Who needs a time out?

Ooh, me, me, me! Unfortunately, on occasion it is the parent who needs the time out, and not the child. One of those moments happened to me today.

I was getting semi-frustrated as me and Moose were doing our regular school stuff and I was starting to be annoyed because he was having a hard time remembering things we do every day. Other things he remembers so well, but somethings, he draws huge blanks. I know on occasion he says he doesn't know it, but does. It's hard to tell when it's genuine. Today, I think it was genuine. Anyhow, we just took a break from his school activities so I could have a time out. I sat in our school area and sorted out some cards he has that have been in a big heap for a while as I collected my thoughts.

I realized, ultimately, that I was being too harsh and the things he was having a hard time remembering were being presented in a way that weren't memorable for him. He's a very visual/active learner. Just seeing something on the wall once a day and saying what it is, isn't enough for him to really create that memory. As I organized these great cards my parents bought him last Spring when Monkey was born, I realized I had a solution infront of me. There were 3 different sets of cards.

One has the alphabet, with pictures, and a puzzle. Another has the numbers 0-25 with pictures (correlating number of fish). The last has combinations of shapes and colors. (They are really cool.) The two things he's been struggling with are his spanish letters and numbers. I had solutions right infront of me.

He learns them easily enough, but only in one direction. If I put the color cards on the table and tell him to find me "rojo" he can point it out no problem. But if I hold up a green card and tell him to name it, it's much harder for him to come up with "verde". The same goes for numbers. For his numbers in Spanish, he only knows them in sequence.

So I finished my time out and Moose came back to the table and we played some Spanish word games with our wonderful cards. It was so much funner and less stressful. And I had the presence of mind to tell him we could stop once he got frustrated. I don't want learning to be frustrating or make my kid sad. Learning is awesome and fun! Let's hope I can just remember to keep it that way!