It is so important to teach your son about home repairs. Yes, girls can definitely benefit from this too! At our house, we just happen to only have boys, so I tend to focus on raising boys.

This is a guest post that I think brings an awesome point: training up your sons on how to work with their hands. I want to make sure we use these tips at our house more too, and I hope you find this as helpful as I did.

Teaching your sons how to fix their broken stuff will help your finances and teach the boys valuable skills that will be useful later in life.

Who doesn’t respect a handy man (or woman) who is capable of doing his own home repairs?

One thing every parent would agree with is that raising kids can be challenging.  It can be tougher if your children are all boys.

There is a limitation to applying the parenting methods we learned from our parents years ago. Things have changed. 

The perception of manhood some years back includes working hard and respecting and protecting the family at any cost. Men who watch their fathers act this way grew up with the same characteristics.

Over time, as innovation presents new job opportunities, there is almost no need to showcase fitness. Companies now operate hybrid workplaces; hence no need to rush to work. With a smartphone, you can order virtually anything and have it delivered to your doorstep, including booking a repairman.

Nevertheless, your children need to understand certain Do It Yourself (DIY) repairs around the home.

Think they do not need it? Well, what happens if the technician fails to show up? Would you encourage them to call a technician to change a bulb that can be replaced within a few minutes?

Giving them an all-around education, both book knowledge and practical experiences, is essential.

For instance, take them along or involve them when purchasing Shower Door Hardware. Let them know how to choose the right hardware for a shower door.

How to inspire your boys to be kid-fixers

Repairs can be a boring task for someone with no interest; below are ways to make it fun:

Engage and educate

Kids are more intelligent and braver than you think. When supervised, they can safely handle most repair tools, including sharp ones.

Invite your son whenever you are fixing anything. Educate them on what you are fixing and why you perform certain actions.

Explain why you handle the fixing yourself instead of hiring a technician.

Explore

Take them along on your next car routine maintenance trip. You may also visit a repair shop or repair café in the neighborhood to show them the beauty of machines.

Let them see first-hand that the appliances they use at home are not powered by magic but made up of different parts designed to sync.

Supervise

Kids need supervision when working with tools. Teach them about safety features, correct their mistakes, and show them better ways to do it. Only allow them to repair plugged or powered appliances with supervision, except those that use batteries.

5 easy steps to teach your son about home repairs

You do not have to be handy yourself before teaching your kids how to do minor repairs around the house. There are lots of videos online to watch.

It would be fun to watch it along with your sons while you try out the recommended steps. However, here are five easy steps you can use to teach your kids about home repairs;

Introduce them to the tools

Familiarize them with the required tools for the repair you are willing to train them. If you are unfamiliar with the tools and their functions, watch videos to learn what they are used for, and then pass the knowledge on to your kids.

Teach them safety

Once they are familiar with the tools and their uses, the next thing to do is train them on safety. Do this irrespective of your boy’s age.

Also, teach with examples. For instance, narrate how you got injured while repairing something.

Make it fun instead of being similar to their typical school class.

Create a workshop

Purchase a child-size toolset and set up a workshop if you do not have one already in your garage.

Make them write out the names of the tools and have them added to the toolbox. This will help to memorize the names of the tools.

Buying them tools and creating a garage will give them a sense of ownership and could pique their interest in the lesson.

Allow them to practice with the tools

Assign them tasks that will require the use of one of the tools. Instead of loosening a screw yourself, ask them to do it.

Finding the right tool for the task will help them become more familiar with the tools.

Design a project

The project should be age-appropriate. You can start by loosening the screws of the drawer and instructing them to screw it back.

Painting is another project you can make them execute but ensure all necessary areas, such as floors and furniture, are well covered using drop cloths.

Home maintenance and repair skills to teach your children

Plumbing

You can teach kids how to fix a blocked toilet or sink. Direct them to fix a leaking tap and educate them on the importance of conserving water. Let them know about the water bill.

Electrical fittings

There could be a time you may not be around to change a faulty bulb or fix a socket that does not work. Teach them how to do this safely. Show them the circuit breaker box and how to operate it.

Let them know it is safer to switch off the power before performing any electrical repair.

Woodwork

Woodwork encourages creativity. Let them build anything of their choice or something they will find amusing. This may be a birdhouse or a doll house for their sister.

Likewise, you can show your kids how to fix home furniture with minor issues, like removing stains and discoloration.

Painting

Painting is a fun activity that your kids will surely like. Give them the brush and watch them unleash their creativity.

Auto mechanic

Train your son on basic car repairs, such as changing a flat tire and car oil.

Show them the normal car maintenance routine and how to interpret warning signs such as dashboard indicators.

Repairing fences and patching drywall

Your boys might not be strong enough at the moment to help you with repairing the fences. But watching you do it will undoubtedly help them later.

Cleaning

Reinforce in your kids the importance of cleaning. Establish a routine. You may mandate all used dishes are washed after dinner, before they go to bed. They should be able to vacuum and dust furniture.

At an appropriate age, make them take out the trash and wash the trash can when needed.

If you have a lawn, teach them how to operate the mower.

Other repair skills to teach your children include:

• Cleaning gutters
• Tightening or replacing a doorknob
• Vacuuming
• Changing air filter
• Hanging pictures
• Washing windows
• Watering plants
• Washing car
• Gardening

When you teach your sons home repairs, everyone benefits. Your kids become more confident in their own abilities, and your future daughter-in-law will thank you for sure.

