Wordless Wednesday

Homeschool Honeymoon

Well, we are 5 1/2 weeks into our homeschool experience, and I can tell you that we are definitely “honeymooning.”

Put simply, we are all ridiculously, absurdly, uproariously happy with our lives right now. 

(Sidenote:  Homeschooling.  Who knew?)

In retrospect, maybe it should not have been a surprise.  For one thing, I love teaching my kids stuff.  Always have.  It’s the nerd in me, I guess.  Other parents might like playing games with their kids, or introducing them to sports, or taking them on adventures, or singing with them, or whatever…and while I do enjoy those things, none of them can compare with the sheer joy of teaching them.  Seriously, the most moving, sublime times for me in my children’s lives have been watching them learn something, watching them truly get it.  I remember so clearly the tears that blurred my vision when Luke first learned to read.  Or even when he inadvertently memorized a book that I had read over and over to him.  In those moments, I felt like I was on holy ground, watching the workings of an amazing brain…amazing, because God created it.

And while the first 2 1/2 weeks were spent adjusting to the lifestyle, secretly fretting that I was messing my kids up, and obsessively researching homeschooling philosophy and curriculum, the last two weeks have been spent happily hitting my stride.  I read The Well Trained Mind and was inspired to inject a little of the rigor of classical education into my otherwise Charlotte-Mason-inspired curriculum.  I ditched some things that were not working, that were either too hard or, conversely, not rigorous enough.  I tweaked some of the curriculum that I really liked but thought it needed a little more to it.  And…it all fell into place. 

Take today:  neither kid wanted to start school, but my absurd giddiness at getting to teach them soon won them over, and they quickly dropped the act of not liking to learn.  They pored over our history book with me as we learned about the early settlers, and we got another chance to use our new vocabulary word:  nomad.  (That word has been cropping up everywhere lately.)  Then I gave both of them a “spelling test,” just because I wanted to see if Luke could spell his words in his spelling lesson before we even started.  He could (so could Anna, for that matter, though she preferred to build hers out of magnets), but I’m not letting him skip any lessons, in order to ensure that he will get all the phonics.  However, he loved the spelling test so much that he wanted to keep writing words.  I told him that he could write some more after he finished language arts.  He then blew through his spelling lesson while Anna read aloud to me from Phonics Pathways.  When Luke was done, the three of us did our grammar lesson.  I was supposed to repeat the definition of a noun three times, but they both wanted to recite it to me before I said it once.  Flawlessly, they said, “A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.”  Then, proud of their memories, they each wanted to recite the poem, “The Caterpillar,” which they had memorized last week, as well as the books of the New Testament.  I let them, and then we proceeded with our grammar lesson, focusing on proper names.  After we worked through that (and practiced answering in complete sentences), I let Luke finish his free writing.  He then busied himself writing an exercise for me, complete with written instructions, in which I was supposed to write the name of an uncle, an aunt, my mother, my father, and a cousin.  (Can you tell we talked about family members when talking about proper v. common nouns?)  While Luke was working on that, I read a Margaret Hillert book to Anna, and then had her read it back to me.  It was a little more difficult than our last one, and we will keep reading it each day until she has it down.  Then, Luke chose to read a chapter of Abel’s Island to me for his reading.  I had just picked both books up from the library that morning and found his after googling  for appropriate readers for his level.  I found a list that seemed to be a gold mine, and promptly checked out two of them (the other was The Courage of Sarah Noble).  He chose to read Abel’s Island first.  We also got a new vocabulary word from it:  roam.  (Who knew that was a new word to him??)

Next was math, and I had Luke do an addition worksheet and subtraction worksheet before doing his Singapore work because, as much as I adore Singapore, I really want him to master basic addition, and I can’t think of any other way to do that besides drilling.  He did not complain at all, and after he was finished, he promptly completed five pages in his worksheet.  Anna, meanwhile, did six workbook pages of counting in order (closely supervised by me), including one where she colored in a bar graph of the numbers 1-10.  By that time, we had done math for half an hour, and she had completed all the pages I had in mind for her, but she turned the page and cheerfully said, “What should I do on this page?”  So I “let” them work for another fifteen minutes before I “let” them run down the hill to check the mail for me.  And then we started science.  And then we did handwriting.  And then I read two chapters from our read-alouds.  The whole time (other than the few moments before we started), there was not. one. complaint.

So, yeah…can you say, “honeymoon stage”?  Seriously, I feel the need to record this euphoria so that if and when it all comes crashing down, I can look back fondly on these early days:).

