Playing With Legos

OK, I obviously really suck at blogging here lately. I dropped off the song of the week thing, I haven’t posted regularly in forever, and I just don’t even remember I have this blog frankly. I do still blog at my main blog, if anyone’s interested.

Anyway, I still do believe strongly in unschooling, but I’m facing a little reality here…I’m not organized nor consistent enough to do all that I really need to be doing to really have a quality unschooling environment for my children. Its far too easy for me to just get sucked into housework and my own projects and neglect setting up the environment and opportunities for enrichment for my children.

PLUS, I have a husband that just doesn’t get unschooling, nor agree with it. While I do feel that I have more say in this because I am the only parent that has spent ANY time (not to mention HOURS and HOURS and HOURS of time) researching anything education related…so I’m not necessarily of the mindset that he really can say much since he’s not taken the time to read up on anything…I think the one that actually is educated on the subject should have the  say (like I wouldn’t ever be the one to decide what video camera we get because I don’t care to research it and HE has the knowledge, so I would defer to him)…HOWEVER, I do respect that he is also equally a parent of these children and I do have to live with him and, hopefully, have a quality relationship with him…So…I do feel it is worthwhile to have some things that are more “schooly” to do during the day so that he can feel better about how things are going. And frankly, I feel better too.

So…all that to say that I have gone back to some of my single subject curriculums that I feel good about. Math and spelling for now, and I’ll add more as we get where I want to be with these. And things seem to be going pretty dang well, I think.

Ok we got off to a rocky start and there were some days of Maeven crying through lessons. Well I should explain that my daughter is prone to crying, so this isn’t really a huge surprise. And she doesn’t react well to change, and going from not having to do structured math for awhile, back to sitting down and having to do some (even though this math is really very hands-on and uses cool props and really is not a big drag to do), shook up her world a little. But she seems to be handling it ok now. And I’m starting to see the value in actually doing math that is really below what she is probably capable of, at least in the beginning like this, because we are whizzing through it pretty easily. She has really very little tolerance for frustration, and I’m trying to just get her into a groove right now so this is a good thing that its pretty simple for her. Every once in awhile there’s a concept that is a little more work for her, but she’s getting it. And we are able to do 2 lessons a day right now because there’s a lot that is so beneath her because she already gets it, so I skip it. Like there are some chapters coming up that are all about telling time and she already knows how to tell time so we’ll be skipping over those.

At this rate, we’ll be done with this book sometime in November and I’ll be able to move her into the next level and have THAT done probably by the end of spring, if all goes well. We got way behind on this, but I am not really concerned about things as far as where the public schoolers deem “at grade level.” I’m just concerned about where *I* think she should be. I was reading the other day that 3rd graders, which is where she would probably be if I had her in school, do multiplication and division. And actually some have been doing it, at least to some degree, since 1st grade. I think this is just ludicrous. Sure some of them may be capable of it, but I am pretty sure we did not learn it that early when I was in school…and I don’t have the problem of being in a hurry and trying to cram stuff in earlier and earlier that the schools do. She’ll learn it soon enough. I want her to first really get addition and subtraction fully. And if that means putting off  more complex topics for awhile, then so be it. I would rather she REALLY “gets” the easier stuff before throwing a more complex subject at her. Anyway, I’m not even sure which level book this math curriculum starts them on that. They don’t even do subtraction until the addition is really mastered. I love that.

This math curriculum I use, Right Start Math, is just awesome in doing all sorts of activities that set the kids up to fully understand these concepts. Its just amazing, I wish I had it when I was her age. Would have made a lot of difference in me learning math.

Anyway, so we’re rockin at math…doing 2 lessons a day and I think we could actually sometimes do 3, so I’ll be trying to do just that when I can. We were way off schedule (the schedule I had plotted out for us), but now in just a month we’ll be back on. YAY!

well i obviously have seriously sucked at blogging here about all things homeschooling. we have gone in a more unschooling direction and i have just gotten lax about everything.

but i have a husband that doesn’t understand or agree with unschooling, and a nagging voice in my head that makes unschooling difficult for me, so i’m taking up some more “schooly” things to ease things. i still lean towards child-led learning, but i’m tired of feeling stressed about everything. and i had already purchased these single subject curricula that i feel really good about, so we’ll take a shot at these again.

plus the learning village is off the ground finally, so i’ll be seeing to it that we cover some other topics there, in a co-0p setting.

so today i’m diving back into right start math for maeven. might allow tyr to join is as well…as he’s able. and i’m going back to sequential spelling. also story of the world, book 2. its a good start. i’ll figure out more things later.

and i am thinking of starting tyren on something, but haven’t decided what yet. just to keep him busy for now. i still want to hold onto the no academics for little ones belief that i’ve felt strongly about for years…but he needs something to keep him busy so that he doesn’t bug me and maeven…so i’ll see what i can do towards that end. maybe its time i pull out some puzzles from the shed and see what else i can find that he can only play with when maeven’s “doing school.”

i am going to be starting a story of the world activity class at the learning village to force me to get my butt in gear for activities that go with that curriculum. hopefully i’ll get people to join us that also will add to the activities. i was going to do 4 chapters a week…but then realized that this curriculum is meant to be done one book a year…and the way i had it, it was going to be all 4 books in one year. so i decided to relax and just do a chapter a week, which gives us time to explore activities for that chapter more.  i would like to get costumes for the studied time frames/cultures as well…not sure how i’ll do that yet. i am not rich, so i cannot go crazy on all these plans.

anyway, i think our muffins are done for breakfast…and kids are fighting already. (such has been our summer) must go get them fed.

