September 11, 2009
Homeschool Year 2, Week 1
Survived the first week, despite my own crushing exhaustion. In terms of getting ready for baby, I’m not quite there yet, so there’s still an extra burden on top of the usual load of school, cooking, and housekeeping. To top it all I had two nights in a row (!) of being social. Needless to say it was just too much. I’ve been tired, super tired.
Even so, we have managed to have good, productive days of school, even if they’re not terribly inspired. We’ve been doing pages from our Learn At Home 1st Grade Workbook – at least 8 pages a day. In addition I’ve had him do independent reading – at least an hour a day. He’s been reading comic books, which I am all in favor of. He loves them and the ones he’s been reading are rather melodramatic, which means he’s asking me about all sorts of words that are far beyond his reading level: here’s a smattering of the words on the first few pages of the Justice League comic he was reading: descended, engulfing, lurked, saturated, overwhelmed, frantically, avail, emerged, petrified, elaborate, utilize. He did well sounding them out and we talked about their meanings and how to figure out their meanings from the context. Not bad for a 6 year old.
This week we also started homeschool soccer again. It felt good to be welcomed and recognized, but I can see that I need to help Rocketboy learn how to play with others. During their free play time I could see he was having a hard time integrating with the others, until the end when he steped away from the rougher boys and had a rocking game of freeze tag with three girls near his own age.
Writing is still a problem – moving him to extreme whining and nearly to tears at least twice this week. I pushed for him to finish the exercises and made sure he got huge amounts of praise when he finally got past the “I can’t do it” wall. The wall we hit on Thursday was particularly bad and getting past it had him happily high-fiving me. I had hoped that success would carry through a good feeling for the next day, but today we hit that can’t do it wall yet again, though with slightly less force, but only slightly.
I have enrolled him in a partner writing course – he gets paired with a 10 year old homeschooler and together they are creating a story, with the 10 year old doing all the actual pencil to paper writing, but with both of them creating the story and illustrating it together. I hope that might help a bit.
We did get to the Botanical Garden earlier this week where he played urban farmer for a couple of hours. We did some fun cooking activities, including making honey cake. I was particularly proud of his desire to figure out how many cookies he needs to make if we each want a cookie for dessert for the next 5 or 6 days. Independently, he grabbed a piece of chalk, drew boxes for each day, drew 3 cookies in each box, then added them all together. Great problem solving!
In all we managed an average of 4.5 hours of lessons each day, despite my exhaustion and distraction these days. I can’t imagine being more tired after the abby is born, but if I am and this week is any indication of what we can accomplish, we should do fine. Especially since I’m planning to incorporate more independent computer lessons. I’ll probably seek out some educational DVDs too that I can pair with lessons. There are so many good science and nature shows. Though more than anything I wish there was a Power of Myth for little kids. I might just show it to Rocketboy anyway, in small chunks with lots of discussion.
I was a little worried about the sudden removal of copius amounts of TV from his life – during the summer break (especially at the end) he was watching plenty. This week he has been allowed to watch in the morning before our 9am start, as long as he eats and dresses without any complaint. That amounts to about 2 or 3 half hour shows each morning. Beyond that he has had 1 or 2 shows in the evening, though for a couple of days there was no afternoon TV at all. I am happy to report there was nearly no complaint about it. I guess warning him well ahead of time worked. He’s such a good kid. As much as I feel like it’s a struggle to deal with his whining and intensity sometimes, in reality (and in comparison to many, many other kids I see) he’s consistent about asking permission to do things and generally accepts when we tell him no. It’s great validation that our strictness about certain things is really paying off.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Homeschoolers need a vacation too
Last week the public schools in NYC had off for their spring break, and while I could have easily ignored it and gone about our usual homeschooling business, I decided we all needed a break. Besides, so many of the city's esteemed institutions have all sorts of special events for the week, it would be a shame not to take advantage of at least some of them.
Monday we hit the NY Hall of Science and got to see a great science of bubbles show. Tuesday we spent the day at the Met doing an art scavenger hunt. The last few times we've been to art museums, Rocket Boy simply did not have a good time and now like to refer to the Museum of Modern Art as "the museum I hate". This time he had a blast. On Wednesday we sent him to an all day camp at a local kids gym where they specialize in gymnastics (as in state ranked team) and rock climbing. He came back tired. Not just a little tired, but tired like when we were putting on his shoes and coat he asked if he could lay down on the bench. I was speechless. There are a number of good reasons his internet nickname is Rocket Boy. Aside from the fact that since the age of 2 he has steadfastly held on to life's goal to be a rocket scientist, he is a bundle of unstoppable energy, zooming everywhere and not stopping. Needless to say I was pleased and he's is signed up for rock climbing class there every Monday.
