School during breakfast, Part 3: Poetry and Habits/Manners

It has become quite apparent to me that I need to work on my titles, because this whole series is getting a little out of hand what with all the extras I keep tagging on in the title. I SO should have asked Mark for help with that. Maybe I'll go back and change it at some point. For now I'll carry on.

I've been sharing about the rotating slot in our schedule that we do at the breakfast table.

Mon | Hymn practice
Tues | Art: Picture Study
Wed | Poetry
Thurs | Habits/Manners
Fri | Classical music
Sat | Silly songs/camp songs/choruses

Today I'm going to cover the next two: Poetry and Habits/Manners.

On Wednesdays, we get a book of poetry and we read some poems.

And I really don't have a whole lot more to say about that. We don't analyze them, study them, write our own poems or anything like that. We just enjoy them.

Right now we're reading from The World of Christopher Robin, and we all love it.


On Thursdays it says "Habits/Manners" on the schedule. This is basically an opportunity for me to have an official time set aside to review the habits or manners I think we're neglecting. We may learn a verse and focus on a particular habit like we did here, but more often than not it is just sort of a reminder-time of how we want to behave. Here's an example:

A couple of weeks ago, during the meet-and-greet time at our church, I saw a woman bend down to introduce herself to my son and ask him his name. He happened to be very focused on pulling a rock out of the bottom of his shoe at the time, and I noted that he very distractedly said hello and sort of mumbled his name. We briefly talked about it on the way home. I tried not to make a huge deal about it but I'm sure I said something about being disappointed that he didn't treat her with the respect and courtesy I would have liked to see him exhibit.

The following Thursday, our Habit/Manners time went something like this:

Me: "Okay, guys. Today we're going to talk for a couple of minutes about what you should do when someone greets you at church. Let's give some examples of what NOT to do-- they think this is pretty funny, especially when I give outlandish suggestions-- and then discuss and practice what would be some good ideas to say and do." Then we take turns being the greeter/greetee, and act it out and giggle together and use funny voices and practice the right way to greet someone.

And that's that. Pretty simple.