Either I'm a lousy home schooler or some of you are also laughing, snorting, and rolling your eyes right now. Around here, that is not at all how it works. I tried the school box idea, and haven't quite given up on it, but um... It's just not that simple in reality.
The Littles, as we sometimes call our youngest two, do have their school boxes filled with fun stuff. Or they were filled with fun stuff until I wearied of finding puzzle pieces strewn all over the house and pencil, pen, and crayon marks in various corners and on various surfaces. Thankfully, a bit of borax and washing powder does wonders on upholstered chairs blessed by pink colored pencil. The living room walls may take a little more creativity, as they have been subjected to more than one outburst of creativity on the part of our littlest budding artist, and perhaps another coat of paint once said artist becomes more trustworthy with writing utensils. I love the idea of the school box, but if you don't keep up with it, it will overtake your home. Toddlers have to be taught to sit down and play with this right here and nowhere else, and preferably semi-quietly so as not to distract your older brother who'd really rather work a puzzle than a math fact sheet. It's a great lesson, but hard to teach simultaneously with second grade spelling and fourth grade math.
Despite the presence of school boxes, the Littles are crawling on my lap during grammar lessons, pulling out math manipulatives during our Bible lesson (and proceeding to scatter counting bears all over the dining room), and playing kitty cat - meowing in distress kitty cat, by the sounds of it - in the hallway while the Civil War raises to a deafening roar in my attempts to make our history chapter heard by my older scholars. Another crazy morning of home schooling with preschoolers...
There are of course upsides to home schooling with preschoolers. For one thing, they do pick up some of what their older siblings are learning. For another... um... uh... Okay, so maybe today I was thinking how nice it will be when Luke stops climbing onto the counter and starts sitting at the table for kindergarten.
In a way, though, that tells me the chaos we experience in this phase of our home schooling life isn't as awful as it sometimes appears on the surface, because I am looking forward to the Littles officially joining our school. I picture all four of my children sitting around the table, diligently studying grammar and math, or curled up reading history and literature in the living room. If I can see a future in which all of my children gather together for school in a mostly civilized manner, I must deep down believe that we will survive the preschool years. I'm sure we'll have a different breed of chaos when we are officially home schooling four, but I'm going to pretend otherwise for now. Laugh if you want, oh you of more experience, but I'm going to pretend that someday our home will look like the cover of the homeschooling catalogs, at least until I get the living room repainted and have to face the beautiful chaos of that day.
(And I am truly glad to have my Littles home, buzzing around enjoying life... It's just that some days, like this one, I understand why people might think I'm crazy to do what we do!)
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