On Thursday, a beautiful, beautiful day, after I spent the morning volunteering at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden we went up to the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx. I love them both, but the NYBG has better drop-in events for kids. The BBG has great kids' programming, but they are mostly classes that have to be signed-up or well in advance. Rocket Boy spent a good chunk of our day in the family garden, digging and planting. Friday was another garden day - this time a homeschooler meet-up at a tiny volunteer-run botanic garden in Bay Ridge. He loved the tour, did not want to do the drawing or poetry exercise, and had a great time playing games with all the other kids.
The whole week was light on curriculum and the usual lessons, and big on experience and fun, for him at least. I learned a big lesson that I should lighten up a bit. He will learn and experience and is full of curiosity that just gets dampened when we try to pound it into school-sized shapes. We've opted to step out of the system, there's no reason I need to bring the system home with me. I'll still do lessons and have him practice some basic skills, but they need to be in service of his self-motivated curiosity.
My next big job as his parent and teacher is to perfect the art of pushing. It has to be just enough to get him past his limits, but not so much that it causes him to shut down. It's a very fine line. That said, I'll take him up to the Met again tomorrow and try to push our luck with his distaste for art museums. We never did finish last week's scavenger hunt. We still need to find a samurai, a hippo, George Washington, and a dragon. That shouldn't be too hard as long as we can navigate past the closed bits and actually find the American Wing this time.
Monday we hit the NY Hall of Science and got to see a great science of bubbles show. Tuesday we spent the day at the Met doing an art scavenger hunt. The last few times we've been to art museums, Rocket Boy simply did not have a good time and now like to refer to the Museum of Modern Art as "the museum I hate". This time he had a blast. On Wednesday we sent him to an all day camp at a local kids gym where they specialize in gymnastics (as in state ranked team) and rock climbing. He came back tired. Not just a little tired, but tired like when we were putting on his shoes and coat he asked if he could lay down on the bench. I was speechless. There are a number of good reasons his internet nickname is Rocket Boy. Aside from the fact that since the age of 2 he has steadfastly held on to life's goal to be a rocket scientist, he is a bundle of unstoppable energy, zooming everywhere and not stopping. Needless to say I was pleased and he's is signed up for rock climbing class there every Monday.
On Thursday, a beautiful, beautiful day, after I spent the morning volunteering at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden we went up to the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx. I love them both, but the NYBG has better drop-in events for kids. The BBG has great kids' programming, but they are mostly classes that have to be signed-up or well in advance. Rocket Boy spent a good chunk of our day in the family garden, digging and planting. Friday was another garden day - this time a homeschooler meet-up at a tiny volunteer-run botanic garden in Bay Ridge. He loved the tour, did not want to do the drawing or poetry exercise, and had a great time playing games with all the other kids.
The whole week was light on curriculum and the usual lessons, and big on experience and fun, for him at least. I learned a big lesson that I should lighten up a bit. He will learn and experience and is full of curiosity that just gets dampened when we try to pound it into school-sized shapes. We've opted to step out of the system, there's no reason I need to bring the system home with me. I'll still do lessons and have him practice some basic skills, but they need to be in service of his self-motivated curiosity.
My next big job as his parent and teacher is to perfect the art of pushing. It has to be just enough to get him past his limits, but not so much that it causes him to shut down. It's a very fine line. That said, I'll take him up to the Met again tomorrow and try to push our luck with his distaste for art museums. We never did finish last week's scavenger hunt. We still need to find a samurai, a hippo, George Washington, and a dragon. That shouldn't be too hard as long as we can navigate past the closed bits and actually find the American Wing this time.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Working on Being A Social Caterpillar
I'd say social butterfly, but we're not there yet. We've been joining more of the homeschool activities, including regular Wednesday soccer and playtime as well as any field trips anyone offers. We're starting to recognize and be recognized by others, which is a nice thing.
