Will wonders never cease

It seemed too early to say something when, not two days after my last post, Tex discovered that he does NOT, in fact, suck at reading. However, since we've now had several days of increased confidence and improved reading, I'm going to go ahead and call it: Tex is A Reader! The lightbulb went off one evening as he had just completed an email to his Papa regarding their plans for the upcoming Sunday playdate. He had written, almost entirely by himself, the subject line of "What to do Sunday", and then the sentence "What's your plan, Papa?". He even had it correctly punctuated! About an hour later Papa replied, and Tex sat down to read it. There were several sentences there, but Tex just started breezing right through the words, reading most of them automatically and stopping to sound out a few, only needing close assistance with two or three. He was halfway through the email when he literally stopped short, shouted "I'm reading!", and then kept going, completely tickled with himself. The following day he said "Mommy, I think I'm a proficient reader now." I told him I was so glad that he was feeling confident in himself. In reality I was relieved all the way down to my toenails, but I can't let him catch me caring about stuff like that or he feels pressured. ;-)

We have some big plans coming up. We have family in Atlanta, GA, and a Christmas party there soon. We plan to take the leisurely way down, stopping at the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, which includes exhibits where you can dig for fossils or pan for gold! We're planning to have tons of fun. Then during our time in ATL we will visit the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Visitor's Center to get an idea of the history of our nation's money and see cool stuff like where they shred the old bills. At the end of the tour the kids will even get a bag of shredded money to KEEP! Why do I see a raid on Scotch tape in their future?

We will also be taking a trip on the MARTA subway system at Noodle's request. Thanks to all his city planning decisions in SimCity he's developed an interest in all public transportation. Today we were out at a park feeding cracked corn to the geese, and I heard Noodle's squeaky voice yelling "Mommy, I saw a city bus! It's different from a school bus!!" But his big interest is light rail and his big Atlanta wish is to ride the subway. He was just disappointed to hear that Atlanta doesn't also have an elevated train or monorail we could ride for purposes of comparison. Guess we'll just have to plan a trip to DisneyWorld and ride the monorail there. Whoops, I think I just heard DaddyO's heart grind to a stop at the thought of shepherding 3 young children through the Magic Kingdom, better go check on that. ;-)

All on their own

I've been such a bad home schooling Mom lately. We've had sicknesses, birthday parties, a root canal for me (and a couple days of Codeine Mommy afterwards; she was fun), and of course the Thanksgiving holidays, and I feel like we haven't had our act together for weeks! "Having our act together" being relative, of course. For us that means we: get moving relatively quickly in the morning and get out of the house to do something (even if it's just playing in the yard), watch little television, and I make myself extra-available as a resource for the kids' learning play. Life has gotten a little bit in the way of those humble goals lately. And yet, I find that I still have many things to report.

Tex's reading gets better and better. Don't tell him I told you, because he hates reading and is determined that he's horrible at it, but he's really not half bad. The other night he and DaddyO read Pepito the Brave together as part of Tex's Wolf Scout requirements, and Tex needed very little help in sounding out the words he didn't recognize on sight. He still seems to think that reading should be effortless and is discouraged when he has to work at it, but I hope that as he practices more and more in his head he'll gain confidence and realize that reading is manageable.

Still, if he doesn't have room for reading in his brain, it's because it's so full of science! I was just now looking at a little science/transportation book we got from Sonic with our lunches the other day, and the first page was about airplanes. I started to read one of the little blurbs, regarding the forces that must be equalized, when Tex piped in with "I know this! The engines create thrust, which pushes against the drag, and then the wind creates lift, which pushes against gravity. That's from Newton." Well. Alrighty then, let's just keep reading, shall we? Here's a nice page explaining an experiment you can do yourself with a straw and a small paper ball, where you keep the ball floating in the air stream and observe what happens when you tilt the straw as you blow. Once again, Tex is ahead of the game: "that's just like at the Space & Rocket Center, where they have a beach ball and a vent, and did you know that the air isn't pushing on the bottom of the ball, it's actually splitting and going around it! And when it goes around [the ball] perfectly evenly, with gravity pushing down, there's nowhere for the ball to go. You have to tilt it SO far before gravity pushes the ball a lot, and makes the wind on the bottom thinner, and then the ball can break through the wind." And there you have Bernoulli's Principle as explained by a 7 1/2 year old. And I had to look it up in the Sonic science book to make sure I had the name right. (sigh)

What else has been doing around here, lately? Well, Noodle has moved on from creating zoos in Zoo Tycoon to creating whole cities in DaddyO's Sim City computer program. It's mostly an excuse to "drive" trains and plot the destruction of whole towns with robots and metal dinosaurs, but in the process he has to do little things like set up power plants or alternative energy sources (he likes the windmills), lay roads and train tracks, build businesses and homes, and other matters of city planning.

And oh, goodness, Noodle is starting to read, too!! He was looking at our coupons box the other day, and he all of the sudden stuck out his finger and started to read: "c-ah-up-onz. Mommy, does this say 'cop-ons'?" You could have knocked me down with a feather!! Of course I played it cool and let him know that in this case the "ou" makes the "ooooo" sound, so he wouldn't sense my excitement and immediately decide to stop reading altogether, but inside I was jumping up and down! And tonight when I made the boys a sign of what they needed to do before bed, he read "teeth" right away. The Noodle is on his way to reading, big time!

