Well, as per usual, it's been a few months since my last update. We've had a lot on our plates since June, mainly because we moved out, spruced up, and SOLD our house. Yay!!! I have never seen such a large number in my bank account. It would be more awesome if I didn't know it's going to be dropping as soon as possible to it's former miniscule self when we buy a new house.
So what, are we homeless?!?! No, we're lucky enough to have both my and DaddyO's parents here in town and, because I am allergic to the sweet doggies my in-laws own, we are currently living in my parents' house. Along with my parents. And my uncle. So if you're playing along at home, that means there are EIGHT people living in this house right now. Cue disaster music.
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that we don't have to shell out rent while we're house-hunting, and I'm grateful that my children get this time with their grandparents and great-uncle. Truly. But whereas before our lifestyle choices and radical unschooling were just something weird that we crazy kids were doing, it's now *right there*, in the grandparents' faces, just begging to be critiqued, apparently.
So what do you do when someone you love tells you you're raising your children wrong? What do you do when someone with NO knowledge of educational theory or even brain development tells you that you're damaging your children by focusing on your relationships and character rather than academics? And not just damaging them, but actually setting them up for a life of illiteracy, ignorance, and flat-out failure! And never mind that our little family is happier together, more respectful, and has less yelling and anger than mine ever had growing up. Apparently THAT counts for nothing. So what do you do to shore yourself up and keep going?
Well, if you're me, you read a book. Or two. Or six.
Because, dangit, I KNOW this is right. I know that we are making the right choice for OUR children based on their needs and personalities and our definition of success (which, by the way, has little to do with money and more to do with healthy relationships, confidence, and determination to succeed at THEIR goals). But sometimes, when someone I love tells me I'm doing things wrong, it takes the wind out of my sails. It gives me pause and sends me back to the ol' drawing board to reevaluate and make sure I'm doing things right. And you know what?
I am.
Among the books I've read in the past two months are: Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen, The Big Book of Unschooling by Sandra Dodd (again), Radical Unschooling: A Revolution has Begun by Dayna Martin, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, and a really good book on how to set your boundaries so you can say "none ya bizness!" when people get nosy in a critical way. :-) Because while I LOVE to talk about Unschooling and consensual living and how to grow strong family relationships, I realize that I do NOT have to put up with people who want nothing more than to tell me that I'm living my life incorrectly according to their expectations.
I beat the crap out of that box. :-)
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
When academics don't matter
I always get the itch at this time of the year to look back and see how my children have grown. It's normal, I guess, given my own experience of the "school year" and how surrounded we are by schooling families. But this time I find the growth hard to put into little boxes and define in words, because so many huge changes have happened this year. This is the year that we let go of bedtimes and encouraged our children to start listening to their bodies. This is the year that we stopped punishing our kids and started problem-solving with them. This is the year that I stopped mentally fussing about whether we were getting in enough math, science, reading, history, what have you, and just started letting my children be. This is the year when we got joy. Or maybe the joy got us.
Y'all know Tex, he is my tough nut, my Contrarian, my challenge. He gets anxious, he gets overwhelmed, he panics, and he has a hard time sometimes coming back to center and letting anyone help him find a solution to his problem because he is convinced it's a problem so big that there is no solution. So the other day when I was puttering around the kitchen and overhearing Tex's end of a Skype conversation as he was gaming with a friend, I was bowled over by joy while listening to him. Something was obviously going wrong for this friend on the game they were playing, I could hear her hollering even through Tex's headphones, but Tex remained chill. In fact he said, "okay, calm down, take a deep breath... now, tell me what you were doing when that happened, and we'll figure out what went wrong." ???? !!!!! Oh my goodness, is this my child? This helper, this reasonable voice, this soother and problem-solver? And they did it, too, the two of them together figured out what the problem was and they behaved differently the next time so that it wouldn't happen again. I couldn't have been happier. Does it mean that he gets measurably less frantic when he is having a problem? Nah, we're not there quite yet. But now I know we'll get there, because the process is sinking in.