It has cut back significantly on some of our class hours for those days, which had me a little uptight, but I've gotten over that, mostly because, as Rocket Boy has been running around with all the other homeschool kids, I've been starting to chat with the other parents. It seems like most of the ones I manage to talk with (before I bury myself back in my book) are no so much homeschooling as unschooling. The fact that I use workbooks and aim for 4 solid hours of educational stuff every day makes me an overachiever in most of their eyes. I guess that means I can lighten up on myself a bit.
So even though I've supposedly lightened up, we spent yesterday and today doing lots of workbook stuff - yesterday was nearly all math, and today was all about writing. He rarely objects to writing when it comes to numbers, but he still struggles a bit. I was really surprised at today's writing exercises. This morning, Rocket Boy and his dad blessedly went to run some errands at our local office supply store so I could sleep. While there, they picked up yet another 1st grade writing skills book. I don't know what it is about this book rather than the others, but it had him more engaged. They also picked up a package of silicone grips. We placed them on his pencil (and I let him chew one to keep him from chewing on his shirt all day). Either the book with it's self-evaluation at the end of each activity, the grips, the chewing, or some magic combination of the three made it such that the writing got done with lots of the usual prodding but none of the angst. His writing was far cleaner and neater. I'm not sure what it is, but I'll take it.
I still need to do some research on therapies for him. The chewing has gotten more consistent and his trouble with the writing has led me to look into other therapies for his fine motor skills. I need to pay more attention to his sensory seeking more often and provide more stimulation throughout the day. I'm also going to look into rock climbing for him. There's a kid's gym nearby that has a wall. I'll find out tomorrow about the cost. I really hope it's not too expensive, I think it would be perfect for him.
As for myself, I need to get out there a little more with the other homeschool parents. My social skills are rough and it's far easier to read a book during soccer than to actually interact. I feel like I need to read a primer of how to talk to strangers. If I can have at least three conversations with other parents tomorrow, I'll feel like I accomplished something. Besides that, I need to look into organizing a few activities. I'd like to start a regular gardening club of some sort, or an outing group that has to do with the gardens. I'm certainly qualified to do those and it will help me meet more parents. I wouldn't want to do it as a one-shot, mostly because I want the kids to get some regularly repeated playtime with the same kids over a few weeks so they can actually form relationships. I've told myself that I'll wait until after the never ending taxes are done before I add something else to my plate. (Yes, we are last-minute filers. Every year we owe, so every year we wait to file till the very last minute. It takes forever to do them since we take so many deductions. It is a bit of a marathon. Sure we could have run this marathon in February, but we didn't. The marathon is all the same to us, no matter when it is. So there.)
It has cut back significantly on some of our class hours for those days, which had me a little uptight, but I've gotten over that, mostly because, as Rocket Boy has been running around with all the other homeschool kids, I've been starting to chat with the other parents. It seems like most of the ones I manage to talk with (before I bury myself back in my book) are no so much homeschooling as unschooling. The fact that I use workbooks and aim for 4 solid hours of educational stuff every day makes me an overachiever in most of their eyes. I guess that means I can lighten up on myself a bit.
So even though I've supposedly lightened up, we spent yesterday and today doing lots of workbook stuff - yesterday was nearly all math, and today was all about writing. He rarely objects to writing when it comes to numbers, but he still struggles a bit. I was really surprised at today's writing exercises. This morning, Rocket Boy and his dad blessedly went to run some errands at our local office supply store so I could sleep. While there, they picked up yet another 1st grade writing skills book. I don't know what it is about this book rather than the others, but it had him more engaged. They also picked up a package of silicone grips. We placed them on his pencil (and I let him chew one to keep him from chewing on his shirt all day). Either the book with it's self-evaluation at the end of each activity, the grips, the chewing, or some magic combination of the three made it such that the writing got done with lots of the usual prodding but none of the angst. His writing was far cleaner and neater. I'm not sure what it is, but I'll take it.
I still need to do some research on therapies for him. The chewing has gotten more consistent and his trouble with the writing has led me to look into other therapies for his fine motor skills. I need to pay more attention to his sensory seeking more often and provide more stimulation throughout the day. I'm also going to look into rock climbing for him. There's a kid's gym nearby that has a wall. I'll find out tomorrow about the cost. I really hope it's not too expensive, I think it would be perfect for him.