Both boys are also still interested in film-making (that sounds so much better than "they both still love abusing the camera"). Tex had asked me how filmmakers get things to move in movies without touching them, which led to a discussion of wires and fishing line, and Tex wondered if we could tie some fishing line to something an move it around. For instance, hmmm, oh hey, Mom, how about this thing I've been carrying around and pretending is a laser blaster gun, will that work? Sure! So we tied some fishing line to his blaster and I showed him how he could pull it without anyone seeing how. Well, Tex found that he could not waste such a wonderful opportunity, so he turned into Director Tex and got us all to play our parts: Tex as a Star Wars baddie, Noodle as Obi Wan Kenobi (the Ewan McGregor version, not Alec Guinness) injured and unable to reach his weapon, myself as the special effects coordinator (I pulled the string), and DaddyO as the cameraman. Tex put us all on our marks and we did at least three takes; it was a grueling 10-minute shoot. But I think that what they came away with was pretty darn cute.

Finally I should mention all the work Tex has been doing for his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts. He's so excited about all of this scouting stuff, and thank goodness he has DaddyO, Grandaddy, Papa, and even a Great Uncle who are all so generous with their time and experience to help him accomplish his tasks. This weekend he did some woodworking and used some basic tools to create a doorstop and cut a notch out of a plank of wood. He even got to use the circular saw under close supervision. There is no doubt about it, that boy is growing up. I hope he's more ready for it than I am. ;-)

That was a good day.

Yesterday should not have been such a good day. It started off with the decision to stay home since Tex and I were both sporting runny, drippy noses, because I knew that if we went anywhere not only would we be leaving behind copious germs, but we'd also get so worn out so fast that it wouldn't be any fun. The drawback is that most days we are "stuck" at home turn out to be tortuously long and full of arguments between playmates.
Not this time! We started off with an episode of The Amazing Race. We've been Netflix-ing the DVDs of Season 1 and watching them with Tex as a fun way to talk geography and dialogue on concepts like sportsmanship, honor, fairness, etc. In this episode we found France and Tunisia, and talked about how two teams working together, even though they're in competition, can actually help both teams do better; and also about how one team that can't communicate will have trouble getting anywhere.
We finished our third hydraulics machine, the scissor lift. Only one machine left to go. Tex and Noodle did weight-testing to see what objects the scissor lift could hold up, and which were heavy enough to actually push the fluid around themselves and lower the lift.
The most fun I think we had all day was graphing the Halloween candy. We made plates for "chocolate", "fruity candy", "gum", "snacks", and "lollipops", and the boys each separated their candy into those groups, counted each group, and then made a bar graph showing how they compared to each other. Then they selected their favorites to keep, and the rest went to "DaddyO Tax". They had so much fun, I imagine we might be doing this again with any candy in their Christmas stockings, or maybe at Easter! :-)
Oh, and Noodles has discovered Zoo Tycoon!! This is a PC game that allows one to build their own zoo (with regular, endangered, marine, and even prehistoric animals), design the exhibits, hire staff, provide for the guests' needs, and maintain the animals' happiness. I credit this game with getting Tex started reading last year, because he had to learn to identify words in order to play it without a grown-up around to help. Noodle isn't quite there yet, being as he's just about to turn 5 and Tex was a new 6-year-old when he got started, but he's fascinated about each animal and how their environments differ from others, why you have to have boy and girl animals in order to have babies, and especially why some animals have a LOT of babies very fast while others take a long time to grow their population. Last year Tex learned about the food chain by putting penguins into the sea lion exhibit and watching the resultant scuffle, then putting the sea lion in the polar bear exhibit and seeing how the predator became the prey. I find it amusing that the game designers created this function, and the "scuffles" complete with swirling lines and stars. LOL
In any case it was a good day. Now send me prayers that today should be as fun, because we've added a sick Monkey to the bunch, so we're staying home again. Noodle may just go crazy.

The blog is slacking, but the school isn't!

Now that it's Fall Break for city schools and we have a week off of our organized activities, maybe I can get some blogging in. And can I just stop for a moment and tell you how much I love Unschooling??? It never ceases to amaze me, although it darn well probably should by now, how much these kids learn whether we're "teaching" at them or not. There's big stuff going on in those little noggins.

Tex and Noodle have discovered a new online game at PBSkidsGO.org, part of the show Design Squad, whereby they have to use various shaped widgits to get a certain number of Tribble-like Fidgits to fall out of their tube and into a little box. So they have to use geometry to figure how to bounce the Fidgits in such a way that they head towards the box, they have to consider the physics of the materials used and how much energy each absorbs (each widgit can be made of rubber, wood, or concrete), and there is definitely a certain amount of creativity and trial & error involved in getting it to work. I especially appreciate this aspect as Tex is a perfectionist, my typical first child who only looks up to adults and thinks he should be as skilled as us with much less practice. It's nice to have a game where, first thing, you HAVE to fail. You HAVE to let those Fidgits drop out of the tube and just let them land wherever they may, and not get into the box at all. Then you have to try out a solution, but it's probably going to fail, too, and that's good because it gives you more information. And so on and so on until finally you tweak your design just right, and those little squeaky, beepy Fidgits finally get in the dang box and shut the heck up. I love this game.

