It's almost 11pm. My children are all asleep except for the older two. Jesse is waiting for me to finish my blogging and internet reading, and Travis is falling asleep. Jesse will be sleeping in my bed tonight (along with Nathan, who is still breastfeeding). My wonderful husband, who normally shares my bed, is in Chicago again - working hard for his family. Actually, at this moment, he's enjoying the Ohio Buccs football game. (Of course he'd be enjoying it more if they were winning :)...
My whole house smells WONDERFUL! We had a REALLY nice day for an Ohio winter today. 63 degrees and some sunshine!! What a rare treat!
Savannah, Jesse, Jaidyn, Nathan, and I went for a walk to visit Jaidyn's BEST, Markieloaf. Translated from 3 year old speak, it's her cousin... her best friend, whose name is Mark, but whom she has dubbed Markieloaf.... :)
He recently broke his elbow in a freak horseback riding accident at the ripe old age of 2 and a half. It occured in his living room, on the back of his loving, used to be overprotective, mother! What a thing. Poor kid had to have surgery to pin his elbow back together. But I heard from a close source that both he and Mom (his mom) took it wonderfully, with only a minimal amount of crying on both of their parts. :) If you are reading this Laura, I commend you. You are a wonderful mom.
ANYWAY... back to our wonderful rare spring day in the beginning of January in this temperate climate.... We walked to Markieloaf's house, only to find the he wasn't home. Pinned little arm, and all, he must have been out shopping. Maybe he got stir crazy! :) So, we decided that a little excercise in the fresh air would do us good, and we snuck inside their house to find some gardening tools. (thier front door is usually open). All I could find was a hammer, and a rubber glove, but these served well enough for us to help them pull the little pricker weeds out of their front landscaping. At least the obvious stuff as you are going up the front walk. Savannah, Jaidyn, and I had fun pulling them out, dumping them in their trash can, and then sweeping their walk for them with a broom that I found in their laundry room. I hope they don't mind the dirt we left on their broom, and in the claw of their hammer! We left as much dirt as we could in their landscaping. :)
While digging out the weeds, I found a SAM! This is Jaidyn speak for a WORM. She and Savannah transported it to our house in the stroller's cupholder, with enough wet dirt for it to enjoy on the way. They then stayed outside digging in the dirt for more sams for quite a while. The warm weather attracted all the kids outside eventually to lay on the deck in a pile of blankets and pillows. They took turns serving each other the cut up apples and peanut butter sandwiches I made for them (well, to give credit where credit is due, Travis actually finished making the sanwiches by putting on the jelly). They were each the servant or the royalty getting served at one time or another. What a beautiful thing to watch my children play together.
Well, I am getting tired now, and I want to reserve my energy for the week. I'll have to blog later. But quickly before I go... for recording purposes, I'd like to mention that we worked on geometry this week. Jesse, Travis, Savannah, and I sat around the kitchen table with Jesse's 6th grade textbook, playing with angles and 3D shapes, measuring, drawing, and discussing the angles of rollercoasters and rooflines, and how many faces an object had. Travis drew a triangle, and Jesse a cylinder. They needed no help, they drew them quite naturally. Drawing 3D has always been difficult for me... maybe I'll learn now! :)
Oh yes! Jaidyn is learning her numbers! She loves to call Markiloaf all the time, at least once a day, and she has his phone number partially memorized, and can pick out some of the numbers. She asked me to write down some phone numbers the other day so that she could see what they looked like. She wanted Markie's, Bella Roses', Grandpa and Grandma Schooling's, Aunt Nonan's, Grandma Frase's, and Grandpa Hach's.... What a thrill to see your child seeking an education from you! She's been able to count to 10 and higher for quite some time now, and she can sing her ABC's. I am looking forward to when she starts pointing out letters and naming them.
Maybe I'll get out the spell and say that Aaron learned his letters on at 4 years old. :) He is reading short phrases now.
Ok, bed time. Good night.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, October 26, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Monday, September 10, 2007
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Aaron has taught himself to read!
Tonight, Jaidyn, Aaron, and I were the only ones home for a little while. Jaidyn's favorite book right now is "Richard Scarry's Cars, and Trucks, and Things that Go". She has suddenly become very interested in reading books in the last few months.
Anyway, this book has a little goldbug on every page that you have to find. He hides really well. She calls him "bee". I'll turn the page, and she says, "Where bee?" And when she finds him it's "There sis!" Translated means, "there he is!" :)
So, we were finding bee, and Aaron wanted me to read what the pages said, instead of just finding the goldbug. So I started reading. And then he tells me, "I know what that says..." What? I asked. "Mustard" he says. Now I'm not sure at this point whether he has memorized this, although I don't remember reading that part because it was part of a big glob of words we don't usually read.... or if he just thought it looked like a mustard truck because it was yellow... but it's not at all shaped like a mustard bottle, so it could have been a yellow tube of toothpaste...
So, I asked him, "How do you know that, Aaron?" He says, "I read it!" I am excited, but still skeptical. So, I pick out some words, and say, "so what does this say?" He tries to guess by what it's a picture of, but I tell him, "No, you have to sound out the letters." So we go through a couple of words. He knows the S, T, E, L, and A sounds really well. I had to help him with some blends like OY, OU, and SH, and some sight words like THE and THEY. But on the whole, he started sounding out words like LAST, FOR, TIGGER, IS, and even TIME! I was blown away. My son has never been to any kind of preschool, traditional school, or even been in a homeschool curriculum!! Yet he is reading!! And I would bet money that within 6 months (or a lot less) I will be blogging that he is reading books on his own! Real life learning really does work!! You DO NOT need textbooks! Just an interest in learning, (Aaron's part) and a willing helper (that would be me most of the time). What a privilege to be a parent, and observe this phenomenom!!
I had to add to this post after I looked through our pictures last night. I'll try to add a pic to this post too. When we took the kids to the Kalahari Resort and Waterpark for Christmas this year, one of the things we did was play a few games of Candy Bingo. The kids had bingo boards that had the name of a candy in each square. They used sweet tarts for markers. Aaron had his own board, and I sat by him thinking I'd help him read. But he didn't need as much help as I thought he would! Whenever the lady doing the game called out the name of the candy, he listened to the first sound of the words, and found the right square! It was so cool!
Anyway, this book has a little goldbug on every page that you have to find. He hides really well. She calls him "bee". I'll turn the page, and she says, "Where bee?" And when she finds him it's "There sis!" Translated means, "there he is!" :)
So, we were finding bee, and Aaron wanted me to read what the pages said, instead of just finding the goldbug. So I started reading. And then he tells me, "I know what that says..." What? I asked. "Mustard" he says. Now I'm not sure at this point whether he has memorized this, although I don't remember reading that part because it was part of a big glob of words we don't usually read.... or if he just thought it looked like a mustard truck because it was yellow... but it's not at all shaped like a mustard bottle, so it could have been a yellow tube of toothpaste...
So, I asked him, "How do you know that, Aaron?" He says, "I read it!" I am excited, but still skeptical. So, I pick out some words, and say, "so what does this say?" He tries to guess by what it's a picture of, but I tell him, "No, you have to sound out the letters." So we go through a couple of words. He knows the S, T, E, L, and A sounds really well. I had to help him with some blends like OY, OU, and SH, and some sight words like THE and THEY. But on the whole, he started sounding out words like LAST, FOR, TIGGER, IS, and even TIME! I was blown away. My son has never been to any kind of preschool, traditional school, or even been in a homeschool curriculum!! Yet he is reading!! And I would bet money that within 6 months (or a lot less) I will be blogging that he is reading books on his own! Real life learning really does work!! You DO NOT need textbooks! Just an interest in learning, (Aaron's part) and a willing helper (that would be me most of the time). What a privilege to be a parent, and observe this phenomenom!!
I had to add to this post after I looked through our pictures last night. I'll try to add a pic to this post too. When we took the kids to the Kalahari Resort and Waterpark for Christmas this year, one of the things we did was play a few games of Candy Bingo. The kids had bingo boards that had the name of a candy in each square. They used sweet tarts for markers. Aaron had his own board, and I sat by him thinking I'd help him read. But he didn't need as much help as I thought he would! Whenever the lady doing the game called out the name of the candy, he listened to the first sound of the words, and found the right square! It was so cool!
Monday, November 13, 2006
An expert's article on kids learning at play
When is Playing Not Playing?
(No, It’s Not a Trick Question)
By Dana Johnson
“There is a tremendous hunger in our culture for true play,” says Dr. Stuart L. Brown, an M.D. who has spent years studying play in children. He is among a growing number of doctors, psychologists, child development specialists and other professionals who are speaking out on the apparent lack of true play in children today.
Are they right? Are our children starving for play?
What exactly is play?
To be defined as play, most researchers agree that children’s activities must meet five criteria:
Play must be pleasurable and enjoyable.
It must be spontaneous and voluntary.
A play activity contains an aspect of make-believe.
The player must be actively engaged in play.
Play must have no extrinsic goals.
While most children probably engage in play activities that meet some of these criteria, an activity has to meet all five to be considered “true” play. Activities for children today seem to be lacking in two primary areas: “The player must be actively engaged in play,” and “Play must have no extrinsic goals.”
Today’s passive entertainment
Many toys on the market today encourage passive rather than active play. In this age of high-tech toys, children frequently push a button and are entertained by watching play happen. The construction of the toy sets up the play activity and determines how it will be played with. The same can be said for many other typical activities for children today -- television, movies, computer and video games. The problem with these activities is that the child is not creating anything using his own imagination. The child is not an active participant in creation of the play experience.
Our criteria above state that play must happen for the sake of play, with any outside goals. Much of what we “play” with children today has the covert agenda of teaching them a skill. Many of today’s toys are “educational,” and clever marketing has told parents that they need to stimulate their baby’s brain, use flash cards with their toddler, teach reading to their preschooler. Some of today’s most popular toys carry names such as Einstein, Genius, Mozart and Scholar.
While there is nothing wrong with children learning through play, the point is that learning happens naturally in the course of true play. All children are born with a desire to explore, discover and learn. The most effective means of accomplishing this is through their play. When playing with water, children learn about weight. In selling food in a pretend store, they learn about numbers. By using toys symbolically, they are thinking abstractly -- a requirement for reading. All of these activities lay the groundwork for learning naturally.
The pressure is on
It is interesting to note that although children appear to be lacking in true play experiences, most parents agree that play is important to their children’s development. In fact, research has shown that parents even know the types of play that are most beneficial to children!
If parents acknowledge that play is important and know what types of play are beneficial, then why are children not playing in this type unstructured free play? Developmental psychologists Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., say that as parents, “we know what to do, but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. We are afraid that if we trust our instincts, our children will be missing out on learning some critical skills.” Their book Einstein Never Used Flash Cards proves otherwise.
Taking back the right to play
It is my hope that those of us who consider ourselves to be natural parents will take the lead in bringing back true play to childhood. Just as many of us take back the process of childbirth, just as we trust our instincts regarding attachment, let us also value our children’s need to play creatively and show respect for the importance of play in their lives.
Play fosters the growth of healthy children in every aspect of development – physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. It really is food for children’s bodies, minds and spirits. Let us nourish them with wonderful “true” play experiences.
References:
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D.: Einstein Never Used Flash Cards (Rodale, 2003)
© Dana Johnson
Dana Johnson is a former children's play therapist and holds a master's degree in social work. She is the owner of Three Sisters Toys, specializing in natural play materials for children.
(No, It’s Not a Trick Question)
By Dana Johnson
“There is a tremendous hunger in our culture for true play,” says Dr. Stuart L. Brown, an M.D. who has spent years studying play in children. He is among a growing number of doctors, psychologists, child development specialists and other professionals who are speaking out on the apparent lack of true play in children today.
Are they right? Are our children starving for play?
What exactly is play?
To be defined as play, most researchers agree that children’s activities must meet five criteria:
Play must be pleasurable and enjoyable.
It must be spontaneous and voluntary.
A play activity contains an aspect of make-believe.
The player must be actively engaged in play.
Play must have no extrinsic goals.
While most children probably engage in play activities that meet some of these criteria, an activity has to meet all five to be considered “true” play. Activities for children today seem to be lacking in two primary areas: “The player must be actively engaged in play,” and “Play must have no extrinsic goals.”
Today’s passive entertainment
Many toys on the market today encourage passive rather than active play. In this age of high-tech toys, children frequently push a button and are entertained by watching play happen. The construction of the toy sets up the play activity and determines how it will be played with. The same can be said for many other typical activities for children today -- television, movies, computer and video games. The problem with these activities is that the child is not creating anything using his own imagination. The child is not an active participant in creation of the play experience.
Our criteria above state that play must happen for the sake of play, with any outside goals. Much of what we “play” with children today has the covert agenda of teaching them a skill. Many of today’s toys are “educational,” and clever marketing has told parents that they need to stimulate their baby’s brain, use flash cards with their toddler, teach reading to their preschooler. Some of today’s most popular toys carry names such as Einstein, Genius, Mozart and Scholar.