As for myself, I need to get out there a little more with the other homeschool parents. My social skills are rough and it's far easier to read a book during soccer than to actually interact. I feel like I need to read a primer of how to talk to strangers. If I can have at least three conversations with other parents tomorrow, I'll feel like I accomplished something. Besides that, I need to look into organizing a few activities. I'd like to start a regular gardening club of some sort, or an outing group that has to do with the gardens. I'm certainly qualified to do those and it will help me meet more parents. I wouldn't want to do it as a one-shot, mostly because I want the kids to get some regularly repeated playtime with the same kids over a few weeks so they can actually form relationships. I've told myself that I'll wait until after the never ending taxes are done before I add something else to my plate. (Yes, we are last-minute filers. Every year we owe, so every year we wait to file till the very last minute. It takes forever to do them since we take so many deductions. It is a bit of a marathon. Sure we could have run this marathon in February, but we didn't. The marathon is all the same to us, no matter when it is. So there.)
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I love science that ends in ice cream
Rocket Boy has officially gotten over the "I love homeschooling" phase. This has been building over the last few weeks. He's gone from the enthusiastic learner to the kid who whines when he has to do actual schoolwork. Today he finally voiced it. "I don't want to go to regular school and I don't want to do school here. I just want to stay home with you and Daddy." It's a lovely sentiment and I know that when he's a ten years older I'll be dreaming of the day he said that he just wanted to be with us. But for now I turned a hard heard to it and cracked the whip. Not so hard since the kind words were accompanied with much whining.
Since I am highly unsympathetic to that kind of whine, we went ahead with some phonics and social studies, with a 10 minute nap break for me in between. We went back to the atlas and looked at North America. He's definitely more interested in what the internet links are. We may have to abandon the atlas if that keeps getting in the way. It was still enjoyable and deciphering all the map symbols was good, but I got impatient at parrying all the questions about the links.
Since he was so down on school today, for our reading I decided not to push him too much. Instead I read to him for quite a while, which is fun because I can read a much more complex story from start to finish. When I make him do all the reading, I have a really hard time not getting bored by the latest easy reader. There are so few really good ones.
After a late lunch, I let him watch his chosen TV shows for the day, chatted with my father, who called to find out how to use Facebook (!), and started reading a new book. That's part of my resolution to read in front of Rocket Boy more often. I want to encourage a whole culture of reading in our family, but if the only time I read every day is before bed after he's long asleep, Rocket Boy is just never going to get it that reading is something grown-ups do.
After his TV break, we went back to schoolwork. I have a cooler full of leftover ice from the broken-fridge debacle. There has to be some science we can do with ice, right? We pulled out the experiment books and they all pointed to making ice cream. We talked about heat/cold transfer and we talked about how salt affects temperature. And we made some awesome ice cream using two different methods. #1 involved nesting a cup of our ice cream base (milk, cream, sugar, cocoa powder) within a big bowl if salt and ice with occasional mixing over about an hour. While we waited for ice cream method #1 to work, we did another experiment involving dissolving salt into hot water and into cold water. Then we started ice cream method #2, which was far more fun and quickly effective. We filled a small baggie with our ice cream base (milk, cream, sugar, cocoa powder), ice, salt, milk, and chocolate. We put that baggie into a large baggie filled with ice and salt, put on our mittens, and played catch. 5 minutes later we had real ice cream! Is was especially fun because I could tell he was getting antsy and really wanted to move his body.
It was a long school day with lots of breaks, but it felt really good (to me at least) since I got to intersperse housework with school, instead of saving it till after Rocket Boy is in bed and I'm tired. In the end, even he really enjoyed it, despite his whiny start. Ice cream makes everything better.
Since I am highly unsympathetic to that kind of whine, we went ahead with some phonics and social studies, with a 10 minute nap break for me in between. We went back to the atlas and looked at North America. He's definitely more interested in what the internet links are. We may have to abandon the atlas if that keeps getting in the way. It was still enjoyable and deciphering all the map symbols was good, but I got impatient at parrying all the questions about the links.
Since he was so down on school today, for our reading I decided not to push him too much. Instead I read to him for quite a while, which is fun because I can read a much more complex story from start to finish. When I make him do all the reading, I have a really hard time not getting bored by the latest easy reader. There are so few really good ones.
After a late lunch, I let him watch his chosen TV shows for the day, chatted with my father, who called to find out how to use Facebook (!), and started reading a new book. That's part of my resolution to read in front of Rocket Boy more often. I want to encourage a whole culture of reading in our family, but if the only time I read every day is before bed after he's long asleep, Rocket Boy is just never going to get it that reading is something grown-ups do.
