Molding Young Minds

...that's what I am all about. And a little free labor is good, too. Our boys' usual after-school care doesnt start for another few days so I have had some bonus time with my boys after school. Bonus time that I am *trying* to spend without TV. That's hard to do since the ankle is hurting by the afternoon, so we do have to sit and cuddle with a little afternoon show (or two), but mostly we are keeping busy.

How, you ask?

Well, C does like having the house "nice and clean", he's told me, so I told him that he can assist with that. And then G wanted in on the fun, so this was the scene yesterday.

They loved it, though I should note that towards the end of the cleaning session there was a lot more spraying than there was wiping and we may have had a few Windex rivers running down the wall trim. Today after school we are cleaning the upstairs bathrooms. I am a FUN Momma ;-)

Once the downstairs was "nice and clean" AKA they were bored with that task, we moved on to a little mental labor.

We circled the largest item in each row and colored said item, and we did this with no problem. We completed the whole page, despite protests, and then moved on to doing one page of letters. Now I might be a drill sergeant but I did let them each pick which letter they wanted to do. G picked "D" and C picked "B". I have no idea why those letters. Things were going fairly well until someone got a little sloppy and needed a spot of refocusing. Wait no, I thought he needed refocusing. He disagreed.

I had "hurt his feelings". OH LAWDY. It seems in our efforts to raise emotionally intelligent boys we have created a mini monster. Any constructive criticism now hurts the feelings. And you WILL be told when you do such a thing. So a quick conversation about learning vs. getting upset about everything later, we were back on track.

I should say, G was back on track, someone else was on track the entire time. In the zone!

After our "D" and "B" pages, we were done, I was told, and we "had to take a little rest". Which I was happy about so I could prep dinner.

I prepped dinner AND explred the teacher folders that came home in their backpacks. OOOOOH, I am so excited about these! No really, I am, no sarcasm. I love me some school.