The post 5 Important Things to Teach Your Son About Home Repairs appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

We live in Maryland. Our teachers were given less than 24 hours of notice before schools shut down. Therefore, they cannot guarantee that all children have internet access at home or parent involvement. That limits how much the schools can assign. In some ways, I am thankful for that. One of my friends has children in a local private school that handed out more work than they can actually get done.

All of a sudden, I have four children, of all different ages, to keep busy all day long. This is the perfect time to panic, right? I mean just a little…

Those years (2014-2016) that we home schooled the boys have helped me a ton. I have some materials left over to use for the younger boys. Plus, I remember how stressed I got last time, putting way too much pressure on myself. This time, I am trying to take a far more laid back approach to it all. Each day I have a very reasonable list of no more than 6 things I expect us to get done each day.

Thankfully, you can find a ton of stuff online these days to help.

Here are a few websites I have found immensely helpful for daily school work.

#1. 15 Fun Indoor Recess Games and Activities

The very first day that my youngest child was hot on my case to “start home school now now now”, I sat down and asked him what they do first everyday. He is a first grader. His teacher makes school so much fun that he adores her and looks forward to going everyday. She is a quiet, introverted teacher, so I knew she must be running things well to make him love school so much.

He explained that they start each morning with “morning work,” and then they have their morning meeting. At the meeting, they greet each other, they share about their day or weekend, and then they play a game.

That was easy enough to incorporate into our home school. Sure. We can play an indoor game each day to get everyone in a good mood, having fun together. So far we have played Simon Says (only we called it Mom says), balloon tossing, charades, hot/cold, hide-and-go-seek, and four corners. I got almost all of these ideas from this website.

#2. Brain Pop

I have written about Brain Pop previously, here and here. I was already a fan. But now I’m an even firmer advocate for this website because they are providing their top rate services for FREE during the COVID-19 quarantine.

This site offers fun, engaging animated lessons on every subject, from science to art to math. Not only that, but it has games and quizzes to support those lessons. My son’s middle school uses these lessons regularly. They are solid and easy to pay attention to. This one is a big personal favorite at our house.

Go here to sign up for your free account.

#3. Brain Pop Junior

Everything I said for Brain Pop applies here, only this is the one geared towards kindergarten-third grades. I cannot recommend this program highly enough, and no, they are not paying me to say that. I am not on their payroll. We just like it that much.

Go here to sign up for your free account during the quarantine. Once schools are back in session, this website will go back to being a paid service.

#4. National Geographic

Nationalgeographic.com is one of the websites listed on our school’s recommended websites list. My middle schoolers are supposed to read or watch science or social studies articles or videos on there and then summarize them.

#5. Duolingo.com

This is a foreign language program and app. I downloaded the app version of it to my phone. It teaches about any common language you can think of. My sixth-grade son is using it for French. He says it’s fun, and he enjoys it ever so much more than he ever enjoyed going to his French class at school. This is another must-have, and I downloaded the free app version. However, it will only let you play a limited amount with a free account. There are days that we run out of tokens and could use the paid version.

#6. Typing Club

When we moved to Maryland, I was dismayed to discover that all the middle schoolers here have been typing for years. That left my kids in the dust. In fact, my 3rd grader has already begun typing lessons at his school. Apparently, it’s never too early to begin learning typing in our ever-increasingly electronic age.

Typing club is a very clear typing program. It teaches typing the same way we learned it. Only this generation never has to worry about a typewriter or correction ribbon. Aren’t they lucky?

We did pay for this service. My 8th grader is using it everyday while my three younger boys are using it sporadically. Go here to try it out.

#7. Starfall for grades PreK-3rd

This one was also on our public school’s list. The games on it are super cute. My first grader thoroughly enjoys the learning games on starfall.com. They have a variety of subjects too.

#8. Reading Eggs/ Reading Eggspress

This reading skills website is for kids ages pre-k through first grade. Actually, if you go with the reading express version, it serves more of a reading comprehension purpose and is good for all elementary school grades past reading eggs.

You can try it out now free for the first 30 days. They are running this deal to support all the kids currently out of school.

Our family has a long history of using reading eggs. It is a fun and effective program. My first grader LOVES it.

#9. Math Seeds

Math Seeds is the math portion of the reading eggs website. It is also really cute and fun. I highly recommend these. Math Seeds is also doing a free trial.

#10. Stack the States

I could not find this one in Apple’s app store, but it is available for $2.99 in Google’s. I downloaded this app for my elementary sons on our Kindle fire tablet. We also used this app back when we home-schooled before. It is really fun. This one is worth the $2.99.

#11. Library

We have not gotten around to using this one yet because I am such a book hoarder we haven’t needed to. However, I have several friends who are using the library’s ebooks every single day. I need to dig out my library card and try this one out.

I will say silent reading time is my FAVORITE subject of the day. I set my oven timer for 30 minutes, and that is the quietest half hour we have all day. I use it to start cooking dinner.

#12. Prodigy Math

My nine-year-old loves prodigy math. He logs on there and plays math games and battles dragons and wizards and other kids. They battle by solving math problems. It’s a hit.

#13. Helpful YouTube Videos

Here a few YouTube videos we have enjoyed:

Social Studies:

CC Timeline Song in its entirety

Tour the States music video

Tour the World music video

Math:

Geometry Song (area, measurements, etc.)