And Noodle, oh Noodle, my little electro-nut. Last week Noodle and I put together Tex's Electronics Lab because he just could NOT wait any more! It had wires! It had springs! It has transformers (NOT actually robots in disguise, though you would have thought so by how excited he was) and capacitors and did I mention WIRES?!?!?! Oh, the joy on his face when he completed a circuit and that little red LED lit up, it was priceless. I must admit I was pretty tickled, too, having never really known before how any of this stuff went together; it was a flashback to the old HeathKit television my dad built when I was about 7 years old. And two days later Noodle and I went right to the library to try to find some books on robots again (they said they'd order more for us) and left with a grade-school book titled Artificial Intelligence and three books about Star Wars (because Star Wars has... you guessed it... robots!). Strike what I said a few posts back about Tex building the spaceship and Noodle being the unwitting test pilot; I'm now quite convinced that they will be full partners in their plot to launch themselves out of the garage. For my part, I just don't know what I'm going to do when they get to more complex physics issues; that is not a class I took and I was quite happy about it. Perhaps they have a kindly grandfather or uncle who will help them experiment safely... or just enable their craziness, you never can tell in this family.

We've started reading the Chronicles of Narnia aloud, and so far Tex is thoroughly enjoying it. Only the second night, but when I finished Chapter Two tonight he very sweetly said "please don't stop", and who am I to deny this kid a good story?? Frankly, at this point anything that isn't a dinosaur book is a-okay with me! Truly, though, he still insists that he dislikes reading as an activity AND a school subject (even though he's getting better at it all the time), so anything that gets him excited about reading is something I want to encourage. He even wanted me to follow along with my finger so that he could tell where I was on the page, which is something he usually finds distracting. I do so hope that at some point he's going to find the book or topic that makes him want to read things on his own, so that he can get in some more frequent practice and start to reap the rewards. Of course, I should also remind myself that just because being "a reader" is important to ME does not mean that it will or should be so for him. DaddyO is not ravenous about books the way I am by any means. In fact I can only think of a few in which he was so engrossed that he didn't want to put them down to eat, work, or sleep, while I could probably say that about a few dozen books at least. There's almost nothing I like more. On the down side, we're running out of shelf space.

So there you have it, in a week filled with paper-making, computer and board games, The Magician's Nephew, and lots of outdoor and gym play, we have all grown leaps and bounds. I can't wait to see what happens next!

Harvest Day!

I've been staring out the boys' window at our raised tomato garden bed, and looking at the dozen or so ripe Roma tomatoes waiting to be picked, so when Tex and Noodle were willing to help me pick them today we headed right out to do it! We got a bunch of tomatoes, a load of basil, one tiny pepper that Noodle spotted, a bunch of lavender (the boys want to make "dream pillows" like the one I made Daddy-O years ago), parsley, and a peck of bugs to go with it all! As we speak there is an inchworm on a basil leaf, and another leaf with some sort of larva or chrysalis webbed onto the back (haven't figured that one out, yet), resting in our "bug keeper" cage. We even got to check out blooming flowers on the basil, then some spent flowers with the seeds visible, and we discussed how the positioning of the seeds (on the underside of the seed pod) allows them to simply fall down to the soil and grow new basil plants whether we like it or not (we do!). The boys then helped me to "process" the basil, picking off the good leaves and rinsing them for me to make pesto later.

Tex and I (ok, mostly me) have slacked off terribly lately on his building projects. I keep leaving it up to him for us to make a trip out to buy materials, but I've come to the conclusion that like most kids he just wants to do it when he wants to do it, and I'm going to need to gather some materials to have on hand for him to explore building. I need some strong wire to be the skeleton for his dinosaur sculptures, several decks of cards for building houses of cards, and maybe even some bamboo for outdoor structures. We agreed to spend some time tomorrow making a big list of projects to go on the wall where we'll be reminded of them often, and so that I can be picking up materials as we have the money.

Tex and Daddy-O are scoping out Cub Scout troops in the next couple of weeks. Given Tex's intense interest in wilderness survival skills we're hoping that Scouting will be a good fit. Tex has been watching Daddy-O go to his old Boy Scout troop's meetings as an adult leader for the last few years, and he's thoroughly enjoyed the times he's joined Daddy-O for activities with the troop. The challenge will be finding a good fit. They went to their first meeting tonight with the goal of "being good scientists and observing", which they will do at a couple more meetings with other troops over the next few weeks before making their choice.

And I have a book recommendation!! Tex and I actually read it last week but I forgot to mention... Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland. The story concerns a young squire named Radius, son of Sir Cumference and his wife, Lady Di of Ameter, and his quest to become a knight. In this "math adventure" you find an exciting story that introduces the concepts of angles and degrees and incorporates them into the narrative with lovely little memory tricks that I can tell will help them stick better than the rote memorization I always depended on in school. I originally saw these in a learning catalog, but then ended up finding them on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. I may just have to buy one every time I get a B&N coupon. :-)

Happy learning!

Active week

The boys have really been into physical play this week. There's a new indoor playspace in town with a big wooden "pirate ship", moon bounce, and a bunch of other ways for the kids to stay active and have some imaginary play time. There's even a special area for Monkey to stay if she wants to be away from the big kids, although most of the time she just does her best to keep up. We spent at least 4 hours there this week. We also got Tex signed up for Homeschool P.E. class at the local YMCA and he had his first class this week; came out red-faced and sweating after playing soccer and loved it! :-) He was actually interested in moving his conflicting gymnastics class so that he could attend the Y's class twice weekly instead of once. Noodle is simply excited that we're going to start going swimming during Tex's class time, and I'm betting Monkey will be thrilled, too.