I can see it even more clearly in Noodle and Monkeygirl, whether because their personalities are easier or because they've been parented with more consistent kindness. Noodle is never scared to stand up for himself or what he thinks is right, even to another adult. He comforts his little sister and helps her joyfully when she needs it (as long he's not at a crucial point in his computer game, natch). He will take responsibility for his own care as much as he can rather than expect someone else to do it. He creates solutions with his friends to help things be fair rather than let one person feel unhappy or left behind. And even little Monkeygirl, princess-y though she may be, will grab a foam sword and rush to her brothers' aid if she perceives that they are being treated unfairly. She comforts her friends when they are sad and shares with them when they are feeling a scarcity (unless you want her favorite crown, then you are S.O.L., dude). She tells the truth even when it makes her look bad and apologizes without prompting when she knows she is wrong.
This is what I mean about how sometimes academics don't matter. If I could choose to have my children be of good character but short on book learning, I would pick that in a hot second over the opposite. Luckily, no such extremes are necessary, and my children can grow to have a good dose of both. But this is what I see lacking so much in schools, where the focus is on learning the material, and the character traits that we see as being most desirable in adults (and which I see countless news articles and friends lamenting the lack of in our children's generation) are barely nurtured at all. Far too often, in institutions of many kinds, obedience is more important than standing up for one's convictions; memorization is more important than critical thinking; working for the reward (good grades, praise) is more important than self-motivation. And for some children it's not enough for them to get a few hours of good examples at home (if they're even lucky enough to get that) if they're spending seven hours a day being shown that that's not what gets them ahead. Will schools still turn out some kids who are intelligent, strong, well-read, and of good character? Yes, but I'm convinced that it's in spite of the school's role (and thanks to some wonderful, realistic, dedicated teachers) not because of it. Now, have we had academic growth this year? You bet your sweet bippy we have. I even wrote out a whole paragraph of cool stuff the kids do and know, but then I deleted it, because at this point it just doesn't matter. That kind of learning can happen anytime, whenever they need it. Character has to start NOW.
Y'all know Tex, he is my tough nut, my Contrarian, my challenge. He gets anxious, he gets overwhelmed, he panics, and he has a hard time sometimes coming back to center and letting anyone help him find a solution to his problem because he is convinced it's a problem so big that there is no solution. So the other day when I was puttering around the kitchen and overhearing Tex's end of a Skype conversation as he was gaming with a friend, I was bowled over by joy while listening to him. Something was obviously going wrong for this friend on the game they were playing, I could hear her hollering even through Tex's headphones, but Tex remained chill. In fact he said, "okay, calm down, take a deep breath... now, tell me what you were doing when that happened, and we'll figure out what went wrong." ???? !!!!! Oh my goodness, is this my child? This helper, this reasonable voice, this soother and problem-solver? And they did it, too, the two of them together figured out what the problem was and they behaved differently the next time so that it wouldn't happen again. I couldn't have been happier. Does it mean that he gets measurably less frantic when he is having a problem? Nah, we're not there quite yet. But now I know we'll get there, because the process is sinking in.
I can see it even more clearly in Noodle and Monkeygirl, whether because their personalities are easier or because they've been parented with more consistent kindness. Noodle is never scared to stand up for himself or what he thinks is right, even to another adult. He comforts his little sister and helps her joyfully when she needs it (as long he's not at a crucial point in his computer game, natch). He will take responsibility for his own care as much as he can rather than expect someone else to do it. He creates solutions with his friends to help things be fair rather than let one person feel unhappy or left behind. And even little Monkeygirl, princess-y though she may be, will grab a foam sword and rush to her brothers' aid if she perceives that they are being treated unfairly. She comforts her friends when they are sad and shares with them when they are feeling a scarcity (unless you want her favorite crown, then you are S.O.L., dude). She tells the truth even when it makes her look bad and apologizes without prompting when she knows she is wrong.
