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What do you call it?
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Okay this is a silly question but do you say to your child (especially a young child just beginning), “It’s time for your lessons,” “It’s time for school,” or something like, “I have an activity for us”? I guess I have a bad connotation attached to lessons, school, learning in my mind and don’t want to pass that along.
Thanks!
Dana
We just call it school time, but then I don’t really have negative associations with it. With my 4 yo, I ask him if he “wants to do some work with me”, which for him seems super special, so it works for us.
Sorry…not super creative. =) Maybe someone else is more creative than I am!!
Jen
Sometimes I will say something like, “O.K., time to start our day”. Everyone knows what we are expected to do in our day, so it works. Sometimes I’ll say something like, “time for family work” or ,”time to start on your individual work, now” etc. other times I will just refer to it as schooltime or lessons.
You can make sure that your negative feelings toward “schooltime” does not rub off on your ds simply by watching your tone and expression while you use those words. It’s not like you would need to be saying them all the time, so it should be a relatively easy habit to form. But I understand about not wanting our kids to pick up our own attitudes about certain things, I have a couple doozies of my own that I have tried hard to not pass down….math for one. It can be done, though.
HTH some.
-Miranda
When my first child was preschool age we did not have formal school lessons. However, many of her friends were going to preschool so she wanted “school” also. So I acquiesced. I would say, “ok, it’s art time,” and would set the easel up outside to paint. Or, maybe it was “letter time!” and we would trace a letter and read an ABC book.
For Kindergarten, we would have “school time.” This was still pretty informal, but it distinguished how we spent our time – Mom decided the activities rather than the child. Play time was when the child chose the activities. I think it helped to say “school” time, or “lesson” time if you prefer, because it sets the precedent that there are specific things to do. Does that make sense?
Now that my children are in 2nd grade and kindergarten, we still have school time, but I designate “Morning Class” (math, reading, writing, history, geography, Bible, etc.) and “Afternoon Class” (literature read alouds, art, nature walks). This helps me avoid power struggles with an independent child who would gladly do her own thing, but will do what Mom has planned because it is expected of her to her school work (the “I Will ” part of CM’s motto).
We call it school, lesson time, family work….I don’t have any negative ideas about it either. I love school…home school, community classes, co-ops, the park, zoo, whatever, wherever we learn and whatever we want to call it.
My daughter is on the young side of preschool age. I haven’t called it anything so far… I just bring up the activity. “Hey!! Let’s do tracing!!” or “Ohhh I want to play with letters!” all chirpy and cheerful. She usually gets excited about that and jumps right in. I’m not sure what we’ll do when she’s older and things are more formal, but I love the ideas in this thread. 🙂
I’m the same, basicly either “It’s time to start, time to start school or I am specific, time to do yuor math, etc. Mine are 11 and 12. When they were younger, I think I also said, let’s read together, or time to do your handwriting, etc.
I really don’t give it much thought; they know that this is what we do.
I will say that I’ve never said “time to start learning” anything…since learning happens whenever. The idea of learning outside of spcific subjext matter I did want to instill in them by not limiting the word “learning” to a time frame or age limit.
This is a great opportunity to start giving the word “school” a new and good connotation!
I don’t recall referring to it this way, but most of the time my kids will talk about “doing school.” (As in, “Do we have to do school today?” or “Shouldn’t we be doing school now?”)
I have mixed feelings about that since “doing school” could associate it with being a chore that you complete (which could have negative connotations), or it could mean that school is something you “do” as an active thing (which I like!)
Generally, at the beginning of the day or following a break, I usually just comment or announce something like, “It’s time to start our schoolwork” or “Okay, we have to get started on our History.”
Thanks everyone! And at 4 years old if they lose interest in tge lesson or ask for it to end, do you stop?
Oh, that’s funny, Sue – my kids talk about “doing school” too! Not sure how it came about. I guess because they “do” so many other things. Or maybe because at the end of the day my hubby will often ask at the dinner table, “so, what did you do today?” and many times they will answer with the word “school” to encompass their day’s activities.
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