While there is nothing wrong with children learning through play, the point is that learning happens naturally in the course of true play. All children are born with a desire to explore, discover and learn. The most effective means of accomplishing this is through their play. When playing with water, children learn about weight. In selling food in a pretend store, they learn about numbers. By using toys symbolically, they are thinking abstractly -- a requirement for reading. All of these activities lay the groundwork for learning naturally.
The pressure is on
It is interesting to note that although children appear to be lacking in true play experiences, most parents agree that play is important to their children’s development. In fact, research has shown that parents even know the types of play that are most beneficial to children!
If parents acknowledge that play is important and know what types of play are beneficial, then why are children not playing in this type unstructured free play? Developmental psychologists Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D., say that as parents, “we know what to do, but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. We are afraid that if we trust our instincts, our children will be missing out on learning some critical skills.” Their book Einstein Never Used Flash Cards proves otherwise.
Taking back the right to play
It is my hope that those of us who consider ourselves to be natural parents will take the lead in bringing back true play to childhood. Just as many of us take back the process of childbirth, just as we trust our instincts regarding attachment, let us also value our children’s need to play creatively and show respect for the importance of play in their lives.
Play fosters the growth of healthy children in every aspect of development – physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally. It really is food for children’s bodies, minds and spirits. Let us nourish them with wonderful “true” play experiences.
References:
Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Ph.D. and Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph.D., with Diane Eyer, Ph.D.: Einstein Never Used Flash Cards (Rodale, 2003)
© Dana Johnson
Dana Johnson is a former children's play therapist and holds a master's degree in social work. She is the owner of Three Sisters Toys, specializing in natural play materials for children.
Smart kids
Today I had a chance to discuss unschooling with someone, and they brought up a point again that I have had other people say to me. Some people tend to think, when they hear all of the 'educational' things my kids do, that they must do these things because they are smart. I've had family and total strangers make this observation.
First off, I would like to say, Yes! I think my kids are smart! :)
BUT. capital B, capital U, capital T.... they do not do all these educational things JUST because they are smart kids! I sincerely believe it is because they have had the freedom to think for themselves. I do not push them to come up with all the things that they do. Their uncle introduced them to the HeroClix game that provides a lot of their superior Math skills. Their drive as young boys provides them with the desire to play this game because it's about playing war with super heroes! I just sit back and watch! This passion has lasted for a good 3 or 4 months now. The boys know that I am happy that it teaches them Math skills, but they are not against it, because it is fun for them, and I don't say, "OK, boys! Time to learn your math! Go get out the HeroClix!" I sincerely believe that if I did that, they would tire quickly of the game, because it wouldn't be their choice when to do it. It would become "schoolwork".
Their passion before HeroClix was the Pokemon card game. It too was a game that provided Math skills, and logic skills, not to mention great reading skills! I sat back and watched them enjoy themselves and learn all at the same time.
Neopets online is the kids latest passion. They all have their own, and the older boys even get online themselves to do it. (after they've ok'd it with me). I get online with Savannah and Aaron to help them with theirs. This is another game that teaches a lot through fun. Reading, economics, math, and so much more. They have to get online every so often to feed their neopets to keep them alive, and then they have opportunity to play games, one of which is figuring out anagrams, to get money to buy things for thier neopets.. Hence the economics (how much do I have, and how much do I want to spend on a given object), and the Math, (now I have to figure out how much I can afford).
Kids learn sooo much through play. See my next post for an article from a "professional with a degree" on this subject! :)
Anyway, back to the original subject. ALL KIDS ARE SMART! Kids just have different interests at different times in their lives. We all know that eveyone is different. So, why do we think that everyone should follow the same curriculum at the same time in their lives? Why can't a child follow the lead of his interests, and be allowed to naturally soak in the "educational" stuff that way? Isn't that how they learned to walk and talk? Did we make them take classes (or go to therapy) if they didn't walk or talk by a certain age?
My kids ARE smart. But a lot of the learning they have done takes place because they are interested in it at the time. It does NOT require a certain type of kid to unschool. It just takes a parent who is willing to have faith in our natural ability as humans to learn, to take the time out of their day to share their experience and knowledge with their kids, and to be humble enough and willing to look things up if they don't know the answer. I like how someone put it... "trying to teach a parent how to teach their kid (homeschool them), is like trying to teach a fish to swim - not much training required."
So please. Don't think that your kid has to be "smart" to homeschool! Although in fact, your kid IS smart! He/she has a God-given natural ability to learn. It's just that after so many years of being forced to learn things that aren't right for them at the time, or even a short period of being forced for some kids, they lose interest in "learning". It has become a drudgery.
Or the fact could be that your child may not be ready for a certain area that you are desiring them to learn in. Maybe just give them the time to mature, like you did when they were a baby, and didn't have as many teeth as some other kids their age. You just waited and trusted that they would eventually get their teeth. The other people's kid wasn't "smarter" because he got his first. Or walked first, or talked first, or recognized people first, or waved Hi first, etc, etc, etc...
You just knew that each kid developes at their own rate, and didn't get worried or upset about it. Reclaim that ability. Don't listen to the "experts" who say that your child is "behind" if they don't know a certain thing at the same time "the majority" does. Just relax. Enjoy life with your kids, and be amazed at how smart they are in what they do now!
First off, I would like to say, Yes! I think my kids are smart! :)
BUT. capital B, capital U, capital T.... they do not do all these educational things JUST because they are smart kids! I sincerely believe it is because they have had the freedom to think for themselves. I do not push them to come up with all the things that they do. Their uncle introduced them to the HeroClix game that provides a lot of their superior Math skills. Their drive as young boys provides them with the desire to play this game because it's about playing war with super heroes! I just sit back and watch! This passion has lasted for a good 3 or 4 months now. The boys know that I am happy that it teaches them Math skills, but they are not against it, because it is fun for them, and I don't say, "OK, boys! Time to learn your math! Go get out the HeroClix!" I sincerely believe that if I did that, they would tire quickly of the game, because it wouldn't be their choice when to do it. It would become "schoolwork".
Their passion before HeroClix was the Pokemon card game. It too was a game that provided Math skills, and logic skills, not to mention great reading skills! I sat back and watched them enjoy themselves and learn all at the same time.
Neopets online is the kids latest passion. They all have their own, and the older boys even get online themselves to do it. (after they've ok'd it with me). I get online with Savannah and Aaron to help them with theirs. This is another game that teaches a lot through fun. Reading, economics, math, and so much more. They have to get online every so often to feed their neopets to keep them alive, and then they have opportunity to play games, one of which is figuring out anagrams, to get money to buy things for thier neopets.. Hence the economics (how much do I have, and how much do I want to spend on a given object), and the Math, (now I have to figure out how much I can afford).
Kids learn sooo much through play. See my next post for an article from a "professional with a degree" on this subject! :)
Anyway, back to the original subject. ALL KIDS ARE SMART! Kids just have different interests at different times in their lives. We all know that eveyone is different. So, why do we think that everyone should follow the same curriculum at the same time in their lives? Why can't a child follow the lead of his interests, and be allowed to naturally soak in the "educational" stuff that way? Isn't that how they learned to walk and talk? Did we make them take classes (or go to therapy) if they didn't walk or talk by a certain age?
My kids ARE smart. But a lot of the learning they have done takes place because they are interested in it at the time. It does NOT require a certain type of kid to unschool. It just takes a parent who is willing to have faith in our natural ability as humans to learn, to take the time out of their day to share their experience and knowledge with their kids, and to be humble enough and willing to look things up if they don't know the answer. I like how someone put it... "trying to teach a parent how to teach their kid (homeschool them), is like trying to teach a fish to swim - not much training required."
So please. Don't think that your kid has to be "smart" to homeschool! Although in fact, your kid IS smart! He/she has a God-given natural ability to learn. It's just that after so many years of being forced to learn things that aren't right for them at the time, or even a short period of being forced for some kids, they lose interest in "learning". It has become a drudgery.
Or the fact could be that your child may not be ready for a certain area that you are desiring them to learn in. Maybe just give them the time to mature, like you did when they were a baby, and didn't have as many teeth as some other kids their age. You just waited and trusted that they would eventually get their teeth. The other people's kid wasn't "smarter" because he got his first. Or walked first, or talked first, or recognized people first, or waved Hi first, etc, etc, etc...
You just knew that each kid developes at their own rate, and didn't get worried or upset about it. Reclaim that ability. Don't listen to the "experts" who say that your child is "behind" if they don't know a certain thing at the same time "the majority" does. Just relax. Enjoy life with your kids, and be amazed at how smart they are in what they do now!
Monday, November 06, 2006
I'm still learning.....
Recently it has been brought to my attention that my posts may come off as demeaning to some people.
I looked through and thought over my posts, and I have to admit that it could appear demeaning to other methods of education and parenting, if you did not know where I am coming from.
Please let me apologize if you have been offended by my blog in any way. I do not mean to offend people. I have a tendency to get over zealous when I discover something that is exciting to me, and tend to "preach" it to others.... sometimes to others who aren't really into it.
So, I just wanted to post again, saying that if you find my blog offensive, please try to look at it as my excitement maybe coming across a little too brashly. I have a tendency as well to worry that I need to convince others that what I am doing is "right" or "ok". I'm working on getting rid of that, and hopefully, with the ridding of it, I will also rid myself of coming across offensively at times.
Thank you for understanding that I am still learning too.
Michelle
I looked through and thought over my posts, and I have to admit that it could appear demeaning to other methods of education and parenting, if you did not know where I am coming from.
Please let me apologize if you have been offended by my blog in any way. I do not mean to offend people. I have a tendency to get over zealous when I discover something that is exciting to me, and tend to "preach" it to others.... sometimes to others who aren't really into it.
So, I just wanted to post again, saying that if you find my blog offensive, please try to look at it as my excitement maybe coming across a little too brashly. I have a tendency as well to worry that I need to convince others that what I am doing is "right" or "ok". I'm working on getting rid of that, and hopefully, with the ridding of it, I will also rid myself of coming across offensively at times.
Thank you for understanding that I am still learning too.
Michelle
Friday, November 03, 2006
More Real Life Math / Parenting
Today was the day that we sweep our carpets... When we use the Rainbow sweeper instead of just the little handheld vacuum, we usually rake them as well. Yes, that's right - rake them. It's actually a professional carpet cleaners rake that they recommend you use before sweeping to bring up dirt from the bottom of the fibers, and prolong the life of your carpet. But that's more along the lines of science, not math, so I'll get off that subject. :)
Travis we have long said is going to be a lawyer. He loves to argue his point when he thinks he is right. So, when we laid out the plans for who was going to sweep and rake what rooms, he had a problem. The 2 rooms that Jesse had to sweep had to be not as much work as he (Travis) had to do, since he had to rake and sweep 4 rooms, plus the hallway upstairs. It just wasn't fair that Jesse age 10, only had those 2 rooms, and Travis, age 8, had 4 rooms and a hallway.
I tried to explain to him that the square footage for Jesse was more, since he had the 2 largest rooms in the house. I used the example of how 20 pennies usually looks like a lot more than just 1 quarter to a kid who doesn't understand the value of money yet. He didn't understand, so, I said, "Ok, Travis, do you want us to prove it out mathematically?" He said yes.
So, out came the pencil and paper, and the measuring tape. He measured the hallway alone, and he and Jesse began measuring my bedroom. He measured it in inches with my sewing measuring tape, so we had to convert to feet, which required some long division that he's never done before. I didn't let Jesse help with that, since he already knows how to do it. Travis and I worked it out, and before we even finished doing all the A = L x W, to find the square footage of all the rooms, Travis started seeing how Jesse really did have more work and didn't want to finish doing all the calculations. Which was fine with me. I am not going to make learning long division all at one shot a "have to" thing. I think he'll get it easier if it's in smaller, digestable bits, rather than forcing something down his throat that's too big to swallow at his age.
I don't know if I blogged this before, but I've read articles,that state that before age 10, if you try to make a kid learn Math that's more complicated than simple calculations that can be done in the head, you'll actually mess him up. We aren't hard wired to learn that stuff properly before age 10. Kind of like we aren't mature enough to handle some information, until we reach a certain age...
You don't go telling a 5 year old that he has to do 10 x 12 in his head, right? The article stated that you store math info differently before age 10 than after. It's like a computer putting it in the wrong file before age 10, and then after age 10, not being able to find it.
Anyway, long story short, we found another way to learn Geometry and long division, and lots of multiplication and adding, in real life within days of the last time.
I do want to note something else as well. Some people think that unschooling parents just leave their children to themselves, and don't bother to "teach" them anything.... Let me ask you, how many parents of kids who have to do schoolwork every day, would still have the energy or desire take the time to go through all that measuring and calculation? How many would just say, "Hey! Listen! I'm telling you, the 2 bigger rooms are more work! Now GO DO IT!!!" In my opinion, I not only taught Travis some Math, but I also taught him that I value him enough to allow him to try to prove his point. It was not an angry exchange of emotions, it was simply a logical exchange of ideas between two people.
