This is hillarious! Simply awesome. Enjoy.
inspiration September 14, 2009
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for
this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of
freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail. It is a very
grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be
promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe
that it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its
voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast
to devour continiously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out
under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.”
- Albert Einstein
8.10.09 August 10, 2009
Recap:
-rediscovering geoboards
-aceing 9′s facts
-finishing study on cnidaria
-discovery.com video on cave dwelling glow worms
–lunch
-grammar, handwriting, spelling
-read aloud chapter five of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone
It was a good day.
Teaching Reading 101: This is how we roll August 5, 2009
The remarks and questions I hear when someone learns that I homeschool range widely from the typical, “What about socialization?”, to “I could never spend that much time with my kids.” One of most common comments I hear is, “I don’t think I could teach my kids how to read!” I even had one friend say that if she could just send her children through first grade and have a “professional” teach them how to read, she thought she could take it from there.
Jason and I were both early readers. We are both first born children, and were both blessed with mothers who saw the value of teaching their children to read when they were ready. I was reading the Little House on the Prairie series with my mother before I began Kindergarten. I have never thought twice about teaching my kids to read. It would be like sending them away to toilet train. I just always thought, I’m the parent, it is my responsibility. And I will tell you, potty training was way more difficult than reading!
When the twins were about three we found a set of DVD’s from LeapFrog that taught letter sounds and simple words using phonics. That was the springboard for them. They just got it. Jason and I would sit with them using a Magnadoodle and write simple three letter words for them to sound out. At three years old, I would be walking through the grocery store and have them shouting out, “Mom, that says ‘deli’!!” Soon, they were reading the Bob books and blowing me away with their insatiable appetite for learning. It was then that I realized they would never be happy in school. They would be far too impatient to be successful in a group learning environment. But, I digress. We are discussing teaching reading here.
Fast forward about four years. Anna just turned four years old. She does things her own way. I knew that teaching her anything couldn’t be something that was my idea. It had to be up to her, on her terms. She knows the sound that letters make for the most part, and every once in a while I hear her sounding out a word.
The other morning, she was in our room with Jason was getting ready for work. She found this box in his closet:
She sounded out the word “aldo” and was so pleased with herself. So, Jason did what any good daddy would do.. he grabbed a pen and started writing more words on the box for her to read:
And this is how school goes in our house sometimes.
back-to-school August 5, 2009
Of all the things I loved growing up about the fall, the back-to-school shopping tops the list. I was one of those nerdy kids who loved the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, the crackle of a spiral-bound notebook being opened for the first time, and cutting brown paper sacks into book covers. Yes, that was before these spandex book covers were out.. don’t make me feel old! The anticipation of a fresh school year was exciting to me. New classes, new teachers. The nausea. The tears. Ok, see. It was just the new school supplies that I loved, not actually having to go back to school!
So, imagine my dismay as we prepare to dust off the beach sand and get back into the swing of things only to discover that we don’t need anything! How can this be? Not even pencils? Glue sticks? Ok, ok.. we don’t need any school supplies, but surely we need lots and lots of curriculum & books, right. What? We don’t? Nope. We haven’t finished any of our books from the spring. We are literally going “back to school.” I really should be rejoicing in this discovery. We have a few months left in all our subjects. This is a blessing considering the fact that our van has been a huge drain on our finances this summer and ‘we is flat broke, brother!’
It is hard, though, seeing all the adds from office supply stores, big box retailers, homeschool supply catalogs… even IKEA, and realize that I won’t be a part of that this summer.
Well, maybe I should count my blessings. I’ll be buying all my stuff come November. Maybe my kids’ Christmas stockings will be full of crayons, pencils, rulers, abacuses, math manipulatives, and science supplies. Maybe Mommy will get curriucula under the tree from Santa. Maybe we have a new tradition in the making.
And that is okay with me.
“Dear Santa….”
UHEA Home Educators Convention 2009 June 12, 2009
This past Saturday I attended our local homeschool convention. Friday night, when I told the boys that I would be gone all day they asked why. I told them I was going to some meetings that would help me make our home school more fun. They promptly responded, “Our home school is fun!”
I have been looking forward to attending one of these for years, but I admit, I was a little dissapointed. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. I went expecting to be highly inspired, or motivated to make big changes in our homeschool. I really enjoyed hearing Susan Wise Bauer’s keynote and her workshop on “The Joy of Classical Education”, but I was pretty disappointed in the other classes I attended. I have heard others saying the classes were great, so maybe I just made poor choices… I was pretty interested in a workshop I took on Unit Study. I even looked up the instructor on Facebook (it is a social networking site, after all!), went to a seminar she presented at this week again so I could look closer at the curriculum she uses, but decided it wasn’t for us. I have been going over my notes, looking up things online, and this morning realized that the best thing I got from all of this is that what we are using is great for us. It works for our family. What intrigued me about unit study wasn’t the unit study aspect, it was the activity aspect. I am homeschooling two seven year old boys! They thrive on hands-on learning. I have really neglected that this past year, I think because I am a book/story learner. They enjoy that too, but they are seven. And boys. They need to do!
One of the turn-offs of the unit study concept for me was how it presents history and science in a completely random way. At least KONOS does. I love the classical trivium; teaching history chronologically begining with ancient history. How can expect children to understand why the Revolutionary War took place if they don’t know about European History?
So, I looked through my current curriculum and realized that The Story of the Wold has lots of great suggestions for activities, but I’ve been skipping them because I wasn’t as interested or didn’t want to make a mess, or it was too much to do with the little ones running around, or…. yeah. Lots of excuses.
In all this I discovered that I already had a lot of resources, I just needed the motivation and to take that journey of discovery.
