新小４登塾１日目　First Day of Juku

English version of this post is available below.

こんにちは、3児ワーママのマミントンです。

長女の登塾初日。

小学校下校後、１時間ほど休憩し、塾へ。１６：３０～２０：００までの３時間半で小テストと３科目の授業が行われます。第一回は国語、国語、社会。各教科の間にトイレに行く時間くらいはあるみたいですが、本人は初日で緊張していたからか、一度も席を立たずに３時間半過ごした模様です。

帰宅後の娘は新しい刺激が楽しかったのか、心配していたほど疲れた様子はなく一安心。帰宅が２０時過ぎるため、食事は家族とは別々。少なくとも週に２回、家族５人が揃わない食卓になる現実について私はやや複雑な心境。子どもの成長に喜びを感じる一方で、この調子でどんどん大きくなって巣立って行ってしまうのかなと寂しい気持ちも湧き出ました。お盆にのった食事を一人で食べる娘を見て、なんだか表情が大人っぽくなったような。「あぁ、なんだか受験生っぽいなぁ」と思うのでした。

その後娘に聞かせてもらった授業の様子や、持ち帰った教科書、ノート類、冊子の数々。科目ごとに宿題の種類、量、配布物も全然違うし、やはり新４年生がこの勉強内容を自分で管理するのは難しそうだと感じました。前回の投稿で宣言した通り教えるのはパパの役割で管理系は私の役割なので、日々の宿題の振り分け方法を考案。購入したのはFLYING TIGERのWEEKLY PLANNER 2021。毎日の予定欄が縦長でスペースに余裕もあるので科目別に宿題を振り分けることができます👇色も可愛いしなかなか良し！

いざ習い事の予定や小学校の授業時間などを書き出し、その日確保できる勉強時間を考えながら宿題を振り分けるのは思いのほか時間がかかり、気づけば深夜。母としても勉強内容や容量を手探りで把握しようとしている状況なので、最初は管理するだけでもかなり時間がかかります。でも初期投資だと思って丁寧に内容を確認しました。我が家は子供が３人いるので、私はこれを９年間続けるのか…と一瞬思ってしまいましたが笑。

今週は祝日もありかなりゆったりと勉強の時間、遊ぶ時間、習い事の時間を確保することができましたが、来週からはどうかな。これから大変な生活が待っていることは分かっているものの、母親の私も新しい刺激に少しだけワクワクしました。

娘よ、これから頑張ろう！！

Hello, I’m Mamington, a working mom of three.

Today was the first day of juku (i.e. cram school).

With only a quick break after school, my eldest went on to her first day of juku class. She stayed in the classroom between 16:30-20:00 (3.5 hours) and the program includes a 30 minute pop quiz and 3 x 1 hour lessons on different subjects including Japanese, Math, Science and Social Studies. Between each 1 hour course there is a quick break to go to the restroom or drink water, but my daughter probably had a small adrenaline rush on her first day and she said she didn’t get up from her seat the entire time.

When she came home a little after 20pm, she didn’t look as tired as I originally expected (what a relief). Perhaps the pandemic and the period of time that she did not get to attend school or be with her peers made her appreciate the classroom environment more than before. I hope she wasn’t lying (I am often skeptical of what my children say which is a bad habit of mine), but she said she enjoyed her first day.

Since she comes home so late, the rest of the family (myself, papa, 6 year old sister and 3 year old brother) all finished our dinners and I had dinner for one on a separate plate to be served when juku finished. Watching my 9 year old daughter eat alone and realizing that there will be a minimum of 2 days per week where the family can’t all be together at our dinner table gave me mixed feelings… joy of seeing my daughter grow up, but also realizing that my daughter will keep growing up and it won’t be too long before I have an empty nest.

I really have to cherish these moments of our family being together.

After dinner, my daughter explained to me what she had learned at juku and showed me the materials and homework that were distributed to her. Seeing the variety and volume of materials, I quickly realized that this program isn’t something that can be managed by a 9 year old alone and that I had to help manage her schedule and workload for at least the first few months until she gets a hang of this system. I looked for an easy-to-understand planner book (photo above), and decided to go with the WEEKLY PLANNER 2021 from Flying Tiger (the denmark variety shop). It has ample space to input scheduling information as well as homework assignments, and I felt that making everything transparent with my daughter was important.

I started reviewing all of the textbooks and notebooks. Taking into consideration the variety of studies, other extracurricular activities, time to spend with friends and allocating homework based on this dynamic information was like a real life puzzle. It took me 3 hours just to allocate and pencil in homework assignments for the upcoming week. It took time for me to digest the materials as well since it is also my first time to see the inside of the juku curriculum, but I told myself that this initial investment to carefully examine that materials will help me in the long run to efficiently manage my daughter’s schedule.

There was a public holiday in Japan this week, so the week went by relatively pleasantly with not a lot of complaints from my daughter regarding her volume of studies, and she got to spend ample time with friends and attend her cheerleading and gymnastics practices as usual. I know things won’t be easy in the future, but this new challenge is stimulating my brain and heart in good ways for now.

Dear daughter, we will get through this and enjoy it while we are at it!