This is what I mean about how sometimes academics don't matter. If I could choose to have my children be of good character but short on book learning, I would pick that in a hot second over the opposite. Luckily, no such extremes are necessary, and my children can grow to have a good dose of both. But this is what I see lacking so much in schools, where the focus is on learning the material, and the character traits that we see as being most desirable in adults (and which I see countless news articles and friends lamenting the lack of in our children's generation) are barely nurtured at all. Far too often, in institutions of many kinds, obedience is more important than standing up for one's convictions; memorization is more important than critical thinking; working for the reward (good grades, praise) is more important than self-motivation. And for some children it's not enough for them to get a few hours of good examples at home (if they're even lucky enough to get that) if they're spending seven hours a day being shown that that's not what gets them ahead. Will schools still turn out some kids who are intelligent, strong, well-read, and of good character? Yes, but I'm convinced that it's in spite of the school's role (and thanks to some wonderful, realistic, dedicated teachers) not because of it. Now, have we had academic growth this year? You bet your sweet bippy we have. I even wrote out a whole paragraph of cool stuff the kids do and know, but then I deleted it, because at this point it just doesn't matter. That kind of learning can happen anytime, whenever they need it. Character has to start NOW.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Be the tree
I'm not satisfied. That last post, that didn't feel real. Oh sure, it gave a nice glancing update into a few easy-to-tackle topics, but it didn't get to the meat of what we're working on around here, and how hard it is.
I'm torn on this. Part of me IS having fun, genuinely, and wants to focus on all that joy because it's what's most important. But I also feel like doing that does a disservice to others who are swimming upstream and having a hard time of it, because the last thing I want to do is gloss over the hard parts and leave those parents feeling that they're doing something wrong because they're not covered up in joy all the time.
Let me tell you about a night last week when I fought with Noodle, literally, for 30 minutes because he was angry at me and needed to show it. We had swords, and this was serious (he actually said that at one point when I was being too playful, he said "this is serious", and I collapsed in giggles because all I could hear was Ming-Ming the duck), and kiddo even got in a couple of good licks. And you know what, there were points during that fight when I thought "this is ridiculous, a million other parents would have shut this shit down immediately", and part of me wanted to do that. To send him to his room until he can "be nice" or walk away from his anger because as an adult I have that option and can explain all the reasons why he's wrong for being angry at me because I wasn't trying to upset him. But I kept at it. I kept parrying and using pillow shields and running away scared, I kept letting him charge at me out of genuine anger, because a smaller but stronger voice was saying, "if you don't show him how to love someone through their anger, who will? If you don't accept his anger and let him share that part with you, how will he ever be sure you love ALL of him?" And I told him, when he asked why I was smiling when he was so angry, that I had a choice in how I dealt with his anger. I told him that part of me wanted to get angry back, and make his anger go away by making him scared of me, but that I didn't think that was good for him. I'd rather let him show me his anger if he doesn't want to tell me about it, and hope that by doing that he'd know I'm okay with him being angry with me and eventually learn how to talk about it. Or at least we'd both be really good swordfighters. I realized that I had a choice: I could talk to my son about both of our feelings, or I could shut his down and risk him not sharing them with me in the future.
We've also let go of bedtimes, and let me tell you THAT has been a process. Not that we're done or anything, lol, just that it's been going on long enough for me to see it's not a quick thing. It started a long time ago with us declaring the weekend nights to be "No-Bedtime Bedtimes", then progressed as we all started to develop our own after-dinner flow on the weeknights, and continued as Daddy-O and I have stopped alternating nights of being responsible for each group of kids (the boys in their room and Monkeygirl in hers) and simply started offering to be available for nighttime cuddles and tuck-ins. It's extra hard because Noodle, with his Minecraft obsession, will often be up playing until 11pm, then he wants 15 minutes of cuddles and I'm not out of their room until Midnight, at which point there aren't enough hours before Monkeygirl gets up in the "norning", as she calls it, for me to feel rested and ready for the day. I know it will work out, but it's going to take a lot of finessing to make it happen.