I do have some safeguards, however, which may protect from a crash.  For one thing, I think I have hit on a good in house/out of house balance.  Each week, the kids have a 3 hour music/art/P.E. tutorial where they can be with other kids; we also have a two hour gathering with our local homeschool group each week at a nearby playground; we spend one afternoon a week out with Luke’s tae kwon do, and Anna’s gymnastics; we tutor once a week at Hobby Shop; we try to get together with our bff’s, the Steeds, once a week; and Greg takes the kids at least twice a week for P.E. or a nature walk, both of which they all greatly enjoy.  Really, it sounds busier than what it is.  It is one morning, and two afternoons, besides Greg’s P.E. and our get-together with the Steeds.  That leaves plenty of good time at home, which means a good amount of family time, and the chance to keep my house in relatively good order.  Plus, we are able to have people over from church, as well as see a seemingly constant stream of visitors from out of town.

Also, the simple truth of the matter is that my kids and I are nerds.  That means we genuinely like learning together.  And even though Luke doesn’t love hard work, and Anna is a wiggle worm (she’s four; enough said), Luke also loves routines, and Anna does like hard work.  So our routine appeals to Luke, and Anna tends not to be a complainer anyway.  (She also tends to do things like pull out my ponytail holder when I’m reading, and change positions a hundred times, but that’s okay.)

Lastly, I have to note that, ironically and somewhat bizarrely, their social skills have actually improved in this new homeschooling lifestyle.  Both of them have talked far more to adults in the last couple weeks than they ever have before, and when we were at McAlister’s on Friday, both looked right at the cashier and clearly stated their order.  Completely unprompted.  They also tell waiters thank you more now, something that Luke, especially, has historically been too shy to do.  They are still hardly social butterflies, but still.  There has been a definite improvement.

So that’s where we are with homeschooling.  I so hope it stays this way.  I know that I might be deluding myself, but I can tell you that I am going to do everything in my power to keep us in the atmosphere we are in now.  I am not exaggerating when I say that it is the closest thing to “domestic bliss” that I have ever experienced!

Some Good Thoughts on Teaching History

Here, Susan Wise Bauer contrasts the traditional, hodge-podge method of learning history with the more systematic study that she recommends.  Really, I think I love it because she articulates a lot of my feelings that I have not been able to fully put into words.  Regardless, reading this passage reinforced my confidence in the decision to start my children on a two-year World History curriculum, before introducing American History:

"Furthermore, you [as a history student] probably started with American history (which is pretty near the end of the story as we know it) and then spent at least twice as much time studying American history as you did studying the rest of the world.  Yes, American history is important for Americans, but this myopic division of the curriculum does the Founding Fathers a disservice.  Children who plunge into the study of American history with no knowledge of the classical models used by Jefferson, Washington, and their colleagues can achieve only a partial understanding of American government and ideals.  And American history ought to be kept in perspective:  the history curriculum covers seventy centuries; America occupies only five of them.

A common assumption found in history curricula seems to be that children can't comprehend (or be interested in) people and events distant from their own experience.  So the first-grade history class is renamed Social Studies and begins with what the child knows:  first, himself and his family, followed by his community, his state, his country, and only then the rest of the world.

This intensely self-focused pattern of study encourages the student of history to relate everything he studies to himself, to measure the cultures and customs of other people against his own experience.  And that's exactly what the classical education fights against--a self-absorbed, self-referential approach to knowledge.  History learned this way makes our needs and wants the center of the human endeavor.  This attitude is destructive at any time, but it is especially destructive in the present global civilization.

The goal of classical education is multicultural in the true sense of the word:  the student learns the proper place of his community, his state, and his country by seeing the broad sweep of history from its beginning and then fitting his own time and place into that great landscape.  The systematic study of history in the first four years [of formal education] lays the foundation for the logic stage, when the student will be able to understand the relationships between historical events--between Egypt and Greece, Greece and Rome, Rome and England, England and America."

--Susan Wise Bauer, The Well-Trained Mind

Adventures in Homeschooling, Week 2

Whew!  Week 2 of homeschooling was truly an adventure.  We went from high-flyin’ (Monday) to in the pits (Wednesday) to regaining hope (Thursday) to back on top of the world (Saturday).  And now we are going to start it all over again tomorrow!

First, though, I’ll give a little recap of this week, just so I’ll be able to look back and remember all that happened.  As usual, I'll let the pictures be my narrative guide.

