Terrible/Perfect

The captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign

Oh myyyyy. After an emotionally and physically grueling three months, I'm pleased to consider that Things are much better. But still, you know...turbulence. I really, really like this new cheesy metaphor. Sometimes you get to get up, stretch, empty your bladder, enjoy the fluffy clouds, take a look at the Grand Canyon, get overly excited about a little plastic cup of Coke. Sometimes you have to plant yourself in your seat and breathe through the bumps. Possibly check that you know exactly where the airsick bag is. I can roll with that. It's so impermanent: maybe this leg of the flight is rough, but we're not going down. I think it might actually do me a LOT of good to think of that cheerful little "bong" sound that they play when the light comes on. For instance, when, oh, I don't know...my first born is relentlessly harassing my second born and taking sadistic pleasure in her tears of frustration. Just in case that sort of thing happens.

So.

Schooling and parenting has been a bit bumpy.

After a waaaaaay long break from doing schoolwork, we're slipping back into the stream. Big Kid was really not having it, but she's adjusting now and I expect that in a very short while, it will be as smooth a process as it can be with this particular child. We're getting back into the swing with math. We use Math-U-See, which I like for both its insistence on mastery and the trouble it goes to to help the parent-teacher help the child achieve it.

We, both the kid and I, needed some mnemonics and structure to grease the process of learning and memorizing the early math facts. She totally groks the manipulative blocks this program uses (and the program USES the blocks in a very systematic, intentional way; they are the primary teaching tool), which are cementing everything for her beautifully.

We've had the program for a bit over one week, and so far she's been doing one lesson a day, just reviewing the material and testing out of that lesson. The lesson she did today had a bit of algebraic thinking, which was cool. It took a split second of explanation and she absolutely got it, and gets how to use the blocks to express relationships between numbers. She seemed to find number bonds (from her last curriculum) confusing, even though it's absolutely the same concept. Kids are different. Go figure.

Having Little Kid around when we're trying to do all of this is super frustrating. The child who will quietly play with Play Doh or count some beans she is not. C'est la vie.

On and on we roll. I'm looking forward to summer. My rapidly growing little tomato plants are making me giddy.

The Grammar of Our Civility

I'm mulling a classical education for the big kid. It wasn't something I ever thought would appeal, but the more I consider it the more I feel that a rigorous liberal arts and sciences education is an excellent fit for her. She has a supernatural sort of intellectual patience. It's unusual, I don't know that I can very well relate to it, but there it is. I'm extremely interested in reading The Grammar of Our Civility. Still not sure about teaching her Latin. We have time to figure it out. I think.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine

If you can picture Ralphie opening his mailbox every day for weeks, you know the kind of anticipation and excitement that this (actually quite large and special) patch inspired in the big kid. It arrived in the mail today, with a really nice letter, even, on United States Department of the Interior letterhead. Some of the activities were simple, but some were surprisingly involved and difficult. It took her several weeks of significant effort to do, but she pushed forward, earned the patch, and made herself proud...which makes me proud, too. And if they want to essentially advertise national parks and the preservation of wild spaces and historically significant sites to my kid, by all means. We will drink that Ovaltine.

Borrowed Lent

This is what homeschooling has been looking like. Molting teenage eagle, very cold, very rainy bird watching, reading, wonderfully nerdy educational websites. We've been busy, too, but at home, when we're alone, it's simple and quiet. Winter stuff.

A friend of mine is observing Lent right now, so I decided to give up using the internet as entertainment. Ash Wednesday served as a fine start date, but I'm not giving it up for 40 days. I'm hoping it will be the new normal by then. I don't mean that I will NOT EVER EVER AGAIN look at a silly website or read the news or whatever, but I have a strict policy all written up. Web journaling is one of the small concessions to non-utilitarian interneting, something creative (between the writing and the photographing) that I can do for a bit, of an evening, after the kids are in bed. End of day two, and I feel very much checked into my life. My kitchen is tidy. There's actually far more time in a day than I realized. I think I might start reading poetry, or something indulgent like that.

I'm doing this Seinfeld thing to try and deal with my procrastination problem, too, which I find humorous and exciting. It needs to work because I'm suddenly rather seriously committed to a few volunteering gigs and I can't let people down.

