“Yeah, um… I’ll pray for your day. The little guys are running around like crazy down there.”
That is not the good-bye I like to hear from my husband as I step out of the shower in the morning and he heads to work. It just doesn’t bode well– especially not when you effectively have four kids six and under, it’s not even 9 a.m., and you had hoped to actually get some educatin’ done today.
So, what do you do?
Go with the flow.
Ditch the morning’s plan of listening to a read-aloud and making a craft. Insert math games– the more physical the better. Roll the dice and jump the to corresponding number. Add two numbers, and that’s how many frog hops you need to do. Counting by tens as you do push ups. Building addition problems and then acting them out with sprints up and down the stairs.
Whatever it takes.
A busy morning, rescued from chaos. A loud morning, yes. But one where my sanity stayed intact, the fun level was high, and no one bashed anyone else in the head with a Lincoln Log. (Not that that ever happens here. Ahem.)
By lunch, they were less inclined to climb the walls. After rest time, the story was actually read (even if we never quite got to the planned craft). It ended up being a good day after all. And I even get to count it as “school.”