Counting by 3s

Multiplying by 7s

There are countless fun multiplications songs and such on YouTube.

Science:

Science Songs (atomic number, periodic elements, creation & evolution, etc.)

Cell Songs (parts of the cell)

There’s a whole National Geographic channel. The Weird but True ones are our favorite.

#14. Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems

If your kids like the Pigeon books or the Elephant and Piggy stories, they will love these art lessons with Mo. He started this series specifically for all the kids at home due to coronavirus.

My first grader is a big fan.

#15. NASA Kids’ Club

This is one that I just discovered, but if your kids like to learn about space, this looks like an obvious win.

If you click on “Fun activities to do at Home” it takes you to crafty science projects. There are also puzzles you can print out.

There are videos and photos to look at. This website is more of a resource than a game place, though it does also have a few games.

We are all in this together! Add any of your family’s favorite school websites or apps in the comments below.

Okay, I am off to decompress. I feel like I have earned some Tri-Peaks Solitaire time, or maybe I will just take a nap…

The post 15 Helpful Websites and Apps for Your Quarantine Home School appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

And just like that, the whole country became home school families!

Does anyone else feel like a month has passed since last Wednesday? Our “cancelling school” announcement came on a Thursday night, and that was the day the world felt like it began to unravel. Then we all sort of went underground.

Now you know this all feels extremely ironic to me. I said I would never home school again. It was not for me. Honestly, I was a bit scared of this task. I tried it before. for two years, gave myself v-tach repeatedly, and then they boys returned to school. V-tach is a dangerous heart arrhythmia that is rare, and most of you do not need to worry about it. I have much to learn in the way I handle stress, so I take heart pills now. Really I should probably return to full on anxiety pills too, but that is a topic for another day.

I have good news.

So far the second act of home-schooling our four boys has gone drastically more smoothly than our first try. Still, I won’t count our chickens before they hatch. I am sure this could all still go horribly wrong. In the meantime, when I start to feel like the room is too chaotic for me, I make them all chant that mom is in charge several times, threaten to take away all video games, and then things calm down.

In fact, I did take away video games from two unfortunate ruffians today who forgot Mom was in charge, and that is THE KEY to maintaining order: making good on any threats/promises. Consequences are obnoxiously important.

The hardest thing about home school for me has always been the chaos. I like things to be quiet and somewhat peaceful, which is hilarious because I have four children. In an attempt to control my environment, I make schedules and lists like this, and it helps a great deal:

My motto is that the times themselves are not important. They are a loose guide to remind me to give recess and lunch and not forget anything I had planned to do. As they say in the Army, “The plan is nothing, but planning is everything.” Well, I think they say that in the Army. Someone says it. If they don’t say it, then they should.

So many questions

This week brought up so many questions for us. Did it for you too? I texted my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law because they both taught middle school for years. I do not know the first thing about teaching middle school. Elementary school is where my experience lies, but my eighth grader has informed me that my activities are “for five-year-olds.” This is an exaggeration, of course. I am not teaching anyone how to read or count. But at the same time, he’s right. My stuff is elementary, so I have been frantically digging for how to level things up.

People have sent me questions too.

Ah, feeling useful felt good. Thank you for asking me questions. The questions I was asked were about home schooling school-aged children when you have a toddler underfoot. This is what I told her, just off the top of my head. It isn’t much, since this was all via text message. We are being good citizens and staying socially distant.

Ideas/advice for someone trying to homeschool older siblings when there’s a toddler at home:

-Pray on your face and cry. (hahaha I really wish I were kidding.)

-First, the older siblings have to know that mom is in charge, and they cannot say “no” to any of her directions. They do not say “no” to their teachers, so they must treat you with that same respect.

-Mom can provide choices, but the stress of dealing with disobedience is mind-blowing. (I was having to deal with it at the moment I texted about this, so the feelings of frustration were still raw.)

-My best tip is to start the day with a toddler activity.

-If you need to work with one sibling, put the other sibling in charge of the toddler.

-Do some group reading where Mom reads out loud to all the kids. You can also watch educational YouTube or National Geographic videos together while the toddler plays with a game or toy they don’t always have access to.

-Older siblings can also read to the toddler.

-Find work the older siblings can do online alone, like Brain Pop or whatever sites your school system recommended. One of my kids is learning a language using Duolingo. He likes it, and I am not even involved. We actually use the app version. I think he has learned more from the app than he was learning in his French classroom at school, but the traditional classroom is not his favorite way to learn.

I could talk about home-schooling all day because I am currently overseeing the education of four boys, and it consumes much of my day. Ah yes! Another excuse to spend less time cleaning!

Click here for more of my articles on home-schooling, written back when I spent two years fully engaged in teaching our boys.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for my new book, Tour Israel in Pictures and Stories. It ends at midnight Thursday night/Friday morning. I was so excited tonight to discover that it is currently the #2 best seller in Israel travel guides on Amazon. Wahoo! Thanks for your support, everyone!

Send me any great activities you know for middle schoolers who hate school work, and send any questions you have too. Best of luck you all! No stressing. It isn’t worth giving yourself heart problems. Keep calm and home school on.

The post Life in the Underground Day 2: The Great Return to Home School appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My last post was about how miserable I was as a teacher. Alan must have called me the morning after my first or second day of teaching from Iraq.