In short, we've jumped feet first into what we call, for lack of a less formal-sounding term, "consensual living". We try to include the kids in decisions which involve them, to an extent that is appropriate for them and manageable for us. For instance, when I was doing doula work for a year, I had a couple of 24+ hour births that really upset my kids. They didn't know when I was going to have to leave to go help a mama, they didn't know when I'd be back, and I was largely unavailable while I was gone. They didn't like it. But we needed an additional source of income, so I offered up a compromise: I'd quit doing doula work out of respect for their needs, but I'd add back in a weeknight childbirth class that I hadn't taught since I got pregnant with the Monkeygirl. They felt heard and respected, they had proof that their voices matter, and our household still got what it needed in order to be able to "go".
The hardest part of all this, really, is fighting what I've been taught all my life and the knee-jerk reactions that result. The desire to make my children into people that are "no trouble" instead of people who ask for what they want and make things happen for themselves. Two days ago the boys were playing online games and Skyping with a friend, and that friend mentioned that another family we love was coming to their house to play. Tex immediately said "Mom, can you call and ask if we can come over, too?" Ugh, grimace, cringe. You want me to what, now? You want me to call and invite ourselves over to play??? Oh, the rudeness, the utter gaucherie of such a move! I told my son how wrong it felt to me, how much it bothered me to make that call. But God bless his persistence, he continued to ask and I was forced to think about why it was such a problem. The truth is that either one of these families would let us know if joining the playdate wasn't a good plan, so what was the harm in calling? So I did, stating upfront to the mom that I knew it was rude so that she would know I knew, because above all I didn't want to be thought of as inconsiderate. She asked her kids, she asked the other family, and they all said "are you kidding, if you come over we'll have enough adults to do the zip line!!" And a wonderful time was had by all. Including me, old Mommy Stuffypants.
So yeah, it's not easy, this Unschooling, consensual lifestyle. It requires a lot more listening, thinking, bending, and perspective-shifting than I ever expected to have to do as a parent. It requires me to acknowledge that, no, I do NOT always know what is best for my children, and that if I want more information I should go to the source. But thank God for it. Truly. I hate to think of the kind of mother I would have had to become in order to fit my family into the current popular model. I hate to think of the wall I would have had to build between my children and myself in order to be able to stomach forcing them to bend. Instead I like to think that we all do our share of bending, and that like a tree, it will make us stronger in the end.
I'm torn on this. Part of me IS having fun, genuinely, and wants to focus on all that joy because it's what's most important. But I also feel like doing that does a disservice to others who are swimming upstream and having a hard time of it, because the last thing I want to do is gloss over the hard parts and leave those parents feeling that they're doing something wrong because they're not covered up in joy all the time.
Let me tell you about a night last week when I fought with Noodle, literally, for 30 minutes because he was angry at me and needed to show it. We had swords, and this was serious (he actually said that at one point when I was being too playful, he said "this is serious", and I collapsed in giggles because all I could hear was Ming-Ming the duck), and kiddo even got in a couple of good licks. And you know what, there were points during that fight when I thought "this is ridiculous, a million other parents would have shut this shit down immediately", and part of me wanted to do that. To send him to his room until he can "be nice" or walk away from his anger because as an adult I have that option and can explain all the reasons why he's wrong for being angry at me because I wasn't trying to upset him. But I kept at it. I kept parrying and using pillow shields and running away scared, I kept letting him charge at me out of genuine anger, because a smaller but stronger voice was saying, "if you don't show him how to love someone through their anger, who will? If you don't accept his anger and let him share that part with you, how will he ever be sure you love ALL of him?" And I told him, when he asked why I was smiling when he was so angry, that I had a choice in how I dealt with his anger. I told him that part of me wanted to get angry back, and make his anger go away by making him scared of me, but that I didn't think that was good for him. I'd rather let him show me his anger if he doesn't want to tell me about it, and hope that by doing that he'd know I'm okay with him being angry with me and eventually learn how to talk about it. Or at least we'd both be really good swordfighters. I realized that I had a choice: I could talk to my son about both of our feelings, or I could shut his down and risk him not sharing them with me in the future.