The boys have also enjoyed a lot of game playing this week. Computer games, Battleship, board games. And I've noticed that Tex has particularly delighted lately in being the teacher. He doesn't know it, but I love this b/c it helps me to know what lessons he's really absorbed. This week Tex taught Monkey about why clouds rain, he taught Noodle about the different environments that animals live in as they were building a Zoo Tycoon zoo together, and I remember hearing quite a few things I didn't know before, but apparently I need to work on MY listening skills because now I cannot recall a one! Perhaps he'll be good enough to repeat himself this week if I promise to wear my listening ears?

Today we had a field trip to a local hydroponic farm with a group of homeschool friends. The kids got to see the benefits of their vertical planting system which needs one acre for every 18 a traditional farm would use, and uses 2,600 gallons of water daily compared to the 50,000 gallons a traditional farm growing the same number of plants would need. (See, today I had my listening ears on!) We also saw a wicked huge grasshopper, ladybugs and their larvae, stink bugs, squash bugs, learned the difference between beneficial and harmful insects, between male and female squash flowers, and supported a local farm all in one fell swoop!

Back in the saddle

Last week was just crazy and we barely got any homeschooling done each day. Of course the kids are always learning no matter what I do to/with them, but it's nice that this week we're able to get back into focusing on learning.

Big plans are afoot in the Berry Patch. The boys are planning some backyard camping trips and, if all goes well, possibly one at an actual campground. Noodle is absolutely over the moon about being able to camp outside; I've decided not to mention the ratio of bugs-to-Noodle in the great outdoors and just dip him in DEET before they go out. ;-) Tex was really hoping for a "Man vs. Wild" style drop-off and survival marathon, but as Mommy doesn't have access to a helicopter or parachute, we had to put the kibosh on that one.

For Table Time today Tex decided he wanted to play Battleship for math practice. Can't wait to get that kid into doing graphs and such, he already loves grids and code-breaking and all that sort of stuff. And he cheated, but he didn't win even then, so I'm hoping he'll get the idea that cheating sours the game without any guarantee that it will pay off. Teaching ethics is tricky to a kid who cares more about winning than about being fair! But I'll keep at it with the attitude that I still love him even though he's a big fat cheater ;-P, and that it's only going to hurt him in the long run anyway.

Oh, and Tex is also designing a "blaster" to go with his Megatron costume. He drew up a couple of designs, drew each design from 3 different angles (!) so I could see which I thought might be easier, and now he's planning to start small-scale mock-ups with toilet paper or paper towel rolls before we move on to the full-size model using a mailing tube. Y'all watch out, if this is where we're at at age 7, I don't even want to think about what he'll be building at 16! I might go out in the garage one day and it will be like a scene from The Explorers (y'all remember that one, with River Phoenix and the singing alien?). Twenty bucks says Noodle's the test pilot...

Even in the midst of chaos...

We've had a death in the family this week (DaddyO's grandma, God rest her soul) and a memorial for my grandfather who died back in June, but the learning just keeps on happening! We enjoyed a trip to SciQuest this morning where the boys spent most of their time concocting a "recipe for disaster" in the kitchen portion of the model home. Then Tex went to the gift shop and spent his allowance on a Life-Size dinosaur book (very cool!) and a stick of rock candy, which was a nice way to practice his money skills.

Oh, and that darn celery experiment is giving us SO many opportunities to learn!! Grrr! The blue food coloring hardly showed up at all even though the celery

Life lessons

Today we discussed the structure of a tooth, and what happens when decay gets to the middle of the tooth and infects the root. Know why?? Do ya, do ya, do ya??? Because Mommy has to go to the dentist tomorrow for a root canal!! LOL Yes, the boys and I spent some time looking at my poor half-dissolved tooth, drawing a diagram of a tooth and discussing the root canal procedure as explained to me by my dentist, and then looking at DaddyO's tooth that had a root canal and crown applied about 10 years ago.

Tex and I read some of a dinosaur library book today. He gets really annoyed if I just try to read to him what the book says, so he looks at the pictures and says things like "What do you notice about this guy? What do you think is cool about him?" and I ask it back to him and then find little bits of the text to throw out as additional information to go with our observations. Today we noticed the depressions in the skin of 3 drawings of carnosaurs, and then spotted them a couple of pages later as openings in the actual skull of an Allosaurus. Tex is very interested in paleoartistry, where artists have to gather information from the fossils of a dinosaur such as where its ligaments were attached and any remaining skin evidence to create what they think is the most accurate picture of that creature.

Noodle and I worked up a new science experiment at Table Time today. It's the old standby of the celery in the food coloring. I've never done it before but DaddyO has and said it's pretty cool. We should have blueish celery in the morning. Hope it works!!!

At bedtime last night I introduced the concept of myths, not in the Mythbusters sense, but as legends. We were reading a book about insects that Noodle got from the library last week and I mentioned how spiders got their name (the story of Arachne and Athena) and told the myth as I remembered it from grade school. I explained that legends are stories that are so amazing and exciting that they pass down through the years simply because people enjoy them, true or not, while myths are something people use to explain why or how things happen. The boys were already familiar with the legend of the sun-god riding his chariot across the sky after watching Fantasia, so I was able to relate back to that.