I am not in any way generalizing all "school" type parents as bad parents... I am trying to say that Unschooling is NOT Unparenting.
Travis we have long said is going to be a lawyer. He loves to argue his point when he thinks he is right. So, when we laid out the plans for who was going to sweep and rake what rooms, he had a problem. The 2 rooms that Jesse had to sweep had to be not as much work as he (Travis) had to do, since he had to rake and sweep 4 rooms, plus the hallway upstairs. It just wasn't fair that Jesse age 10, only had those 2 rooms, and Travis, age 8, had 4 rooms and a hallway.
I tried to explain to him that the square footage for Jesse was more, since he had the 2 largest rooms in the house. I used the example of how 20 pennies usually looks like a lot more than just 1 quarter to a kid who doesn't understand the value of money yet. He didn't understand, so, I said, "Ok, Travis, do you want us to prove it out mathematically?" He said yes.
So, out came the pencil and paper, and the measuring tape. He measured the hallway alone, and he and Jesse began measuring my bedroom. He measured it in inches with my sewing measuring tape, so we had to convert to feet, which required some long division that he's never done before. I didn't let Jesse help with that, since he already knows how to do it. Travis and I worked it out, and before we even finished doing all the A = L x W, to find the square footage of all the rooms, Travis started seeing how Jesse really did have more work and didn't want to finish doing all the calculations. Which was fine with me. I am not going to make learning long division all at one shot a "have to" thing. I think he'll get it easier if it's in smaller, digestable bits, rather than forcing something down his throat that's too big to swallow at his age.
I don't know if I blogged this before, but I've read articles,that state that before age 10, if you try to make a kid learn Math that's more complicated than simple calculations that can be done in the head, you'll actually mess him up. We aren't hard wired to learn that stuff properly before age 10. Kind of like we aren't mature enough to handle some information, until we reach a certain age...
You don't go telling a 5 year old that he has to do 10 x 12 in his head, right? The article stated that you store math info differently before age 10 than after. It's like a computer putting it in the wrong file before age 10, and then after age 10, not being able to find it.
Anyway, long story short, we found another way to learn Geometry and long division, and lots of multiplication and adding, in real life within days of the last time.
I do want to note something else as well. Some people think that unschooling parents just leave their children to themselves, and don't bother to "teach" them anything.... Let me ask you, how many parents of kids who have to do schoolwork every day, would still have the energy or desire take the time to go through all that measuring and calculation? How many would just say, "Hey! Listen! I'm telling you, the 2 bigger rooms are more work! Now GO DO IT!!!" In my opinion, I not only taught Travis some Math, but I also taught him that I value him enough to allow him to try to prove his point. It was not an angry exchange of emotions, it was simply a logical exchange of ideas between two people.
I am not in any way generalizing all "school" type parents as bad parents... I am trying to say that Unschooling is NOT Unparenting.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Aaron's self taught alphabet - Age 4
About a year ago, I bought a little Learning LeapPad for $3 at a used clothing store. It has alphabet shaped letters that you push that will tell you what the letter is, what sound it can make, and also a how to spell 3 letter word functions.
Aaron began learning to recognize his letters with that over the last year, and since then, he has learned to write his name (which was a shock to me, he just up and wrote it one day!), and write all the names in our family. Basically, he writes the whole alphabet. And he knows a good portion of the sounds of the alphabet. This has NOT, I REPEAT, HAS NOT!! come about through me daily teaching him through a workbook. A few times, he has messed around with a workbook, or we have read maybe 2 times out of a "Reading Handbook", but the bulk of his learning has come just through daily living, and a desire to learn. He began by asking how to spell things... grass, car, house, road, rock, etc... That was at about age 4 and a half, after he'd been playing with the leap pad for a good couple of months. He would even want to take it on car trips for something fun to do! Also, I would point out how to read simple words, like "hex nut" at the hardware store, to keep him from getting bored while we waited for the guy to find the right part for us.
He has since graduated to writing strings of letters on a piece of paper the way I remember the other kids doing. Then he asks me what it says. I try to sound it out, and he asks... does it say anything? I ask him, Does it sound like a word? He admits that it does not, and I tell him he's doing a great job writing his letters, and Here, why doesn't he write this simple 3 letter word? So, he does, and I sound it out for him. Then he goes back to whatever he was doing.
Today, he was sitting at the table with my MIL and I while we were talking, writing his strings of letters... SMUVWSNM..... I looked over and said, Hey, Aaron, will you do me a favor? Will you sing the alphabet song in your head, and write the letters in order, instead of just all different kinds of letters? I want to see if you can write the alphabet.
So, he did! I probably helped him remember how 5 out of the 26 letters were formed. But his penmanship is just beautiful! :) I was so proud. Afterward, he sat and sang the song to himself as he pointed to each of his letters. I had him write his name and age at the bottom, and explained how to write the word AGE and what it meant. I think he was proud of himself too, by the shy smile on his face! :)
It's a bittersweet thing, this watching your child grow up. But a beautiful one to witness! Especially when you see how contrary to most of society's beliefs, learning to read can be self taught! It really isn't so hard after all, and it doesn't need to be a forced thing!
Recently I got a Reader Rabbit "learning how to read" lab kit from the library. I will probably see if he is interested in that. If not, then I'll get the leappad back out, and see if he wants to do the 3 letter words again... I know he'd be much more ready for that now. My point will not be, "here, Aaron, you HAVE to learn to read.. let's do this or that to accomplish that task". And, I will not attempt to get him to "learn" something every day about reading. It will be more of an attitude of, "Hey, I know you are going to learn eventually, and now that you seem interested, here's a multitude of choices to have fun with! And then you'll be able to read just like other bigger people!" (The fact that he will be able to read actually excites him!- his desire to learn has never been squelched by long periods of forced "learning") I will continue to read to him, and help him sound out signs in public that he asks me too, and stuff like that. It will be a life lived journey to reading, and I know we'll enjoy every step of the way!
Aaron began learning to recognize his letters with that over the last year, and since then, he has learned to write his name (which was a shock to me, he just up and wrote it one day!), and write all the names in our family. Basically, he writes the whole alphabet. And he knows a good portion of the sounds of the alphabet. This has NOT, I REPEAT, HAS NOT!! come about through me daily teaching him through a workbook. A few times, he has messed around with a workbook, or we have read maybe 2 times out of a "Reading Handbook", but the bulk of his learning has come just through daily living, and a desire to learn. He began by asking how to spell things... grass, car, house, road, rock, etc... That was at about age 4 and a half, after he'd been playing with the leap pad for a good couple of months. He would even want to take it on car trips for something fun to do! Also, I would point out how to read simple words, like "hex nut" at the hardware store, to keep him from getting bored while we waited for the guy to find the right part for us.
He has since graduated to writing strings of letters on a piece of paper the way I remember the other kids doing. Then he asks me what it says. I try to sound it out, and he asks... does it say anything? I ask him, Does it sound like a word? He admits that it does not, and I tell him he's doing a great job writing his letters, and Here, why doesn't he write this simple 3 letter word? So, he does, and I sound it out for him. Then he goes back to whatever he was doing.
Today, he was sitting at the table with my MIL and I while we were talking, writing his strings of letters... SMUVWSNM..... I looked over and said, Hey, Aaron, will you do me a favor? Will you sing the alphabet song in your head, and write the letters in order, instead of just all different kinds of letters? I want to see if you can write the alphabet.
So, he did! I probably helped him remember how 5 out of the 26 letters were formed. But his penmanship is just beautiful! :) I was so proud. Afterward, he sat and sang the song to himself as he pointed to each of his letters. I had him write his name and age at the bottom, and explained how to write the word AGE and what it meant. I think he was proud of himself too, by the shy smile on his face! :)
It's a bittersweet thing, this watching your child grow up. But a beautiful one to witness! Especially when you see how contrary to most of society's beliefs, learning to read can be self taught! It really isn't so hard after all, and it doesn't need to be a forced thing!
Recently I got a Reader Rabbit "learning how to read" lab kit from the library. I will probably see if he is interested in that. If not, then I'll get the leappad back out, and see if he wants to do the 3 letter words again... I know he'd be much more ready for that now. My point will not be, "here, Aaron, you HAVE to learn to read.. let's do this or that to accomplish that task". And, I will not attempt to get him to "learn" something every day about reading. It will be more of an attitude of, "Hey, I know you are going to learn eventually, and now that you seem interested, here's a multitude of choices to have fun with! And then you'll be able to read just like other bigger people!" (The fact that he will be able to read actually excites him!- his desire to learn has never been squelched by long periods of forced "learning") I will continue to read to him, and help him sound out signs in public that he asks me too, and stuff like that. It will be a life lived journey to reading, and I know we'll enjoy every step of the way!
Real Life Math
I wanted to write about some things that the kids have been up to lately. Just to record for myself and to give more examples of learning through living to people who need them...
Last week, I got real ambitious, and the kids and I cleaned out our ENTIRE basement. And believe me, it was to the point where you could hardly see the floor for all the trash and toys strewn around. Part of the reason we did this was to put foam flooring down. They are in these 2' by 2' squares that have interlocking edges, and are made for kids specifically. Our basement concrete floor was getting very slippery in some places, and was dangerous. So, we needed a safer floor.
Part of the process of getting new flooring was to figure out how to cover it. Did we want carpeting? Yes, that'd be nice... but how much would it cost? How long would it last? What color should it be, and most importantly again, How much would it cost? :)
Part of home or un-schooling your kids, is sharing life with them. Keeping the mindset that each and every experience is and/or can be educational. So instead of doing all the research and math myself, I had the kids gather around the computer, and we looked at styles and colors of carpet that Lowe's had on their website. Then I called Lowe's to find out pricing. The kids sat there (talking amoungst themselves quietly) while I was on the phone, then listened after I hung up to how much per square foot the carpet was, and how long it would last, etc... Then we all went to the basement to measure, and figure pricing. We measured the area with a measuring tape, and then sat down with a paper and pencil and figured up the area, and the cost for the area. I first accidentally showed them the formula for perimeter, P = 2L + 2W and realized my mistake when the number didn't match up with what the Lowe's guy had told me. This "mistake", however, gave me the opportunity to show them two geometry formulas instead of just one. So, we refigured with the area formula, A = L x W.
We had to figure for 3 rectangles, actually, because of the one wall that juts out 2 feet in the middle. So, needless to say, they got a LOT of math in, in their heads, and on paper. No calculator. It was mainly my 8 and 10 year olds that did this.
My sister in law asked me, "How did you remember those formulas?! I would have had to look them up on the internet!"
I did! I replied. Some formulas I remembered and others I didn't... You just have to re-learn with your kids.
After we figured up the carpet pricing, one of my sons came up with the idea of just using the foam squares, since we already had some down as protection underneath our gymnastic ropes. This led to more figuring of how many squares we would need, how many are in a package, and finally how much each package costs, and total price.
It turned out that the foam squares were actually about half the cost of a very cheap, short lived carpet. (And you can use a broom to sweep instead of hauling the sweeper downstairs!)
My sons had no qualms about doing "Math". They no longer associate "Math" with boring figures in a textbook. They associate it with life. Doing something for a purpose.
Another example of that would be just the other day in the truck on the way home from the Jungle Book play. I was sitting outside the OLD NAVY store with Savannah, my 6 year old, Aaron my 4 year old, and Jaidyn, my 2 year old (who was asleep). My 28 week pregnant body hurt too bad to go back into another store, especially with Jaidyn asleep for her nap, so I parked by the doors, and let my 8 and 10 year old boys go in to exchange their new jeans for a size bigger by themselves.
SIDE NOTE: This would be considered real world experience, and socializing with people not their own age. :)
So, anyway, Savannah and I were talking, while we waited, about how many weeks until some event that is coming up.. I can't remember what it was, but we were saying it'd be 6 weeks yet. She wanted to know how many days that was, so I told her that there are 7 days in a week, and there'd be 6 of those. She began counting this up on her fingers, but this became too hard quickly, and I introduced her to the cool concept of multiplication. Instead of doing all that adding, just memorize the fact that 6 weeks times 7 days in a week means 42 days. She wanted to know how many days there were (that was her motivation for learning). It wasn't because her schoolbook said that she must learn that 6 times 7 equals 42. It was not an abstract fact, but a concrete one attached to an idea. Real life.
