A tip: tired moms are not good teachers

Okay, so here's the thing. Home schooling does not work if you (as the mom and homeschool teacher) are not well organised, well prepared, and don't have a good routine. But even if you are all these things, but are tired, it can be a disaster.

We've had a bit of a hiatus with our annual conference and then the cousins' visit. Now I find I am struggling to get back into the swing of things. Jonty has been out of the routine for 3 weeks, and not used to doing it anymore, and we have to relearn all our good habits. That's what last week was about.

By Friday last week (a week of trying to settle back into old routines and rhythms) I was fairly organised, had done the lesson prep, etc, and Jonty was ready for the lesson, but even as we started, I realised I was way too tired to do it. The words were swimming around the page, and I could feel my patience was, well, kind of lowish. So I averted disaster and cancelled the lesson and put Jonty and myself to bed.

This week's focus will be on getting the groove back, and ... getting more sleep!

A day off - or not?

Big dilemma: Cousins and aunty going off to do Flight of the Gibbons today. They wanted Jonty to go with them. Jonty would have loved to have gone and I would have loved for him to have gone, but I was not feeling 100% happy about it - (1) another day off school and (2) not doing it with him.

After much deliberation, Nick and I decided that we would not let him go. When I told him this morning he was, like, okay, fine, what's for breakfast? I asked him if he wasn't upset...??? Surely he would be! But no, he really was fine and even admitted that he was feeling quite anxious about going "alone" (i.e. without mom and dad).

So today he went off to school while his favourite cousins went to Chiang Mai, and he went without whining and complaining.

Again I tell myself: School can't be THAT bad! Something good must be going on there.

Catching a Wobbly

Today Jonty's homework involved selecting 2 plants in the garden and then comparing them in terms of roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit, using his magnifying glass to examine them closely. He had to write brief descriptions under each heading.

Easy? Well, ye-es, but ... it's all in Thai.

When he opened up his book to show me the chart he had to fill out I caught a wobbly. The thing is that I know NOTHING about botanical terminology in Thai. I know the basic words like "fruit", "roots", "flower", etc, and know enough to read the instructions, which is why I could actually work out what he needed to do, but how to describe all these things using the right terminology...?

How was I going to help my son with his homework?

I mean what IS a "hardy perennial" in Thai? What is a "compound" leaf, a "simple" one? How do they describe an "ovate" leaf? Glossy? Waxy? And types of bark: ring bark, corky, smooth bark, peeling bark? Do they even have all these words?

I don't know if I can do this. I can help him in English, but can I help him in Thai? I felt ever so slightly incompetent and inadequate. But while I was having a quiet little panic attack, and googling translations of "angiosperms", Jonty was calmly completing his homework:

Plant 1 (he'd chose a jasmine bush):
ROOTS: small
FLOWER: small, white
FRUIT: none
LEAVES: small, green
STEM: not strong

Plant 2 (coconut tree - magnifying glass of great benefit when looking for coconut trees, please note!)
ROOTS: long
FLOWER: long
FRUIT: coconut
LEAVES: big
STEM: strong, straight, long

CONCLUSION: Plants are not all the same.

(All of this written in perfect Thai of course)

Okay then. I can handle Grade 1, even if it is all in Thai because my Thai is at least this level - I actually knew all those words! And I'll just have to learn along with him. Or he can teach me.

P.S. Google Translate rendered พืชชั้นสูง for Angiosperms.