The drawbacks of Unschooling

Ok, not really, because it all evens out in the end, but some days I do find myself watching my children do (from my point of view) pointless playing all day and I just want to yell "learn something!!!" Sometimes I need a reminder that they spend their day learning whether I appreciate what they're learning or not.

Transformers reign supreme in The Berry Patch, and dontcha know that every toy company and kids' television channel out there has some kind of website to go with their products so that kids can get even more marketing shoved into their little brains. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to see that the Hasbro Transformers websites do have a couple of interesting games: one teaches keyboard familiarity by challenging kids to type a "secret code" in a time-sensitive situation, and the other uses a very kid-friendly program to help them put together a "video" of transforming bots and transition shots, corresponding sound effects and dialogue, and background music. It looks a LOT like the software DaddyO used to use when he would edit audio as the producer of a morning radio talk show. In fact DaddyO showed me Windows MovieMaker, which is a legit next step for Tex and Noodle after they outgrow the Transformers video or actually want to go further with their current filming jag. (Note: the kids are also getting an underwater video camera for Christmas this year, which I'm betting will lead to plenty of opportunities to learn editing.)

Table Time has continued. Tex worked some more on his dinosaur code book and is doing really well. He wanted me there to help but the only thing I did was point out when he was trying to read that he'd filled a letter in incorrectly. Oh, and I helped him sound out the word "sturdy". His reading has come along very well and I can see he's becoming more confident. Need to get his glasses fixed after Monkeygirl decided they'd make a good pretzel, though. We continued our table time with an experiment from Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman; identifying the marker used in a crime by the way the ink bleeds when wet. Tex took one piece of paper towel as his control and wrote a message on it without me being able to see which marker he used. Then he took that marker and two others of the same color, but different brands, and made three experimental swatches. He then got each one wet, allowed the water to bleed fully, and it was my job to match the correct marker to the control. I was surprised how really obvious the different inks were!

Our other fun, yesterday, was to identify the giant flying bug that I killed in the kitchen. As I scooped it up into a napkin Tex noted that it looked like a really big fly and must be a horsefly. We looked in our insect/spider book and sure enough it was an American horsefly, identifiable by its green eyes.

Go with DaddyO to Work Day

Notes from DaddyO about his and Tex's day at the office:

Tex has not been very studious today, so when we sat down for lunch,
I decided to crack open the books. ;)

We discussed nouns, verbs, prepositions, articles, adjectives, and
adverbs. He seems to have a pretty good grasp of nouns and verbs. He's
nearly got prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs. I made an attempt at
explaining articles (definite vs indefinite) but don't think it quite
sank in.

I wrote several sentences and had him identify the nouns, verbs, and
adjectives. I used sentences to illustrate all the parts of speech. I
also was able to get Tex to retain the following definitions:

noun - people, place, and thing word (some discussion of proper and
common nouns)
verb - doing word
preposition - where nouns are
adjective - describes a noun
adverb - describes a verb

I was a bit surprised with how enthusiastic he was to discuss these
terms and pointing out the parts in example sentences I wrote.

Just the facts, mom

Results: the Gummi Bear grew, dude! Almost doubled in size! Tex and Noodle were so impressed, but me, I knew that was gonna happen the whole time. Totally.

Our next experiment was to rest a couple of pennies on a vinegar-soaked paper towel and record our results, which this morning consists of: "green splotches".

Great trip to the library yesterday. Found a biography of Charles Atlas for kids that was handy seeing as Tex is fascinated with body building and being able to SEE muscles under the skin. Oh, and speaking of under one's skin, we received our 18" plastic human skeleton and put it together yesterday. His jaw is hinged. Much puppetry ensued. I wonder how hard it's going to be to make costumes for our plastic skeleton guy...

And speaking of costumes (funny how I can just chase my thoughts around like that), Tex is currently working on props for their live-action Transformers film. Optimus Prime is going to be carrying a wicked foam-board axe.

Table Time a Rousing Success

Well, I'd say the kids are enjoying Table Time! Our first day was Monday, and we took it easy by doing some artsy stuff. Tex worked on drawing a Dilophosaurus (using his How to Draw Dinosaurs book, which starts with the basic ovals, etc. and adds detail from there) and instructed me to draw a "swampy, forest-y" background of "ferns, cycads, and gingkos". My ferns rocked, if I do say so myself. When the dino was drawn and colored we cut it out and Tex glued it to the background.

Since then we've been into science experiments. I picked up those chemistry sets for ages 5+ at Target's toy clearance since Noodle's been wanting to do some of this kind of stuff, and the grade school sets are really too advanced. Yesterday we did an experiment called "Dancing Powders" where you take some baking soda and some crystalline citric acid, measure out equal amounts of each, and the pour water on them to activate the chemical reactions. Noodle wanted to do it so many times (and using test tubes, cups, pipettes, and any other equipment he can round up) that I finally had to set him up with his own little bowls of each substance for mixing.