Just as we were finishing this discussion, the boys hopped back in the truck, and overheard the Math quizzing. This lead to me quizzing them on the higher multiplication tables all the way home. Every once in a while they love for me to quiz them on their "times tables" although they don't associate them with that dreaded school term. Travis got 11 x 12 = 132 even before Jesse did! We had a good time with it. We laughed out loud when I told Jesse, "and it's not 12 de 12"... about the answer to the 11 x 12 problem. (This was right after I'd explained how 11's were pretty easy. 3 x 11 = 33 (3rd de 3), and 4 x 11 = 44 (4 de 4)... Get it?" It was funny to us anyway. :)
Another example of real life Math (not to mention free thought, creativity, and dedication to finishing a self-appointed task), would be the new game my boys came up with the same day we figured up the basement flooring. They were all excited about getting all the foam squares, and ran upstairs while I was talking with my MIL and playing with the younger 3 children.
After a while, they came downstairs telling us about this new game they had come up with. They called it Human Clix. It's their variation of the Hero Clix game that they play with comic book characters on a paper map. Basically, they themselves are the characters in their game, and they play it on the foam squares as a gameboard.. sort of like chess.
They actually sat down for hours (spread out over a couple of days), and came up with multiple character identities and abilities. Each ability having a numerical value assigned to it, so you can figure out who is beating who after one attacks the other. They came up with some of their character's identities based on the super-hero's they had made up for themselves, their siblings, their cousins, and their friends a few months ago, which is another post in itself. Travis, my 8 year old, had this piece of yellow construction paper covered in columns of numbers! They were the numerical ablilities and attacks. I wouldn't dare try to explain it, because I don't understand it completely myself! :) LOL.. but they DO! And they have been playing the game with our 15 year old neighbor, Brandon, who has suddenly been interested in hanging out with the boys again. We took him and his sister Leah to a few things with us recently. Some horseback riding, and a play of the Legends of Sleepy Hollow.
It's like our prodigal surrogate children have come home... :) I enjoy having them as part of our children's lives.
Sorry, I got off the Math subject there... but anyway, there are 3 prime examples of how you CAN learn Math in real life without a textbook.
Oh yeah! I daresay that Jesse probably observed Math in action when he went to work building a 12 x 16 barn foundation with his Uncle Tim last week! Construction is defenitely a real life use of Math...
He worked for about 9 hours in 30 to 40 degree weather, and I'm sure he used Math again when they went directly after work to the comic book shop to spend the $13 Uncle Tim paid him! :)
Last week, I got real ambitious, and the kids and I cleaned out our ENTIRE basement. And believe me, it was to the point where you could hardly see the floor for all the trash and toys strewn around. Part of the reason we did this was to put foam flooring down. They are in these 2' by 2' squares that have interlocking edges, and are made for kids specifically. Our basement concrete floor was getting very slippery in some places, and was dangerous. So, we needed a safer floor.
Part of the process of getting new flooring was to figure out how to cover it. Did we want carpeting? Yes, that'd be nice... but how much would it cost? How long would it last? What color should it be, and most importantly again, How much would it cost? :)
Part of home or un-schooling your kids, is sharing life with them. Keeping the mindset that each and every experience is and/or can be educational. So instead of doing all the research and math myself, I had the kids gather around the computer, and we looked at styles and colors of carpet that Lowe's had on their website. Then I called Lowe's to find out pricing. The kids sat there (talking amoungst themselves quietly) while I was on the phone, then listened after I hung up to how much per square foot the carpet was, and how long it would last, etc... Then we all went to the basement to measure, and figure pricing. We measured the area with a measuring tape, and then sat down with a paper and pencil and figured up the area, and the cost for the area. I first accidentally showed them the formula for perimeter, P = 2L + 2W and realized my mistake when the number didn't match up with what the Lowe's guy had told me. This "mistake", however, gave me the opportunity to show them two geometry formulas instead of just one. So, we refigured with the area formula, A = L x W.
We had to figure for 3 rectangles, actually, because of the one wall that juts out 2 feet in the middle. So, needless to say, they got a LOT of math in, in their heads, and on paper. No calculator. It was mainly my 8 and 10 year olds that did this.
My sister in law asked me, "How did you remember those formulas?! I would have had to look them up on the internet!"
I did! I replied. Some formulas I remembered and others I didn't... You just have to re-learn with your kids.
After we figured up the carpet pricing, one of my sons came up with the idea of just using the foam squares, since we already had some down as protection underneath our gymnastic ropes. This led to more figuring of how many squares we would need, how many are in a package, and finally how much each package costs, and total price.
It turned out that the foam squares were actually about half the cost of a very cheap, short lived carpet. (And you can use a broom to sweep instead of hauling the sweeper downstairs!)
My sons had no qualms about doing "Math". They no longer associate "Math" with boring figures in a textbook. They associate it with life. Doing something for a purpose.
Another example of that would be just the other day in the truck on the way home from the Jungle Book play. I was sitting outside the OLD NAVY store with Savannah, my 6 year old, Aaron my 4 year old, and Jaidyn, my 2 year old (who was asleep). My 28 week pregnant body hurt too bad to go back into another store, especially with Jaidyn asleep for her nap, so I parked by the doors, and let my 8 and 10 year old boys go in to exchange their new jeans for a size bigger by themselves.
SIDE NOTE: This would be considered real world experience, and socializing with people not their own age. :)
So, anyway, Savannah and I were talking, while we waited, about how many weeks until some event that is coming up.. I can't remember what it was, but we were saying it'd be 6 weeks yet. She wanted to know how many days that was, so I told her that there are 7 days in a week, and there'd be 6 of those. She began counting this up on her fingers, but this became too hard quickly, and I introduced her to the cool concept of multiplication. Instead of doing all that adding, just memorize the fact that 6 weeks times 7 days in a week means 42 days. She wanted to know how many days there were (that was her motivation for learning). It wasn't because her schoolbook said that she must learn that 6 times 7 equals 42. It was not an abstract fact, but a concrete one attached to an idea. Real life.
Just as we were finishing this discussion, the boys hopped back in the truck, and overheard the Math quizzing. This lead to me quizzing them on the higher multiplication tables all the way home. Every once in a while they love for me to quiz them on their "times tables" although they don't associate them with that dreaded school term. Travis got 11 x 12 = 132 even before Jesse did! We had a good time with it. We laughed out loud when I told Jesse, "and it's not 12 de 12"... about the answer to the 11 x 12 problem. (This was right after I'd explained how 11's were pretty easy. 3 x 11 = 33 (3rd de 3), and 4 x 11 = 44 (4 de 4)... Get it?" It was funny to us anyway. :)
Another example of real life Math (not to mention free thought, creativity, and dedication to finishing a self-appointed task), would be the new game my boys came up with the same day we figured up the basement flooring. They were all excited about getting all the foam squares, and ran upstairs while I was talking with my MIL and playing with the younger 3 children.
After a while, they came downstairs telling us about this new game they had come up with. They called it Human Clix. It's their variation of the Hero Clix game that they play with comic book characters on a paper map. Basically, they themselves are the characters in their game, and they play it on the foam squares as a gameboard.. sort of like chess.
They actually sat down for hours (spread out over a couple of days), and came up with multiple character identities and abilities. Each ability having a numerical value assigned to it, so you can figure out who is beating who after one attacks the other. They came up with some of their character's identities based on the super-hero's they had made up for themselves, their siblings, their cousins, and their friends a few months ago, which is another post in itself. Travis, my 8 year old, had this piece of yellow construction paper covered in columns of numbers! They were the numerical ablilities and attacks. I wouldn't dare try to explain it, because I don't understand it completely myself! :) LOL.. but they DO! And they have been playing the game with our 15 year old neighbor, Brandon, who has suddenly been interested in hanging out with the boys again. We took him and his sister Leah to a few things with us recently. Some horseback riding, and a play of the Legends of Sleepy Hollow.
It's like our prodigal surrogate children have come home... :) I enjoy having them as part of our children's lives.
Sorry, I got off the Math subject there... but anyway, there are 3 prime examples of how you CAN learn Math in real life without a textbook.
Oh yeah! I daresay that Jesse probably observed Math in action when he went to work building a 12 x 16 barn foundation with his Uncle Tim last week! Construction is defenitely a real life use of Math...
He worked for about 9 hours in 30 to 40 degree weather, and I'm sure he used Math again when they went directly after work to the comic book shop to spend the $13 Uncle Tim paid him! :)
Friday, October 20, 2006
Enjoying and respecting my kids
Yesterday, the kids had a day that was so chock full of “educational” activities, that I had to record it. I hope I can remember it all!
I got up at 7:30am, and wrote up two professional sounding documents for the “franchise sale” of our cookie business to Lauren and Scott. When the kids got up I read them to them because I was excited about them. We talked a little about how the transaction is going to go.
The kids got up later than usual… around 8:30am or 9, because they’d gotten to bed late. Jesse had stayed up reading his Bionicle book because he couldn’t get the thought of a monster from the Moby Dick story out of his head. They’d listened to the first part of the story on CD before going to sleep. Well, before the younger kids fell asleep. Like I said, Jesse couldn’t get to sleep, so he read. He read the first 72 pages of the book that night.
So, in the morning, after breakfast, I bathed the youngest two kids, and we went to the library. This was on my suggestion to Savannah, because she really wants to become a masseuse who gets paid. She came down in the morning, when I was busy at the desk, telling me how she wanted to set up doing massages in her bedroom for money.
Now, my first reaction was to wave her off telling her that she’s too young, and no one is going to pay her until she is older and has more experience. Pretty standard parental reaction. But then I thought… No, that’s not respecting her feelings. That’s treating her as if she were “just a kid” which is a phrase that I want to rid from my vocabulary and my mindset. Kids are small people. This does not make their thoughts and feelings any less valuable, and they are certainly as real to them as us adults’ are to us!
So, I told her, “Well, Savannah, if you really want to get paid to do massages, then you are going to have to get more experience. You are going to have to learn where the muscles of the body are, and learn some massage techniques.” She agreed to this because this is something she really wants to do. I told her that probably right now, myself, and her two grandmas are the only ones that will pay her to massage them. She was OK with that. So, I told her we could go to the library to get some books on muscles of the body, and massage. “When?!” She asked, all excited.
Here was another parental opportunity. Should I say, “Whenever we have the time, and risk her losing interest? Or should I take advantage of her desire to learn while it is fresh? We had company coming over in about 2 and a half hours, and the house was somewhat messy. I also had nothing planned for lunch for me, my 5 kids, and the 2 visitors coming.
In my old mindframe of thinking that if I don’t have the house spic and span, “people will think that I’m not a good mom/housewife”… or that if I “waste time” going to the library I won’t get anything “real” done… I may have told her that we’d go “as soon as we could”, which may have never materialized, and her wishes to be a masseuse would be blown by as “just something a kid wants”, not all that important, because she’ll go on to something else really soon, because that’s what kids do. BUT! And it’s a big but! I would have lost a learning opportunity, and more importantly, an opportunity to show my daughter that she and her desires matter to me.
All these thoughts went through my mind in less than a minute. (Amazing how quickly our minds process so much information, huh?) So, I said, “Right now.”
“Really? She asked. We can go to the library, right now?!”
Yep. I answered. As soon as you get washed up, comb your hair and get dressed, and I bathe the younger two, we’ll go. She excitedly jumped up to go get ready. Of course she wanted to leave as soon as she was ready, but she understood that I needed to bathe the younger two kids, and the timing worked out better for us to wait a little while, since we would go to the library, check our P.O. Box, and then pick up pizza for lunch with our company on our way home.
Because our van was in the shop, limiting our car seating to 5 people, and Travis said he was too tired to go anyway, I let him stay home alone. I asked Jesse, my 10 year old, if he would go along to watch Jaidyn, my 2 year old, so that I could spend time with Savannah helping her find the right books. Aaron, my 4 year old is pretty self sufficient, and he went to look at books for himself. (This was at our little local library, so I wasn’t worried about him getting lost. It’s VERY small!)
I really enjoyed sitting with Savannah one on one, and looking through the books, picking out age appropriate books with lots of illustrations. We got 5 books including one, that just discusses the sense of touch, and it’s healing properties.
Jesse took Jaidyn to the video section first where she picked out an Elmo video. Then, he got her an Elmo book and read it to her. This warmed my heart to see my 10 year old lovingly taking care of his 2 year old sister, and to see her growing up to the point where she actually has a preference in characters, and can say the character’s name.
When Savannah and I were done choosing her books, I went to find Aaron and asked if he wanted to pick a book. Being 4, he just randomly grabbed one off the shelf, and was happy with that.
We got home, and pretty soon I noticed that Travis had picked up the book that Aaron had grabbed off the shelf. It turned out to be actually quite a long silly story about a doughnut who wants to live life instead of being eaten, and becomes someone’s “doughnut dog”. Travis and Jesse both sat quietly in the living room reading their books. Jesse kept reading his Bionicle book, and before our company had finished their 2 hour stay, he’d finished the whole 122 pages.
Our company was a woman in her early 50’s who is raising her rambunctious 3 year old granddaughter. She seemed quite impressed that the boys were just sitting there, reading books for quite a long time. “You have a couple of readers?” she asked. Implying that she thought that they really loved reading and did it all the time.
