Book of the week: Whoever You Are

Letter sound: B

Craft: Multicultural paper dolls from Making Friends

Discussion: External body parts, compare various bodies, how people look different yet are the same.

Math: Numbers 1 and 2 coloring pages

Nature study: Leaves

Monkey see, monkey do. Since mom always has the laptop out and running a little someone needed one too. We found this cute one at a garage sale for $5 still in great shape. It has a few little games, puzzles, does counting and letter stuff. He adores it.

There’s a math quiz on there that he was messing around with tonight. It shows squares, circles, and triangles as math problems instead of numbers so it’s easier for little ones. For almost an hour last night he sat there counting shapes and typing in the answers, the gears moving at the speed of light as he slowly began to click going from counting to adding. All on his own. no coaching, prompting, forcing, or pushing. I loved it.

He’s doing his own thing and I’m determined not to get in the way. I can still recall being in first grade and finding my own way to do basic addition and being treated like an idiot for not doing it “the right way” it took years to be able to look at math again and not feel like I was too dumb to figure it out. He’s got his own way to get to the right answer and that’s good enough for me.

Plus, he looks so cute sitting next to me with our laptops pulled out. That one’s a mama’s boy.

Over the weekend I had the fun of being verbally assaulted by a family member that hates homeschooling. The list of reasons went from the absurdly inaccurate to the silly, but one stood out the loudest. Sadly it’s one I’ve heard other people use, and not just here. The story goes that there are roaming hordes of kids being neglected under the name of homeschooling simply because their parents don’t want to bother getting up in the morning to get them to school.

Can I tell you how absurd and annoying that story is?

I’ve heard it used by anti-homeschooling people from nearly every state, those with strict regulations to those with none. Never are numbers pointed out, specific families listed, or proof that these kids are abandonned to be ignorant. And yet the myth goes on.

Honestly, the myth is probably easily debunked by talking to the families in question. Most likely they are unschoolers or relaxed homeschoolers and their style does not fit into the idea that the person thinks education should be. Because homeschooling is more efficient a day’s work is often finished in half a day which also leads to anti-homeschoolers to assume nothing is being taught. However for some all they need to know is that a family homeschools and the assumption is that they must be neglecting their kids.

And some how the idea is that if there are hordes of kids being neglected under the name of homeschooling then you personally should not be allowed to homeschool. They might not come out and say they think you are a terrible mom and your children need to go to school to escape you, but that’s the underlying idea.

Of course this also opens the door the next wave of accusations. They can’t go to college if they are homeschooled, they’ll never have friends if they are homeschooled, they can’t get a driver’s license if they are homeschooled, they can’t learn math if they are homeschooled, the sky will turn brown and crash down if they are homeschooled. On and on and on…

I’ve seen this video on at least 3 different blogs the last few days and I had to add myself to list of people who love this! Bookmark this song for those days when the kids are driving you crazy, nothing is going as planned, and the big yellow bus is looking good.

It’s officially a new school year. How do I know? I’ve gotten my first socialization comment. I think that deserves a toast!

A few nights ago an old friend that I haven’t talked to in years popped up in my Yahoo IM. We chatted for a while, caught each other up, and commiserated over families that just don’t get us. She told me that her youngest is now in second grade (!!!) and we shared a “Why do they grow so fast!?” moment. Trying to prepare me for the worst she warned me how heartbroken I’ll be too when mine are gone all day at school and then all evening in various classes and sports.

That’s when I made my mistake. I sighed and said “Thank goodness for homeschooling.”

Her reply was fairly stereotypical. Along the lines of “how can you prepare your kids for the world when they’re never in it.” Uh-oh, my pet peeve button was pushed. Maybe I’ve just been lucky, or maybe it’s just who I hang out with, but I’ve never met this home school family that hides away from the light of day. In fact, most I know are very involved in a mountain of things outside the home. Classes, sports, volunteering, friends, camps, church, you name it. All the same places public and private schooled kids go to get socialization outside the classroom (and there isn’t much inside) are also places the home school kids go. But since they aren’t walking around with big armbands declaring their school status most adults don’t know.

That’s OK, we prefer being unseen as we walk among you. It just aids out plot to overthrow the world by winning spelling bees. Shhh, don’t let anybody know.