What he wrote in response to my hardship is one of the most touching, empathetic, heartfelt letters I have ever read. No, he wasn’t physically there, and yet with this letter you can see how he was still obviously there for me when I needed him most.

Tues., 19 Aug., 2003

6:35 am

April,

I love you, April. I just got off the phone with you, and I’m bursting with feelings of grief, sorrow, sympathy….things I’ve never felt so strongly for anyone else before…only myself!!! April, I hurt so bad for you right now, but indeed, I am giving it all to God RIGHT NOW, our Rock, our Fortress, our Comforter, our Lord.

Oh, April, how I wish there were something I could do, there! Aaaugh!!!

But what this has done is it has forced me to go to my knees and begin this battle by asking for help where the most help will come from!

April, I know you can do it (teach) and do it EXTREMELY well….However, enjoying it is a completely different story! April, if it’s still this bad by the time you get this letter then I have no problem with you quitting.

When you feel bad, it really makes me feel sick at my stomach….literally. And when you said you’ve been too stressed out to eat all day long, I could have cried! Now I don’t have an appetite!

Oh, April, I just love you so, so much. I want so badly to be there with you. God knew this was coming all along just like he saw everything coming that’s happened over here. He wants us to turn to Him for strength! He loves us so much more than we can even imagine!

Oh, April, I love you so much. I feel so terrible, but I know God will get us through this and when it’s passed, the three of us will all be that much closer!

1 Peter 5:7   “Cast all your anxiety on Him because he cares for you.”

April, I love you…and I am praying for you harder than ever!

Always Yours,

Alan

*******

Y’all must think I am pathetically weak to fall apart at such a thing as having a job that I hated. Ha! That’s how it felt at the time though.

Alan took this trial on as his own, not just as mine, even though we were oceans apart. That’s how you support your spouse from overseas. He never once downplayed my unhappiness, even though he was in a WAR zone, and I was simply unhappy at work.

I forged through the first four weeks of teaching.

There was the day I even got to work so early, I set off the school alarm and caused all sorts of trouble. But gracious, why did they give me a key if I also needed an alarm code!?

There were parent/teacher conferences where I faked “happy teacher” as well as I possibly could.

I was an emotional mess. I lost 20 pounds and got down to a pitiful-looking 110 pounds, on a 5 foot 6 frame.

During this time, three soldiers from Alan’s unit, 4-42 Field Artillery, were killed in action in Iraq.

Up until this point, I’d built Alan’s Iraqi world in my mind as not a super dangerous place. This wasn’t anything like the Vietnam War, I figured. Alan was hooking up utilities and working with the Mayor’s office of Ad Dwar. He worked with the local civilians, so he must be okay, right?

Then came the three deaths, and these weren’t faceless names on the news. These were men in our very own unit. Reality once again nudged at me with a pitchfork. “Wake up, April, your husband is in combat. That’s why he gets “hazardous duty” pay. This is real, and anyone you know, including Alan, could be next.”

I didn’t say much about that to anyone, I stuffed my feelings inside…

only to let them come roaring to a head when children in my class made fun of the pledge and danced around making faces and wouldn’t stand up straight and put their hand over their heart.

That was it, the proverbial final straw. I was leading my 3rd and 4th graders in the pledge, and THAT KID kept goofing off and disrespecting the flag, the teacher, the country, in my mind everything, and of course, it had to be the very kid whose mother was constantly bothering me. (Look, I still treated him very nicely. I was professional, but this day his behavior set me over the edge that I was already falling off of.)

So what did I do?…..Well, I went on a tirade, giving the offending boy, his buddies around him, and the entire class, a very thorough lesson on the reason we say the pledge with respect. I reminded them that many of their mothers and fathers, and step-fathers, and cousins, and my husband were overseas fighting for us, and the least we could do was show proper respect. They were passionately instructed on sacrifices made during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. I exalted the importance of respect in general.

The class was silent and wide-eyed. They were like 10. What did they know?

It wasn’t really them I was losing it with. It was me, it was the world, it was everything. That morning I had a high school student in my classroom as a teacher’s assistant. I instructed her to watch the class, and I fled to the bathroom to cry and get my act together.

I stared at my sleep-deprived, red, mascara-streaked, freckle-covered, miserable face in the bathroom mirror. “What kind of a teacher am I? I have got to get out of this!”

Soon after, the administration announced that it was time for us to sign our contracts.

My mind reeled.

Then the moment came. Mrs. W. asked me to come by her office to sign my contract, and I had to tell her.

Mrs. W. was the principal’s wife, but she was also the assistant principal. She was an adorably cute but commanding and accomplished, small African-American woman with super curly hair. If she had asked me to please stay, I might have caved, as she was such a great leader. I looked up to her. It was humiliating to have to confess this to her.

“I can’t sign the contract because…because I don’t think I can finish this job and stay here all year.”

Mrs. W. looked so surprised.

Cue the waterworks. I tried not to cry, but there was no stopping them.

“This is so hard for me to quit, admitting defeat, and leaving these children with no teacher, but this job is too much for me. I cannot do this. I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to admit this. You know Chelsea?”

“Yes, Chelsea, yes,” she listened intently. I know she was in shock. They all seemed to think I was doing just fine.

Chelsea was a student in my class, well known for being capable and working hard. Her mother also supported her well.

“I was Chelsea. I was that girl. Success mostly came easily, and now here I am, and this is it for me. This is my first time to completely fail at something.”