“Whenever they are interested in something”, I said. (Just the day before, I’d come down from a nap with my 2 year old to find Jesse reading a book about sharks. I was again amazed at the fact that my 10 year old was voluntarily reading an “educational” book with no story to entertain him. And he does remember those facts that he reads. He’ll quote them at times, and surprise me with his knowledge.) I told her that the boys usually like to play with their Hero Clix, and Pokemon card games. (If you’ve read my other posts, you know that these games involve a lot of Math.)
So, after the company left, Savannah really wanted me to read her massage book to her. I told her I would after my nap. (I am 26 and a half weeks pregnant with my 6th child and need naps.)
She watched a cartoon with Jaidyn to keep an eye on her while I napped in the room down the hall. When I got up, we sat in the living room, and started reading the books. She wanted to skip right to the massage, but I told her she needed to read some of the books. We skipped over the long paragraphs of small print that would have bored her, and just read the main points about how to prepare for giving a massage, what techniques to use on different parts of the body, why each technique is important and we looked at the muscle books showing where the muscles are. We probably read for about 30 to 40 minutes. Technically, she was learning a lot of biology. But to her, it was just fun.
She kept asking, OK, now can we do the massage? So, I made sure to keep her interest, and not make it too long of a discussion. Then we went up to my room, and per the book’s instructions, set up a comfortable space to massage in. It was complete with candles, scents in the air, background sounds of the night, rain, and waterfall, pillows for support, and massage oil. I instructed her, and she referred to the book as she massaged my face, hands, and feet. She probably massaged me for over a half hour! Talk about enjoyable education! We were interrupted a few times by Aaron and Jaidyn, but Savannah’s interest in continuing to massage did not wane. She would go help Jaidyn with something she needed, or wait while I helped Aaron, and was anxiously awaiting beginning again. We discussed how my masseuse does a lot of the things mentioned in the book, and the reasons why. She knows who the masseuse is because she went with me, and met Sharon at my last massage. She waited in the living room while I had the massage, but I think next time, I may take her back to the massage room, and show it to her, and ask Sharon if she minds if Savannah watches for about 5 minutes, and kind of give her a professional instruction session. Unschooling in action!
After Savannah massaged me, I asked her if she wanted a massage, and she did, so I gave her a one. Altogether yesterday, I’d say I spent about 3 hours spending quality time with my 6 year old daughter doing something “educational”. And the entire time, she never lost interest, nothing was forced, it was all something that she really wanted to do, and will remember me taking the time to do with her for the rest of her life. I was very happy with my decision to say, “Yes, we’ll go now to the library!”
Well, I know this is a long post, but I’m trying to remember what all other things went on yesterday… Aaron is starting to draw Pokemon characters, because he is seeing Travis do it. He is learning hand eye coordination, developing his drawing skills, and learning how not to compare himself to other people, especially older people who’ve been doing something longer than he has. He is learning that he can do things at his age level, and still be proud of what he’s doing.
He is not only drawing, but he is labeling his characters. This means that he has to learn to spell them. At 4 and a half, he is learning to write all of his letters correctly, and to spell quite a few words, just because it is something he likes to do.
SIDE NOTE: I AM NOT saying here that unschooling your child will make them an early reader just because they are not forced into learning to read. I AM SAYING, however, that your child does not need to have a set aside period of time to be “taught” their letters! They do not need you to say, “Look! This is the letter A! The letter A makes 3 sounds!” and go on to make the sounds. That kind of teaching is boring for some kids. Granted some kids like it, but my point is that the lecture format is not the ONLY type of learning! Your child WILL at his own rate of readiness, be interested in reading and writing. Through the natural process of life, reading and writing will become a necessity for certain activities that your child is interested in doing. They will naturally come to you, asking, “What does this say? How do you spell this word?” And you will tell them, and it will stick in their heads, because they wanted to know it. And over a period of time, longer for some, shorter for others, they will begin to learn to read and write. I know that this seems so impossible. We are so brainwashed into thinking that if we do not follow a school format, whether in school, or at home, that our children will not learn. I have only been unschooling for a year, but I have seen so much evidence in all 5 of my children, ages 2 to 10, that learning takes place in all types of settings, that I am convinced that allowing my children to learn their own way, at their own pace, is what is best for them. END SIDE NOTE :)
You know, I cannot recall what other “educational activities” my kids performed yesterday. I know you could label their swinging on ropes and playing with their friends in our basement,“gym”, and you could say that all the drawing, writing, and creating was “art”, and the reading was “Language”…. But to my kids, they went about their day just “doing and living”, and I never once heard the words, “I’m bored, Mom.” They are self sufficient to find ways to occupy their time. I think they may have watched a couple of videos with their 2 year old sister… they were her favorites, Franklin the Turtle, and Elmo. But they did not spend all day vegged out with programs that were bad for them, “ruining” their minds, like some people would have you believe that unschoolers do.
It’s just a fact that when you encourage your kids to find things to do on their own, they become capable of such a task. More capable I dare say, than their school-going counterparts who are handed things to do all day long, and are so fried from school that they look for ways to veg out for the rest of the evening.
Well, this may be my longest post yet. Thanks for reading! I like the fact that I can read this in the future, and enjoy remembering the time I had with my kids before they “left the nest”.
I got up at 7:30am, and wrote up two professional sounding documents for the “franchise sale” of our cookie business to Lauren and Scott. When the kids got up I read them to them because I was excited about them. We talked a little about how the transaction is going to go.
The kids got up later than usual… around 8:30am or 9, because they’d gotten to bed late. Jesse had stayed up reading his Bionicle book because he couldn’t get the thought of a monster from the Moby Dick story out of his head. They’d listened to the first part of the story on CD before going to sleep. Well, before the younger kids fell asleep. Like I said, Jesse couldn’t get to sleep, so he read. He read the first 72 pages of the book that night.
So, in the morning, after breakfast, I bathed the youngest two kids, and we went to the library. This was on my suggestion to Savannah, because she really wants to become a masseuse who gets paid. She came down in the morning, when I was busy at the desk, telling me how she wanted to set up doing massages in her bedroom for money.
Now, my first reaction was to wave her off telling her that she’s too young, and no one is going to pay her until she is older and has more experience. Pretty standard parental reaction. But then I thought… No, that’s not respecting her feelings. That’s treating her as if she were “just a kid” which is a phrase that I want to rid from my vocabulary and my mindset. Kids are small people. This does not make their thoughts and feelings any less valuable, and they are certainly as real to them as us adults’ are to us!
So, I told her, “Well, Savannah, if you really want to get paid to do massages, then you are going to have to get more experience. You are going to have to learn where the muscles of the body are, and learn some massage techniques.” She agreed to this because this is something she really wants to do. I told her that probably right now, myself, and her two grandmas are the only ones that will pay her to massage them. She was OK with that. So, I told her we could go to the library to get some books on muscles of the body, and massage. “When?!” She asked, all excited.
Here was another parental opportunity. Should I say, “Whenever we have the time, and risk her losing interest? Or should I take advantage of her desire to learn while it is fresh? We had company coming over in about 2 and a half hours, and the house was somewhat messy. I also had nothing planned for lunch for me, my 5 kids, and the 2 visitors coming.
In my old mindframe of thinking that if I don’t have the house spic and span, “people will think that I’m not a good mom/housewife”… or that if I “waste time” going to the library I won’t get anything “real” done… I may have told her that we’d go “as soon as we could”, which may have never materialized, and her wishes to be a masseuse would be blown by as “just something a kid wants”, not all that important, because she’ll go on to something else really soon, because that’s what kids do. BUT! And it’s a big but! I would have lost a learning opportunity, and more importantly, an opportunity to show my daughter that she and her desires matter to me.
All these thoughts went through my mind in less than a minute. (Amazing how quickly our minds process so much information, huh?) So, I said, “Right now.”
“Really? She asked. We can go to the library, right now?!”
Yep. I answered. As soon as you get washed up, comb your hair and get dressed, and I bathe the younger two, we’ll go. She excitedly jumped up to go get ready. Of course she wanted to leave as soon as she was ready, but she understood that I needed to bathe the younger two kids, and the timing worked out better for us to wait a little while, since we would go to the library, check our P.O. Box, and then pick up pizza for lunch with our company on our way home.
Because our van was in the shop, limiting our car seating to 5 people, and Travis said he was too tired to go anyway, I let him stay home alone. I asked Jesse, my 10 year old, if he would go along to watch Jaidyn, my 2 year old, so that I could spend time with Savannah helping her find the right books. Aaron, my 4 year old is pretty self sufficient, and he went to look at books for himself. (This was at our little local library, so I wasn’t worried about him getting lost. It’s VERY small!)
I really enjoyed sitting with Savannah one on one, and looking through the books, picking out age appropriate books with lots of illustrations. We got 5 books including one, that just discusses the sense of touch, and it’s healing properties.
Jesse took Jaidyn to the video section first where she picked out an Elmo video. Then, he got her an Elmo book and read it to her. This warmed my heart to see my 10 year old lovingly taking care of his 2 year old sister, and to see her growing up to the point where she actually has a preference in characters, and can say the character’s name.
When Savannah and I were done choosing her books, I went to find Aaron and asked if he wanted to pick a book. Being 4, he just randomly grabbed one off the shelf, and was happy with that.
We got home, and pretty soon I noticed that Travis had picked up the book that Aaron had grabbed off the shelf. It turned out to be actually quite a long silly story about a doughnut who wants to live life instead of being eaten, and becomes someone’s “doughnut dog”. Travis and Jesse both sat quietly in the living room reading their books. Jesse kept reading his Bionicle book, and before our company had finished their 2 hour stay, he’d finished the whole 122 pages.
Our company was a woman in her early 50’s who is raising her rambunctious 3 year old granddaughter. She seemed quite impressed that the boys were just sitting there, reading books for quite a long time. “You have a couple of readers?” she asked. Implying that she thought that they really loved reading and did it all the time.
“Whenever they are interested in something”, I said. (Just the day before, I’d come down from a nap with my 2 year old to find Jesse reading a book about sharks. I was again amazed at the fact that my 10 year old was voluntarily reading an “educational” book with no story to entertain him. And he does remember those facts that he reads. He’ll quote them at times, and surprise me with his knowledge.) I told her that the boys usually like to play with their Hero Clix, and Pokemon card games. (If you’ve read my other posts, you know that these games involve a lot of Math.)
So, after the company left, Savannah really wanted me to read her massage book to her. I told her I would after my nap. (I am 26 and a half weeks pregnant with my 6th child and need naps.)
She watched a cartoon with Jaidyn to keep an eye on her while I napped in the room down the hall. When I got up, we sat in the living room, and started reading the books. She wanted to skip right to the massage, but I told her she needed to read some of the books. We skipped over the long paragraphs of small print that would have bored her, and just read the main points about how to prepare for giving a massage, what techniques to use on different parts of the body, why each technique is important and we looked at the muscle books showing where the muscles are. We probably read for about 30 to 40 minutes. Technically, she was learning a lot of biology. But to her, it was just fun.
She kept asking, OK, now can we do the massage? So, I made sure to keep her interest, and not make it too long of a discussion. Then we went up to my room, and per the book’s instructions, set up a comfortable space to massage in. It was complete with candles, scents in the air, background sounds of the night, rain, and waterfall, pillows for support, and massage oil. I instructed her, and she referred to the book as she massaged my face, hands, and feet. She probably massaged me for over a half hour! Talk about enjoyable education! We were interrupted a few times by Aaron and Jaidyn, but Savannah’s interest in continuing to massage did not wane. She would go help Jaidyn with something she needed, or wait while I helped Aaron, and was anxiously awaiting beginning again. We discussed how my masseuse does a lot of the things mentioned in the book, and the reasons why. She knows who the masseuse is because she went with me, and met Sharon at my last massage. She waited in the living room while I had the massage, but I think next time, I may take her back to the massage room, and show it to her, and ask Sharon if she minds if Savannah watches for about 5 minutes, and kind of give her a professional instruction session. Unschooling in action!
After Savannah massaged me, I asked her if she wanted a massage, and she did, so I gave her a one. Altogether yesterday, I’d say I spent about 3 hours spending quality time with my 6 year old daughter doing something “educational”. And the entire time, she never lost interest, nothing was forced, it was all something that she really wanted to do, and will remember me taking the time to do with her for the rest of her life. I was very happy with my decision to say, “Yes, we’ll go now to the library!”
Well, I know this is a long post, but I’m trying to remember what all other things went on yesterday… Aaron is starting to draw Pokemon characters, because he is seeing Travis do it. He is learning hand eye coordination, developing his drawing skills, and learning how not to compare himself to other people, especially older people who’ve been doing something longer than he has. He is learning that he can do things at his age level, and still be proud of what he’s doing.
He is not only drawing, but he is labeling his characters. This means that he has to learn to spell them. At 4 and a half, he is learning to write all of his letters correctly, and to spell quite a few words, just because it is something he likes to do.