We've also let go of bedtimes, and let me tell you THAT has been a process. Not that we're done or anything, lol, just that it's been going on long enough for me to see it's not a quick thing. It started a long time ago with us declaring the weekend nights to be "No-Bedtime Bedtimes", then progressed as we all started to develop our own after-dinner flow on the weeknights, and continued as Daddy-O and I have stopped alternating nights of being responsible for each group of kids (the boys in their room and Monkeygirl in hers) and simply started offering to be available for nighttime cuddles and tuck-ins. It's extra hard because Noodle, with his Minecraft obsession, will often be up playing until 11pm, then he wants 15 minutes of cuddles and I'm not out of their room until Midnight, at which point there aren't enough hours before Monkeygirl gets up in the "norning", as she calls it, for me to feel rested and ready for the day. I know it will work out, but it's going to take a lot of finessing to make it happen.
In short, we've jumped feet first into what we call, for lack of a less formal-sounding term, "consensual living". We try to include the kids in decisions which involve them, to an extent that is appropriate for them and manageable for us. For instance, when I was doing doula work for a year, I had a couple of 24+ hour births that really upset my kids. They didn't know when I was going to have to leave to go help a mama, they didn't know when I'd be back, and I was largely unavailable while I was gone. They didn't like it. But we needed an additional source of income, so I offered up a compromise: I'd quit doing doula work out of respect for their needs, but I'd add back in a weeknight childbirth class that I hadn't taught since I got pregnant with the Monkeygirl. They felt heard and respected, they had proof that their voices matter, and our household still got what it needed in order to be able to "go".
The hardest part of all this, really, is fighting what I've been taught all my life and the knee-jerk reactions that result. The desire to make my children into people that are "no trouble" instead of people who ask for what they want and make things happen for themselves. Two days ago the boys were playing online games and Skyping with a friend, and that friend mentioned that another family we love was coming to their house to play. Tex immediately said "Mom, can you call and ask if we can come over, too?" Ugh, grimace, cringe. You want me to what, now? You want me to call and invite ourselves over to play??? Oh, the rudeness, the utter gaucherie of such a move! I told my son how wrong it felt to me, how much it bothered me to make that call. But God bless his persistence, he continued to ask and I was forced to think about why it was such a problem. The truth is that either one of these families would let us know if joining the playdate wasn't a good plan, so what was the harm in calling? So I did, stating upfront to the mom that I knew it was rude so that she would know I knew, because above all I didn't want to be thought of as inconsiderate. She asked her kids, she asked the other family, and they all said "are you kidding, if you come over we'll have enough adults to do the zip line!!" And a wonderful time was had by all. Including me, old Mommy Stuffypants.
