Up too late again!

It's past 1:30 AM, but I felt the need to post. We have been up really late recently what with our 2007 Homeschool Fundraiser. We sold double the cookies this year and made over $500! We are using part of the money to go to a conference the Kalahari with the Unschoolers! I am sooo excited. I have benefited (sp?? weird, because I think it's spelled right, but phonetically to make the i 'short', it SHOULD have 2 t's... ) :) so much from the wisdom they hold to.
My relationship with my children is reaching new levels, and I am seeing them in new ways. I am also seeing sooo much learning going on that the untrained 'traditional educational' eye I used to have may not have seen. Savannah is doing something more 'educational' lately... she's pursuing her interest in 'plussing' as she likes to call it. (She knows it's called adding, but likes to call it plussing.) Today we sat down and wrote out/talked about how multiplying is just faster adding. I showed her a few simple ones like 2+2+2=6/2X3=6, and 4+4+4+4+4=20/5x4=20. She got it, and then wanted to move on to drawing. I don't push anymore, because I know that they mentally shut down when you push. The other day, when she found out that we had to wait an hour to go to Grandma's for Christmas, she asked to do Math. She actually got out her textbook, and found something (interestingly in the middle of the book, not the beginning) that she wanted to work on. Tonight she wanted to calculate how many hours are in a year. That's what got me to showing her how to multiply to shortcut adding.
She also likes to bake a lot, and make soup, which gives a lot of learning about fractions... that's almost 'cliche' to mention, though... :)
Aaron (who turns 6 today) is still very much interested in spelling, and is reading better and better. The video games he likes, and playing his Webkinz on the computer give him excercise in reading. He just likes to read words and spell them to me, like JEEP off the back of one driving in front of us. He'll also be thinking, and then come out with, Hey MOM! I know how to spell candy! C-A-N-D-Y!
Jesse (my 11 year old ds) is an avid gamer. He rivals his 10 year old brother in this. His latest conquest is to buy a PSP, which he achieved through selling some of his old DS games, and Pokemon cards on Ebay... Lots of real world learning there! He also had some help from his grandparents through a gift card at Christmas. Now he'll be doing more learning in the area of real world values of things through shopping on Ebay. The other day he came up with a question about locks that was interesting. He asked, how did his little sister lock my desk drawer without the key? Weren't there any tumblers in the lock?
I wanted to know how he knew what tumblers were. He said (of course) video games! :)
He has a favorite author now. He has read two VERY long novels by Christopher Paoulini. He mentioned that he is learning a lot about commas and the like through reading it. He said that the author also mentioned that he never would have gotten the novel written without the help of a friend who knew English well. Good for Jesse to see that all that is important in the real world.
I think it's really starting to sink into my head through watching my children that learning really does take place 24/7 with kids no matter WHAT they are doing. I no longer think of it as 'wasted time' to see them playing video games or reading fiction.
Travis is my artist. He draws beautifully.
He sat and edited his younger sisters' post to the UWWG Kids and Teens message board the other night, and caught many of her mispellings, comma places, and capitalization errors. It was reassuring to see that he hadn't forgotten a lot of that.
Jaidyn isn't actually 'school age' yet... although 3 and a half might be preschool age, but she is learning her numbers and shapes through everyday living. She told me the other day that something was in the shape of a circle... I had no idea that she even knew what a circle was! :)
She ABSOLUTELY LOVES to talk on the phone. This has led to learning her numbers, and even memorizing a phone number! It's her cousin Marks', who is 10 months younger than her, and is her BEST (friend she means). :) She recently potty trained (with no spanking involved!), for which I am truly thankful.
Nathan my littlest sweet one is training me to pay just as close of attention to his elimination needs as to his intake needs. I am very much enjoying EC'ing with him! He looks so cute running around in his little thermal long john pants with nothing else on!! I REALLY need to get some pics put on this blog...
Well, I'm gonna regret being up this late, but I just wanted to post again on my wonderful life with my children. I am sooo thankful that I have a husband who not only understands, but wholeheartedly supports my desire to be at home with my kids. He supports us all mentally and physically. Thanks my love, for your unconditional love.