SIDE NOTE: I AM NOT saying here that unschooling your child will make them an early reader just because they are not forced into learning to read. I AM SAYING, however, that your child does not need to have a set aside period of time to be “taught” their letters! They do not need you to say, “Look! This is the letter A! The letter A makes 3 sounds!” and go on to make the sounds. That kind of teaching is boring for some kids. Granted some kids like it, but my point is that the lecture format is not the ONLY type of learning! Your child WILL at his own rate of readiness, be interested in reading and writing. Through the natural process of life, reading and writing will become a necessity for certain activities that your child is interested in doing. They will naturally come to you, asking, “What does this say? How do you spell this word?” And you will tell them, and it will stick in their heads, because they wanted to know it. And over a period of time, longer for some, shorter for others, they will begin to learn to read and write. I know that this seems so impossible. We are so brainwashed into thinking that if we do not follow a school format, whether in school, or at home, that our children will not learn. I have only been unschooling for a year, but I have seen so much evidence in all 5 of my children, ages 2 to 10, that learning takes place in all types of settings, that I am convinced that allowing my children to learn their own way, at their own pace, is what is best for them. END SIDE NOTE :)
You know, I cannot recall what other “educational activities” my kids performed yesterday. I know you could label their swinging on ropes and playing with their friends in our basement,“gym”, and you could say that all the drawing, writing, and creating was “art”, and the reading was “Language”…. But to my kids, they went about their day just “doing and living”, and I never once heard the words, “I’m bored, Mom.” They are self sufficient to find ways to occupy their time. I think they may have watched a couple of videos with their 2 year old sister… they were her favorites, Franklin the Turtle, and Elmo. But they did not spend all day vegged out with programs that were bad for them, “ruining” their minds, like some people would have you believe that unschoolers do.
It’s just a fact that when you encourage your kids to find things to do on their own, they become capable of such a task. More capable I dare say, than their school-going counterparts who are handed things to do all day long, and are so fried from school that they look for ways to veg out for the rest of the evening.
Well, this may be my longest post yet. Thanks for reading! I like the fact that I can read this in the future, and enjoy remembering the time I had with my kids before they “left the nest”.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
"A Typical Unschooling Day"
Here is an email exchange between myself and another unschooling family whose house I absolutely love! View the pics of it and them here: Well, I'll have to ask her for the web address for the pics again.... but here's the email anyway.
>From: "John and Pam Hensley"
>Reply-To: HomefiresJournal@yahoogroups.com
>To:
>Subject: Re: [HomefiresJournal] Re: Deedee's house/ ot asking michelle to
>share about her unschooling
>Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 23:53:11 -0500
>
>Michelle,
>Would you mind sharing a 'typical day' in your unschooling household?
>Wondering, what are the ages of your children.
>My son was talking about his hs'd friend telling him that he 'had not yet
>begun biology this year' and another ps'd aquaintance not getting 'weekend
>priveleges' due to falling down a grade in biology. Then he asked more
>questions and I tried to tell him learning is life and living it, not
>regurgitating memorized facts out of a biology text book. He asked one more
>question about biology and I said, 'well, it is what we are doing with that
>catepillar who is currenly living in my hat box due to the fact that your
>little brother sat on and broke his bug catcher/holder and we did not have
>one to put the bug in to watch it turn into a lovely butterfly; That is
>biology in our home school :) ' I think he understood...
>Thanks for sharing. I just wonder what other unschooling mommies are doing
>these days.
>I'd love it if you would also share about your new business.
>We have been self employed the 16 years we have been together; it is a
>love/hate thing lol.
>we are basically retired now but have tried many small homebased
>businesses; it has been rather frustrating but God is always faithful to
>provide.
>I wish you all his blessings in your venture!
>Pam
Hi Pam!
Thanks for asking! I am curious about your typical "school" day as
well. I love being on the homefires list, but it's nice to talk to or email
other moms directly and see what they do.
My kids are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and the baby is 25 weeks in utero. My 8, 6,
and 4 year old's birthdays are coming up real soon, though.
We started homeschooling with the A Beka Book Christian curriculum when
my son was in first grade because that's what all the homeschooler's I knew
were doing, and I had only read one book on unschooling, (Mary Griffin's,
which I love) but being a first timer, had no confidence in the "no
curriculum" idea.
My mother in law was actually a kindergarten teacher until she retired to
be a full time grandma, so she has taught my first 3 children how to read,
amoung other things during their "kindergarten year". They would go to her
house for 3 hours or so, and learn from her. After that, I began the
"school at home" with them, with the classroom and all. I taught 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grade all the way through to my first son, and 1st all the way
through to my 2nd son. Then when they were in 4th and 2nd grades, and my
daughter was in kindergarten with her grandma, I started really researching
unschooling.
All I knew was that my boys hated "textbook time", and therefore assumed
that they hated school. I was sick of forcing it on them, and wanted
learning to be fun. We would attempt fun projects here and there, but still
try to "get our other work done", and it was all really stressful.
We went to the Unschooling Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in October of
2005. My mother in law went with us to help take care of Jaidyn my
youngest, who was a little over a year at the time. This allowed James (my
husband) and I to go to the talks and listen uninterrupted. We were
partially convinced that this was something we wanted to try before we went
(actually James more than myself, although I knew what we were doing wasn't
working), and by the time we left the whole family was excited about putting
the textbooks on the shelf and learning through living. It took some time
for my inlaws to "see" it working... in fact my Father in law was highly
doubtful! But within the last year, we have all seen so much learning
taking place in my children's lives, that we aren't looking back, and my
father in law is now advocating this "method" of learning to his other sons
for their children. :) One of his favorite ways to contribute is to tape
and watch classic movies or educational shows, or just plain interesting
stuff for them to watch. A lot of times they watch it with him. (We don't
have cable right now, so this works great for us, plus I don't have to spend
the time surfing the cable channels!)
Sorry if you didn't want that much detail.... I love to write.
Especially about my kids.
So... a typical day.
We have no set "learning" time anymore. My kids get up when they want,
and usually get their own breakfast. If I've had a late night, I'll sleep
in, and the older kids help the younger ones with their breakfast. They
know to come get me if they need help with a diaper or something, though. :)
I do the finances for our business (Yay! We are self employed too!),
and that means I'm at the computer usually for at least part of most days.
Some days I do nothing for the business except check the P.O. Box, and we'll
go to the park and play. We'll get pizza at the local place and walk to the
park on a nice day. We live in a small rural farm town.
How do you describe an unschooling day? My kids build things with
household objects, like tents from blankets, pillows, and chairs. They
build golf courses, and miniature houses with the many books we have piled
on the fireplace hearth. They also pick up these books and read them.
Sometimes to themselves, sometimes to their younger siblings. We try to go
to the library every couple of weeks to purge and replenish this supply. We
take our bag from the unschooling conference every time! :) It says, Birds
Fly, Fish Swim, Humans Learn.
What else... my boys love to play the Pokemon Card game and also another
strategy game with comic book character figurines on a map called HeroClix.
Have you or your kids ever heard of it? If you have trouble with any of
them liking math, and they like make believe... get one of these games! My
8 year old sat for half an hour by himself yesterday "doing Math". :) I
smiled to myself. If you asked what he was doing, he'd tell you that he was
figuring out which one of his Hero Clix characters was the strongest. Each
character has different points assigned to it for it's strength, it's
attacks, and weaknesses, etc... it's very complicated. So, he sat their
adding, subtracting, etc., for about a half hour. Turns out his Superman
Blue is the strongest.
My 6 year old girl and four year old boy also have their own Pokemon
cards, and Savannah (the 6 year old) actually plays at the free play
tournaments when we go, and she battles her brothers at home too. The older
kids have made up a simplified version of the game for their 4 year old
brother to play with his cards. He doesn't really understand the points
system yet, though, so when he trades cards, he trades based on how much he
likes the Pokemon, and they have to watch out for him so he doesn't get
traded down, especially at the free plays with other people.
Oh yeah, the boys learned about HeroClix from their uncle who loves
video games and comic books, and now they are getting their other uncle into
it. Last night they all got together at Uncle Tim's to have a HeroClix
tournament! The neighbor boys, who are my boys ages, came over to watch and
learn.
My oldest, Jesse, loves all things scientific. He gets this from his
dad. We go camping as often as we can, and usually the fireside talks end
up being about something scientific because the kids ask all kinds of "why?"
questions, and James loves to answer them, or look them up if he doesn't
know. At a camping trip this year they made a flame thrower with a can of
OFF! :) He did caution them multiple times of the dangers, even telling
them about how he singed his arm hairs once by not doing it correctly, and
explaining the scientific reasons behind why there is a correct way of
making a flamethrower. I don't know them, I'm more of the writing reading
type.
That's another thing we do is I like to read books to them before bed at
night. Recently we've fallen out of the habit since I am usually too tired
being this far along in my pregnancy. But I did read to my daughter in the
evening the other day. She absolutely LOVES horses! So, we were reading a
horse story.
I am on an email list for a homeschool field trip group. It's a fun way
to meet new people, and this woman does a fabulous job coming up with a
variety of field trips. This month we will be going to a play of "The
Jungle Book", we went to a pizza place for a behind the scenes tour, we'll
be going to a historical 1800's farm to learn about the agricultural
lifestyle, and a pumpkin patch to learn Ohio's history.... Next month, I am
taking my daughter to a Horse Hospital with this group. She is sooo looking
forward to it.
Well, I'm describing a lot of things my kids do, but not really what a
typical day is like.
In a typical day, my kids find things for themselves to do. They ride bikes
and scooters, they take walks (lucky for us their grandma and grandpa, and
now their cousins, all live in the same neighborhood), they visit friends,
and occasionally watch TV. They play their HeroClix and Pokemon games, and
they make up games with each other. They discuss things with me, or we bake
and cook together. One of their favorite things to do, with or without
their neighbor friends is to play "Town" in the basement. The basement is
what we call "Kid Kingdom"... to the eye of an ordinary adult it looks like
a trash dump with piles of boxes scattered here and there. The boxes are my
storage containing clothing mostly, and some picture frames, holiday decor,
etc... But when the kids take you on a tour of the basement, you see it
come alive into different stores, daycares, a cafe (where you can watch tv
while you eat), a bank, even a mobile advertising bike (based loosely on my
husband's mobile advertising business). They have a mini economy going.
Their currency is a combination of Monopoly money, and some play money.
They have auctions, and stores, they combine and dismantle businesses
regularly. Their neighbor friends who play store the most with them are an
11 year old girl, and a 15 year old boy.
Although, since the beginning of this school year, the 15 year old has,
I think, begun to be busy with his teenage school life, and hasn't been
around. My boys are disappointed, but we've been warning them for about 2
years that it'd happen soon.
So, I don't know if this LONGGGG email has answered your question
or not... :)
Write me back and let me know, and please feel free to write me your own
long email describing your children's activities! Oh yeah, and please tell
me about your self employment too! My husband and I have been self employed
most of our working lives. I would love to share about it with you in
another email, but fear that it would make this one way too long.
Thanks for reading!
Michelle Schooling
>From: "John and Pam Hensley"
>Reply-To: HomefiresJournal@yahoogroups.com
>To:
>Subject: Re: [HomefiresJournal] Re: Deedee's house/ ot asking michelle to
>share about her unschooling
>Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 23:53:11 -0500
>
>Michelle,
>Would you mind sharing a 'typical day' in your unschooling household?
>Wondering, what are the ages of your children.
>My son was talking about his hs'd friend telling him that he 'had not yet
>begun biology this year' and another ps'd aquaintance not getting 'weekend
>priveleges' due to falling down a grade in biology. Then he asked more
>questions and I tried to tell him learning is life and living it, not
>regurgitating memorized facts out of a biology text book. He asked one more
>question about biology and I said, 'well, it is what we are doing with that
>catepillar who is currenly living in my hat box due to the fact that your
>little brother sat on and broke his bug catcher/holder and we did not have
>one to put the bug in to watch it turn into a lovely butterfly; That is
>biology in our home school :) ' I think he understood...
>Thanks for sharing. I just wonder what other unschooling mommies are doing
>these days.
>I'd love it if you would also share about your new business.
>We have been self employed the 16 years we have been together; it is a
>love/hate thing lol.
>we are basically retired now but have tried many small homebased
>businesses; it has been rather frustrating but God is always faithful to
>provide.
>I wish you all his blessings in your venture!
>Pam
Hi Pam!
Thanks for asking! I am curious about your typical "school" day as
well. I love being on the homefires list, but it's nice to talk to or email
other moms directly and see what they do.
My kids are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and the baby is 25 weeks in utero. My 8, 6,
and 4 year old's birthdays are coming up real soon, though.
We started homeschooling with the A Beka Book Christian curriculum when
my son was in first grade because that's what all the homeschooler's I knew
were doing, and I had only read one book on unschooling, (Mary Griffin's,
which I love) but being a first timer, had no confidence in the "no
curriculum" idea.
