Children are amazing

Photo from http://learninginstitute.lego.com/


Children are amazing. If anybody out there is having doubts about a kid's capacity to learn (and to love it), please research homeschooling. There are thousands of blogs out there (much better equipped than mine) to demonstrate how it's done. These are the resources that gave me both the hope and courage to teach my own kids the things they need and want to know.

Hope

I saw smiling kids holding up homemade projects they did almost entirely by themselves and realized with admiration that those were genuine smiles and complex projects that taught them a ton. I remembered my own first projects, including a cut and pasted map of the world where instead of memorizing the country names and positions, I was admonished by my fifth grade social studies teacher to make sure I used the side of my colored pencil and ONLY COLOR IN ONE DIRECTION. Yes, she yelled that last bit. Presentation was more important to her than social studies - than our actual learning. Seeing these other families thrive in their homeschool efforts buoyed me up and gave me hope that my children could do a similar map exercise (but maybe with food or clay) and really learn. Without anybody criticizing their burgeoning art skills.

Courage

I saw difficult times. Parenting is not a picnic. Well, homeschooling is parenting on steroids. There are golden, euphoric moments when you think, "I am the luckiest person alive." And there are those times when the proverbial poop hits the carpet (or maybe not so proverbial) and you think, "I am a horrible parent and my kids are little monsters." Reading the blogs of other families showed me the light and dark moments in their lives, and prepared me for the burn-out, the lazy tendencies we all have, and the stress of keeping all the balls in the air.


We're only in preschool, although at times Gilgamesh is doing Kindergarten grade stuff. I know we're just biting off the first layer of the jawbreaker, and I'm perfectly content to be in that position. Because I also know I'll just keep learning alongside them. We'll try methods or curricula that fail for us, and we'll get back up and try something else. We'll have days when it seems like nobody learned anything valuable.

But they are learning.



Today, Gilgamesh saw me playing with Alastor and his mini stone collection from Disneyland's Grizzly River Gift Shop. He got up from playing Starfall.com (basically abandoned the shiny technology) to investigate these polished stones with his magnifying glass. The rocks are beautiful and enticing, just the sort of objects I was attracted to as a child (um, and still am). Suddenly, Gilgamesh's eyes lit up and he said, "Do trees turn into stone? You said that, right?"

My jaw didn't drop or anything, but I was surprised. He remembered me pointing out petrified wood at the Botanical Gardens in San Diego's Balboa Park! He'd been manic that day, jumping off the walls and making me nervous for the plants and people surrounding us.

But he'd heard me. In that bustling, noisy moment, something I'd said interested him enough for him to remember. Petrified wood.

I took the moment to reinforce that yes, old, old trees did turn to stone, but not all stone came from trees. Some of it came from dirt compacted really tightly together or from erupting volcanoes. We talked about how some rocks are really hard and others are fragile and can break easily. And we talked about all the different colors. I pointed out they were naturally colored that way, not painted. We didn't go into depth about igneous rocks, or cleavage or specific hardness scales. There's time for that later. But I watched my boys play with stones together. Just rocks. Two boys playing on the floor with colorful rocks.

It was this simple moment that reinforced for me how natural learning occurs. It's all them. We're merely facilitators.

Children are amazing.

Day at a Glance 9/6/11

After Labor Day weekend, Gilgamesh has really jumped feet-first into home learning. It's been inspiring to see how much he seems to have missed the writing and drawing. He learned stuff while we were away, like at the Festival of Sail in San Diego where we got to tour historic tall sail ships and a U.S. submarine. But he seems so comfortable back home with all his school supplies, showing me his words and asking me how to spell more complicated ones. Today he wrote Queen by himself and then asked for help in writing Cookie. 

Here are a few more things he did on his own today:

Gilgamesh's Independent learning this morning:

• made alphabet "cards" - letters in squares, then cut them out.

• copied down the vowels (A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y) three times, twice by pencil, once by foam letters.
• Built words with foam letters while watching Word World

• Wrote down a series of words in pencil.

• picked out a few Leapfrog learning videos

with Mom:

• Listened to a 7-year-old Australian kid play Flight of the Bumblebee and get praised.

