Tales of a Room Mother

Years ago, back when I was a very young and naive mom I volunteered to be the room mother for my oldest daughter Cheyenne's 1st grade class. I had no idea how much work throwing holiday classroom parties would be, nor did I have a clue that I had just enlisted in something far more grueling than bootcamp. Little did I know that I would soon experience the most treacherous and painfully longest year of my entire life.  It seemed as if the other mothers wanted me to throw over-the-top parties, fastidiously decorated and color coordinated, all while providing special foods catered to each of their children's tastes and desires--vegan choices, tofu selections, and kosher choices...and then there was me, serving cupcakes to my own diabetic kid and simply pumping her up full of extra insulin to cover the extra sugar! It was a party after all! And parties are full of contraband and taboo sweets. But these mothers did not seem to have gotten the memo on this basic party minutia. They all had very complicated party agendas for their six year olds. And me? All I wanted was to be involved a little more with my daughter's classroom and I found myself in the middle of a crazed party planning extravaganza.  That was the year I learned I was not the stuff a room mother was made of.

But I still wanted to be involved in some way, so, after being granted parole from room-mothering, I spent the next couple of years in pursuit of another way I could be involved with my kids at school.  I tried coming in during reading time and helping kids read.  But I always got too silly with the kids and we ended up giggling too much and ultimately we'd get 'that look' from the teacher.  I tried helping during math time but found it too enticing to give the answers away to the kids who were having a bit of trouble.  I searched high and low for a classroom volunteer job but I never seemed to find a good fit.

Then my nieces and nephews moved closer to us.  Soon I realized if I was ever going to try the room mom thing again, this would be my golden opportunity.  Mostly because they were home schooled. And the fact that these poor kids never heard of room parties!  HERE was my golden opportunity to get involved in a school! So I appointed myself their official Room Mother and it turns out it's the best job ever!  Here's part of my self-appointed job description:

• Throw very laid-back holiday parties on Halloween, Valentines, and End of the School Year--all with gloriously sugary and fattening foods AND without consulting any other mother because there isn't one!
• Bring in the occasional teacher gift with a note that says all the other parents pitched in and got such a great teacher a little token of appreciation.
• Inform my sister-in-law when public school has been cancelled due to hazardous weather conditions and guilt her into canceling home school too.
• Remind the teacher to give days off to the kids for Teacher Inservice Days and Parent Teacher Conferences.
• Field Trip advisor.  This one I take very seriously.  Like taking the kids to Dairy Queen to work on our Blizzard eating skills.

These days the class size at the Shumway Home School has dwindled from six kids to only two.  But I still bring pizza and cupcakes and make sure the kids stop school and have a party.  It's the best school volunteer job I've ever had.

And if I do say so, I think I'm the best Room Mother they've ever had--then again, perhaps they would have preferred a room mom offering up vegan and tofu stuff!

Late for War

It's a good thing American independence wasn't dependent on me. We'd all still be speaking with a British accent and have bad teeth. I've recently come to appreciate the fact that our Founding Fathers had WAY better timing than I do.

I learned this lamentable fact when my sister-in-law Wendy planned a re-inacting of the Battle of Bunker Hill for a large scale homeschool demonstration.  She called us to see if Connor and Chloe could show up and fight a mini-war against her kids.  We were supposed to put on all our RED clothes and storm up the hill towards their house where the Shumway kids would all be authentically dressed up as a bunch of rag-tag revolutionaries defending their freedom with a bunch of farm implements from Grandpa Clark's barn.

Much like the Bunker Hill Battle itself:

When I called on a Tuesday to make sure we were all set to storm the battlefield I was informed the whole coup d'etat had already taken place...last week!

Here's what we missed:

 (I'm not sure the kid in green got the memo.)

It was mighty embarrassing when I had to gather my little band of red-dressed marauders and tell them I had led them astray.  I had disappointed my troops at home and thought for a moment they would send me to the gallows.  I was just glad there wasn't REAL freedom at stake, or we'd all be in trouble.  Unfortunately in the memory books here at home, I will go down in history as a wayward General who was late for war.

I Am Not Smarter Than a 3rd Grader

My sister-in-law left town and gave me another crack at being a homeschool sub for my two nieces Madi and Janelle.  I was relieved to know she hadn't revoked my substitute teaching privileges after my last attempts.  I always go into this serious assignment totally committed to being on my very best behavior.  Absolutely no shenanigans, all work, no play,  roll up my sleeves, put on a pair of "mom jeans", and get down to the serious business of homeschooling.

This time my resolve lasted about twenty minutes.  Quite frankly, when it comes to my nieces and nephews, I'm just not the stern    nun-wielding-a-ruler type.

What happened was that I opened this math book of Madi's and it put me in a silly mood...

 This is what I saw inside...

