We all need it sometimes.
Today it was Lady A who needed encouragement.
She was struggling with her math facts and was ready to give up. When she first tries learning a new set of addition facts, she is frequently frustrated. We have come up with several ways to encourage her including having her tell the math that it is going down 'cause she is going to beat it!
Today, we tried yelling. Now, I don't allow much yelling inside the house. Quite frankly it hurts my ears because the frequencies Lady A & Miss E reach are painful to me. But today, we yelled. Both of us.
"I am smart. I can do this. MATH IS GOING DOWN!!!"
I also don't allow much standing on the furniture. First, I hate sitting down on dirty chairs and second, most of our dining room chairs are so worn out I never know if they will decide to
gracefully retire break when someone sits down.
Today, we stood on the furniture. Well, the girls did. I kept my feet planted firmly on solid ground.
As I was trying to encourage Lady A, while she stood on one of our dining chairs, I noticed Miss E had chosen to stand up in her chair as well. That was a bit more precarious due to the fact that her booster seat was hanging off one side of her chair. As I told her to sit, I realized she was cheering too.
Miss E was waving her arms in the air and yelling along with us, "Math go DOWN!"
Lady A got the encouragement she needed and after that those math facts were a piece of cake!
