What the Heck's a Cinquain?

Homework is not my strong suit.
Actually, no. When I was a kid, homework WAS my strong suit. I was a homework-geek.
But as a mother, I completely suck at homework.
I forget to inquire about it, I neglect to check it, it doesn't get done.
I'm sure my teacher-mother friends are gasping in shock right now.
I know. I am a shocker.

This is why I am a stay-at-home mother, right?
To be there for my kids. To do the stuff stay-at-home mothers do - which includes nagging kids about doing homework.
Miss Fab is easy. She is like I was, a homework geek. If I neglect to do reading with her, she reads anyway. She fills in her own reading log. She reads to Scrag. She writes stories just for fun.

But that other guy, the sporty one, he is the ultimate slacker.
I'm just not used to that! It is beyond my comprehension that a kid would not want to do their best for their teacher, and bring them a shiny-cheeked apple each morning.
But my kid is the one who suddenly remembers at 8.30pm a.k.a. bedtime, that he has to write a "Cinquain" and hand it in tomorrow or his strict-new-substitute teacher is going to keep him in at lunchtime.
That's what did it of course - the threat of losing his football-playing time.
Otherwise I would have never heard about Cinquains.

He's sitting on the couch with his bottom lip quivering at the thought of being kept in at lunch to write poetry, and he's wailing, "And you can't even help me cos you don't even know what a Cinquain is!"
Well, what is it then?
"Its got syllables... it's like... syllables... um... I don't know! See I'm gonna be kept in at lunch!"
Daddy of course is not impressed that he left it until now to mention this.
He is also not impressed that {yet again} I seem to have neglected my homework-nagging duties.

Consumed with guilt, I pack the kid off to bed and turn to my friend Google.
I type in "poem syllables what is?" and hope that I'll find something that sounds like the word Dash was saying; some kind of poem with syllables.
{Because of course he wouldn't know how to spell Cinquain, would he?}

I found it on my first go, a list of poetic devices, styles and rules...

cinquain – SIN-QUAY-N The poetry form devised by Adelaide Crapsy around 1910, supposedly based on the tanka, in which five lines are filled with the syllable count of 2/4/6/8/2.

Alrighty then.
Now I know what a Cinquain is, I can help the kid figure out how to write a poem before breakfast.
Easy.

But what is not so easy is getting myself to be consistent about these things.
What has become of my homework-geekness?
Honestly I am rather shocked at my lackadaisical procrastinating self.
I could get away it when school was all about folk dancing and finger painting, and bad spelling was cute and a story attempt with unreadable writing was still frame-worthy.

But not any more.
Year Five is breathing down our necks.
My husband is right. This is my job.
Making sure my kids are learning what they should be in school.
Not assuming that the school will do it all.
We can't afford assumptions at this point.
You know what happens if we ASSUME {it makes an ASS out of U and ME}.

The old Simone, the one who was the homework-geek with world-saving tendencies could have handled this no problem. That Simone would have been riding Dash's ass from Day One.
She would have found creative ways to get him learning his times-tables. She would have insisted that he tidy up his sloppy handwriting and practise his spelling words.
People described Old Simone with words like Diligent, Reliable, Conscientious.

Old Simone, where are you now?
Gone. She fizzed out years ago.
The now-Simone is more like Often-late, Last-Minute, She'll-Be-Right.

With all the best of intentions, I fear that I am so easily distracted.
I wander off-task. I lose track of the days.
I tell myself, "It's just this once..."
And consistency escapes me, again.

But I have to work with the Simone that's left, I have no choice.
Oh I fear I am not up to the task.
Really, can you hear me crying inside?
I am quivering, anxious, worried that I will fail at this my most important task - preparing my children to go out into the world.

It's not that I can't do it, when I remember to.
I mean, the Cinquain we came up with this morning was pretty great, I think.

I wrote up the syllable count on a blank bit of paper: 2/4/6/8/2
Then I asked Dash what he wanted to write a poem about.
Christmas. OK. Cool.

I showed him how to Brainstorm. Write down everything that comes to mind.
No, don't try and write the poem straight away, put all the ideas down first, then find words to fit.

I prompted him with questions. What words are to do with Christmas? What do we do at Christmas? What is the meaning of Christmas?
Presents. Santa Claus. Hang Stockings. Star. Angels. Shepherds. Jesus birth. Merry.

Here's what he ended up with:

Christmas

Open Presents

Jesus birth, Angels sing

Santa Claus is coming to town

Giving.

OK, so it's not Wordsworth, but it works.
He did his homework - even if it was at breakfast - and he won't have to lose his lunch break.
He went to school relieved and just a bit proud of himself.
I helped him. He learned something. And I learned something too.
I can do this, can't I?

..................
Photos are taken up Mt Albert, my maunga, my place. Decoloured in Photoscape and with the contrast pushed up to make the blacks blacker.

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