Tex and I, meanwhile, are working on a hypothesis. Another science experiment book (this one from the Target Dollar Spot) has instructions for seeing if a gummy bear will soak up water and grow larger. We didn't have any "real" Gummi Bears, so we used a gummy bear vitamin. We had to measure its length and width (he wrote the fractions out himself), trace its outline, and then put it in a cup, just covered with water. This morning we woke up to an almost completely dissolved gummy vitamin! As Tex observed, "I guess it got smaller, since it dissolved." We decided that perhaps the vitamins were of a different formula and did not behave the way a real Gummi Bear would, so we picked up a new bag of the real thing, measured and traced, and should have some results tomorrow.

And today's experiment was really fun! Take a wide cereal bowl, fill it almost full with skim milk, and wait for the milk to stop moving. Then at three equidistant points around the edge of the bowl you put drops of the primary colors of liquid food color (so for instance, red at 12 o'clock, blue at 4, and yellow at 8), being careful not to jostle or jiggle the bowl. Then you add 1 Tbsp of dish detergent right at the center of the bowl and get ready for a show! If I can figure out how to put up the video we shot of it, I will do that later.

Oh, and Tex's other big thing lately is substitution codes. We have this little dinosaur-themed workbook and on almost every page is the meaning of the dinosaur's name in picture code, and he's enjoying substituting the letters in working out what the words are. We also worked in one of the Puzzlemania books on a story where you have to fill in the word that fits each blank, then take the letters from the numbered blanks to complete the riddle at the end of the story. He tries a lot harder when he's reading words that he constructed on his own!! :-) We did these substitution codes for the entire hour that Noodle was in gymnastics class today.

Tex the engineer

Optometrist: So what school are you going to this year?
Tex: I'm homeschooled.
O: Oh yeah? What grade are you doing?
T: I'm second grade.
O: And what's your favorite subject?
T: Engineering, of course!! :-)

At the advice of one of the books I'm reading, I asked Tex the other day what sorts of things he wanted to explore and learn this year. His immediate answer was "engineering and architect", and he further explained that he wanted to learn how to build a big, strong house of cards, a bamboo fishing pole, bamboo tent, and a paper spear (Mythbusters strike again?). The tent and fishing pole also led us to his desire to learn "survival skills", so Daddy-O (an Eagle Scout himself) suggested we get a Cub Scout manual and start learning some age-appropriate outdoor skills. I also received a fortuitous email from a homeschool list I'm on announcing the presence of an Outdoor Adventure Club that takes monthly nature hikes and camping trips! Sign us up!

Also, I have laid down the law regarding television on homeschool days. Now, since the TV my kids watch is almost exclusively "educational" in nature (yes, lately the occasional Transformers episode has slipped in) I don't stress too much if we go over the recommended daily allowance. So they are allowed to watch a little in the morning before we "start our day" (meaning: before Mommy is conscious enough to deal), a little bit during Monkeygirl's naptime when I need those crazies to be settled anyway, and a little bit when I'm making dinner and again need them entertained.

I'm looking forward to starting the practice of having Table Time for everyone during the day, so that I can help with the word puzzles that are too difficult to do at bedtime, or watch one child build a contraption while another paints. I love watching my children work in their own ways to get things done! And since I stocked up on science kits and the like during Target's Summer toy clearance time we have a lot of stuff ready to go, which is nice when you're dealing with little kids who want it to be ready the minute you even mention it's a possibility. ;-) Today is our first day, so wish us luck!

Second grade goals

Finally got through What Your Second Grader Needs to Know and have come up with an overview of what Tex should accomplish by the end of the school year. Some of these things require mastery, while others are suggestions of things with which he should have a passing familiarity. I try to meet the spirit of the basic requirements without restricting my kids from exploring things in their own way and time.

Language Arts

• continuing to read fables and folktales to illustrate good character and principles
• label basic parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) and learn about abbreviations/contractions as well as antonyms/synonyms

Geography/History

• be able to identify continents, some large countries and major cities, a few oceans, rivers, or other bodies of water, and some major mountain ranges
• have some understanding of ancient world history and the discoveries of important civilizations (Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, China, Africa...)
• early American history - basically any and everything -- from the natives to the first explorers, colonists, Western pioneers, and up to the Revolutionary War -- in which they are interested

Fine Arts

• as much hands-on experience as possible -- take kids to see performances or put on some ourselves, listen to poetry read aloud, see and discuss artwork and architecture
• introduction to different instruments and how they are classified into groups
• anything about the parts of a song, how plays are written, mediums of visual arts, etc.

Mathematics

• practice, practice, practice, in fun and useful ways
• memorization of basic addition and subtraction tables, skip counting, evens/odds, Roman numeral introduction, adding and subtracting time on an analog clock, learn HOW to +/- 3-digit numbers, and begin memorizing multiplication tables
  
• always practicing geometry, money, measurements, fractions, and word problems

Life Sciences

• human body - cells into tissue into organs into systems
  
• life cycles of animals/plants and how they relate to the seasons
• lots of hands-on experience with animals, plants, and nature
• biographies of important zoologists, animal activists, doctors, etc.