Frustrated with the textbooks

"Word problems are probably a good example. Why do sheets and sheets of inane word problems (do I multiply? do I add? why do they want to break that cookie in half?) when they occur naturally in the real world where they are full of connections and real meaning: "I want to buy this game that costs $50 and I have already saved $20. I get $5 a week in allowance so if I save it all how many weeks until I can buy the game?"; "It takes 45 minutes to drive to Grammy's house and we want to be there by 1pm for lunch. What time do we have to leave?"; "I want to buy this item for $5 and this item for $7. Do I have enough money?"; "We want to build a skateboard ramp. How much wood do we need to buy?" Don't turn these questions into a "lesson" - that would be thoroughly annoying - and would likely discourage the kids from ever asking out loud again (or listening to me if I talk through them aloud). These are just naturally occurring conversations in the course of daily life."

I'm reading this in someone else's blog and thinking, "YES! Heck Yes! Why do I have to make my kids do these dry textbooks? Savannah, my 7 almost 8 year old, can tell me how many Webkinz you can buy for $1,000 even though she doesn't even know the word "division", and would freak out if faced with an actual division problem. She also counts her money that she earns by cleaning for her great, great Aunt with the greatest of ease (and pleasure! :) She also is getting better at understanding fractions while baking, even though fractions have not yet been introduced in her math book. Her second grade math book is dry and sometimes unchallenging. It is soooo not connected to real life! In the past few weeks, I've been using the kids textbooks as more of a "map" to see what they "need to know for their grade level". I don't even like doing that..... sigh.... but my husband thinks they will "get behind", and someone is going to freak out because they've never heard about a greater than, less than sign. AArrrgggghhhh.

Textbooks, version 2.0

We started the dreaded textbooks this past month. The kids and I are resigned to muddling through them, weeding out the unnecessary. Admittedly some of it has been good for us, and downright enjoyable at times. It has provided my the opportunity to carve out individual time with each child. I love that. It made me realize that I had started to live a little faster than I really want to, and slowing down feels good. The kids do about an hour to 2 hours of "work" a day. They write in cursive, we do English and Math and Spelling together, me learning along with them at times, and refreshing my memory of things long forgotten. But the videos sort of fell by the wayside. They took too long for the kids liking, and didn't help as much with explaining as I thought they would. I kind of wanted a "replacement teacher" (or at least I thought I did), and it turned out not to be what I expected. But that's ok! Because I realized that I really do enjoy doing their textbooks with them, in a more relaxed environment. More relaxed thanks to my seeing that textbooks aren't the only way to learn. We don't do tests. I don't grade their work. There's no need to. I do it with them, so I see them "gettting" the concept. And that's all I'm concerned with. I am constantly on the lookout for more interesting ways to teach them concepts, and this may be a temporary fix. But it's working for the moment, and that's good enough for me.

p.s. to Finding My Way

I have written a lot about my kids and their education, and our lives together on this blog, but I haven't mentioned my husband much. He is so much a part of me, of who I am. Our lives are interwoven in and around each others, and yet I don't write much about him here because that wasn't the original purpose of this blog. Even so, he is so much a part of the tapestry of my life, that I must at least pay tribute to him. It is because of him that I have started on so many fruitful journeys in my life, including my journey to unschooling. I thought of so many things as things that I "just couldn't do", and he has convinced me that I can. One of those was going to the 2005 Live and Learn Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. What a wondrous event. Certainly a jumping off point for me. A bungee jump, a freefall into freedom. :)
Thank you my love, for being my biggest supporter and confidant. My very best friend and father of our wonderful children.