This "issued to" box on the inside cover of her textbook looks ordinary but let me break it down for you.  Danielle, the first person to be "issued" this new math book, she is the oldest of my nieces and nephews and the first child my sister-in-law homeschooled.  Sheralyn would be Danielle's younger sister, Tanner just younger than Sheralyn, and Madi the next child to follow.

I just started laughing that a bunch of homeschoolers found it necessary to fill this section of the book out, as if, by some chance, someone was to damage the book beyond repair which would requrie an extensive man-hunt for the culprit.  A Campus-wide search for the book vandal at the Shumway Home School.  (I think Tanner may have caught on to this since he didn't even bother to note the book's condition.)

After that silly discovery I completely lost my resolve to be serious. That's when I noticed that they needed a little PE help, so I add a few PE items down at the bottom for both days:

Next, I got to correct Janelle's 3rd grade math fact sheet.  Piece of cake.  Except I realized that I never did memorize and get ALL of my own math facts down pat.  This is when I sadly had to acknowledge that I am not smarter than a 3rd Grader.  I totally couldn't tell you from memory the answer to 7x7.  I always hated that one.  And, quite frankly, as a kid I just figured I'd never really NEED to have that one memorized for any serious upcoming life event--like being a homeschool substitute--boy was I wrong!  Poor Janelle was really counting on me to correct her paper because she really wanted to do a good job on it.  That's when I decided to come clean and just let her know I couldn't remember if her answer to 7x7 was right or not...

Next I helped them memorize the 13 Colonies.  Luckily, Janelle only had to memorize just 7 of them.  But Madi had to get all 13.  So I made up a couple of acronymic sentences to help them remember their states.  But we got a little goofy about it and I think it will definitely get me fired from my homeschool subbing job.

Janelle's sentence for her 7 states was:
Good Shumways Never Volunteer to Make Mormons Coffee.

Madi used that one, then for the last 6 states, we decided on:
Polish Danielle's Nails Now! Please! Now!

By the time we had all our states memorized I was exhausted.  How does my sister-in-law do it everyday?  That's when I got distracted.  I decided the girls could work on matching skills.  So I opened up my laptop and got into my photos and had them use the face recognition program in my iphoto program and sort out faces.

This was my kind of school work.  They get to practice matching, I get my computer updated, my yard weeded for PE, and NO MORE MATH PROBLEMS!

...And should I get in trouble for getting distracted from the real work, I'm just gonna tell my sister-in-law that you can't expect a substitute to stay on task when she's not smarter than even a third grader.

Home School(Day Two): A Story Problem

Day Two...things are going well so far. I spend my days hoping a room mother will show up with cupcakes.

A peculiar problem arose today when we started doing Janelle's math. She's working on counting money but apparently someone in the house decided to give us a story problem to work out instead. Can you tell from the photo below what's missing?

Let me help you out with the story problem...
A sweet girl named Janelle left her math book sitting on the counter. Along with her math book she left 5 pennys, 5 nickels, 10 dimes, 4 quarters, and a dollar coin. When she returned she discovered a certain hoodlum in the house had taken some of her money. How much did the hoodlum take? And, how hard should we flog said hoodlum?

The important lesson here is that the hoodlum mistook the dollar coin for some cheap arcade token and not for real money. Here in the states we still can't get over the fact that money can come in a variety of different colors and sizes and still actually be REAL. I am now requesting all my dollar bills be exchanged for Miss Liberty dollar coins seeing that they will probably disappear out of my purse far less frequently than the green bills do now.

To add a little fun to home school I decided Janelle must be prepared to become a world traveler so I made her calculate the current exchange rates on the following coins:

Tomorrow I plan to discuss home school uniforms...

Home School Mom for a Day…or Two!

Home Schooling.  Yes, the “H” word.  I swore I’d never do it.  But, a few years back my sister-in-law Wendy, who very superbly teaches her kids from home, left town and I got a crack at being a substitute teacher to her kids.  This substitute teacher thing was kinda fun.  Wielding all that power over little children…oh the joy!  Forcing them to read and write…and do scary math problems!  It was wonderful.  I personally feel I did much to improve their math skills, mostly because I forced them into running a lap around the house each time they got a problem wrong!  I called it “Active Learning”.  I’m not sure my nieces and nephews had ever experienced such methods (highly effective methods I might add) from such a diabolical teacher so intent on expanding young minds.  I must mention here that my sister-in-law has never asked me to do it again.  Hmmmm…

Well today she gave me a second chance!  Wendy left her youngest daughter Janelle with us while she’s out of town.  This time I promised to rein in the devilish teacher that lurks inside of me and decided to redeem myself by minding my manners. 

We did all our work properly, no running laps for incorrect answers, and I even served up a healthy lunch.  Here’s hoping I get an A+ this time in academics and exceptional marks for my improved behavior!