Thank you, Susan Wise Bauer for coming. And if anyone on the UHEA board reads this, please do not let anyone sell magic veggie pills at next years curriculum fair.
Article addressing the homeschool stereo-type June 12, 2009
I found this article today while I was perusing Susan Wise Bauer‘s (author of The Well Trained Mind) website. Isn’t it nice when you can use someone else’s voice to express your own opinions and feelings.
I heard her speak this past Saturday at our UHEA convention. She gave the keynote and a few workshops, and I admit that she was the reason that I attended this year. I wasn’t very impressed with the rest of the convention or curriculum fair, but it was very worth attending to hear her.
More on my convention experience later…
While Daddy’s away, the family will play! April 19, 2009
My sweet husband was gone for the entire week on business. I was sad. Our formal book work was put on hold while we entertained ourselves all week.
I have this need to make up for him being gone by making each day a grand adventure. We took a trip to a local museum, went to the park when it wasn’t rainy or snowy, had lunch at IKEA, went to the library, played lots of games, watched movies, read books, snuggled. In the end… we still missed Daddy.
I realized that I don’t do well when something disrupts my schedule. There really is no reason that his being gone should have prevented us from going about our week in a completely normal fashion. I suppose that our family dynamic shifted just enough while he was gone that it didn’t make sense for us to keep our days the same. I am glad that we didn’t. The change was nice.
Monday we’ll start fresh. I love getting back into the swing of things.
let the wild rumpus start! March 19, 2009
Meet our family:
Caryn: the mom, primary educator, rumpus referee, home-maker
Jason: the dad, the “fun” educator, breadwinner, cool-guy, rumpus instigator
Ethan & Caleb: the oldest of our wild things – twins (of whom neither are the oldest!), learners, baseball players, soccer players, adventurers, and occasional Jedi-in-training
Anna: our only daughter, the princess of our kingdom, wild thing for sure
Ben: youngest son, could possibly be Max, as in the KING of all wild things!, potentially the true peacemaker of our home
On to the rumpus….
In actuality, the rumpus began nearly seven years ago with the birth of our twin boys, Ethan & Caleb. At the time I knew of very few homeschoolers, and the idea of homeschooling myself was far from a solid idea. Early on in my pregnancy I worked as a substitute teacher in the county where we lived while I was still taking college courses to earn a degree in English Education. My goal was to get a little more classroom experience while finishing college. I subbed for several months in high school, middle schools and a few elementary schools. In fact, I was offered a full time position (as a teacher!) in an eighth grade English classroom! I was still a year away from finishing my degree! My experiences in the school system them very much influenced my decision to homeschool my children. I would like to add, however, that I do not think that all public schools are bad, or that everyone should homeschool their children. That is an impractical idea for many reasons. I am simply sharing how things started for me. During this time, my husband’s stepmother was homeschooling her three children. Having her share her reasons and experiences, her successes and trials has proven to be the most valuable asset that I have had in my decision to homeschool.
Fast forward three years. My twins are three years old and I am pregnant with our daughter. Our boys have proven to be exceptionally bright. (Yes, of course I am biased!) Jason & and I have taught them their letters and the sounds they make. They sound out words everywhere we go. I purchased beginner reading books and they work their way toward reading through them with very little help. Within a year they are also doing basic addition and subtraction on their own. They are reading picture books with no help at all from us. Now enter the summer that they turned five years old. I am pregnant again, our daughter is two years old. We are given our first Magic Tree House book. I am reading it to them before bedtime. I get up in the morning to find the boys together in the same bed finishing the book themselves because they can’t wait for me to read the rest at bedtime. Now comes the difficult decision. I knew I was very interested in homeschooling, but I had a baby due in January, and a two year old that I haven’t had any one on one time. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t looking forward to having a bit of a break. The prospect of having only one child at home while the boys went off to Kindergarten seemed pretty nice. But, at what cost would that come? What did I want for my growing family in the long run? So, that is when I committed. I made that final decision that this is what I wanted for us. Jason and I weighed the options together, but in the end, I had to be the one to make the commitment, for the bulk of the responsibility would fall on my shoulders. I have never regretted my decision. There have certainly been times when I wondered if I was still doing the right thing. Inevitably, when the doubts come, I am always reminded that what I am doing is the right thing. Our children are thriving. This is not always easy, its not always fun, but it has always been worth it. I am convinced that the best things are not always easy or fun. That is not to say that we do not ever have fun.. because we do! Our reasons for choosing homeschool are many and varied, but the bottom line for me was that I wanted to give my children more. More of what I knew to be most important. More learning. More of life. More adventure. More family time. I also had selfish motives. I didn’t want to miss any of their learning. I knew that I was capable, and that I could do it. In the five short years that I had been a mother.. their mother, I already knew that nobody could love them more than I did, and that nobody could give them what I could. Being a mother alone, however, is not my only qualification. I have always had a deep love of learning, of books, and of school. Jason and I both share this love. We knew that together we could provide so much more for our children then they could otherwise receive by attending public schools. And so, we began our journey.
That, of course, is only the beginning. We are now halfway through the boys’ 1st grade year. They have flourished. They are crazy, to be sure, but what almost-seven-year-olds aren’t? Anna, now nearly four years old, is learning and participating on a much smaller scale. Ben, our little one year old, only adds to the rumpus! He is clever and mischievous, and keeps us all on our toes. I am already sure that he will not be allowed to be left behind, but rather will insist on being in the thick of it with his older siblings.
We have already learned a lot in the course of this adventure, and I hope to share some of that here. Feel free to leave comments and share with others. And enjoy a little peek at our wild rumpus!