Finding My Way

I had an interesting experience yesterday. I "put my Grandpa to bed with a dirt shovel", as Billy Delaney would say. I went to the graveyard after the rest of my family left, and watched the men lower my grandfather's casket into the ground next to my grandmother's. I was the only member of my whole family to see her casket (well, the metal vault her casket is in), since we buried her 18 years ago. It felt like seeing her again, or at least feeling her presence. The lives people live are never what they seem I think. Sometimes the truth comes out, and sometimes it doesn't. Why is it that we are so prideful as to look down on others for their hidden sins, while we keep ours "in the closet"? Some, I think are certainly more harmful than others, and therefore are sometimes best hidden.... but why do we have this psuedo reality that we try to create? Why not publish the drama? Wouldn't life be a whole lot more interesting? I mean, isn't that why we have books, movies, and TV? Because we LIKE interesting stuff... But then we try to keep our life as predictable as possible. We don't want to cry in front of people, and we don't want our kids to ever do ANYTHING wrong, and we "should" all over ourselves daily, multiple times a day... and for what? We only have 80 years on this earth. Give or take a few, and barring accidents or disease....
I want to live to the fullest. I feel like I am doing the best I can for the most part. I have six children. This provides never ending entertainment, drama, love, tears, frustration, love, kisses and hugs, long conversations, heated arguments, dancing, playing, laughter, love, time spent together, trips to the library, 90 degree days spent swimming, sleepovers, the pleasure of seeing them walk, talk, figure things out, grow up into their own people.... and did I mention the love? I've started doing my best to allow my kids to express their feelings. I don't spank them for crying anymore, and I rarely tell them to "stop it" like I used to. I focus on finding out why they are crying, and do my best to help them feel better. If it's an angry crying, and it's happening because they can't have something, then I try to get them a substitute, or just focus on something else positive they are going to get to do. I am stretching my patience farther than I ever have, and I am enjoying it. Please, oh please, God, don't let it be the Zoloft that is allowing me to be this way. I want to live how I have been recently for the rest of my life. With a postive mindset - not a fearful, guilt ridden, distrusting the human race, one that I was conditioned to have. I am reconditioning my mind to have faith in other people. Especially my children. I no longer believe that they are out to "disobey" when they do something contrary to my liking. I know that they are just following their desires. There is no "evil plan" in their heads to do their best to overthrow my "parental control". I don't want parental control!! I want them to be their own persons. I want them to make good decisions for themselves! I want to help guide them for certain, but I do NOT want to control them.
I am finding my way into such a peaceful place. And enjoying the journey.
Of course sometimes I get sidetracked, thinking that maybe the grass is greener on the other side. But I've seen from observing others that it's not. My grass is green, and keeps getting greener. The more I look for things to love, the more I see. Tonight I soaked in the sight of my sleeping little nine month old, Nae Nae (Nathan). His blond hair that grows just around the base of his head (like an old man's) is about an inch and a half long. Just long enough to make a curl sweeping out from his head, and up. Just above his sweet little ear. His chubby jaws hung slack and his little lips hung open in that relaxed with sleep "o". What a beautiful sight. And what a wonderous thing to touch my lips to his sweet velvety cheek and press. I held them there for a few seconds, just enjoying the softness. This time slips by so fast, and we take it for granted so much....
May you savor the details of your life as they go slipping through your fingers.

Still an unschooler at heart

Life has thrown soooo much at us lately. Things started getting tough last November when at 26 weeks my pregnancy got really painful. We made it through that (the kids helped with the housework more than normal), and had a wonderful birth. Our sixth child is a wonderful little boy with a sweet disposition. Just before having him I learned about elimination communication, and how I had unknowingly diaper trained my other children. We started EC'ing the first two weeks almost strictly, but then my MIL left, and I was taking care of the house and children alone again. EC'ing fell mostly by the wayside, but I was at least able to keep it up some so that now at 7 and a half months, Nathan still remembers the psss, psss signal for pee, and will go on cue.
When Nathan was weeks old, I started getting hit with postpartum depression. My seratonin levels had basically tanked. It went from bad to worse. I felt like I couldn't possibly go on, I was so depressed. And then the anxiety hit. I started on Zoloft, and it didn't start getting completely better for about 3 weeks. Thank goodness for Zoloft! I don't even want to think about how horribly bad off I'd be if I hadn't started taking it. I honestly don't know if I would have made it. My kids were what kept me going, but it was a minute to minute mental battle a lot of the time.
Since the Zoloft kicked in, I started feeling good. I am actually able to think positively! It seems like I am actually better off mentally now than I have ever been. I'm normally not the most positive person.
Then the craziness set in with our advertising business. The local scene was not good. We had too much overhead and not enough contracts to support us. My husband started doing long distance driving, which means that I take care of the house and the kids, and all the local business stuff, on top of the finances for both companies. Again - thank goodness for Zoloft!
Today was a busy day. We (the kids, my MIL, and I) all went to our business's garage by about 11:30am. We changed out signs on the trucks, and washed them. It took all day. We left the garage by 9pm. The kids had a lot of fun. They got to play all kinds of things. They made shops (see the post about their basement town) on the roof of my husband's office. They used hoses as ropes tied to the railing, and climbed the wall of the office. They used the rolling office chairs, and the creeper as riding toys out in the driveway. They went dumpster diving (but didn't find anything this time). They watched Toy Story and Ant Bully. Oh yeah, and Travis and Savannah wrote choose your own adventure stories. All this as well as helping to work on the trucks' sign changing.
Jesse and I listened to some of the history of the Federal Reserve on my Ipod, on the way to the garage. Travis must have found it interesting too, because he asked me to turn off 'the story' because it was distracting him from writing his book.
When we got home (after eating a late dinner, Travis continued working on his story until about 11pm. Aaron drew a few pictures of a monster scaring Woody (from Toy Story) while Travis worked on his story, and Jesse searched the internet for parts for his home-made skateboard (actually a Wave Board). Grandma Schooling told him that if it was reasonably priced, she would pay for the parts! So, he wrote out a list to go with the plans he drew up earlier today.
What creativity! Today was one of those days that totally makes up for the days we spend watching movies.
I titled this post "still" an unschooler at heart, because I bought a curriculum this year..... Yes, moan, groan, a curriculum. I fell prey to the "what if my kids don't know what they'll need to" syndrome. Today was totally an unschooling day. I loved watching it. We are supposed to start the new school thing this week. It involves the kids watching a teacher on DVD. We'll see how it works out. Maybe they'll love it. I think what will defenitely help them like it is the fact that I am NOT worried about tests, scoring, or anything right now, if ever. I want them to look at it as a buffet of learning, not a taskmaster.
Well, it's really late, and I am going to be beat tomorrow. But thanks to homeschooling, I'll be sleeping in along with all of my kids! I can't imagine having to drag them out of their peaceful slumber to put them on the bus after a tiring day like today! Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't have gotten to be with them, and they wouldn't have been able to do all that creative stuff!