After his TV break, we went back to schoolwork. I have a cooler full of leftover ice from the broken-fridge debacle. There has to be some science we can do with ice, right? We pulled out the experiment books and they all pointed to making ice cream. We talked about heat/cold transfer and we talked about how salt affects temperature. And we made some awesome ice cream using two different methods. #1 involved nesting a cup of our ice cream base (milk, cream, sugar, cocoa powder) within a big bowl if salt and ice with occasional mixing over about an hour. While we waited for ice cream method #1 to work, we did another experiment involving dissolving salt into hot water and into cold water. Then we started ice cream method #2, which was far more fun and quickly effective. We filled a small baggie with our ice cream base (milk, cream, sugar, cocoa powder), ice, salt, milk, and chocolate. We put that baggie into a large baggie filled with ice and salt, put on our mittens, and played catch. 5 minutes later we had real ice cream! Is was especially fun because I could tell he was getting antsy and really wanted to move his body.
It was a long school day with lots of breaks, but it felt really good (to me at least) since I got to intersperse housework with school, instead of saving it till after Rocket Boy is in bed and I'm tired. In the end, even he really enjoyed it, despite his whiny start. Ice cream makes everything better.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Today feels, um, normal for the first time in a long time
So today was packed full of lots of stuff to do. This morning I had to finish clearing out the broken fridge. I had left some items in the freezer since everything in there was keeping itself pretty cold. I also finally got to the scary stuff in the back of the fridge. Please, do yourself a favor, never forget about Pad Thai.
The morning was unusually productive. Rocket Boy and talked all about plants. We took apart a couple of pine cones looking for seeds. We read about how seeds germinate and checked the progress of our seeds. Next we talked about how plants get nutrients. We ran a fun little experiment that involves placing a stalk of celery in a glass of water that has a generous helping of blue food coloring. After about 2 hours the leaves started exhibiting blue areas, much to our excitement. I was actually pretty surprised by it, since there was very little evidence of the blue in the stalk, really it was only in the leaves. We decided to run the experiment on one of the morning glories we've been growing. As of the end of the day there was no blue, but it's a very small plant and I expect it will take a little longer to transpire a visible amount of blue water.
Then the delivery guy came at 11:30. First he took the old fridge away, so I took the opportunity to give the never-seen behind the fridge area a thorough cleaning and I put down anti-roach gel all around. We've been fighting a battle against those buggers for a while, but we live in an old, old house in Brooklyn with lots of cracks and crevices. We usually keep them away for a 2-3 weeks then they start showing up again. Another round of baits and all is quiet for a few more weeks. It has never been very bad, compared to friends I know who turn on the lights in their kitchen to a scene that looks like a concert letting out. We've never had more than a couple at a time and usually in very isolated areas. Still I don't like 'em one bit.
Then we had a nice session of unpacking the cooler into our shiny new fridge. After a lunch inspired by some of our finds, we opened up the National Geographic Kids Atlas and started our new attempts to address social studies and geography. Today's look at the atlas was dealing with the whole world and how it fits together. They have lots of good specialty maps and we worked on making connections between climate and population (why do so few people live in Antartica?) and also talked about how landforms influence where people live. Next we'll start going continent by continent to get a good overview of what our world is like today. Once Rocket Boy has a very basic grasp of continents and regions, we're going to switch gears and talk about ancient civilizations. That should be fun, since it will involve lots and lots of mythology. Rocket Boy loves hearing those stories. I just hope I can find some good material that I can retrofit for a bright 6 year old that looks beyond Greece and Rome. I want to be able to address early civilizations all over the world, but I don't think Rocket Boy is ready to deal with Jared Diamond. I know I'll be looking to Joseph Campbell for some inspiration.
The one annoying thing about the National Geo Kids Atlas, is that it is web-integrated. Now I love the idea of that, it's great for enrichment, but my child obsesses over the computer, so much so that I have exorcised it from any of our curriculum. As we went through the atlas he kept fixating on the links, which are called out with easy to read graphics.