Good heavens but this child is making this stuff easy! Who needs copywork? My child is CONSTANTLY writing!

Why in the world would I force her to write stuff she doesn’t want to when she is writing us letters and writing her own stories and journal entries and even writing her own books! Like nearly every day!! I’m not kidding!

Not only that but she’s taken quite naturally to typing. I credit Toontown for this.  She’s obsessed with this game…and she has lots of friends on there now that she talks to daily. So she has to–get this–read, and write and TYPE!!

Even her spelling’s improving because if she spells something wrong, it turns red and won’t let her type it. Plus she’s asking me all the time how to spell things, so she’s getting a lot of practice.

All by her own initiative.

This just is making me think harder about unschooling. Especially since  the past 2 Thursdays, I have been listening to some excellent radio shows on unschooling. Gena Kirby has a wonderful radio show called “Progressive Parenting” (click on “about” and choose “radio show” from the popup menu)  that covers all sorts of parenting topics that are often outside the mainstream. I’ve been in contact with Gena since a friend of mine met her when she was planning to open her store “Mommy Matters” (it’s since been closed and is now only online). We have remained in contact over the years and connected in a variety of ways via our mutual interests and groups and such.

Gena emailed me a couple weeks ago because her guest that was lined up to talk about unschooling fell through and she wanted to know if I had any recommendations. I told her to see if Dayna Martin or Sandra Dodd could do it…figuring Dayna would be available, but Sandra as a backup choice. Dayna is a friend of mine that I met after she appeared on the Dr. Phil show, talking about unschooling…this was back when I was doing weekly chats with Mothering Magazine and they booked Dayna after her Dr. Phil appearance to do an unschooling chat with us. We did the chat and then Dayna and I stayed in touch on the phone and I think she’s just an amazing person. Listening to her recent radio shows with Gena, I am reminded of this and am very eager to reconnect and learn more about unschooling.

I’ve got a strong interest right now in unschooling because of listening to these past 2 week’s radio shows…I even sat down and took notes on one of them today. (I taped them both). It’s really inspiring to me!

I might type up some of what I really liked that they said later…right now it’s getting late.

All this is to say that my daughter is learning so much of her own volition! I LOVE it!

Oh and one last thing…I asked her yesterday what she thinks of learning. She said something like “oh, its ok…but mostly its boring.” I was a bit shocked and then asked her what was boring and she said something like “oh when someone tells me to do this and this…”

I got it. She doesn’t like forced learning anymore than the rest of us do. I got the impression from her that she was referring to my “assignments” that I’ve been trying to enforce with her lately…her “schoolwork” that I have been making her do (although not totally consistantly). This was a strong message for me at just the right time. Having the topic of unschooling fresh on my mind…and a firm idea in my mind of what I strongly want for her…the love of learning…I’m determined to figure out a way to make learning fun for her again. Or maybe its just a matter of getting the terminology explained better because she really is learning all the time and she truly does enjoy it for the most part (I can see it in her eyes)…what she has got in her head right now is that learning and schoolwork are what Mommy makes her do that she doesn’t want to. And that’s not what I want for her.

I’m not saying that every single thing she ever learns has to be super fun…but there’s got to be a better way. I am determined to give my children the gift of that passion for learning that I have attained now, as an adult (long after the schools nearly killed it, but I was able to find it again on my own).

I think that maybe I can learn a lot from Dayna in the coming months. I’m excited to talk more to her about it!

this week has just been more of the same.   maeven is still coughing up a lung and not feeling 100%. took her to the dr and i know she’s just got to ride it out…but its not making her all that inclined to sit and do any focusing on “schoolwork.”

today i had hoped to get some stuff done but then the day was taken up with more dr’s appts. this time for mommy and daddy.  adam stayed home today so that we could take turns with the kids while the other went to our new dr for a physical. then because this is a “friends playday”, and we couldn’t go play at our friends’ house because of their mama still being on the mend from pneumonia, we had maeven’s friend brooke come over and play with her…she really needed that socializing with her friends because she’s gotten so little of it lately with being sick so long (and them being sick before us).  so that shot the whole day pretty much. which is fine…since i didn’t feel like we were really going to get anything done anyway.

so tomorrow i am going to try to get some work done with her while tyren goes with nana and bompa for brunch. not sure how far we’ll get, but i’m going to do what i can.

and if maeven can just get well again and stop this horrible coughing, all our lives will be better! mary graves (ped nurse practitioner) said that it can last up to 6 weeks! gawd i hope it doesn’t last that long! i’m tired of everything being put on hold.