Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Working Summer

Each year as summer break approaches, I attempt to plan out the summer often assigning the season a theme.  We have seen 'The Summer of Eating Healthy' and 'The Summer of Death' (way too many road kill sightings for my blood) among others.  In addition to my themes, which may or may not be followed through but which sound super-organized and motivating at the end of the school year, I plan our 'working' time which revolves around workbooks and math facts.  The workbooks are certainly not greeted with the same enthusiasm as mom's crazy summer themes, but the children do them none the less.  Of course, the fun of it for me is all in their individual approaches and how true to their personalities they approach the work.

My eldest, a textbook firstborn, knows what he needs to accomplish and for the most part--hey, its summer so some lazing around is downright necessary--he gets it done with little complaint.  My next in line starts strong but after a week or so realizes that our morning routine consists of work and that school was out a week ago (hence, no more work) and begins to fade...and whine, a lot.  My daughter is an eager beaver who 'loves, loves, loves' school and will sit with her books and work on them both inside and out not unlike her mom who used to do the exact same thing each summer.  Be assured that this same daughter could not be any more opposite her mom when it comes to everything else beyond academics just to keep me on my toes.

This leaves my youngest, the little one who would make the penultimate military school candidate.  His approach to these workbook pages is nothing short of neurotic--again, yet another maternal trait I passed on--waking early, reading first and then immediately getting started without prompting.  The best part is that he will continue with this 'do it early so it does not need to be done later' approach for the entire summer.  I wish I could bottle his work ethic (yes, he is this way with everything that needs to get done) and sell it.  Heck, I wish I could douse his brother with his enthusiasm then maybe we could have a whine-free summer and stay academically current to boot.

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