At that point it was only 2:30 and I was seriously sleepy. We tried a rousing game of Dinosaur Go Fish, but I was practically drooling on my triceratops. I gave up and laid down while he watched Between the Lions. 10 minutes later, Rocket Boy's dad came in for his lunch, and was seriously bent out of shape that the boy was watching TV during school time. That little row woke me up plenty. So we went back to looking at plants and the plant books, then finished the day with another 10 pages in his school-issued math workbook. He's whipping through that thing and is more than ready to move on, but for the sake of being a completionist, I'm going to have him finish the book. Besides, it's so easy for him that he happily and confidently does the work. That means he's getting lots of practice holding a pencil. Anything that gets him to practice writing, even if it's just writing his numbers, makes me happy. He doesn't get too upset about writing numbers the way he gets upset about writing letters so I'm hoping that will work as part of the strategy to get him writing more.
Overall the day felt really productive and normal, in a good way. Lately I've been feeling a little out of sync with teaching. It hasn't been bad, it's just been a little unfocused or vague feeling. I don't quite know what made today feel so much more together. We still wandered through our day driven by what RocketBoy found interesting. I'll have to think about it more, because I want more days like today.
The morning was unusually productive. Rocket Boy and talked all about plants. We took apart a couple of pine cones looking for seeds. We read about how seeds germinate and checked the progress of our seeds. Next we talked about how plants get nutrients. We ran a fun little experiment that involves placing a stalk of celery in a glass of water that has a generous helping of blue food coloring. After about 2 hours the leaves started exhibiting blue areas, much to our excitement. I was actually pretty surprised by it, since there was very little evidence of the blue in the stalk, really it was only in the leaves. We decided to run the experiment on one of the morning glories we've been growing. As of the end of the day there was no blue, but it's a very small plant and I expect it will take a little longer to transpire a visible amount of blue water.
Then the delivery guy came at 11:30. First he took the old fridge away, so I took the opportunity to give the never-seen behind the fridge area a thorough cleaning and I put down anti-roach gel all around. We've been fighting a battle against those buggers for a while, but we live in an old, old house in Brooklyn with lots of cracks and crevices. We usually keep them away for a 2-3 weeks then they start showing up again. Another round of baits and all is quiet for a few more weeks. It has never been very bad, compared to friends I know who turn on the lights in their kitchen to a scene that looks like a concert letting out. We've never had more than a couple at a time and usually in very isolated areas. Still I don't like 'em one bit.
Then we had a nice session of unpacking the cooler into our shiny new fridge. After a lunch inspired by some of our finds, we opened up the National Geographic Kids Atlas and started our new attempts to address social studies and geography. Today's look at the atlas was dealing with the whole world and how it fits together. They have lots of good specialty maps and we worked on making connections between climate and population (why do so few people live in Antartica?) and also talked about how landforms influence where people live. Next we'll start going continent by continent to get a good overview of what our world is like today. Once Rocket Boy has a very basic grasp of continents and regions, we're going to switch gears and talk about ancient civilizations. That should be fun, since it will involve lots and lots of mythology. Rocket Boy loves hearing those stories. I just hope I can find some good material that I can retrofit for a bright 6 year old that looks beyond Greece and Rome. I want to be able to address early civilizations all over the world, but I don't think Rocket Boy is ready to deal with Jared Diamond. I know I'll be looking to Joseph Campbell for some inspiration.
The one annoying thing about the National Geo Kids Atlas, is that it is web-integrated. Now I love the idea of that, it's great for enrichment, but my child obsesses over the computer, so much so that I have exorcised it from any of our curriculum. As we went through the atlas he kept fixating on the links, which are called out with easy to read graphics.
At that point it was only 2:30 and I was seriously sleepy. We tried a rousing game of Dinosaur Go Fish, but I was practically drooling on my triceratops. I gave up and laid down while he watched Between the Lions. 10 minutes later, Rocket Boy's dad came in for his lunch, and was seriously bent out of shape that the boy was watching TV during school time. That little row woke me up plenty. So we went back to looking at plants and the plant books, then finished the day with another 10 pages in his school-issued math workbook. He's whipping through that thing and is more than ready to move on, but for the sake of being a completionist, I'm going to have him finish the book. Besides, it's so easy for him that he happily and confidently does the work. That means he's getting lots of practice holding a pencil. Anything that gets him to practice writing, even if it's just writing his numbers, makes me happy. He doesn't get too upset about writing numbers the way he gets upset about writing letters so I'm hoping that will work as part of the strategy to get him writing more.
Overall the day felt really productive and normal, in a good way. Lately I've been feeling a little out of sync with teaching. It hasn't been bad, it's just been a little unfocused or vague feeling. I don't quite know what made today feel so much more together. We still wandered through our day driven by what RocketBoy found interesting. I'll have to think about it more, because I want more days like today.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Yes, we’re still homeschooling!