Physical Sciences

• the products of chemistry such as plastics, hands-on simple chem experiments
  
• how meteorologists gather data, how weather systems form
  
• the history of astronomy and how stars can be used to find direction, and how/why the sky changes with the seasons
  
• the behavior of light and sound, other physics basics
  
• simple machines, introduction to basic engineering and technology
• more awareness of the Scientific Method in everyday play
  
• biographies of important scientists
  

First Days

Well, I haven't even finished figuring out our goals for the year, but these kids knew school was starting for everyone else and they would NOT be denied! Actually, truth be told, they've been wanting to start homeschooling for weeks and I've been holding them off in an effort to get myself more organized. I suppose one of my favorite things about homeschooling, and Unschooling in particular, is that there really isn't any difference between a normal day at our house, except there's less TV and more Mommy. Oh yeah, that reminds me, here we go into the couple of months when I can't keep my house straight AND homeschool at the same time. Sorry there, honey!

So Monday was our first day, and we decided a trip to the park was in order. We found a few leaves and identified them in DaddyO's Boy Scout manual, speculated as to how a tree grows with its lower trunk split open wide, and of course got in lots of running, climbing, dangling, and bouncing. The boys also enjoyed taking pictures with a one-use camera I had picked up a while back, although they were endlessly confused as to why they could not SEE the pictures immediately after they took them! Kids these days, I tell ya. I remember a family friend saying something about how weird it was when her daughter didn't know what a vinyl record album was ("That's a big cd, Daddy" was the quote, I think) and now my kids are flummoxed by the idea of actual film. We're taking one of those cameras apart, doggone it.

Today, Tuesday, I was a little better prepared. We got in some wonderful math practice while playing The Ladybug Game (I lost), then Tex and I found and explored a new dinosaur website (www.kidsdinos.com) where he played two wonderful games: one showed you the dinosaur and its statistics for height/weight, when it lived, and what it ate, and you had to classify it as a "large meat eater, small meat eater, armored dino, large plant eater, duckbill, bird-footed,", etc.; the other was a version of Hangman that showed you a drawing of the dino, its stats, and then you had to guess its name in 8 turns or less. Tex and I had to actually go get some of his dinosaur books, look in the time period for dinosaurs with some of the same characteristics as the pictured dinosaur, count the number of letters in the name, and even deduce possibilities from some of the Latin root words he's learned (-saurus, cera, cepha, raptor, etc.) to help him narrow the letter choices. It was very difficult, but he enjoyed it so much! We also started a list today of topics he wants to explore, and tops on the list is various forms of "engineering and architect". He wants to build a tent, a fishing pole, and maybe a spear out of bamboo. And we're going to use that Boy Scout manual a lot more because he wants to learn survival skills! Methinks I smell camping with DaddyO this Fall...

Oh, and my favorite. At four o'clock I told Tex he had to wait until five to turn the TV on. He was not pleased. But we spent the next hour making the aforementioned topic list, and he also played fractions in his head by dividing the loathsome hour into quarters, thirds, and sixths. I tried to coach him through fifths but that was a little too hard. "Mommy, you just got carried away with the math." Yes, yes I did.

Still working on that goals list. Can't have them learning without me being able to sort it into my little boxes, now, can we????

The following exercise is borrowed from Guerrilla Learning: How to Give Your Kids a Real Education With or Without School by Grace Llewellyn.

List everything about which you know enough to contribute significantly to a conversation on the subject or to write a pithy booklet called "The Beginner's Guide to_____."

Now write down everything you're good at - all your skills, anything from designing Web pages, to changing a diaper, to writing a newspaper story, to building a fence.

Now take a moment to consider whether your lists are longer or shorter than you would have expected. (Or ask several people who have very different school backgrounds from you to make their own lists, and compare the length and quality of your lists to theirs.)

Next, put an asterisk by each of the items that you learned mainly in school and college.

Finally, consider what percentage of your skills and expertise you've picked up in school and what outside of school.

My "reply" to follow will be my list, and I will head it with my educational background. I invite all my readers to do the same so that we can compare not only the wide variety of skills and knowledge we all must use during our days, but what proportion of those skills and knowledge were acquired through formal schooling.

My motivation for homeschooling is many-layered. When I first heard about homeschooling back when dh's boss's wife was doing it with their kids after a bad teacher experience (like, really bad, traumatized her son kind of bad) and my immediate response was the ol' socialization argument. Thought homeschooling was a really bad idea. Then as we had a front-row seat to them homeschooling for several years, I saw more of what it was really about. I realized that as worried as I was about kids learning to "socialize" correctly, I wasn't actually much of a fan of the results of that socialization, so what was the big deal if they missed it?

Fast forward to having Tex for a kid, and you'll see my main motivation! lol This kid is just barely comfortable in his own skin, much less in situations where he has to be one of 20 kids all expected to live up to some relatively arbitrary expectations. I think that if *this kid* went to our (admittedly pretty dang good) public elementary school that in the long run he would either fall through the cracks as he didn't learn some things he was expected to, or come up with unhealthy coping skills in order to function emotionally and be unhappy with himself for much of the time. So the overriding factor, the one that keeps me in the homeschool mindset even when I WANT, desperately, to have 7 hours away from this squeaky wheel of a kid, is that I really think it is what is best for HIM.

The next thing, though, and the stickier wicket when it comes to discussing this with others sometimes, is that I think he has a good chance of getting a better education as a homeschooler. "Better" being subjective, of course. Heck, I was public schooled and I had some fabulous teachers, I mean so good that I still remember lectures they gave 15 years after I graduated! And I am not opposed to my kids entering the public school system at a later date if I think THAT is what is best for them. Since Noodle's turning 5 soon, this is actually my trial year with him to see if he thrives with homeschooling, because I'm not comfortable making the assumption that he will. He may turn out to be a kid who needs to be at school surrounded by 20 classmates and learning with them in order to feel fulfilled, and if we continue to live in areas with good schools then I'll certainly consider public school an option.

