Our one room schoolhouse

 On Monday we had fun doing something a little different for schooltime. We try to do a few cleaning chores before school starts on Monday and one of them includes Aaron washing the dining room chairs and putting them in the living room so that I can mop the floor. He had done that and then decided to place them in rows like in a school room. The kids brought our Megan's Chalkboard and we playing school and then thought it would be fun to actually do their schoolwork there.

  I was pretty tired that morning as I had gotten up before 5 am to go do a shift at a homeless shelter (at our church building actually as we are taking a turn as a rotating shelter) and I also wasn't feeling that well (It was my turn to catch the bug that my kids had had the earlier) so just sitting down and "playing school" sounded all right to me.

 The boys set up the little tables and we were all set up and ready to begin.

 We start our school day with prayer, singing and memory verses and so on Monday we decided to have our singing around the piano using an old school songbook. My mom had stories of singing while her teacher played the piano in a one room schoolhouse and I remember my grandma (who was a teacher) said she learned to play the piano so that she could play in school like that as well.

We had fun pretending that we were in a one room school house. It was good training for learning to raise their hands (something my kids are pretty unfamiliar with!) and for whispering and sitting still. 

   They thought it was fun but I think they are glad that we can be a little more relaxed most days. I also am glad to be able to clean or cook or whatever while being available to help them as neccasary instead of sitting around all day.

Changing things up a bit and having fun with my kids always works for me!