How Fortune-ate

Am I the only one with these issues? When my boys and I sit down to begin our lessons for the day, no matter if it is a well loved subject or something less appealing, I frequently hear grumbling.

This started with my oldest and has now been acquired by my middle child as well. It is a never ending source of frustration for me. And, to top it off, when a lesson proves to be a formidable opponent, the children dissolve into tears. It is at this point that my patience is exhausted and I want to SCREAM! Argh! Try as I might, I have not been able to find the magic potion to cure these ailments and have been on my knees praying for a change for over a year. And then, I had an idea.

The idea came yesterday while the boys were looking up various ways of folding paper airplanes. It brought back memories of my childhood and how my friends and I folded paper fortune tellers. Do you remember those?
Well, I folded one and put some sayings on the inside that the boys would get a kick out of like, "Jump like a frog" and "Give your brother a high five". They loved it. So, I folded another one with school in mind and sprang it on them this morning. A few of the sayings inside were, "Spell three words of mom's choice", "What does endurance mean?", "What are the seven continents", "Have a snack" and so forth. All of the sayings tied into our lesson from yesterday and was a fun way to review what we learned.

Let me say that this by no means miraculously changed the boys responses to school, and we did have tears again today. ::sigh:: But, I was pleased that we found a fun way to review past lessons and hopefully, with consistent prayer and seeking of God's will, we will get past the tears and continue on the path that the Lord has laid out for us.

Until then, I consider myself fortune-ate to have found another means to incorporate fun into our daily lessons.