This is good. Time is mine. My world is mine. The children grow and grow and grow, I don't wish to miss it.

Poetry suggestions welcome.

This way

Things are going pretty awesomely right now. The trajectory is awesome, anyway. I'd been feeling iffy and a little fail-ish about homeschooling and now I'm not. It rules. We're busy but in precisely the way I envisioned us being as a homeschooling family: taking on a bunch of what would be extracurriculars if the kid was in school, but are the core of her "out there, in the world" life since she's here at home during the day. Girl Scouts, 4-H, classes, clubs, church. The ratio of adults to kids in her life is always between 1:2 and 1:5. That pleases me.

One aspect of homeschooling that I hadn't thought of or predicted, and that I am coming to hold near and dear to my heart, is that a pretty significant portion of our lives, which flows so completely as an education, with very few boundaries or demarcations, is spent in the development of personal character. We have chosen a number of activities that quite explicitly deal with being a good and kind-spirited human, and she takes them quite seriously.

We are so busy now. Every day there is something. She gets enough connection to other kids. She's happy. Energetic. She never asks about public school. She pesters me to get out her life science labs.

She was working on her math the other day and the little one, who's just turned three, demanded that I get out her math book. She doesn't have one. I told her I'd get her one and she got really excited. So I guess we need to do that now. Some kind of "math" for her to do.

The little one and I will read our way through this list, too. I had finished them all with her big sister by the time she was 2 1/2. Just as a fun thing to do. The little one is barely able to sit through one picture book before she snatches it from you and "reads" it to herself. Funny. Okay, I hope. I assume she's just walking her own path. I try hard to take them on their own terms.

I sometimes think about the long term, and what I want to give them. We've made this unconventional choice, taken on some different freedoms and responsibilities. Why? I feel clear on how I want our here and now to look and feel (slow, for starters) but what do I want them to walk out into the world with? And it seems that, really, if they're solid in their values-values that have been interrogated, put on, worn, and lived in,if they are able to think critically, and if they can express their ideas clearly? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Those are the stars we'll steer by.

What's going on in the box

I always kind of half joked that once our big girl started really reading, we would lose her to books.

Ha ha...ha...eh.

This is what she does for many, many hours of each day: she sits in her large packing box, with a pillow and a book and a light and maybe a Ryvita, if Mr. Terrible gives her one even though I have stressed the inadvisability of letting her eat someplace where we can't see her at all, and she asks us to fold the lid closed, and she reads.

Mr. T and I had a really strange conversation today about whether or not we should allow her to sit in the box and read all day. I argued that since she'd been to church with us in the morning and socialized with her friends, and played out on the cold, cold playground for an hour or so with her sister, I could not think of any justifiable cause for forcing her to get out of the box. He was just worried (worrying is one of the things that Mr. T does best). I have to think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that if she's getting dressed in the morning, taking a bit of exercise, seeing her friends, eating regular meals, sleeping, and bathing (which she is), I suppose all we can do is relax and keep feeding books down the chute.

Lift the box flap and SHWOOP...there goes Narnia...and Harry Potter...and the entire world of Oz...and Edward Eager...and Alice in Wonderland...and Roald Dahl...and Pippi Longstocking...and Terry Pratchett...and those cat warrior books...

Gone. Poof. Lost. 

She is going to be pissed when she realizes how carsickness works.

The Reader

She said she will read one book a day for three weeks: a sweetly arbitrary goal. She decided her reward will be a trip to the children's museum. Regular and simple, I don't know why.

Suddenly she's there, up in a tree, all by herself with these long, long pages. She only needs me maybe once per book. "Salesclerk". "Reunion".

It is October and she is six. She is a reader. She reads, she reads, she reads, she is sailing away on the pages of books.

Where did the time go?

Summer reading

I have no idea what I'm doing

I have absolutely no recollection of learning math prior to seventh grade*. None. Obviously I did math. I learned math. We had math. It had been around for a while, as I am led to understand. But I do not remember learning it until seventh grade, when I got to solve for x, which was, I thought, beautiful. My teacher had a mustache and pictures of wood paneled cars on his desk.

I have no memory of learning number bonds. I'm pretty sure we never did. Fortunately the manual is good, and my kid is smarter than I am.** She has it covered.

