My two youngest boys are HIGH ENERGY and full of wonder. Raising these guys requires some creativity. Cleaning the room has to be a contest against the clock or against each other. School, too, is different with boys. No lady-like sitting at the table with crayons lined up in a neat little row, painstakingly staying in the lines for them. Let's color all the bad guys black and finish the book in 10 seconds or less. Forget the table, Dominic learned to read on a big wheel. First round was letter identification with a trip around the driveway after each correct response. Then we moved to letter sounds, making the phonetic sound with each turn of the pedal. Eventually he worked up to reading a sentence before taking a whirl. He can now sit on the sofa and read several pages at a time, if there are no distractions to turn his curiosity in another direction. His younger brother can only recite the letter sounds while doing a Leapfrog dance... The B says "buh," the B says "buh," every letter makes a sound, the B says "buh." I am not sure how we will read and dance at the same time, but I am sure we will find a way. We count forward by jumping on a hopscotch path and then backwards before we launch our rockets. Adding 5 + 8 is interesting when it is height being added to a wooden block tower. Sit on the floor or the trampoline instead of at the desk, and get your hands into the project. Who says only the girls want to help in the kitchen? Learning fractions and multiplication is much more fun when there is a delicious treat at the end of the lesson. Then there is my 11 year old who will do any subject in a spirit of competition. He can finish schoolwork and chores faster than anyone in the family- and get it right because do-overs are unacceptable to Mr.-I'm-on-a-schedule-guys!!. Now he is the "coach" for his younger brothers. I think Math-Hockey is the subject for the afternoon. I should go get an icepack, just in case two against one equals a puck in the shin.
Why do I go to the trouble to be so flexible for these bouncing- off the wall learning styles? Because I love these guys. They teach me everything I need to know about God. In fact all of my children do. They are all so different, and so lovable. They are all so wonderful, and so frustrating. Each child teaches me to go outside of myself for their sake. When asked repeatedly, "Are those all your children???!!!," I have to answer that God is using these beautiful souls to teach me how to love unselfishly- and I must need quite a bit of work in that department for Him to bless me so richly. I have often thought of writing a post about the way He teaches me about my relationship with Him through my experiences with my dear husband and children- but someone has done that for me. How did she know what I was thinking? (Follow the link- it is well worth reading)
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