Wednesday Mornings

Wednesday mornings are women's ministry time at the church. I have a pile of homeschool kids to care for those days. I'm not sure how many of them there are; some who were registered have never attended and others started late and I just deal with each week as it come! The children are supposed to come with 2 hours of work, although I'm pretty flexible about "work" as long as they are doing something quiet and independent.

My groups:

1. The older girls (the 11 and older group) meet in a corner of the auditorium. They're technically unsupervised, but with a group of ladies meeting across the room, I'm not too worried about them!
2. The older boys (the 12 and older group) meet in a classroom and are supervised by one of the dads who is also one of our pastors. Past experience has shown that this group should not be left alone as they tend to neglect any school work as they get louder and louder.
3. The little guys (5 and 6 years old) have a couple of the young ladies supervising them and helping them with work. There's a lot of colouring going on in that room and probably more chatting than there should be, but they are very small. They're also the exception to "bring 2 hours of work"; after the mid-morning break, we have activities for them to enjoy.
4. The middle group (somewhere around 6-8 years old, with a couple older ones thrown in) are sometimes supervised and sometimes not, depending on whether or not I can get one of the older girls to help. They're pretty good on their own; they're old enough to do their work and young enough to feel very grown up when I leave them alone!
5. The boardroom kids (around 9-11 years old) have a couple boys who were causing some trouble by talking too much and being inappropriate (bathroom talk and pictures), so one of the high school boys supervises them now. When he's not available, they try very hard to prove that they can behave on their own!

Those are my kids and I love hanging out with them, although I don't spend much time with the older kids. The study runs from 9:30-11:30, and my morning is broken up into 30-minute blocks. The first block is for making sure everyone is settled; helping with computer issues for the older kids (and reminding them that their technology is only to be used for school purposes); doing a quick check on the older girls to say hi, make sure all is well and answer any school questions they may have; making sure the activities are ready for the littles; making sure there is extra work for any middles who finish early; going over things with the middles (I'll be in the board room, if there's a real emergency go across the hall and get Pastor Adam first, you can take your break when the big hand is on the 5); and greeting the latecomers.

Then it gets fun. The next two blocks are trivia times, first with the boardroom kids and then with the middles. We like Professor Noggin and have many, many decks of nature, countries, history, and science cards. There is a lot of laughter, some arguments (fewer now that "argue with Miss Dorothy about the answer will result in your team losing a card), stories based on the questions, and a general increase in the knowledge of random facts. This month we added the Human Body deck, so there's also some appreciation of the more disgusting information!

Between the two groups is break time (10 minutes regardless of when they start; the boardroom group sometimes goes over a bit as we're finishing the game). When I finish with the boardroom kids, I pop in to let the older boys know they can take their break and to talk with them for a couple minutes. The other groups know when to start their break (I suspect that Pastor Adam does as well, but he waits for me to come anyway). 

After I finish playing trivia with the middles, I stop by the littles' room to tell them to tidy up whatever activities they've been doing and I'll be back after I check in with the boardroom kids. I do a quick check to see that all is well and answer any questions they may have, and then head back to my littles for story time. Depending on how long I take in the boardroom either they're just finishing tidying up or I have a row of students sitting on the tables waiting for me (sitting on the table is a story time treat). We read and discuss the books until the moms show up and another Wednesday morning comes to an end!