“Oh,” she said, and she said other things, motivating things, and she asked me to please sleep on it, but I knew there was no turning back. I put in my 2 weeks’ notice.

I wanted out of this job as much as you’d want to escape a 0 degree dungeon infested with rats and cockroaches. Teaching was so very not a match for me.

**********

The first week of my notice, I still struggled to get out of bed and go to school. One day I called in sick with a “migraine.” I didn’t have a migraine. I had a bad-life-choices-hangover, the kind you get from regret and confusion.

I felt guilty from lying about the migraine, so I went to work all the other days of my notice.  People there were kind. A replacement followed me around that last week.

She leveled with me, “Why are you leaving? You’re doing great. You should stay.”

I began to actually consider it. That last week wasn’t so bad. Some things actually started to click. It was week 6. My LD kid was learning his own spelling words and reading his own beginner books. Maybe I was making a mistake. Maybe I should stay.

I came in the Saturday after my last day to finalize the 6 weeks’ grades for the report cards. Mr. and Mrs. W. were there going through my class’ papers too.

Mrs. W. talked as she sorted, “All of the assessments are here, April. This is good. You know, we didn’t really believe that you’d quit. We thought you’d change your mind and come in Monday.”

Ever so young and dumb, and still excited about not being a teacher anymore, I didn’t get the hint. She was totally giving me another chance to stay. Perhaps I should have taken it.

I’ve always wondered if I made the right decision that year.

Did I just quit when things got hard? Yes. Yes, in the career realm that is EXACTLY what I did, which sounds weak, wrong, and disappointing.

I re-hashed that decision in my mind for years, but the thing is you can’t go back and fix the past. What would it have been like had I stuck it out, and why didn’t I??

Looking back now, I see so many different things going on. I was immature, and my deal-with-it- tank was already full from the moving away from home and sending my husband overseas in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

There was nothing more anyone could have done for me. It was simply more than I felt I could handle at the time, and I have to make my peace with that and move on. Could I handle that job now, at 36? Yes, it would still be hard, but not the horrible misery it was at 22.

But that’s the thing about the past.

Our mistakes and failures are what make us sweeter, humbler, more merciful people, and sometimes also tougher, more dependable people, so long as we learn from them. I regretted quitting mid-year so much that I have been loathe to ever quit mid-stream again in anything.

You accept the past for what it is and learn from it all that you can.

The post My First Colossal Failure & My Supportive Spouse Overseas appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

***This post is part of the Real Army Wives series, which runs every Monday on storiesofourboys.com. For last week’s chapter click here.***

Sunday, Aug. 17, 2003

Oh, Alan,

I missed you the MOST today!

We had “Back to School” night, where we meet the parents. Everything was fine except instead of 22, I now have 25, and also this grandparent with two children in my class stayed after and basically threatened me.

Yeah. This ignorant, toothless wonder, with a strong cigarette odor about her, told me, in a menacing tone, that her kids will break all my rules, and if I get on to them too much or hurt their feelings, she will come down to the school and yell at me, and she assured me she will yell so loudly that everyone will hear. (Yes, I only wish I were kidding.)

Well, I didn’t say anything in response to that. I dryly and quietly said, “Well, hopefully we won’t have any problems. Did you see their homework folders?”

I drove away from school bawling, not just because of that one parent, but also from so many emotions. After coming home and talking to both of our mothers on the phone, I started feeling better. Then I actually got a lot of work done.

But I’m so exhausted, and I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow. It’s 11 already, so I’m going to bed. I wish you could give me a massage tonight! I need you! I love you.

Love, April

Tues., Aug. 19, 2003

Alan,

Hey! This was the 2nd day of school, and I survived! It wasn’t even torture! It was fine. Yay!!!

I’m so exhausted though.

Today was SO much better. The administration has just been incredibly supportive. I had my kids write about their first day of school today, and that was very interesting. They thought they just had a fun day of school. No one said that I had no idea what I was doing or anything.

But Alan, out of 25 students, I have 20 BOYS!

I wonder if God is preparing me to have lots of sons! Oh, dear! But you know what? Out of 20 boys & 5 girls, I have already seen THREE kids cry, and they were ALL boys.

Andrew cried because he’s just whiny. Michael cried because he didn’t have his breakfast money..Oh!.. Make that 4! Chris cried because he didn’t know if he was supposed to ride the bus or not, and Matthew cried because I gave him a “warning.”

The student that really breaks my heart is my reading L.D. student, Tyler, who sits quietly in my class everyday and when asked what he wants to learn this year, he will tell you the same answer every time:

“I want to learn how to read.”

He tries so hard. Oh, it just breaks my heart. He needs one-on-one help so badly, and no one will give it to him. He is a fourth grader, the age of a fifth grader, and I wish he were spending a reading hour each day with the special ed teacher. That is what he needs, but she seems to have no plans to work with him at all.

Meanwhile, Alan, my friends and family are all being so supportive, and I’m thankful.

Most of all, I’m thankful for the prayers that you and others were saying for me. Let me tell you, God was all over my class today–all over. I have never felt such sincere gratitude towards my Heavenly Father as I do today.

And to you, Alan. Your phone call last night was on my mind all day long. You are just like one of my angels, no matter how far away you may be. I love you so much.

But it’s 10:50 pm, so I HAVE to get to bed. I love you!