*I'm being completely serious about this, which frankly worries me: I remember teachers, and classmates, but I don't remember lessons, of any kind, prior to middle school except the one about getting your period. I do recall that.

**Just so we're clear, it's not an issue of not being able to do the math myself, it's not being familiar with the teaching method. I'm fairly confident adding within ten. 

Doing it ourselves

My big girl is in her very last week of preschool (I heard about nothing but ballet recital minutiae last week, and I suspect this week I will hear about nothing except Thursday's ice cream party), and as that chapter of her young life comes to a close I'm busily getting prepared for the homeschool studies we have ahead of us this summer and fall.

There are many routes to take in home education, just as there are numerous schools of thought and practice in private education (far less so in public schooling, more so where there are charter options). Montessori and Waldorf can both be adapted for use at home; there is unschooling, Charlotte Mason, Classical education, unit study, learning centered around religious beliefs, and so on. And, because you're not part of any institution, you can mix and blend practices without anyone teling you that you can't do that. One of the greatest beauties of home education is the liberty to choose what is best for your child and for your family.

I am most closely aligned with the Charlotte Mason school of thought, which emphasizes "living books" (as opposed to text books) and I love unit study (the college I went to runs its classes primarily on a unit study model). What we're doing, beginning this summer, is a well-considered hodgepodge:

Math: We are working in the first half of the Singapore Math first grade curriculum. She loves it. I haven't used Miquon Math yet, but it sounds pretty cool. I love the idea of a "math lab". She also has Unifix Cubes and loooooves them.

Language Arts: We started the first half of the Headsprout reading program a very long time ago, but she just recently finished the last two episodes. Despite the enormous hiatus, which was really just us forgetting about it, she was really happy with the program. Although it is quite expensive we'll probably do the second half this summer. She will also need to do handwriting practice; we'll likely use Handwriting Without Tears. And! Books. Books books books books books. Out loud by mom and dad and her and audiobooks. Books.

Science: My kid sincerely enjoys every subject, but this is probably the one she is most passionate about. We were going to do unit studies based on her interests, but she rattled off a huge list of Life, the Universe and Everything, so we're going to use the R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey: Earth and Space Science curriculum for its comprehensive, developmentally appropriate content, great labs and library resource lists. This is an area particularly suited for field trips, which is, if you ask me, one of the crowning jewels of home education: the increased opportunity to get out there in the world and look at stuff.

Social Studies: This was really, really tough for me. I was a history major in college, and I am not happy at all with the curricula that are offered for home school. Maybe I'll write a children's survey of world history someday: Guns, Germs and Steel for Kidz!, or The Young People's 1491. As of right now, we're going to do social studies as interest-driven unit studies. She would like to study early humans first, which dovetails in a very exciting way with...    

Art: ...art! She is developing an interest in visual art, and, somewhat amazingly (to me) art history. If we do any kind of survey of world history this year it will be through the lens of art history. HIstory of Art for Young People looks great, and she has a specific interest in cave art, so we will look at some library books on the subject. Cave of Forgotten Dreams is out just at the right time! We will also be doing an art project once a week or so using a new technique or interesting materials, plus all of the drawing and whatnot that she gets up to in her free time.

Music and Theater: She would love to play the cello, but we may not have the funds to make that happen (see Health and fitness below). We've talked about piano, too, but we'll have to see what works with our budget. Music appreciation is a very easy area for her, so that will unfold with her interests and passions. We'll get CDs, DVDs and books from the library, pay symphony, theater and opera visits, and take drama classes and theater performance, maybe, someday, if it's reasonable (three classes at a time seems like a sensible upper limit, and we're reaching that already).

Health and fitness: Another one of the nicest things about home education is that you can get kids out and moving a much greater percentage of their day than public schools can (I am absolutely appalled by the degree to which children's recesses and P.E. classes are being cut). She will take swimming lessons, continue with ballet and is pushing for Highland dance. This is where funds get tricky (although we have the time, which is the big issue for families with working parents and kids in school): cello or Scottish dancing? Hmm.

...and, that's us for next year, plus...geez...church, Girl Scouts, park group days, possibly group language classes?

Let's roll.