(image source - firehawk77)

The Carnival of Homeschooling is up this week at Janice Campbell. My post on the Kuman workbooks is up there this week, along with a ton of great posts from other blogs. Go check it out.

A few months ago I was sent 4 of the Kumon workbooks to try out on the condition that I give them my opinion on them. I think my opinion was somewhere along the lines of a proposal for marriage. Evan loves them! Here is a kid begging, literally begging to do a few pages every day. He’s probably do the entire book in one sitting if I let him. I don’t only because I know then he’d be asking for more and mommy isn’t made of money these days.

These aren’t workbooks, they’re fun books. And the best part, he’s actually doing a great job on his handwriting. I’ve been terrified about teaching him handwriting. A) I have the worst handwriting on earth, and B) he’s a lefty while I’m a righty. I think B has really been my biggest hangup, trying to figure out how to get in there and show him without messing him up or confusing myself.

I should admit that he writes backwards. Instead of starting his letters on the left side, he works from the right. When he’s tracing the dotted lines he goes left to right, but free style usually ends up right to left. I’m not too concerned, I’m sure it’s something that he’ll grow out of. But it does add a new twist on trying to help him write letters.

This morning I listened to the Relaxed Homeschool Talk radio show. Michelle Barone was the guest on board, talking about her experience as a homeschooling mom and about her new book Finding Your Way. Despite the houseful of kids (mine plus my nieces) I did manage to pay attention to most of it and even took a few notes. Even though it was live this morning you can still click over and listen to the episode anytime, and Michelle said that if you didn’t get to call in live earlier you can still contact her through her website and ask any question you might have.

OK, so here’s what I got from the show:

Love the book! No I haven’t read it yet, but I’m already sold. I said it on Twitter while listening to the show but what really did it for me was the conversation on choosing an old fashioned role as a stay at home mom and homeschooling and how that makes some women feel guilty. It is a hard balance standing between my educational ideals for my children and my personal values as a woman. I’ve heard the comments about “putting the women’s movement back” and the disapproval of calling myself a feminist and being a homeschooling mom. Anytime another mom gets it she has me hooked.

The book helps parents understand why they are homeschooling, and Barone mentions focusing on the positives. You may be homeschooling to avoid bullying or negative influences, but phrasing your reasons in a negative like that will make public schooling parents feel defensive and those who do not see the things you see will write you off as crazy. When confronted with the doubters stay on the positive side of why.

They also talked about how mom needs to take time to care for herself too. It can be easy to get trapped in always putting the kids first and never having any time for yourself. Moms need to be nurtured too! 15 minutes to read a book in the car during soccer practice or letting them play by themselves while you take some time to take care of yourself. They had a call in from a mom of two little ones asking about the guilt of not spending every minute focused on your kids. As Barone said that’s just not realistic.

Based on just the interview it sounds like a great book, definitely one I plan to get and read. Another that was mentioned briefly in the show, one that I have read and loved, is Deschooling Gently. The author, Tammy Takahashi, and Barone both spoke at the California Homeschool Network this year. Both books together might be a great book combo to give to new homeschooling families.

Evan wants to learn Spanish. It’s really not an odd request, there is a fairly sizable Hispanic population here and he’s had his share of miscommunication at the park. Now, you would think that those 3 years of Spanish I took in high school would prepare me for this, but you’d be wrong. Oh sure I can conjugate verbs to any tense but I don’t have a clue what the words translate to. I’ve got the technical parts down, but the vocab escapes me.

Which is bad because it’s the vocab he really wants to know. How do you say this in Spanish, how do you say that? I have a Spanish for Dummies book but what I really need to get is a good, basic Spanish/English dictionary. Maybe one made for tourists with some common phrases in it as well.

Now this is where I show my unschooling roots. I really want him to learn sign language. I started using them with him when he was a baby and he caught on really quick, it made the infant and toddler years so easy. But as time went by the signs disappeared. Now he’s fairly interested in them again, mostly from watching Signing Time on Friday afternoons. I would love to pick signs back up and teach them to him, love it enough that I’m almost tempted to force it a little. If I could get my hands on the Signing Times videos here, or something similar that doesn’t cost and arm and a leg, we might try a daily signing break. Unfortunately nothing has dropped into my lap yet and once school starts PBS rearranges the schedule to fit the school kids, which leaves us out cold most of the time.

I don’t suppose it would be too much for him to be trilingual?  *sigh* I thought so.