So yeah, it's not easy, this Unschooling, consensual lifestyle. It requires a lot more listening, thinking, bending, and perspective-shifting than I ever expected to have to do as a parent. It requires me to acknowledge that, no, I do NOT always know what is best for my children, and that if I want more information I should go to the source. But thank God for it. Truly. I hate to think of the kind of mother I would have had to become in order to fit my family into the current popular model. I hate to think of the wall I would have had to build between my children and myself in order to be able to stomach forcing them to bend. Instead I like to think that we all do our share of bending, and that like a tree, it will make us stronger in the end.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
In the Flow
I've been wanting to write an update for a while, if for no other reason than I've been havin' so darn much fun, but also not wanting to write lest I get overly analytical about our lives. That's a constant trap for me because I'm a psychology nut and kids are the best. experiment. ever! So sometimes I have to work very hard to get out of my head and just enjoy them. Today I'm giving myself a break. :-)
The kids are growing by leaps and bounds, some of them literally. I suspect that within the next year Tex and I will be sharing both shoe size and height. He'll turn ten in June. And I'm short. But still! He's growing in lots of other ways, too. Some of you know Tex personally and know that I sometimes find his personality to be challenging (and yes, I know, he's always sweet at your house, don't rub it in), and there's no question that he struggles with a certain awkwardness when it comes to dealing with other human lifeforms (let's just say I have a particular sympathy with Leonard from The Big Bang Theory), but he is a good-hearted kid who really does want to get along with his friends and have good relationships with his family. That it is shining through so bright these days is such a relief. :-) I see him trying to take a deep breath more often when his temper gets hold of him. I see him choosing, when his sister is annoying him for kicks as siblings sometimes do, to turn it into a game for as long as he can stand before asking her to knock it off. I see him trying to talk his way through arguments instead of headbutt through them. I hear him acknowledging his imperfections and laughing about them instead of getting angry and hurt. He's maturing, and he's doing it in part because he's surrounded by people willing to (mostly) talk him through it instead of only punishing him for it. I've known for a while now that school would have been inappropriate for Tex for this reason in particular. He has needed these years to overcome his difficulties in negotiating the social landscape of this world, and I can see that he's finding his voice and his place, figuring out what he's good at and what feels useful to him. I think he's starting on a big journey of finally having overcome the effect that preschool and our overly strict parenting style had on him (to clarify, we weren't the Pearls, we just were much more strict with the conventions than we are now and that wasn't a good fit for our unconventional child), and being able to really explore himself.
Both Tex and Noodle are into the online multiplayer games Minecraft and Roblox, just to name the top two. These are games where they get to create a character (a LEGO-ish fellow) and then go out into the various worlds to play games, fulfill quests, solve puzzles, or even blow things up. The boys watch videos on YouTube about their videogame passions and play together side-by-side at their computer stations. Noodle in particular is a computer whiz and gets such joy out of manipulating the computer to make it do what he wants. He wants to set up servers and install mods and add memory and learn how to build stuff and beat the game. There are days when he is at his computer almost non-stop! And honestly, yeah, it used to bug me, but he's getting so much out of it that I don't worry anymore. He's found a passion to pursue at the age of seven and I think that's awesome!
Monkeygirl is having a great time of it lately as well. She's four now, so she's finally old enough to sign up for our local TaeKwonDo classes, and after just a couple of classes she is having a ball and so excited about her class. Watching her confidence in class, her willingness to try over and over again when she doesn't get it right, her silliness and complete self-assurance in the face of language barriers, stricter discipline than she's ever seen, and high expectations is so thrilling!
My little Monkey is also having great fun learning math skills on the new Team UmiZoomi math app for the iPad, even practicing addition and subtraction skills. I have to give special thanks to my parents for buying us the iPad this summer for homeschool, and to our family and friends for keeping us in iTunes cards so that we can find new fun games to play. I can see the learning the kids are doing with this new tool and it's really fun for them. In fact Noodle now knows more about US geography than I do, thanks to a wonderful game called Stack the States. I've still got 'em on the nicknames, though. Yes, I take my victories where I can get 'em, why do you ask? We also all really enjoy the logic games like Where's My Water, World of Goo, Cut the Rope, and SpongeMarble. Since I think the most important goal for homeschooling is to help my children learn to think logically and independently, these games provide invaluable problem-solving skills. Fair warning: they also cause insomnia in adults as you try to get through just. one. more. level!
And if there are still any lingering concerns about their academic smarts and whether or not they are on par with the national standards, you can quiet your worries. Daddy-O watched an episode of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" with the boys and they did great! :-) They did that while on a trip to Nashville where they saw the scale reproduction of the Parthenon at Centennial Park, visited the children's science museum, and even attended a Predators hockey game. It was a great boys' weekend for them while Monkeygirl and I hung out at home.
Okay, I gotta go now. The boys are playing Just Dance 3 in the other room and I really want to go get my groove on! Hope you're all enjoying your journey!