Your silly wife,

April

I had little time to spend with my Army Wife pals during this phase, but Sarah would often show up in my classroom after school and help me get everything ready for the next day. I don’t know what I would have done without her!!

That First Week

It seemed like I couldn’t get anything right that first week. I had about three boys who were so unruly, I did not know how to keep them under control. All day I felt like I was having miniature heart attacks. I would get all worked up, my heart would pound wildly, and I’d have these adrenaline surges, but there was nothing I could do with all that energy, which left me just wanting to scream.

This was probably the beginning of my heart problem, but I did not know that then, so life without beta blockers went on..

There were two AmeriCorps workers put in my classroom to observe, or maybe to help, but I had no clue as to how to utilize their help because I was only figuring things out myself. AmeriCorps is an organization much like Peace Corps, only they work here in the U.S.

The sweet AmeriCorps lady, probably in her late 30s, reassured me day after day.

“I feel so bad for you. I know you’re struggling, but you are so nice to them. They need this. Many of them don’t have anyone like you, who is sweet to them. Don’t be discouraged.”

That was true, and it should have been encouraging, but instead I felt like I was drowning in this job. I only had the AmeriCorps workers that first week. After that, they moved on to help in the high school.

There was no planning period, so I was with the children all day long. They didn’t even leave the classroom for lunch. Trays were brought to them, and they ate at their desks.

Alan had been right when he’d said I had not actually spent much time with children.

I enjoyed reading to them and even teaching wasn’t bad, but keeping order felt impossible.

From the very beginning, every single day was a countdown until summer and freedom from this misery. Why had I ever thought I wanted to teach???

Each night I’d stay at school until 6:45 or so, trying to get caught up. Then when the weekend came, I still needed to grade papers and work on lesson plans.

That first week my washing machine also quit working and flooded my kitchen completely. With my work schedule, it took me 14 hours to get it completely cleaned up.

Are there really people who love teaching? I wondered.

I was literally a square peg trying to shove myself into a round hole.

But it was only the first week. Surely things would improve, right?

When it rains, it pours.

My teacher gig did not improve much as the weeks went by. The toothless wonder turned out to not be too big of a problem since half the time she didn’t even bother to send her children to school. Naturally, their grades were suffering.

Another parent kept grilling me with questions about “the curriculum”. Gracious, I barely even knew what curriculum meant. I was making up my lesson plans as I went, which is definitely not what I figured I should tell her…This was my student teaching year! Only because Texas had a teacher shortage, I was a student teacher with no overseer, other than the assistant principal.

The Second Week

The second week of school, Mrs. Brown started sitting with my class during lunch. I was so ecstatic for this 30 minute break from the classroom!! I practically leaped into my Grand Am and sped off to the Dairy Queen for a cheeseburger, feeling like a convict being let out of prison.

Meanwhile, the phone calls from Iraq slid to a screeching halt. Casualty rates were rising, and something was going on with the phones. Almost every time Alan tried to call me, he was cut off after “Hello.” It was heart-breaking.

My neighbor, Shelby, must have been going through something too because she was screaming and cussing people out on the phone even more than usual, so I got to go to bed to the sound of that coming through my paper-thin master bedroom wall each night.

I rarely had any time to spend with my friends anymore. It felt like the lights had gone out on me, and I was suffocating and losing 5 pounds/week, when I was already considered “underweight.”

When you find a job that is your calling in life, or you’ve always known it was something you wanted to do, or you have a knack for it and enjoy the challenge, I think you are better able to handle the negatives of that job. Part of my problem was that I had no true desire to even be a teacher. I knew going into this that trying to control other people stresses me out. Managing people is not my gift.

The truth was that I never actually wanted this career in the first place.

Teaching doesn’t bother me, it’s the crowd control that was killing me, but that’s a big part of being a successful classroom teacher. I wrestled with this in my heart. I hated my job and missed my husband so much, but I had no idea what to do about it.

Come back next week to see how I handled this!

Click here to read last week’s chapter of this story.

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The post Miserable Teaching with 20 boys & the Toothless Wonder appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Sun., Aug. 10, 2003

Alan,

Hey Babe! Tomorrow is my first day of work. In case you haven’t yet gotten my previous letter, I got hired by Graham Elementary School downtown yesterday! Yay!!

I’ll be making $32,000 this year. It’s a state charter school serving mostly low-income students, but it’s located in a church. Yeah, it’s different, but I’m excited about it. I’ll be teaching 3rd and 4th grade in one classroom, all subjects.

It’s going to be tough. School starts the 18th, but teachers start tomorrow. I have to be there at 9:15 am, and from now on, I have a full-time job! It’s exciting and yet terrifying at the same time.

Last night, I cooked dinner for 8, mostly our neighbors: Elsie, Cloe, Annie, Kayla, Katherine, Jay, Phan, and myself. After dinner, Jay left and all the girls stayed and talked while I cleaned up, joining them occasionally in the living room.

I’m glad you met Kayla’s husband. She’s a real sweet girl. She’s enrolled at Central Texas College.

I got those three cameras developed today. I cannot believe you managed to use up 3 cameras in 1 month. And almost all of them are landscapes! Take pics of you and your friends, geez. Just do the method we use to take pics of ourselves, hold the camera in your right hand and click. I do it.

Not all of Alan’s “landscape photos” were uninteresting. This one is of the Tikrit Palace Compound, which became 4th ID Headquarters during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Alan!! I’m so nervous!! How can I be a teacher??