Inspired by a product on Zulily, I made number bond flashcards, which went with Luke’s lessons in Singapore Math.  Surprisingly, Math has been everyone’s favorite subject (including mine!), and these flash cards went over well. 

We took our nature walk on Monday morning, and afterward, the kids came home and drew in their journals.  They each drew a leaf that was in the middle of changing colors.  While they drew, I looked up the section on chlorophyll in a book about trees that we had checked out from the library and read to them.  Luke surprised me by incorporating that information into his drawing:

That morning, we learned about foods from around the world, and I used my color copier to copy some of the pictures in our book.  The kids then took turn matching the pictures to the corresponding countries:

During math, I made a little number bond template to go with the lesson, and Luke liked it even more than the flashcards.  Here, he is coming up with all the different ways to make ten:

In the meantime, Anna worked with shapes:

Since we were learning about international foods, we had couscous and vegetables for lunch, reminding ourselves that many people around the world don’t eat a lot of meat:

That afternoon, Anna had her first gymnastics class!

It was a “fun week,” so the kids mainly got to play in a  little play area, jump on trampolines, and do the zip line. 

The zip line was Anna’s favorite.

That evening, we had planned to meet up with our friends, the Prices and the Burnells, and go to a little Ethiopian restaurant near Y.E.S.  (it was international food day, remember?).  Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed on Mondays.  So…we went to another Ethiopian restaurant around the corner, but it had moved.  Finally, we settled on a Mediterranean restaurant in the same shopping center that served Kurdish food.

It might have just been because the kids were starving by that time, but they downed their soup and ate a good bit of their dinner!  I personally thought the restaurant was great!

On Tuesday, we learned about clothing styles from around the world, so the kids spent some time playing with this really cool sticker book from Usborne, called Sticker Dolly Dressing Around the World.  It had really detailed and elaborate outfits from many different cultures. 

It might have been the kids’ favorite thing of the week!

Anna also wrote her spelling list BIG:

And made words:

And graphed some groups of toys:

I also first used the iPad as extra practice on concepts while I worked with the other child:

On Tuesday evening, Luke had his first karate lesson:

He loved it and did great.  We are going to try out one more place this week that is much more affordable and works much better with our schedule.  But I’m so glad to know that he does enjoy martial arts class.

Wednesday was our hard day.  In hindsight, part of the reason was that we were worn out from karate and from staying up later to watch the Olympics.  Also, we all were about to get colds, unbeknownst to us at the time.  And maybe the full reality of homeschooling really hit Luke.  I don’t know.  Regardless, he had a major meltdown in the middle of the day, and he certainly wasn’t too excited about exercise time/karate practice in the morning.

To be fair, we did make them work on push-ups, which isn’t the most fun thing in the world.  But Luke had to do it in karate class, so we figured we needed to work with him on it!

On the plus side, we watched some flamenco dances, including this one:

And we made cookies:

And we had a cookout at church that night, where Luke actually joined in the boys’ baseball game by volunteering to be catcher.  I was so proud of him, as he is profoundly intimidated by baseball, despite Greg’s efforts to work with him and teach him the rules.

On Thursday, we went to a homeschool play group.

It was nice meeting other homeschool moms in the area, and I got some really good tips, like this other karate place we are going to try, and a music/art/P.E. tutorial that seems perfect for my kids.  After the play group, we came home and had school…

…before heading to P.E. with Greg in the Y.E.S. gym.  The kids loved that part of school.  We’ve been working on riding our bikes, since we were way out of practice.  There are just too many hills and busy roads around our house to make bike riding a daily possibility.  Thanks to a recent concerted effort to get the kids “up to speed” on bike riding, they both are a lot better.

That evening, I forgot to plan for dinner before karate, so Greg got some food from a taco truck on the way home:

Anna wasn’t feeling well, so I stayed home with her while Greg took Luke to karate.  He said he did very well, and Luke excitedly brought home his white belt.

On Friday, we took a much-needed break and visited the Steeds.  When they start homeschooling, we will probably get together for more education-oriented fare, but today, we all just enjoyed playing:

Saturday wasn’t a school day, either, but we did very much enjoy bilingual story hour at the library:

We also got to pick out books for each kid, from the overflow of donations they had.  I was excited to pick up these two for our home library:

Afterwards, the kids had fun playing and making new friends on the playground for awhile before heading home.  When we got home, Gigi and Papa were there with Greg, and we ate lunch with them out on the patio. 

