Getting it Done

After our long morning of rummaging, everyone had to buckle down in the afternoon to get all the school work done. Grace and Lee got theirs done without any complaining, but Lou was a different story. She snuck out after lunch with her pioneer dress on to play with the chicks we picked up yesterday. She and Ray played for about 1 1/2 hours outside, riding bikes, checking on the chicks, playing in the little woods, watching dad work. When she came in Grace was just settling down to watch an espisode of Christy and when I told Lou to grab her books and head back to Little J's room to do her schoolwork you would have thought I'd asked her to eat a bowl of worms. She was so mad and fussing loudly. After a couple of long time outs she gained her composure and buckled down. Still, I was feeling bad because she really does enjoy the Christy movies and with her track record, she'd most likely be doing math for the next two hours. Amazing how missing her new favorite show makes her work extra hard. Within 10 minutes she had her math done and every problem correct to boot. Great next up reading. Usually she reads so slowly I just about fall asleep between page turns, but not today. She read so fast I could barely focus on the page before she turned it again. She'll have no excuses come Monday, she proved that today.

Sometimes I struggle with motivating them to work quickly and diligently. They always get the work done, but sometimes they'll limp along well into the afternoon. It's hard to find something they really value other than movies. Usually the rule is everyone has to be done in order to watch something, but I think allowing the one done to start a movie is rewarding to that child and motivating to the others. Maybe we'll try this tactic for a while.