The kids are growing by leaps and bounds, some of them literally. I suspect that within the next year Tex and I will be sharing both shoe size and height. He'll turn ten in June. And I'm short. But still! He's growing in lots of other ways, too. Some of you know Tex personally and know that I sometimes find his personality to be challenging (and yes, I know, he's always sweet at your house, don't rub it in), and there's no question that he struggles with a certain awkwardness when it comes to dealing with other human lifeforms (let's just say I have a particular sympathy with Leonard from The Big Bang Theory), but he is a good-hearted kid who really does want to get along with his friends and have good relationships with his family. That it is shining through so bright these days is such a relief. :-) I see him trying to take a deep breath more often when his temper gets hold of him. I see him choosing, when his sister is annoying him for kicks as siblings sometimes do, to turn it into a game for as long as he can stand before asking her to knock it off. I see him trying to talk his way through arguments instead of headbutt through them. I hear him acknowledging his imperfections and laughing about them instead of getting angry and hurt. He's maturing, and he's doing it in part because he's surrounded by people willing to (mostly) talk him through it instead of only punishing him for it. I've known for a while now that school would have been inappropriate for Tex for this reason in particular. He has needed these years to overcome his difficulties in negotiating the social landscape of this world, and I can see that he's finding his voice and his place, figuring out what he's good at and what feels useful to him. I think he's starting on a big journey of finally having overcome the effect that preschool and our overly strict parenting style had on him (to clarify, we weren't the Pearls, we just were much more strict with the conventions than we are now and that wasn't a good fit for our unconventional child), and being able to really explore himself.
Both Tex and Noodle are into the online multiplayer games Minecraft and Roblox, just to name the top two. These are games where they get to create a character (a LEGO-ish fellow) and then go out into the various worlds to play games, fulfill quests, solve puzzles, or even blow things up. The boys watch videos on YouTube about their videogame passions and play together side-by-side at their computer stations. Noodle in particular is a computer whiz and gets such joy out of manipulating the computer to make it do what he wants. He wants to set up servers and install mods and add memory and learn how to build stuff and beat the game. There are days when he is at his computer almost non-stop! And honestly, yeah, it used to bug me, but he's getting so much out of it that I don't worry anymore. He's found a passion to pursue at the age of seven and I think that's awesome!
Monkeygirl is having a great time of it lately as well. She's four now, so she's finally old enough to sign up for our local TaeKwonDo classes, and after just a couple of classes she is having a ball and so excited about her class. Watching her confidence in class, her willingness to try over and over again when she doesn't get it right, her silliness and complete self-assurance in the face of language barriers, stricter discipline than she's ever seen, and high expectations is so thrilling!
My little Monkey is also having great fun learning math skills on the new Team UmiZoomi math app for the iPad, even practicing addition and subtraction skills. I have to give special thanks to my parents for buying us the iPad this summer for homeschool, and to our family and friends for keeping us in iTunes cards so that we can find new fun games to play. I can see the learning the kids are doing with this new tool and it's really fun for them. In fact Noodle now knows more about US geography than I do, thanks to a wonderful game called Stack the States. I've still got 'em on the nicknames, though. Yes, I take my victories where I can get 'em, why do you ask? We also all really enjoy the logic games like Where's My Water, World of Goo, Cut the Rope, and SpongeMarble. Since I think the most important goal for homeschooling is to help my children learn to think logically and independently, these games provide invaluable problem-solving skills. Fair warning: they also cause insomnia in adults as you try to get through just. one. more. level!
And if there are still any lingering concerns about their academic smarts and whether or not they are on par with the national standards, you can quiet your worries. Daddy-O watched an episode of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader" with the boys and they did great! :-) They did that while on a trip to Nashville where they saw the scale reproduction of the Parthenon at Centennial Park, visited the children's science museum, and even attended a Predators hockey game. It was a great boys' weekend for them while Monkeygirl and I hung out at home.
Okay, I gotta go now. The boys are playing Just Dance 3 in the other room and I really want to go get my groove on! Hope you're all enjoying your journey!
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