But really, these days I think it makes even more sense to homeschool than it did when I was growing up. With all the cuts taking away elective programs like music, drama, art, sports, etc. (depending on the school and its priorities), and so many community resources where you CAN get quality exposure to those subjects, it's just no longer necessary to have your child attend school in order to gain that exposure. A perfectly normal and viable option, yes, but not necessary the way it was 150 years ago when rural children were going to institutional schools in order to better themselves.

Also, with all the emphasis on standardized testing, I don't think kids are really getting what they need in school, which is a THIRST for learning! I feel really horrible for teachers because I imagine that to some extent they have to make the choice whether to teach to the test or to teach in a way that is interesting and engaging but may not be absorbed in the exact same way by each child, therefor resulting in them each spouting different ideas rather than a series of testable facts. I read Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto, a Teacher of the Year or something in NYC, and he said that he spent most of his time trying to get his students to think the SAME, instead of trying to nurture each of their special God-given talents in a way that would bring out the best individuals. He also pointed out the uselessness of having classes of a predetermined length. If a child is absorbed in an art project, so in his groove that he's gaining wonderful experience and feeling joy in his accomplishment, then what on earth is served by him having to stop because in 5 minutes he's going to have to leave to go pay attention in science class while his brain will still be half in art class thinking of what he would have done next? Let him continue the project to an end determined by him according to his own priorities, just as we adults do.

And speaking about adult learning pretty much leads me into Unschooling. In its purest form, Unschooling is basically about having the attitude that "people learn what they need to learn, when they need to learn it". Period. If your child needs to learn to draw, she will; if she needs to learn to read, she will; if she wants to learn to build a robot, she will do that, too. Just like adults choose what skills we want to acquire, children should have some say in what subjects they learn about, and they should not be forced to sit still and learn something for which they have neither interest nor use. Now me, personally, I cannot let loose well enough to get with the Pure Unschooling. I am conscious of the idea that my children may want to go to school one day, and I do not want them to be so far off the pace of their peers so as to be unprepared. I want to make sure that, even if they don't know any of Aesop's Fables (a big part of the 1st Grade curriculum, apparently), that they understand how some stories illustrate life lessons, and that we read folk stories from other cultures like Anansi the Spider that have the same structure. Or we may not sit and study the different cloud formations by rote memorization, but my kids understand how clouds are formed and how weather "works" to some degree, and we look at the radar and listen to the weather radio and sit on the porch and watch the stormclouds roll in. I don't want them to be SO very off the "normal" track, at least at this point in my journey, that they can't get back into a classroom of their peers and have the same building blocks in common. But I very much appreciate that homeschooling gives me the opportunity to influence the information they receive so that it is most suited to THEM, and to sparking their interest in learning more.

Ok, obviously this is a topic I love to talk about, and will do so at length. I realize homeschooling is not appropriate for every family but I have no doubt in my mind that it's right for ours right now, so I'm not threatened by honest questions and will do my best to answer them. Hope you're all still awake!

Gearing up for homeschool '09/'10

This is our first year officially homeschooling our oldest, Tex. He turned 7 a couple months back and now must be registered with the state as being in someone's care during the school day, and I am happy to claim him! Of course the other two kids will tag along for the ride and who know, they might just learn something. Noodle is heading towards 5 as fast as he can, and is very interested these days in spelling and reading. He can type in his own username and password on Hotwheels.com from memory, the little genius! And of course the Monkeygirl, almost 2, will watch every move we make while I have my back turned and try to use them against me later.

In short I'm going to use this blog as my personal teaching planner, because it will be a lot faster to type out the long stories about what my adorable children do than it will be to write them in a notebook, and I'm all about saving some time. I'm doing it publicly because, well, other people like my kids, too, and there's no doubt that there are lots of other families out there who might have some words of wisdom to share as they read (I know you exist, I read YOUR blogs!).

Now to the matter at hand: our homeschooling plans for the year. We're going to continue Unschooling for the most part, which just (to me) means that I let the kids lead the way, and I use their interests to try and expose them to a wide variety of topics for the sake of "well-roundedness". The one structured thing I think we'll be adding this year is to have some Table Time each day. What they do there is up to them, be it crafts, math play, maze workbooks, playdough, or some reading practice. Tex's reading lightbulb has started to shine in the last few weeks, and I'm hopeful that that will make this year a little easier on me than last year was. Having been an early reader myself (I can remember reading some words at 5) it's been hard to watch Tex struggle with this skill, but I can see how proud he is now when he successfully reads something, and I'm glad I allowed him to get there in his own time.

One of my next stops will be the library for a copy of What Your Second Grader Needs to Know. It's purely for my own sake, so that I can see what kids are learning during this time in public schools and do my best to be sure that my kids are exposed to many of the same concepts. This may be as simple as the hours Tex spent last year playing Zoo Tycoon on his PC, during which he clearly demonstrated an understanding of different animals' habitats, a key concept on the First Grade science curriculum. So I like to have an understanding of what we're working towards so that I know what areas need a little boost and which ones are taking care of themselves and then some.

Check back soon for this year's list of goals. Thanks for reading!

Browniegirl