Day 20. And There Were Tears.

Today I crossed the line on having my first "inadequate teacher" moment. Not bad mom moment, but an actual lame teacher moment. I know this isn't rocket science, but the amount of information that I am trying to cram into my head in a matter of days is overwhelming at times. I feel like I need a year to learn how to do school, before I can even pretend to actually teach the concepts of three different grade levels to these kids. In a way, it reminds me of when the blessed doctors shut my epidural off, seconds before the pushing phase of delivery with Cameron. No easing into the pain. Just BAM...there it was. All of a sudden I have 3 kids staring at me with 3 curriculums and the options and opinions are endless. Not to mention there sits my stacks of teacher guides, text books, quiz books, test books, lesson plan books, etc. taunting me from the shelves. There are times that I want to throw them into my recently purchased 75% off fire pit from Target and make s'mores over them. Yum.

I didn't go to bed to almost morning last night, so when I woke up this morning, I sleep walked (is that a word?) my way to the classroom to begin school by 9. After about 40 minutes, the kids were finishing a language lesson and then copying their spelling words, Emma was safely tucked in on the couch watching an alphabet dvd. I thought it doable to sneak upstairs for a quick shower. I came back downstairs to a couple of crying kids and it wasn't even Emma. We stopped school and took a break. After a while, we sat down and talked about it. The bottom line is, I need to teach them more thoroughly. They were frustrated and not understanding their work. "Why didn't you ask me for help" was my first question? They didn't have a good answer and neither did I. Is that their responsibility to tell me, or my needed skill set to know? I think they both got confused on the particular lesson and started arguing. However, to add to the drama, I think I need a refresher course in nouns, verbs, and diagramming sentences. There is an exception to every rule, and an exception to the exception. It IS confusing I think!

We talked about the adjustment of school and the difference in learning. They seemed to feel better. The tears stopped anyway. We ate lunch together and now there is just 150 school days until summer.