Balancing Act

Today was an early day at school. That is to say, school got out early. More than an hour early. Given that this is a Tuesday and we volunteer in Kiernan's classroom on Tuesdays, this meant my day was pretty well gone. Oh well. It happens.

But that's just me grousing. What this post is actually about is finding balance.

A basic tension around these parts is the whole homework-vs-play thing. Homework isn't really all that important in first grade. I mean not as far as content is concerned. Not really. It's more about establishing a routine. Helping to set habits for the future when it will matter. But setting those habits and expectations is important. So we believe that doing a bit of homework first thing when we get home is a good thing.

We also believe having plenty of time for play is a good thing. This gets difficult in these "winter" days when it gets dark earlier. I put "winter" in "quotes" because we are wearing short-sleeved shirts most of the time here in Southern California nowadays. At any rate, Kiernan has really been into playing outside with the neighborhood kids lately. We love that. But balancing that with getting homework done is difficult. We want to instill those values of hard work, and the routines of doing schoolwork first thing, but we don't want it to be a chore in the pejorative sense that that word carries. It's a tough edge to walk.

Today was an early day, so it was easier.  When I picked him up I let him play for a bit at the school, as is my wont. I had to look after his friend Oliver anyway, as Oliver's mom had to pick up the younger brother at the same time school was letting out. I intended to let Kiernan play for about an hour after school, so we stayed after Oliver's mom showed up and took Oliver home. However, Kiernan had an unfortunate encounter with a parallel bar, so we ended up leaving the play structure early at his tearful behest.  We got home, and Kiernan immediately wanted to go find his new neighborhood friends and play.

"Let's do some homework first," I said. "Just fifteen minutes. Then you can play outside."

He thought for a moment. "How about two pages of homework instead of fifteen minutes?"

Interesting, I thought. Now you should know that Kiernan is a master negotiator. He's far better at this than I am. However, in this case, I knew he was going to get the short end. It would take him longer than fifteen minutes to do two pages because I knew he would get into it. It was money math challenge stuff and he likes that. So I agreed.

He got down to work with nary a complaint.

Here he's figuring two ways to make change for each number. He's great at this stuff. He finished his two pages in about twenty minutes, because we take our time discussing concepts and working out new ideas.  And when he was finished...

...his friends buried his legs in sand.

We don't always achieve balance. Today we did.

Yay for us.