The Rhythm of Our Days

It’s been awhile since I sat down and painted with my kids and I wonder why….because it’s always lots of fun when I do!

Bananas, with Sunshine, hers and mine:

Firstborn and I read lots and lots of Shel Silverstein’s poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends, and our favorites were the ones where the poem is a part of the picture. So while Sunshine and W were playing at a nearby farm with a friend’s visiting grandchildren, that’s what we set out to do: make poems that were parts of pictures.

“Stick people is all I can draw. I tried and tried to draw normal people  but I never can.”

I especially love his stick person hammering the nail!

“Very, Very Blackberry, For you I’ll bake a pie. Yum!”

Followed up with a game of Yatzee, a rather fun way to get some math in.

First born:

Reading a totally cheesy horror-book called The Rage, found in a free bin at the used book store, about a dog with rabies.

Also reading:

We love this book; it’s a prequel to peter pan and hilarious thanks to co-author Dave Barry. I’m also reading this out loud to W right now.

Sunshine:

We are working through this fabulously fun book:

It has a book list, that we read together, and then do the math activities that come after. It’s a lot of critical thinking and brings out the math skills mentioned in the story. She’s getting reading, time with mom, and math, and it’s FUN. This is a good for the Living Math list!
And speaking of the books on the list….today she read Frog and Toad together, a good one for practicing her oral speed. I tootled around on amazon.com today for the titles listed in the front of the book that we don’t already have and found most of them for less than a dollar. I did have to pay shipping on them but without a good library close by or hours to search the used book store until later in the summer, this was a pretty good plan B!

W: as mentioned, I’m reading peter and the starcatchers to him. He is also reading through the McGuffey first reader with dad in the evenings and is about ready to start reading short books on his own. I wish I’d been this relaxed watching Firstborn learn to read; we immerse them in language and books and it’s delightful (at times LOL) to see how individual the rate of learning can be, and how natural a process it should be.

Books for R.K, who loves to be read to:

What lives under the wood pile:

That sun burn can happen quickly.

That ice cream melts fast.

That the dog will get your chicken if you don’t hold it high and pay attention.

That copperhead snakes don’t have to be very large and hide under rocks.

That rocky creek bottoms often have just that: rocky bottoms!

Where the poo-poo goes….well, he understands that he doesn’t want to do it in his pants or a diaper. He’s not too concerned yet if it just hits the floor….

poetry by Longfellow.

That all the chocolate chips in the world won’t make up for a bad ice cream base. In other words, bad ice cream is still bad ice cream, even if it’s a “specialty” flavor full of fancy chunks!

how to make fire pits that we can cook over.

how to fish.

that new books sometimes just take a little bit of reading to get the flow going.

that the long hour before sundown is a great time to swing and run around barefoot.

That fireflies come out just as you drag your sweaty tired body in.

Welcome Summer!

My favorite memories of my childhood education involved the span of time after lunch when the teacher read to us, the piles of crayolas and clay we had available (there was a stark difference in the time devoted to art and creativity in Michigan and Florida schools), and library day. The Lilting House posted this interview today, between the Secretary of  Education and Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. It’s the kind of dialog that makes me sad for the kids stuck in classrooms, being thought of as unintelligent or “left behind” because they can’t learn to the cardboard curriculum.

a freewrite….

I started going to these when my oldest was a baby, having decided to homeschool when I was but a middleschooler myself, and deciding it was never too early to get my hands on actual materials. The result was a very fun preschool experience followed by too many years of hair-pulling frustration trying to force a late-reader to learn on my time table rather than his own. By the time he was 8 we’d gone to every fair every summer, heard every seminar speaker and most of them two or three times, and were more than a little burned out.

Enter in three years of unschooling. In the meantime, old resources not finished became consumed. The late reader advanced 4-5 levels within a year (I’m not joking). His sister, also a late reader but “as”, joined in. The next one is reading too, sans pressure. They have plenty of time to think their own Great Thoughts. We outsourced some tutoring, which they think is fun, for math work. They’ve explored, created, written, read, and pondered. I’ve watched as others celebrate “the end of our year” and while I totally disregard the calendar with learning, I feel an old familiar pull to go see what’s being sold and talked about these days.

The used fairs are all going on on now and my school envelope has long been empty, so it’s most certainly not purchase time. I don’t shop when I don’t have money; window shopping makes me bonkers. I got ahold of a few brochures….but the seminars, at least at the ones I saw, were all pretty much the same! Nothing worth taking vacation time and tight funds to go spend a day in a convention hall over.

I wonder if I wouldn’t be better off just spending a day at the huge used book store we have, buying fantastic real books, supplementing with their handwriting books, and eating a leisurely lunch at our favorite restaurant in the city? Dad might find the older resources he’s been pining for; it would only require finding babysitting for a day rather than overnight (which is it’s own hassle and probably shuts the whole idea down more than anything else).

What they go to more than anything is great novels, field guides, and coffee table books full of beautiful photography. I’d love to find some archecture books for Firstborn and some kind of creative writing prompts for Sunshine. W loves science and kitchen stuff and to sit curled in the rocking chair being read to. I’d love to give Baby some kind of preschool experience similar to Firstborn’s…the last one always seems to get the dregs.

And so I wonder if this can even be found at a curriculum fair. The Breadbeckers would be there, tempting me again to throw it all to the wind and buy a grain mill. There are probably some neat toy and science vendors. Maybe a new latin resource or two for Dad to drool over. We could sit and listen to someone tell us “Their perfect way to homeschool” or get us really changing gears for high school…..  but would the return be worth all the effort?

