbook and can read Level 1 books, she refuses to memorize her math facts or demonstrate that she knows the site words we’ve covered so far. Maybe I’m the one being difficult, but it seems reasonable to expect mastery of kindergarten math and beginning readers before moving onto first grade math and more difficult texts. So…I located some “big girl” math worksheets and color-coded lists of site words online and instructed my spouse to encourage Olivia as strongly as he could to select and complete a worksheet without manipulatives, and to help her make flashcards for the “yellow” site words. I explained that while these stimulating activities with Daddy would be enough, it would be great if he could also read with Olivia, supervise her journaling, and engage in age-appropriate (for her) conversation about the national affiliations of the athletes participating in the current Winter Olympics.

(Note: they were arguing before I got of the house, which I have to admit was just a tiny bit gratifying; it’s good to know that Olivia is a challenging student for someone other than me.)

Although (Quentin, who takes my MWF course) and I had hoped to substitute rock-climbing for snowboarding after class…and after meeting a student to discuss his honors research project, we scootered over to campus just so I could update my collaborators on a research project and drop off receipts from my trip to New Orleans for reimbursement. Over two hours later, we were finally on our way to the rock-climbing gym. By then, we had just over an hour to climb before dashing to the Post Office before it closed and getting home for dinner with the family.

Dinner is where it’s at on Mondays, really. Every other weekday, the kids and I have an  hour, at most, to prepare, serve, and consume dinner, and clean up the kitchen between school and other daytime activities and walking the dog and other nighttime activities. With the exception of crock-pot meals, we’re looking at pasta, quesadillas, or “breakfast” for dinner most evenings.

But tonight, it was tossed salad with poppy seed dressing, white clams linguini, bread hot from the oven with butter, and glass of wine.

Yeah, I like Mondays – a lot.

Tags: Boomtown Rats's I Don't Like Mondays, Home-cooked dinners, homeschool lesson plans, kindergarten lesson plan

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Every Day Tasks, Food and Nutrition, Homeschooling and Childhood Education, True Tales of a Real Life Super Mom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.