That afternoon we went for a bike ride on a nearby greenway:

Luke rode a mile like it was nothing.  It made me realize that Greg and I really need to get bikes, too!  Afterward, the kids played on that playground together for a good long while:

Then, we came home, grilled steaks and kielbasa, and ate on the patio for the second time.  Later Uncle Joe and Aunt Betty stopped by since they were in town from Atlanta, and that night, a family from Summerville came over.  They are here to drop their son off at school, and while their mom and I talked, Luke and Anna had a blast catching fireflies and rolling down our hill with their girls.  After they left (Greg had arranged for them to stay with his cousins, so he took them out there), the kids and I laid on blankets and looked at the stars.  It was a wonderful, calming end to a fun, but somewhat turbulent week.  Even with our rough day, I’m still so excited to begin another one tomorrow!

Adventures in Homeschooling, Week 1

I think our first week of homeschooling was a success.  I took a few pictures to prove we actually did something resembling schoolwork…

Recording questions from our nature walk into our science notebook:

Writing…something:

Language arts:

Math:

Spanish BINGO:

Not pictured:

My stress over the fact that I was totally failing Anna and that she needed to be going to playdates and chasing butterflies instead of learning how to read. 

My subsequent scouring of the interwebs for warnings about educating children too soon, in search of proof, I guess, that I was failing my child.

My finding of such warnings, including a list of when a child is really ready to read.  Anna met every qualification easily.

My extrapolating to Greg of all the reasons why I was not a good mom or homeschool teacher.  (Me, mid-ramble:  “Do you mind if I babble on about this at length, because I have a lot of thoughts on the subject.”  Him, laughing:  “You’re going to anyway, so what does it matter?”)

Greg’s reassurances that I was the best mom ever, that my kids (as well as the world at large) were lucky to have me, that everyone was going to turn out just fine, and basically, that I’m totally doing the perfect thing and all my decisions are right.  He succeeded handily in pacifying my concerns.

Okay, back to the pictures…

This week, we also discovered some of the scheduling perks of homeschooling.  For example, after school on Tuesday, we had plenty of time to go swimming with the Woodbine teens at the house of one of our intern’s friends. 

This house was so big, it made me want to break out my SAT words.

Opulent.  Ostentatious.  Grandiose.  Lavish.

And let’s not forget,

ridonkulous.

Here is half of the pool.

That tunnel leads to the deep side:

That little cave is actually a waterfall that can be turned on at the push of a button.  To the right of the deep side was a super-fast slide that you rode down on rafts.  We all had to give it a go.  Anna rode with one of the teens, but Luke braved it himself.  I didn’t time my picture well, and you can barely see his head:

Here is Anna in front of the pool house.

Even though it was hot, we loved hanging out in the jacuzzi:

We also spent some time bridge-jumping.

Does this count as P.E.?:)

The kids loved swimming through the tunnel:

And playing with the teens:

Our already good day got even better when we got home and saw Gaga waiting for us!  Luke had been dying for her to visit, and she finally agreed to come up on Tuesday.  Of course, she was fully supportive of our homeschooling schedule, and the next morning, she worked on curtains for Anna’s room while we did school. 

That evening, we went to Olive Garden.  Both kids wanted to sit by Gaga, and she finally had to let them both squeeze in with her:

Another perk of homeschooling is that we get to keep the kids on a four-day-a-week school schedule.  I plan to use the fifth day for field trips, and the kids took an unconventional one this week when Gaga suggested loading them up and taking them to Louisville for the night. 

They love Gaga’s built-in tv screens.  By Gaga’s report, they had a fun time swimming in my aunt and uncle’s pool and going out to eat with my mammaw before heading home this morning.  In the meantime, I got my lessons planned out for next week and did some much-needed house cleaning.  Also, Greg and I had a luxuriously long date which included getting coffee at The Well, going to see an interesting movie at the Belcourt, and then walking to Sunset Grill, a old favorite from our college days, to get dessert.  Since we had already gotten to see the new Batman movie earlier this week, I was feeling super-spoiled with date nights.  We always wait until Gaga is in town, and then pack them in! 

All in all, it was a good first week.  I am definitely still getting my bearings with homeschooling, and am continually fine-tuning and rethinking as I go.  In the midst of all that uncertainty, however, we had a good time learning about the defining characteristics of countries, practicing handwriting, reviewing math, studying common v. proper nouns, going on nature walks, learning about spiders, discovering that our back door was made of metal during our magnet experiment, reading Charlotte’s Web, and going to the library.  And despite my stress attack yesterday, I’m already looking forward to next week!