THE SAL'S: OUR VERSION OF THE SIMS

Recently I've had extreme insomnia. This morning was the most I've had. I awoke at about 2:45AM, and it's now 8AM, and I still cannot go back to sleep!
I know that a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant... only 11 days till the due date! Woo-Hoo!!! But I have also been doing a lot of thinking on many different levels, and this morning my thoughts led me to this awesome idea that I cannot wait to share with the kids!
When I had the idea first, I was thinking of it as an experiment in "real life" for the kids. That got me to thinking.. what did I mean "real life"??? That's really an insult to my children's lives they are leading right now! I mean, what? do they live fake lives right now? No!
So, I changed the name of my idea to Simulated Adult Living. The idea came to me when I thought about how I'd be explaining something to my kids. I was posing a conversation in my head (come on, you know you do it all the time too!) with them about how things like bedtimes work differently when you live in a house with 7 other people, versus if you were deciding a bedtime just for you. I was thinking about how we'd discuss group dynamics versus single dynamics of life. And then how they might think that living alone might be more fun than with 7 other people because you could choose your own bedtime without considering the fact that your little brothers who need more sleep than you would be kept up by the light you are using to draw or read by. And how if you are the 5 year old, for mom and dad's sake of needing energy to go to work and take care of the baby, you need to go to bed at a decent hour so as not to worry them at night about what you are doing, or having to deal with your extra irritability from lack of sleep the next day. Not to mention the health benefits of getting the appropriate amount of sleep for you body.
I thought, wouldn't it be cool to give them the opportunity to experience living alone, if they so chose? They would then see all the fun, comraderie, and companionship, etc.,etc. that would be lacking, and be able to weigh that in their own head vs. the "freedoms" that come with making choices for just one person. Not to mention the pure fun of the experience for them!
But how could I do that?
Well, we could start with having them set up a "household" for themselves in a designated set apart from the rest of the house area, such as the current playroom (soon to be Jesse's room), or the basement. They could stay in that area for as long as they wanted, and come out to socialize for intervals of time... but only as closely related to adult life as possible. Meaning that they would have to have the responsibilities of an adult as well. They could experience for themselves the freedoms vs. responsibilities, and the actions vs. consequences in soooo many areas!
My idea began evolving. I think it was at this point that I realized it'd be sort of like the game "The Sims" which the kids love playing. (Consequently, after doing some research into some of the games options, we chose to take it back because of the access to "more mature" content.)
But since they loved setting up their own adult lives on game, I'm figuring that they'd love to do it in real life as well! We could set up an entire economy just for them! They would do jobs around the house for me, for which I would "pay" them with SAL money. We would research how much a person would get paid for that particular job in the adult world. Then we would keep an account, and they could rent a living space, arrange it how they want, purchase items for their "apartment" such as a bed, TV, decor, etc, etc.. They would also get to research pricing and purchase such items as toiletries, food, entertainment (movies/video games), etc... I haven't thought this totally through yet, because I want to introduce the idea to them and have them help brainstorm with me.
I think it would be a ton of fun, so I really hope they are as into it as I am! I'll keep the blog updated!