Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Can't I Just Teach Her To Type, Instead?

Ok, y'all, thanks so much for leaving comments on yesterday's post. Making my day! If you haven't yet, be sure to leave me a comment, ok?

Meanwhile, I have a confession.

Mary Grace gets homework. One handwriting worksheet per week. No big deal. They're not even "due" (which is probably part of the problem - I do much better with a deadline).

She's been in school for a long time now, right? At least eight weeks? Guess how many worksheets we've turned in...

ONE.

I so totally suck.

The first week I was all, "We're going to start with good habits! We're going to do her homework right after lunch on Tuesdays, and have it done for the week, and we're going to set up good habits that will last all the way through college!!" Instead, I procrastinated, because we didn't have glue. And then someone needed a nap. And then something else happened. And then we went to Florida. And then we had company. And jeez, here we are like two months in and I'm pretty sure that she's going to be flipping burgers until retirement because I never taught her how to do her homework.

The guilt... The crushing, crushing guilt!

What makes it worse, guys? I was a teacher. Well, I went to school to be one, anyway, and I did my student teaching, but I never had my own classroom. Anyway, I was sanctifreakinmonious about parental involvement and how crappy some of the students' parents were for not having a schedule and a routine and being consistent and it would be so much easier and the world would be a better place if these parents could just get their acts together....

I didn't have kids, then, can you tell?

And here I am a few years down the road, and I can't even sit my own kid down to get her to do one stinkin' worksheet a week.

Her handwriting sucks, too. We were supposed to be working on this stuff since birth, right? We were going to have her reading by now. She's certainly smart enough, but I haven't sat her down to make her do it. *I* am the person in this house who lacks discipline, and who would rather turn on the TV and have the kids leave me alone than sit down and do a workbook or a project with them. Consequently, she can't do much more than scribble - forget drawing little people (something that Jen's daughter has been doing for MONTHS, and she's a little younger than MG) or coloring inside the lines.

Oh my God, if she ends up on drugs it's totally going to be my fault.

I'll tell you what, this has cured me of any inclinations I might have ever had toward homeschooling. There is no way I'd do it. No way. I'm flunking preschool for God's sake!

So, we're up to our nostrils in self-loathing at the house of Prettybabies today, and we're working hard to get her homework all caught up. She brought home a fun worksheet ("disguising" a turkey so that the farmer doesn't get him on Thanksgiving) that she's excited about (we're going to make a princess), so I told her if she got the other four worksheets (the ones that I can find) done, I'd help her with the Princess Turkey.

(The really entertaining thing is that MG's teacher is going to read this on Facebook... Hahaha!)

4 comments:

angel0199 said...

Making a 4 year old do writing homework is just going to make her hate homework. As far as writing here are some activities to improve fine motor skills-

-coloring in the lines

-playing clay instead of playdough so they have to use more force.

-If she gets board cutting on a line have her cut yarn into pieces or clay.

-Tearing pictures out of a magazine instead of using scissors

-Wadding small pieces of paper into a ball helps so do a craft using them- we cut out paper Christmas trees and the kids made little wads of paper to glue on as ornaments

-standard stringing pasta or beads.

-Stacking pennies as high as she can.

-Using tweezers or wooden close pins to pick up objects (maybe cotton balls) an place them in a bowl.

When I taught preschool one of the parents was an OT. One thing she said was that because of the the "back-to-sleep" thing even older kids don't have the upper body strength that kids did before that. She said to encourage "tummy time" even in older kids. So we would have them lay on there tummys while they did puzzles or looked at books. Just the act of holding themselves up.

Anonymous said...

My son is the same way, he's 4 and HATES coloring, cutting etc. He's amazing on a computer though. He can't write his name but he can type it!!!
~Dori

mwiesjahn said...

She is only four. Her handwriting SHOULD be bad.

She's going to be amazing and it's because you are a wonderful mother who takes her out to experience the world instead of working on worksheets.

Although she might be amazing with bad handwriting.... :)

Have the T-shirt said...

Homework in preschool?! What'll they think of next? They keep coming up with new ways to instill guilt in us poor parents :P