My mother in law was actually a kindergarten teacher until she retired to
be a full time grandma, so she has taught my first 3 children how to read,
amoung other things during their "kindergarten year". They would go to her
house for 3 hours or so, and learn from her. After that, I began the
"school at home" with them, with the classroom and all. I taught 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grade all the way through to my first son, and 1st all the way
through to my 2nd son. Then when they were in 4th and 2nd grades, and my
daughter was in kindergarten with her grandma, I started really researching
unschooling.
All I knew was that my boys hated "textbook time", and therefore assumed
that they hated school. I was sick of forcing it on them, and wanted
learning to be fun. We would attempt fun projects here and there, but still
try to "get our other work done", and it was all really stressful.
We went to the Unschooling Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in October of
2005. My mother in law went with us to help take care of Jaidyn my
youngest, who was a little over a year at the time. This allowed James (my
husband) and I to go to the talks and listen uninterrupted. We were
partially convinced that this was something we wanted to try before we went
(actually James more than myself, although I knew what we were doing wasn't
working), and by the time we left the whole family was excited about putting
the textbooks on the shelf and learning through living. It took some time
for my inlaws to "see" it working... in fact my Father in law was highly
doubtful! But within the last year, we have all seen so much learning
taking place in my children's lives, that we aren't looking back, and my
father in law is now advocating this "method" of learning to his other sons
for their children. :) One of his favorite ways to contribute is to tape
and watch classic movies or educational shows, or just plain interesting
stuff for them to watch. A lot of times they watch it with him. (We don't
have cable right now, so this works great for us, plus I don't have to spend
the time surfing the cable channels!)
Sorry if you didn't want that much detail.... I love to write.
Especially about my kids.
So... a typical day.
We have no set "learning" time anymore. My kids get up when they want,
and usually get their own breakfast. If I've had a late night, I'll sleep
in, and the older kids help the younger ones with their breakfast. They
know to come get me if they need help with a diaper or something, though. :)
I do the finances for our business (Yay! We are self employed too!),
and that means I'm at the computer usually for at least part of most days.
Some days I do nothing for the business except check the P.O. Box, and we'll
go to the park and play. We'll get pizza at the local place and walk to the
park on a nice day. We live in a small rural farm town.
How do you describe an unschooling day? My kids build things with
household objects, like tents from blankets, pillows, and chairs. They
build golf courses, and miniature houses with the many books we have piled
on the fireplace hearth. They also pick up these books and read them.
Sometimes to themselves, sometimes to their younger siblings. We try to go
to the library every couple of weeks to purge and replenish this supply. We
take our bag from the unschooling conference every time! :) It says, Birds
Fly, Fish Swim, Humans Learn.
What else... my boys love to play the Pokemon Card game and also another
strategy game with comic book character figurines on a map called HeroClix.
Have you or your kids ever heard of it? If you have trouble with any of
them liking math, and they like make believe... get one of these games! My
8 year old sat for half an hour by himself yesterday "doing Math". :) I
smiled to myself. If you asked what he was doing, he'd tell you that he was
figuring out which one of his Hero Clix characters was the strongest. Each
character has different points assigned to it for it's strength, it's
attacks, and weaknesses, etc... it's very complicated. So, he sat their
adding, subtracting, etc., for about a half hour. Turns out his Superman
Blue is the strongest.
My 6 year old girl and four year old boy also have their own Pokemon
cards, and Savannah (the 6 year old) actually plays at the free play
tournaments when we go, and she battles her brothers at home too. The older
kids have made up a simplified version of the game for their 4 year old
brother to play with his cards. He doesn't really understand the points
system yet, though, so when he trades cards, he trades based on how much he
likes the Pokemon, and they have to watch out for him so he doesn't get
traded down, especially at the free plays with other people.
Oh yeah, the boys learned about HeroClix from their uncle who loves
video games and comic books, and now they are getting their other uncle into
it. Last night they all got together at Uncle Tim's to have a HeroClix
tournament! The neighbor boys, who are my boys ages, came over to watch and
learn.
My oldest, Jesse, loves all things scientific. He gets this from his
dad. We go camping as often as we can, and usually the fireside talks end
up being about something scientific because the kids ask all kinds of "why?"
questions, and James loves to answer them, or look them up if he doesn't
know. At a camping trip this year they made a flame thrower with a can of
OFF! :) He did caution them multiple times of the dangers, even telling
them about how he singed his arm hairs once by not doing it correctly, and
explaining the scientific reasons behind why there is a correct way of
making a flamethrower. I don't know them, I'm more of the writing reading
type.
That's another thing we do is I like to read books to them before bed at
night. Recently we've fallen out of the habit since I am usually too tired
being this far along in my pregnancy. But I did read to my daughter in the
evening the other day. She absolutely LOVES horses! So, we were reading a
horse story.
I am on an email list for a homeschool field trip group. It's a fun way
to meet new people, and this woman does a fabulous job coming up with a
variety of field trips. This month we will be going to a play of "The
Jungle Book", we went to a pizza place for a behind the scenes tour, we'll
be going to a historical 1800's farm to learn about the agricultural
lifestyle, and a pumpkin patch to learn Ohio's history.... Next month, I am
taking my daughter to a Horse Hospital with this group. She is sooo looking
forward to it.
Well, I'm describing a lot of things my kids do, but not really what a
typical day is like.
In a typical day, my kids find things for themselves to do. They ride bikes
and scooters, they take walks (lucky for us their grandma and grandpa, and
now their cousins, all live in the same neighborhood), they visit friends,
and occasionally watch TV. They play their HeroClix and Pokemon games, and
they make up games with each other. They discuss things with me, or we bake
and cook together. One of their favorite things to do, with or without
their neighbor friends is to play "Town" in the basement. The basement is
what we call "Kid Kingdom"... to the eye of an ordinary adult it looks like
a trash dump with piles of boxes scattered here and there. The boxes are my
storage containing clothing mostly, and some picture frames, holiday decor,
etc... But when the kids take you on a tour of the basement, you see it
come alive into different stores, daycares, a cafe (where you can watch tv
while you eat), a bank, even a mobile advertising bike (based loosely on my
husband's mobile advertising business). They have a mini economy going.
Their currency is a combination of Monopoly money, and some play money.
They have auctions, and stores, they combine and dismantle businesses
regularly. Their neighbor friends who play store the most with them are an
11 year old girl, and a 15 year old boy.
Although, since the beginning of this school year, the 15 year old has,
I think, begun to be busy with his teenage school life, and hasn't been
around. My boys are disappointed, but we've been warning them for about 2
years that it'd happen soon.
So, I don't know if this LONGGGG email has answered your question
or not... :)
Write me back and let me know, and please feel free to write me your own
long email describing your children's activities! Oh yeah, and please tell
me about your self employment too! My husband and I have been self employed
most of our working lives. I would love to share about it with you in
another email, but fear that it would make this one way too long.
Thanks for reading!
Michelle Schooling
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Unschooling Ourselves (a lot about James)
Today I had to meet James (my husband) at the office. He filed a 6 month extension for our 2005 taxes, and the time is almost up. He absolutely HATES numbers, and wanted my help. I like number crunching, and do most of the business finances myself. I have never had any kind of training, I just enjoy working with numbers, and am learning while doing.... Practise what you preach, right? :)
I had no idea what to expect. Doing taxes sounded daunting to me, but I barged into it with bravado. Turns out there wasn't much to it at all, the accountant handles a lot of the dirty work. James just couldn't even get his brain functioning in the numbers mode enough to fully figure out what the accountant needed. His brain is so full already of all the other aspects and pressures of the business that I am happy to help him in this area.
On the way to the office I heard this country song that I liked the words to. (I'm not a big country person, but man, have you listened to the radio lately? It sucks! You have to flip through the channels forever to find anything interesting!)
So, I'm this analytical person, right, and I can't just listen to music for the melody like James can... so I'm listening to the words of this country song, and agreeing with it. It said something like:
You can't learn to drive until you get behind the wheel,
You can't learn to pray till you're afraid of what you feel...
Basically the message was that until you actually live life doing real things, you haven't really lived. It reminded me of unschooling, and also of us starting a business that we weren't familiar with. Flying by the seat of your pants, learning as you do... That's a real education. Not the college "education" where you don't actually get out into the adult world until you're like 25 years old... Then - you start your real education.
So, when James started telling me how he feels bad about not seeing all these things he should have done before, I told him about the song... I said, how can you blame yourself for not seeing these things when it's your first time in this kind of a business? And he jumped in with both feet, not looking back, to head it up! He's getting an education in advertising the real way! No degree required. And funny enough, people with degrees in marketing and graphic design look up to him and respect his opinion because he's confident, and does his best. And it usually turns out great. These people have no idea that he just starting messing around with graphic design/advertising about a year ago, and has had no college "education" in it.
What can I say? I'm proud of my man for his accomplishments. His accomplishments of having the gusto to just get out there and do it. To take charge in a new environment, and have a can do attitude. I'm proud that my kids have such a great man for a dad. A good example of how to learn while living.... unschooling himself through life!
I had no idea what to expect. Doing taxes sounded daunting to me, but I barged into it with bravado. Turns out there wasn't much to it at all, the accountant handles a lot of the dirty work. James just couldn't even get his brain functioning in the numbers mode enough to fully figure out what the accountant needed. His brain is so full already of all the other aspects and pressures of the business that I am happy to help him in this area.
On the way to the office I heard this country song that I liked the words to. (I'm not a big country person, but man, have you listened to the radio lately? It sucks! You have to flip through the channels forever to find anything interesting!)
So, I'm this analytical person, right, and I can't just listen to music for the melody like James can... so I'm listening to the words of this country song, and agreeing with it. It said something like:
You can't learn to drive until you get behind the wheel,
You can't learn to pray till you're afraid of what you feel...
Basically the message was that until you actually live life doing real things, you haven't really lived. It reminded me of unschooling, and also of us starting a business that we weren't familiar with. Flying by the seat of your pants, learning as you do... That's a real education. Not the college "education" where you don't actually get out into the adult world until you're like 25 years old... Then - you start your real education.
So, when James started telling me how he feels bad about not seeing all these things he should have done before, I told him about the song... I said, how can you blame yourself for not seeing these things when it's your first time in this kind of a business? And he jumped in with both feet, not looking back, to head it up! He's getting an education in advertising the real way! No degree required. And funny enough, people with degrees in marketing and graphic design look up to him and respect his opinion because he's confident, and does his best. And it usually turns out great. These people have no idea that he just starting messing around with graphic design/advertising about a year ago, and has had no college "education" in it.
What can I say? I'm proud of my man for his accomplishments. His accomplishments of having the gusto to just get out there and do it. To take charge in a new environment, and have a can do attitude. I'm proud that my kids have such a great man for a dad. A good example of how to learn while living.... unschooling himself through life!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Just some day to day stuff....
I actually started this blog to keep track of some of the "educational" things we do, participate in, or talk about. Then it kind of evolved into my personal pulpit for a while...
Right now, I'm just kind of taking a backseat to life, and watching the goings on around me. I'm comfortable with where I am at, and not so worried anymore that I am "doing the right thing". I'm starting to see that there are many right ways to educate your children, and mine might not necessarily work for everyone out there for one reason or another.
I am loving how we do things and a lot more relaxed about where we are going. I read this great article the other day. It said that from the "research" that the authors have done, it has been "scientifically proven" that on the whole, kids cannot learn things like abstract Math (not connected to anything real) and Grammar (participles, diagramming sentences,etc.)from a textbook, before the age of ten. Now granted, they can memorize it, and seem to be doing the worksheets properly, but they "file" it in the wrong compartment of their minds, so that when they get into junior high, and their brain tries to access it to build on it, they cannot remember it, and have to relearn it anyway.
I put the words "research", and "scientifically proven" in parantheses, because so many people claim those words.... who knows what is fact or fiction. Anyway, I liked what the article said, and believe it to be true.
I am enjoying using my kids under 10 years to teach them real Math (concrete - as in actual objects or subjects that are in everyday life), and teaching them Language through everyday speech... Here are some examples:
The other evening, Travis comes into the living room and asks me, "Mom, what is heavier than an elephant, but can fly?" I thought for a minute, and said, "An airplane." Right!, He smiled. He had made up the riddle himself. So, then he asks James, "Dad, you make up your own riddle, and ask me.." (I'm paraphrasing here.)
James says, I'm not too good at making them up... How about, "What's black and white and red all over?" Travis doesn't get it. I help him out. Not red R-E-D, Travis... read R-E-A-D... what's black and white and "read" all over... I said, making a motion of reading a newspaper.. He got it. He learned the difference in how to spell red and read, how to use them in a sentence, and how to interchange them to make a play on words, in an instant. No textbook necessary.