I still crave the environment: excited parents, kids who don’t lock into strict peer groups with uninspired countenances, but are rather excited about the same things their parents are…which is of course all the cool things and ways to learn. I don’t suppose there is an “unschooling” convention…unless TED.com is the closest thing. Besides, we aren’t hardcore “Un-ers” anyway…too much classical mixed in for them to take us, hence the term we prefer: Tidal Homeschooling. Mostly we realize our kids get to do what we all do when we really want to learn something: own it for ourselves and learn it in our own way, the way God gifted us to process and assimilate information. It ebbs and flows and has to be real, not contrived, to have enough value. It doesn’t adhere to calenders and deadlines and very many boundaries. And heavens to betsy…there’s no way to box it up, write a schedule, and make the kid conform to it.

Well, at least that’s what we think. I love freewrites…I think I’ve made up my mind through getting this all out today. Think about babysitting options. Make a used book store envelope. Get Dad to take a day off from work.  We’ll have our own “fair”.

Good stuff, the last few days. Dad is working evenings with the older three and they are rapidly increasing their oral reading skills. They’ve added in copywork and letter writing; it’s high tide for those areas.

Two weeks ago Sunshine started riding lessons, given in exchange for some web work I’m doing (see bloggingwithflair.com) . She LOVES them and is learning the whole thing, from grooming and care up.

She’s cute as a button in that little hat too.

Friday we had a backyard “campout” and Firstborn designed this double ringed fire it so we could have a wind- rotected grill and cam fire to cook our food over.

It worked great!! It was a fairly breezy evening but our fire was wonderfully hot and even. We grilled chicken and veggies coated in olive oil, and then made s’mores. I especially appreciated the added safety buffer the outer ring provided with RK around.

After dinner and dessert, the boys and Dad played ball; then while it was still light we read stories and poems (Sunshine wrote one called “Fire”) and the rest of us chose from The Harp and the Laurel Wreath. The idea was for Mom and RK to sleep in the house and the rest of them out in the tents; by 11 W and Dad were in, by midnight, Sunshine was tucked warmly inside, and by 5 am Firstborn gave up too.

Saturday we attended a friend’s open house, hiking a nearby trail and  the kids going fishing with Firstborn’s Godfather.  Sunshine caught her first fish!! A little brim; it was big enough to clean and fry up so they all had a bite of that with dinner.

Sunday afternoon we went to a quilt and folk art show with Sunshine’s godmother; what fascinating work they do! Utterly amazing stitches; I wished I’d brought a camera.

Fire, by Sunshine:

Fire so hot.

Fire red.

Fire so almost cindered.

Fire keeping me warm.

Fire don’t spread, and burn me down,

my body will lie once again on the ground.

I hear the popping sounds you make,

wine burning plastic and especially elastic.

and how happy you are when burning a basket.

Fire burns wood and gas; you can be toxic.

Wear masks not to breathe you; the look in fire is sin!

But I think not just blow and go

the fire will start; don’t forget water.

It’s small, afraid not, just be gone  (and I apologize, I can’t read her writing for the last line!).

Firstborn: crossed over to Boy Scouts. Read Harry potter: The Chamber of Secrets and is almost done with Eragon. It’s such a joy and delight to see him walk around the house with his nose in a book, or read on our long commutes, or ask, “can I lay on your bed and read?” (His own is set up in the living room right now while we do the construction on the kids’ rooms upstairs). He refinished a bench to go with our side table and stained it very nicely. He’s also getting much more helpful and hands-on with RK. Working on spelling and oral reading with Dad.
Sunshine: crossed over to Explorers in AHG. Already got started on new badges and service hours with a nieghborhood clean up today. She’s reading Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Wrote something original every day this week. picked up and old math workbook just for fun and did some pages of it. Working on spelling and oral reading with dad in the evenings.

W: lizards, frogs, bugs: books and videos. Did you know a tick is an arachnid? Moved from Tigers to Bears (or is it Wolf next?) and also from the McGuffey primer to the First Reader. Did the neighborhood clean up project with Sunshine today. Can jumprope about 200 times, with cross overs, without a stumble.

RK: learned how to use the potty and stayed dry last night! Knows blue and yellow; I think he may be green/red colorblind like Dad. Has started talking in his sleep.

One of the changes for kids who’ve had a sick sibling is that the way they play doctor may look different than for other kids. After watching a video of a friend’s heart baby, that has a few minutes of our Clara-beara on it, they made this:

Firstborn: spent all of April in Florida building my dad’s shop with him; learned lots and mostly all hands-on…trusses, walls, measuring, support beams, etc. Grandma had him reading a bit every day, playing on the computer, “cultural studies” (cough….ahem…TV) ;-)… when he came home his building set that we’d ordered for his birthday finally came in. What a fantastic toy!! The result is that he’s had a wonderful unit study on architecture. He also got a digital camera for his birthday and has been learning to use it, load the pictures, and manipulate them in corel photo paint. He’s getting a list of email buddies that gets him typing every day. Around the house he’s learned to mow the grass (not the Big Hill) and today he’s disassembling/reassembling the bunkbeds so we can have more construction space to make the new bedroom wall.

Sunshine: she started riding lessons today!! Her little helmet is super cute. She writes every single day. The kids finished up tutoring for the year and brought home a stack of math papers for me to weed through. In the evenings David has all of them reading out loud in a circle from their respective primers.

W: reading, sometimes writing letters, riding his bike, jumping rope like a super hero, getting very, very good at throwing and catching. Life is good when you’re 6!

R.K: is potty training himself, which is going great. So much easier than trying to manipulate, coerce, and cajole a kid into training before they’re ready. He’s talking up a storm, sleeping through the night, and still loves the sound of breaking glass….