• Listened to an older man sing an opera song from Les Mis.
• Alastor went through the Starfall.com flash alphabet and repeated a few things: "A, a, apple." and "I, i, igloo." He also did a few letter sounds. He especially likes, 'T.'
• Gilgamesh did nine whole 'papers' in the Starfall Listening and Writing book about the sounds of words.
• We read Uncle Wiggily and the Tame Squirrel, which made Gilgamesh want ice cream like the kids had at their party. Then we made a fruit smoothie and enjoyed it. :) 
• We also did the Move and Jump activity suggested in the Sonlight curriculum. We hopped like frogs (Gilgamesh got out the foam letters and spelled FROG without any prompting from me). Alastor did his first somersault ever. He looked really surprised when he ended up on his back. :) We also practiced jumping and landing with our feet both apart and together. A precursor to jumping jacks? The boys loved it. 

Yesterday, upon returning from our family reunion over Labor Day weekend, Gilgamesh went right back into school stuff. Monday, he wrote a whole bunch of words on a piece of paper, including rock, tree, and dragon. His first spelling of dragon was 'jagin.' He also wrote 'Hiccup' a la How to Train Your Dragon. Daddy read two stories from

The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book: The Mouse Deer's Wisdom and The Two Brothers.

  

My Review: This is one of my favorite Sonlight story books. The stories are short with colorful illustrations and compelling yet simple plots. Great for bedtime or any time. 

When we read The Mouse Deer's Wisdom, we talked about smells. Gilgamesh said his favorite smells are hot dogs and marshmallows. :) In case you were wondering, we did just get back from camping. He counted ten coins into a pot and listened to them clink against the metal just like in the story. We talked again about saving up for the wagon he wants. He's motivated to do extra chores and behave well so he can get more money in his wagon bucket.

We also opened up Things People Do: The Schoolteacher.

 

My Review: This is one of those busy books with lots of stuff going on in the illustrations and little words to explain what people are doing. The names of the people in the town of Banilla are pretty funny, like Sue Prano, the music teacher. It's a little too busy for my four-year-old, but would probably be excellent for a slightly older child with a longer attention span. I look forward to looking through it with my son when he's more capable of focusing on the tiny details that make this book so wonderful.

We did the memory verse both yesterday and today:

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth." Gilgamesh has begun to beat me to the punch on the last few words. I'll call and he'll repeat most of it, but right after he says 'heaven' he rushes into 'and the earth!' like it's a race. I'm glad he's getting it down by memory. This'll be his first memorized scripture.

Tomorrow, we'll focus on the Language program Sonlight offers: lately we're working on writing down our address and phone number and learning new vocabulary via the Picture Dictionary. I'll have more to say about that tomorrow. Tonight, I'm beat.

I hope your Labor Day was awesome!

You might be a good parent if...

I've always liked 'You might be a redneck if'-type lists. Here's a not-so-funny-but-feel-good list for moms and dads who often feel under-appreciated.

You might be a good parent if...

• If you've ever made a sticker chart to get your child past a particular challenge.
• If you stop cleaning/working/browsing the second your kid asks for a story.
• If you've tried to hold a crying child while doing something that requires two hands.
• If you kept your cool with goo or broken glass on the floor.
• If snot in your hair or spit-up on your shoulder barely fazes you.
• If you read to your kids every day.
• If you get up and dance with the kids during closing film credits.
• If you own any Barney or Sesame Street videos.
• If you say I love you more than once a day.
• If you cleaned all the poop out of the carpet and still loved that poop-smearer.
• If you sing songs you remember from your childhood and pass along the awesome heritage.
• If you're always trying to think of ways you can be a better mom or dad.
• If you got home from a stressful day at work and the first thing you did was play Climbing Tree... you being the tree.
• If you're teaching your kids chores are part of life.
• If you pray with your children.
• Basically if you've ever given something up or made a big life change for the sake of your children (quitting a bad habit, eating all organic, cloth diapering, homeschooling, watched only kid movies for a year).

You're a good parent because you put your love of your children before your love of anything else. You're good because of the sacrifices, big and tiny, that you make every day for their well-being, self-esteem, and education. You're good because you're trying.

You were put on this Earth to be your kids' mom or dad. That didn't happen by accident. Whether we chose each other or not, I don't know. I do know the kids you have are the kids you need, and they're the kids who need you. It's like magic that way.

So feel good about all the great things you're doing, and vow to add more to the list. They say childhood passes in the blink of an eye. Keep your eyes open and enjoy it. :)

Later, I'll post some pictures of our preschool-at-home: some fun silliness we get up to and some structured stuff that's well worth the effort. What are you up to today?