This is such a minute example... there are sooo many times I hear the question, "Mom, how do you spell this?" I happen to be a good speller. But if I wasn't, you'd better believe I'd always have access to a dictionary! :) Maybe carry a paperback around with me! :) That question comes up constantly... Another example was when Travis wanted to sell his Hero Clix figurines. (He and Jesse had been arguing over the rules of the game a lot while playing, and he decided he was done. No more Hero Clix. "Jesse cheats EVERY game!"... Travis has a tendency to overdramatize... :)
Anyway, he got on Ebay, and had to look up some words, he'd never paid attention to spelling before... "Mom, how do you spell rookie? Experience? No, Experienced...." And at the same time he was learning these words, he was practicing his typing, and computer navigation.... Don'tcha just love learning while living? :)
A good example of learning real Math would be the cookie fundraiser we are planning to repeat this year. The kids are actually going to experience having their very own credit card! We are going to go to Sam's Club, and get one of their store cards, so that the kids can use it to buy the ingredients for the cookies. They (probably Jesse, mostly, maybe Travis... if he catches on) will be figuring up the cost of the ingredients which will involve A LOT of fractions, teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, multiplying, dividing, adding, subtracting,etc, etc... Not to mention the real world experience of calculating interest and having to pay it. I have a feeling my kids are going to argue about what they should buy in addition to cookie ingredients. Savannah and Travis will argue that they WILL pay the money back for that new toy, and Jesse will say, "No! We have to make the money first..." Or maybe the lure of credit will get him too... I'm excited to see! I'll update my blog as soon as I find out! :)
Cooking and/or baking are such excellent ways of teaching fractions and measurements. I know it's talked about a lot, but it's sooo true! The kids GET IT because it's right in front of them! It's not this circle on a page with lines through it marking halves, thirds, and fourths, which are words not connected with anything real, but the outline on the paper.... They associate fractions with REAL things. This cup is 1 whole cup. It'll take 2 of these half cups to fill it up with flour. It's soooo simple. I don't know why it's so hard for us to get that it could be that simple....
Learning days of the week, and months of the year, is such an easy to come by thing as well. My kids know exactly how many days it will be until Friday, because that is video game night! Savannah, Travis, and Jesse have it down pat. Aaron is learning by constantly asking, "What day is it?", and "How many days until Friday?" Or it's their friends, or cousins spending the night they are counting down to, or any other event... a field trip, Trick or Treat, the new baby's due date, etc.,etc...
Life provides so many opportunities for learning.
Another good example of learning language, is just the everyday conversation.. How often does this occur with your kids?... The kids says, "Mom, how come cats eat mouses?" You answer, "Because if cats didn't eat MICE, there would be too many of them around." Here, the child has learned about the food chain, the effects of its interruption, and they've learned that the plural of mouse is not mouses, but mice. Maybe you've never even paid attention to yourself doing this. But, believe it or not, you are teaching language much more effectively than any textbook (or teacher) ever could. Maybe your child won't remember that exact word the very first time (it just depends on their age). But over time, you will notice that the child naturally starts calling mice "mice"... not "mouses". If you want to, you can tell your child, (Like I did with this particular conversation with Savannah about mouses :), "Honey, the plural of mouse is mice... not mouses." And then continue to explain that plural means more than one. But even if you don't, they will come across that information sometime in their lives, and recognize it as the "educational" reason they say mice instead of mouses.
Well, that fulfills my blogging desire for the night. I wish I could write down every "educational" thing we discuss/do in everyday life... but alas.. I am tired. Good night!
Right now, I'm just kind of taking a backseat to life, and watching the goings on around me. I'm comfortable with where I am at, and not so worried anymore that I am "doing the right thing". I'm starting to see that there are many right ways to educate your children, and mine might not necessarily work for everyone out there for one reason or another.
I am loving how we do things and a lot more relaxed about where we are going. I read this great article the other day. It said that from the "research" that the authors have done, it has been "scientifically proven" that on the whole, kids cannot learn things like abstract Math (not connected to anything real) and Grammar (participles, diagramming sentences,etc.)from a textbook, before the age of ten. Now granted, they can memorize it, and seem to be doing the worksheets properly, but they "file" it in the wrong compartment of their minds, so that when they get into junior high, and their brain tries to access it to build on it, they cannot remember it, and have to relearn it anyway.
I put the words "research", and "scientifically proven" in parantheses, because so many people claim those words.... who knows what is fact or fiction. Anyway, I liked what the article said, and believe it to be true.
I am enjoying using my kids under 10 years to teach them real Math (concrete - as in actual objects or subjects that are in everyday life), and teaching them Language through everyday speech... Here are some examples:
The other evening, Travis comes into the living room and asks me, "Mom, what is heavier than an elephant, but can fly?" I thought for a minute, and said, "An airplane." Right!, He smiled. He had made up the riddle himself. So, then he asks James, "Dad, you make up your own riddle, and ask me.." (I'm paraphrasing here.)
James says, I'm not too good at making them up... How about, "What's black and white and red all over?" Travis doesn't get it. I help him out. Not red R-E-D, Travis... read R-E-A-D... what's black and white and "read" all over... I said, making a motion of reading a newspaper.. He got it. He learned the difference in how to spell red and read, how to use them in a sentence, and how to interchange them to make a play on words, in an instant. No textbook necessary.
This is such a minute example... there are sooo many times I hear the question, "Mom, how do you spell this?" I happen to be a good speller. But if I wasn't, you'd better believe I'd always have access to a dictionary! :) Maybe carry a paperback around with me! :) That question comes up constantly... Another example was when Travis wanted to sell his Hero Clix figurines. (He and Jesse had been arguing over the rules of the game a lot while playing, and he decided he was done. No more Hero Clix. "Jesse cheats EVERY game!"... Travis has a tendency to overdramatize... :)
Anyway, he got on Ebay, and had to look up some words, he'd never paid attention to spelling before... "Mom, how do you spell rookie? Experience? No, Experienced...." And at the same time he was learning these words, he was practicing his typing, and computer navigation.... Don'tcha just love learning while living? :)
A good example of learning real Math would be the cookie fundraiser we are planning to repeat this year. The kids are actually going to experience having their very own credit card! We are going to go to Sam's Club, and get one of their store cards, so that the kids can use it to buy the ingredients for the cookies. They (probably Jesse, mostly, maybe Travis... if he catches on) will be figuring up the cost of the ingredients which will involve A LOT of fractions, teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, multiplying, dividing, adding, subtracting,etc, etc... Not to mention the real world experience of calculating interest and having to pay it. I have a feeling my kids are going to argue about what they should buy in addition to cookie ingredients. Savannah and Travis will argue that they WILL pay the money back for that new toy, and Jesse will say, "No! We have to make the money first..." Or maybe the lure of credit will get him too... I'm excited to see! I'll update my blog as soon as I find out! :)
Cooking and/or baking are such excellent ways of teaching fractions and measurements. I know it's talked about a lot, but it's sooo true! The kids GET IT because it's right in front of them! It's not this circle on a page with lines through it marking halves, thirds, and fourths, which are words not connected with anything real, but the outline on the paper.... They associate fractions with REAL things. This cup is 1 whole cup. It'll take 2 of these half cups to fill it up with flour. It's soooo simple. I don't know why it's so hard for us to get that it could be that simple....
Learning days of the week, and months of the year, is such an easy to come by thing as well. My kids know exactly how many days it will be until Friday, because that is video game night! Savannah, Travis, and Jesse have it down pat. Aaron is learning by constantly asking, "What day is it?", and "How many days until Friday?" Or it's their friends, or cousins spending the night they are counting down to, or any other event... a field trip, Trick or Treat, the new baby's due date, etc.,etc...
Life provides so many opportunities for learning.
Another good example of learning language, is just the everyday conversation.. How often does this occur with your kids?... The kids says, "Mom, how come cats eat mouses?" You answer, "Because if cats didn't eat MICE, there would be too many of them around." Here, the child has learned about the food chain, the effects of its interruption, and they've learned that the plural of mouse is not mouses, but mice. Maybe you've never even paid attention to yourself doing this. But, believe it or not, you are teaching language much more effectively than any textbook (or teacher) ever could. Maybe your child won't remember that exact word the very first time (it just depends on their age). But over time, you will notice that the child naturally starts calling mice "mice"... not "mouses". If you want to, you can tell your child, (Like I did with this particular conversation with Savannah about mouses :), "Honey, the plural of mouse is mice... not mouses." And then continue to explain that plural means more than one. But even if you don't, they will come across that information sometime in their lives, and recognize it as the "educational" reason they say mice instead of mouses.
Well, that fulfills my blogging desire for the night. I wish I could write down every "educational" thing we discuss/do in everyday life... but alas.. I am tired. Good night!
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Kids growing up doesn't have to mean growing away from you!
I just wanted to blog a little about the ties that bind us to our kids. Tonight, I played Texas Hold Em' alongside my 10 year old, Jesse, and I was amazed at how he has soaked in all the poker terminology, and how to play in such a short time. His desire to hang out with his family is a major contributor to his desire to learn the games we play. We started out with 7 players betting $3 each. Jesse took 4th place in his first real betting game. This didn't win him any money, but I was so proud of how he handled himself, and was such a pro. He certainly played better, and understood more than I did in my first game!
I ended up taking 2nd for maybe the first time ever, and I got back the $6 I'd put in to cover Jesse and myself. I plan on taking him to Starbucks and enjoying the winnings with him for his hard efforts. He was up until around 2AM, outlasting 3 adults!
He says that Grandpa wants him to start playing with us whenever we do, and I think it's a great idea! Odds are a big part of poker, and how many 5th graders understand odds all that well? Or, just the life lesson of becoming cautious, not expecting gambling to pan out big bucks all the time. He'll learn to become realistic about how much money he gambles REAL fast!
Anyway, besides all the educational aspects, I just really enjoyed hanging out with my two older boys tonight. For really the first time, they joined in on the adults games, instead of watching a movie or playing with their cousins, or a video game.
Travis played a few practice hands of poker, and he sat on my lap and watched the real game for quite a while too. I'm sure it won't be long before he's where Jesse is now.
The other game that they played with all of us is called Mafia. It's basically a strategic lying game. It involves A LOT of communication, and teaches you NOT to be backwards/shy.
It's a lot of fun.
We had some family down from Pennsylvania this weekend for Labor Day, 5 adults, and one baby (almost a year old). They came in on Friday, and are staying until Sunday night. I am so happy that our family is big on hanging out with each other. My kids are growing up in such a rich supportive emotional environment. I treasure that. As well as the fact that most everyone in the family, even the extended members from Pa., are born again Christians.
All together this weekend, the whole group that was hanging out with each other consisted of 9 families represented (not every member got to come), by 14 adults ranging in age from 22 to 53, and 12 children ranging in ages from 5 months to 10 years old... not including myself and Carrie being pregnant at 20 and 15 weeks along respectively. Talk about a range of socialization!
I just thought it was so cool to see my 8 and a half year old, and 10 year old boys playing games and interacting with all of us adults, and having a great time doing so. It's not only great seeing them starting to grow up, it's wonderful knowing that they are growing up WITH us, NOT away from us.
I ended up taking 2nd for maybe the first time ever, and I got back the $6 I'd put in to cover Jesse and myself. I plan on taking him to Starbucks and enjoying the winnings with him for his hard efforts. He was up until around 2AM, outlasting 3 adults!
He says that Grandpa wants him to start playing with us whenever we do, and I think it's a great idea! Odds are a big part of poker, and how many 5th graders understand odds all that well? Or, just the life lesson of becoming cautious, not expecting gambling to pan out big bucks all the time. He'll learn to become realistic about how much money he gambles REAL fast!
Anyway, besides all the educational aspects, I just really enjoyed hanging out with my two older boys tonight. For really the first time, they joined in on the adults games, instead of watching a movie or playing with their cousins, or a video game.
Travis played a few practice hands of poker, and he sat on my lap and watched the real game for quite a while too. I'm sure it won't be long before he's where Jesse is now.
The other game that they played with all of us is called Mafia. It's basically a strategic lying game. It involves A LOT of communication, and teaches you NOT to be backwards/shy.
It's a lot of fun.
We had some family down from Pennsylvania this weekend for Labor Day, 5 adults, and one baby (almost a year old). They came in on Friday, and are staying until Sunday night. I am so happy that our family is big on hanging out with each other. My kids are growing up in such a rich supportive emotional environment. I treasure that. As well as the fact that most everyone in the family, even the extended members from Pa., are born again Christians.
All together this weekend, the whole group that was hanging out with each other consisted of 9 families represented (not every member got to come), by 14 adults ranging in age from 22 to 53, and 12 children ranging in ages from 5 months to 10 years old... not including myself and Carrie being pregnant at 20 and 15 weeks along respectively. Talk about a range of socialization!
I just thought it was so cool to see my 8 and a half year old, and 10 year old boys playing games and interacting with all of us adults, and having a great time doing so. It's not only great seeing them starting to grow up, it's wonderful knowing that they are growing up WITH us, NOT away from us.
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