If you are from a small town and you have a child, you may know what this post may be about. Over the past five years, ive understood the life of small towners and the dos and don't of it. I've only understood them, not mastered any.
Well, in my town, we do weddings, parties just like any other. But what do mommies do? What do we talk about? Where do we take our kids and what do the kids like?
I enrolled G man in a phonics class and that's how I met this wonderful bunch of women who had become friends for life! We've been friends for over a year now and we spend about 50 minutes together everyday. When you put together a bunch of women without children (cause they are in class) it becomes verbals chaos mostly.
Over a year, we've discussed everything under the sun! Schools, syllabus, bags, lunch boxes, clothes, cars, acne, hair loss, jewelry, family, siblings, gossip, scandals, labour, delivery, c section, epidural, ice cream, laser, Botox - what not! Probably everything under the sun. While in school, remember when you longed for that break period when you could just open your snacks box and eat that yummy snack mummy packed for you? Well, I pretty much wait for this 50 minute break period from the busy schedule of the day. One may call it stress buster or time pass - but we have just become good friends who can make each other feel easy and relaxed so I'm just gonna call it break period.
Break period happens every Monday to Thursday. Kids learn sounds while we The Yappers Club just have friends time.
What are mommies talking about today?
Today, we were mostly talking about what amount of academia intake a child of 4-5 can take. Some kids from our mommy bunch take French classes and some learn swimming. While almost all of us were guilty of trying to push our kids to some class or the other (yes, I said that out loud cause that's the truth and let's deal with it)we were worried about how a two month summer break can make a child forget literally everything he learnt. Each one had a few suggestions and some practice suggestions. None of us are superwoman mothers who want the child to do everything on their own. We are just mommies who want to make sure the kid has all the help he needs at home.
P - P sits down with her kid and gets him to write his alphabets and numbers everyday.
A1 - A giver her kid a slate so she can scribble the alphabets as and when A1 calls them out.
N - N gets her older kid to help the younger one so two inputs help the kid.
E - E sits down every week and helps her kid write his alphabets and numbers.
What I do - G man and I would discuss how each alphabet looked. For example , while in the car he would describe to me how a W looks. He would either say 'two Vs put together' or 'four slanting lines'. I was supremely guilty of not getting any writing done for G man over the summer. As for numbers, we always recited numbers 1-100 in the car or while our evening walks. Writing numbers - nil. We would circle alphabets in the newspaper. For example, circle all Gs - and then say some G words.
How do you get kids to remember what they have learnt in school? Or, what do you do when your kid forgets?