I’m so scared! But it did hurt my feelings in one of your letters when you said you didn’t know how I’d be with kids because you’ve never seen me with children. Hello! Kid’s Klub! And did you ever notice Laura Ellen and Matthew like me? I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but I couldn’t help it.

It’s so weird that I’m starting a new job tomorrow, and you don’t even know about it. I hope you call or email soon so I can tell you. I love you so much, and I hate not being able to share stuff with you. But I’ll deal.

I keep having these dreams that we’ve lost touch, and in them I’m always sad because you never call or visit.

In the dream, I’m all confused, and I don’t understand why we aren’t together. Dream April doesn’t know that you’re in Iraq. Many times you’re just in another state, but always we’ve lost touch, and I’m so hurt.

Depressing, huh? I guess my subconscious knows you’re gone, misses you, and feels abandoned, like a cat in a box on the side of the road. Ok. Ok. Sorry. I’ll stop.

I MISS YOU! I miss you so much I just want to cry! And if I keep thinking about it, I will cry, so I better move on to another topic.

Your family has been really helpful with the teaching job. Your mom and Ellen gave me lots of good ideas, which will help. I’m glad there are lots of teachers in the family.

I love you so much, Alan. Keep praying for me. The first year of teaching is super hard, but add that to the stress of a year-long deployment, and the thought is foreboding. I’m just thankful I’m a Christian. I couldn’t do anything on my strength alone. All credit is due Him.

Thank you for marrying me, Alan. If you were here, I would climb up in your lap and hug you so close and just have a good cry, while you tucked my hair behind my ears and told me everything will be okay. How I wish you were here. I know you do too.

I love you, you big stud muffin.

Forever Yours,

April

************

Was it a bad sign that I hadn’t even started my job yet, and already I wanted to cry?

Starting a full-time job like teaching was exhausting, and I was still trying to be a good housekeeper and a faithful friend. The funny thing is that once you have a full-time job, whether you are a man or a woman, something has to give.

No one can do ALL the things. Even without kids, we have to delegate things to give ourselves space to breathe.

When I was in high school and college, I worked, but I had certainly never been a school teacher before. To this day, I will tell you that all teachers are underpaid, and I have all the respect in the world for them!

***********

Tues., Aug. 12, 2003

10:48 pm

Dear Alan,

I just have too much to do to get to bed early! And I’m sleepy! But I guess you know what that’s like.

I had in-service training from 9-3. I stayed after and talked to Mrs. W. I can’t remember her name, but it starts with a W. There were so many questions I still had unanswered. Mrs. W. was very helpful, and she will be extremely easy to work for.

After work, Annie needed me to drive her to the PX so she could buy a phone card to call her fiancée, Drew, in Germany.

Then I had to drive to Copperas Cove and fill out my “I have a job” form. By the time I got home it was 4:45. I came in and changed, vacuumed the house, tidied up, and collapsed on the sofa at 5:30 or so for a brief break in which I consumed like literally 20 ounces of blue Gatorade in 2 minutes flat.

I was exhausted!

So I made myself dinner, and I was all excited about watching the Miss Teen USA pageant, but I didn’t even really get to watch it because the phone rang. It was your mom, and the call was helpful because I got some good ideas from her. Then my mom called, which was good, but they were both very long calls.

Then I had to get online and submit my application for certifications, and I got that done, and that brings me to now.

I don’t have any idea how full-time workers keep a clean house!

There is delicate laundry hanging to dry all over the place, dirty dishes in the sink, clean, unfolded laundry and school supplies everywhere! I could get much more done if the phone didn’t ring so much, but I know that it is good for me that so many people love me and want to talk to me. Even still, I did ignore three other phone calls.

Oh, Alan! I CAN’T WAIT ’til you get back! I need you! That would help my busy-ness because you can take over the laundry. You’re better at it than me anyway.

Me, in teacher classes. Yes, I used to be tiny, but I promise I do have a right arm. That was an odd angle.

I also learned more about the school and my room today. This school is fine arts oriented. Many children miss out on opportunities for piano, dance, those types of lessons because their parents can’t afford it, like when I was little. I wanted to take dance but couldn’t because it was too expensive.

This school has several fine arts teachers to provide those services. They have chorus, piano, violin, ballet, etc. Really! Pretty cool, huh?

Yet they have no media center…not so cool…But I think it’s a good school, and I’m excited about working here.

I love you, Alan, and I miss you so much. I get letters from you constantly, almost everyday. It means so much to me! You know that though because I’m sure you feel the same way about me.

I know I’m complaining about getting too many phone calls, so allow me to clarify. I am thankful that I am loved. It is a blessing. Calls from you MAKE my day. I love it.

So you just call ANYTIME.  I love you so much, and I always will. Hang in there. It’ll be winter, or at least fall, before you know it!

I love you,

April

*************

I didn’t even get to go into my classroom until the third day of training, and there was such an overwhelming amount of cleaning, decorating, organizing, and planning to do in there.

My friend Sarah was a life-saver. She rescued me day after day, organizing my things, filing my papers, helping me move desks. I couldn’t have done it without her.

We poured ourselves into setting up that classroom, which left little time for planning the actual lessons! I was left furiously scouring the internet for good first-day-of-school ideas the very night before school was to start.