February 18, 2009
I’ve been silent the last two weeks. Week one I was helping Steve prep for the NY Comicon. Week two I spent every evening on the phone letting everyone know about my pregnancy. I was supposed to get back on the wagon this week, and I have no excuse for waiting till Wednesday, other than sheer laziness, compounded by the fact that our AirPort has been really buggy lately. Not having internet on my laptop makes daily updating a bit of a drag. On a regular, password free network it mostly works, but is often slow and kicks me of for no reason rather frequently. With a password protected wireless connection, it accepts my password, but tells me there’s an error joining the network. Our other option is to directly wire in, which involves switching the cord from the cable router and resetting the router, but that means stealing the internet away from Steve. To make it even brighter, the cord won’t reach anywhere where I am actually comfortable sitting. All could be solved with a splitter and a longer cord, I just keep forgetting to actually go out and get it or order it.
Anyway, rather than recap the last two weeks I will tell you the big things I have learned:
1) When you’re pregnant and more tired than usual, it’s easier to let some things slip. We started out with really long days of learning (too long really), and have now whittled it down to 4 hours of actual instruction (not counting snacks, lunch, or Rocket Boy’s choose-and-do time).
2) My kid really hates writing and really loves science and math. I need to do some more research. A while ago I was reading about brain development and how our language centers don’t begin to mature to really handle symbolic language until after we’re 7. Despite this it has been ingrained in us, as individual parents and systemically in our schools, that early reading is a sign of advanced intelligence. Seeing my child, with his highly advanced vocabulary and comprehension, struggle with the act of writing, has me wanting to delve more into those studies. I’m experimenting some oblique strategies to help him with fine motor writing skills that don’t involve writing actual letters.
3) His disposition has turned dramatically. He used to spend a lot of time acting aggressively towards others with lots of punches and kicks and shoves. Now he is calmer, more polite, and is more likely to hug than punch. I attribute the change in part to his activity level. He spends the day moving around, not being told to sit at his table. That means less unspent energy needing to go somewhere, anywhere. He also spends the day with me not tolerating his aggressive movements, and gently reminding him that if he really needs more touching (part of his sensory integration issues) he can always ask me for a hug or a squeeze. He is the huggingest kid these days. Pair that with him regularly hugging me so he can whisper into my belly at his new sibling, and I’ve been a melting puddle these days.
4) This week mid-winter break for the public schools so we’re taking it easy and filling our week with field trips and play dates: NY Hall of Science for Engineer’s Day, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, tomorrow Museum of Natural History. Friday we’ll stay home and do regular school stuff and tennis in the afternoon. Saturday Steve is taking him to the NY hall of Science again. It’s a week full of experiential learning and very few worksheets. We’re having a blast.
I’ve been silent the last two weeks. Week one I was helping Steve prep for the NY Comicon. Week two I spent every evening on the phone letting everyone know about my pregnancy. I was supposed to get back on the wagon this week, and I have no excuse for waiting till Wednesday, other than sheer laziness, compounded by the fact that our AirPort has been really buggy lately. Not having internet on my laptop makes daily updating a bit of a drag. On a regular, password free network it mostly works, but is often slow and kicks me of for no reason rather frequently. With a password protected wireless connection, it accepts my password, but tells me there’s an error joining the network. Our other option is to directly wire in, which involves switching the cord from the cable router and resetting the router, but that means stealing the internet away from Steve. To make it even brighter, the cord won’t reach anywhere where I am actually comfortable sitting. All could be solved with a splitter and a longer cord, I just keep forgetting to actually go out and get it or order it.
Anyway, rather than recap the last two weeks I will tell you the big things I have learned:
1) When you’re pregnant and more tired than usual, it’s easier to let some things slip. We started out with really long days of learning (too long really), and have now whittled it down to 4 hours of actual instruction (not counting snacks, lunch, or Rocket Boy’s choose-and-do time).
2) My kid really hates writing and really loves science and math. I need to do some more research. A while ago I was reading about brain development and how our language centers don’t begin to mature to really handle symbolic language until after we’re 7. Despite this it has been ingrained in us, as individual parents and systemically in our schools, that early reading is a sign of advanced intelligence. Seeing my child, with his highly advanced vocabulary and comprehension, struggle with the act of writing, has me wanting to delve more into those studies. I’m experimenting some oblique strategies to help him with fine motor writing skills that don’t involve writing actual letters.
