Like for example: my art skills. I quit art because I wasn't good enough. I'd see great painters and drawers, and I knew my skills could never compete. But later on I learned my skills were good enough to help in the classrooms I worked in. By drawing a picture of a panda bear, I could make a kids day.
Or I could bring a smile to my nephews face by making an awesome horse head for his pioneer parade-- he even asked for it to be a girl and named her after me.
When all is said and done that's good enough for me.
Another example: my singing skills. I love to sing. I mean "rearrange my front room to resemble a Broadway stage and belt out the tunes" LOVE to sing. But singing in front of people is not so much my forte. However singing lullabies to my children is one of my favorite things to do with my skills.
And even though I lack, in higher education, what I learned in elementary, and what I learned about teaching kids while working in classrooms, has helped me to create fun lessons for my kids.
So "lessons" isn't my favorite word because it just sounds too official. But basically every other day we sit down for an hour to an hour and a half and work on reading, science, history, etc. My basic schedule-- you know me I have to have a schedule-- goes like this:
Monday- History and Reading: We rotate history every month. So one month we'll talk about state history, the next month United States History and the next month global history. Then we start over with state. History is one of my favorite subjects and I love teaching it to my boys. Even though all they really care about is the coloring page, it's still fun-- well one little boy has a loving adoration for the American Flag which is rather sweet, so I guess it's rubbing off a little. For reading I work on letters and letter sounds. I also work on spelling their names. I would rather start with colors as opposed to letters, but I haven't put that together just yet. Usually on reading days I'll read them a story too.
Wednesday-- Science and Math: I really hadn't thought these two subjects out very well. They are my least favorite after all. I decided to do a rotation for science though. Right now we're talking about the Earth and next month we'll change the subject to something else like animals or space. For math we are working on numbers and counting. And sometimes shapes.
Friday-- Music and Art: My two most favorite subjects. I really have a strong opinion on how these two things can influence us in so many ways, for better or worse. They are probably the closest I've come to having a true passion in life-- aside from being a mother that is. We talk about composers and artists. We sing songs and listen to different music. Sometimes we color or paint. Some days we'll go outside and draw with sidewalk chalk. It's really laid back and fun.
My kids are all pretty young but they still pick up a few good things from these activities. I think the most important thing is the structure it brings. I've noticed they're a bit better behaved when we do these lessons consistently-- which I really haven't been very good at, but I am getting better!
I also babysit my nephew so he benefits from these lessons from time to time. I have to tell you it can be a frustrating route. It's been this way ever since I started helping him with his Kindergarten homework everyday. He just gets nervous and freezes up. He tries to make up answers instead of drawing from what he knows. I try my best to stay positive, but heaven knows I've lost my temper more than once-- and that doesn't help anyone.
Though I've been a strong supporter of the arts, in education, my whole life I never realized how beneficial they really are. After a frustrating week, of trying to work with my nephew on basic things, we were able to calmly enjoy a lesson on arts and music. There was no stress, there were no wrong answers and he was able to enjoy himself while getting the satisfaction of knowing he did a good job. I think that really helped to boost his confidence. It was something he could do, and do well, and that was a really good thing for him to learn-- and for me too.
I'm not the best at having these "lessons" all the time. And the main reason for them is just so I make the time to teach my kids. I'm terrible at reading bedtime stories and just taking a "time out" from cleaning to impart a little wisdom. But I know if I set aside a day and a time I'll have a better chance of getting it done.
Of course, even getting these lessons down doesn't have all my bases covered. I would also like to teach the boys about our faith and religion. I thought about squeezing it in with Music and Art, but then I realized our church already has a good system set up for teaching our children about these very things. I just needed to start doing it. Our church likes it's members to set aside time on Monday evenings for family time. We call it "Family Home Evening". Usually we have a prayer, a song, a scripture, a lesson and a treat. We decided to start making the extra effort to hold Family Home Evenings in our home.
This week we had a fun lesson where we learned about our first prophet, Joseph Smith. I left clues around the house, yard and park to help us learn about how Joseph Smith restored the Gospel to the Earth. The first clue led us to the boys room where we found scriptures. We read James 1:5 and then we were instructed to go outside and find the next clue. Each clue talked about the different things Joseph experienced while he was searching for a church to join.
Our Family Home Evenings also have a little history lesson tied into them. My husband and I decided to learn about the different counties in Utah. Our plan is to pick a county, learn about it and then take a trip there to see the sites. Unfortunately, without a set time to learn about said counties, we've been stuck on the same one all summer. We'll make it work someday. I decided our FHE history lessons could rotate with our "lesson" history lessons, so right now we're talking about the United States-- but, believe you me, when we get back to state history we are going to learn all we can about that county.
My skills aren't much. But, in the end, they help my family learn and grow. And that is all they really need to do. It would be nice if they could help me bring in some sort of an income. But the smiles on my kids faces is priceless! So I'll take what money can't buy.
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