And I’ll tell you all about the first week of school, and the mother I called “the Toothless Wonder” — Don’t worry. Only in my head I called her that– next week!  😉

Want to catch up? Click here for last week’s post and here for the very first post in this series.

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The post True Stories of Real Army Wives: My First Teaching Job appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have never been a highly scheduled person. I dabbled with the baby feeding schedules, but for some reason I could never get the babies to understand my plan.

“No, no, no, little one. You see, right here on the 9:00 hour, the schedule clearly states that you are to be asleep.   WHY YOU NO SLEEP?????”

I get it. All schedules must have wiggle room. Life doesn’t go as planned. Ever. Well, sometimes, maybe?

I married into a family of the most scheduled people I’ve ever met. I’m going to tell you a story before I get to my point here because this story is relevant and unbelievable. Seriously.

Nonna and Aunt Janet came to visit us in 2010. Joshua was turning 5, Caleb was 4, and Daniel was in utero.  We lived in Washington, D.C., not in the suburbs, but actually in the city.

Of course, Nonna came with an itinerary for all that she and Janet intended to do during their visit. Upon their arrival, they discovered that our little boys were super sick with strep throat.

Nonna was undeterred. “Okay. So on Thursday, we’ll do the Space Museum. Then on Friday, I figure we’ll be sick with strep throat. We’ll take a day or two off to rest. On Sunday, we’ll hit the Holocaust Museum and Mount Vernon. Monday we’ll see Arlington, and Tuesday we’ll get ready for our trip back.”

I kid you not, folks, they developed strep throat as scheduled. Poor Aunt Janet, who came down with her sickness in the middle of the Space Museum. Let’s just say that for some people, strep throat is also a puke bug. It was a trip to remember.

Were our travelers caught unawares with this sickness? Heck no. That’s the power of the plan!

My friend Kim convinced me to buy this book:

This came in handy for several reasons:

1. Schedule suggestions
2. THE KIT!!! It includes this sticky tack stuff, which is a must have for the final color-coded-schedule building step.
3. But the amount of priority questioning that has ensued from working on my family schedule still has my head spinning! Talk about staring your choices in the face!

How to Build Your Schedule:

#1. Make an exhaustive list of every single thing that you need to accomplish during the average weekday. If your family has sports 3 nights a week, include that. Don’t forget to include the fact that it takes 30 minutes to get ready for said activities, 15 minutes to drive there, and 15 minutes to get home. All together, one soccer team may actually add up to 5 hours of your week, like Caleb’s team!

Then break that into 30 minute or hour increments. Here’s an example of my worksheet:

my daily activity worksheet

You may find it awfully hard to get everything into 24 hours. Lightbulb moment that you’re trying to do too much….Just sayin’. I certainly have that problem.

That was not my final draft.

#2. Do that worksheet for each family member.

Consult the kids to ask them what is important to them. Make sure they are having time to practice whatever their craft or skill is. I tried to build in time for bicycles, drawing, and baseball in the yard.

#3. The fun part: Get your kit out. Choose 1 color for each family member. Write all the activities on the appropriate size squares. They come in 30 minute squares and hour-long squares.

#4. Cut out the squares, and arrange them on your master schedule: 3 legal size papers with time slots. Use the sticky tac on the back of each square to hold it temporarily in place. 

I did John David’s first. Younger children have the most needs to consider. Older children have harder set times, though. If soccer is at 5, you can’t really move that square around.

Here’s ours:

The morning schedule. This works for 3/5 of our weekdays.

Midday Schedule: Also works for only 3/5 of our days.

Technically, each evening is different for us, so I tried to allow for that with “Soccer/AWANA/Family time”

Now that I’ve gotten all of this done, soccer season is wrapping up, and we switch to the basketball schedule. I don’t think it will change too much, though.

I will warn you. This activity may lead you to question EVERYTHING in your life.

I kept thinking, “Wait a minute. This is crazy. Something more must be delegated!”

Or “Why do I blog at all? Should I drop the blog?”

“How clean does the house really need to be?” *chuckle*  Alan does his share of the cleaning, believe me!

How the schedule has helped so far:

I love that I have a plan in place. Also, I don’t have to be the bad guy with the kids.

“Mom, is this the last thing we have to do??”

“No. Go look at the schedule.”

“Awww man!!”

“Sorry. It’s on the schedule.”

Also, I have gotten more done at school. When the schedule wasn’t written down, by 1:30 I start to run out of energy and say things like, “Eh, you’ve done enough, go ahead.” The schedule holds my feet to the ground with, “Oh, yeah, you really should do handwriting.”

They should. So should I, but that’s why adults get to use computers.

The schedule also helped me find a way to alternate seat work with fun. I don’t know why I’m such a hands-on teacher, but I’ve just accepted that as my teaching style. I’d love to be the mom that has the kids working quietly while I tend to the house, but that’s just not me. I walk them through division, I read to them because I love it, and I hover nearby as much as I can. That’s my teaching style. We talk all day long.

Meanwhile, the schedule says that right now I’m sitting on my porch, when in fact, we are all inside. I’m procrastinating letting JD up from nap while I blog. 

I mean, schedules are a wonderful TOOL, but let’s not marry our schedules.

Hope you all have a good time this weekend, passing out candy to adorable little trick-or-treaters! We will have a Darth Vader, a Boba Fett, a Snoopy, and a Yoda. I promise to take photos, if you promise to do the same!

The post How to Build a Family Schedule That Works appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.