Silly the Clown

We are in homeschool week 5. We are still having fun, but the realization of doing this every day for the rest of the school year is really beginning to dawn on me. I started knowing that I would do it everyday, but today I was thinking how nice it would be to take a break and play or walk or do something else and knowing that all my wants would have to wait until school was done. It's OK, I'm still really enjoying it. (things would be easier if my two younger kids were a bit better)

So, today, I was following a neat set of lessons I found. It said, have the student make his own clown. Then describe the clown and make up a story about the clown. Encourage creativity. Alright! This is something I love to do. Well, Son built the clown. I asked him constructive questions about the clown.

Does your clown have a name? Silly.

OK, does Silly have a hat? No.

Does Silly have hands and feet? Yes.

Tell me something that Silly likes to do. Ummmm.... I don't know.

What makes Silly happy? Ummm...I don't know.

OK, (I start to panic a bit) how would Silly rake leaves? Ummm... with a metal thing on the

bottom and the wood poking up.

Yes, that is how you rake, but would Silly do it in a funny way or would he rake like Dad rakes? Yeah.

I go around in circles with various questions trying to get a creative or articulate answer out of him. Finally I say, Pretend you are Silly, now show me how you would rake the leaves. Son does a little dance. YES!

What are you doing? Raking leaves

Right, but how are you doing it? What makes the way you rake leaves different? I'm doing a dance.

YES! You are doing a dance. Now, tell me a story about Silly doing a dance when he rakes leaves. Ummmm.....

Inside I'm thinking ARGHHHH!

I wish my mom were here. She would know the way to get him to think and talk. I talked to hubby about this today. He told me to forget the clown and next time have him tell a story about his Guild Wars character (a computer game that Son loves to play). That makes sense. I'll try that next time.

Don't send in the clowns.