3) His disposition has turned dramatically. He used to spend a lot of time acting aggressively towards others with lots of punches and kicks and shoves. Now he is calmer, more polite, and is more likely to hug than punch. I attribute the change in part to his activity level. He spends the day moving around, not being told to sit at his table. That means less unspent energy needing to go somewhere, anywhere. He also spends the day with me not tolerating his aggressive movements, and gently reminding him that if he really needs more touching (part of his sensory integration issues) he can always ask me for a hug or a squeeze. He is the huggingest kid these days. Pair that with him regularly hugging me so he can whisper into my belly at his new sibling, and I’ve been a melting puddle these days.
4) This week mid-winter break for the public schools so we’re taking it easy and filling our week with field trips and play dates: NY Hall of Science for Engineer’s Day, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn Children’s Museum, tomorrow Museum of Natural History. Friday we’ll stay home and do regular school stuff and tennis in the afternoon. Saturday Steve is taking him to the NY hall of Science again. It’s a week full of experiential learning and very few worksheets. We’re having a blast.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ending on a good note
Friday, January 30, 2009
After dropping Hypersteve at his studio, Rocket Boy and I did a lightning strike on the grocery store. We’ve never gotten our groceries that fast. I was thrilled, because after losing so much teaching time yesterday, I really didn’t want to lose much today.
After we got home and ate a bit, we settled into our workbooks. Rocket Boy whizzed through an entire chapter of activities in his math book. He was on a roll and didn’t want to stop. The lessons were really simple, and honestly below him, from the kindergarten workbook he used when he was in school last fall. After seeing him move through those, I am doubly glad he’s not in school anymore. He’s really stuck in an in between place grade-wise. He’s got too many skills that K just bores him, but not enough skills to handle everything in 1st grade. As a result I’m following a basic 1st grade curriculum for him with some modifications. Some of the stuff he flies through, and other stuff still needs the kindergarten touch. My hope is that by the summer, we’ve achieved all the 1st grade goals. That way in the fall, if we choose to send him to school, he’s ready for 2nd grade. I don’t know if we’re going to enroll him or not. All I do know is that we have some major life changes coming up – this summer I hope we’ll be living somewhere that’s *not here.* I don’t know where that will be yet, but hopefully it will be in a place with abundant natural beauty, property for me to garden and Rocket Boy to roam, and good schools so we have that option if we need it, plus progressive wonderful people. Wish us luck.
After the mathstravaganza, we read Rocket Boy’s new favorite book, The Three Samurai Cats, and worked on adding more words to his word box. He was impatient and I was tired so we were both glad when it was time to leave for tennis. That class is a nice way to cap our week. It gives finality to the school week and marks the beginning of the weekend on a good, energetic note.
After dropping Hypersteve at his studio, Rocket Boy and I did a lightning strike on the grocery store. We’ve never gotten our groceries that fast. I was thrilled, because after losing so much teaching time yesterday, I really didn’t want to lose much today.
After we got home and ate a bit, we settled into our workbooks. Rocket Boy whizzed through an entire chapter of activities in his math book. He was on a roll and didn’t want to stop. The lessons were really simple, and honestly below him, from the kindergarten workbook he used when he was in school last fall. After seeing him move through those, I am doubly glad he’s not in school anymore. He’s really stuck in an in between place grade-wise. He’s got too many skills that K just bores him, but not enough skills to handle everything in 1st grade. As a result I’m following a basic 1st grade curriculum for him with some modifications. Some of the stuff he flies through, and other stuff still needs the kindergarten touch. My hope is that by the summer, we’ve achieved all the 1st grade goals. That way in the fall, if we choose to send him to school, he’s ready for 2nd grade. I don’t know if we’re going to enroll him or not. All I do know is that we have some major life changes coming up – this summer I hope we’ll be living somewhere that’s *not here.* I don’t know where that will be yet, but hopefully it will be in a place with abundant natural beauty, property for me to garden and Rocket Boy to roam, and good schools so we have that option if we need it, plus progressive wonderful people. Wish us luck.
After the mathstravaganza, we read Rocket Boy’s new favorite book, The Three Samurai Cats, and worked on adding more words to his word box. He was impatient and I was tired so we were both glad when it was time to leave for tennis. That class is a nice way to cap our week. It gives finality to the school week and marks the beginning of the weekend on a good, energetic note.
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