Picking It Up Along the Way

Colwyn is making progress both in reading and in math, without us really having to do any work. For reading, all we really do is read books, visit the library, and have occasional conversations about how to sound out words, what letters words start with, etc. From the library, he's figured out how they arrange books, and will look at the bottom of books for the first three letters of the author's last name. He's pretty good at finding books if I say, "Yaccarino. Yyyyy-accarino. Sounds like a Y, right? Y-aaaaa-ccarino. Try looking for YAC." He'll also give me letter/sound hints if we're playing a guessing game, and he's usually accurate, too. I love that he's experimenting with letters, sounds, and words with no pressure, in ways that interest him. I'm thinking of doing some note-writing.. me writing him short notes, and asking him to write me short notes (like, "Colwyn, I have to go change Fiona's diaper, but could you try writing down what you want for lunch?"). It doesn't really matter what he writes, just that he tries. I think it might provide him with some valuable knowledge, so long as he's into it.

He's also learned how to do simple addition and subtraction in his head. I don't know that he'd have the faintest idea of what to do with a written math problem, but if we're talking about, say, cookies, and I ask him, "If everyone in our family has a cookie, but the dog eats three of them, how many cookies will we have?" he can get the answer pretty quickly, and without even counting on his fingers. I was super impressed when I realized he could do this.

I love these validating moments. :)

(Grand)Parental Pressure

So, the pressure's on. Mom's said a few things over the last few weeks like, "When are you going to start teaching Colwyn to read?" and "What did you do today, Colwyn? Did you do any schoolwork?" She wants to know when I'll be doing what and how I'll make sure Colwyn stays on grade-level. But then, oddly enough, she'll hear Colwyn doing some math in his head and be completely shocked that he knows how to do that.

She's obviously got a false impression of how we are/will be homeschooling, and I'm not really looking forward to disabusing her of that notion. I think she's waiting until Doug's mom comes up for a visit to have a long talk with us, and I have the feeling that it's going to end up like an intervention or something. Urgh.

Checking In

I haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth, I promise. It's been three months since I posted last, and it's been quite a busy three months. Little Fiona was born two months ago, and we've really taken a break from anything resembling 'educational activities.' Not that I really set up structured activities to begin with, but whatever. We've been going to the playground, to a few indoor places, reading good books, watching interesting things on TV, listening to fun music, and playing around the house. The main thing is that the boys have been learning SO much about families and babies and working together. They've been learning about responsibility and being helpful and how to nurture little ones. And good discussions get thrown in about everything from nature preserves in Africa (from this story) to tides (from a trip to the park) to house centipedes (from finding one inside our house!).

So, please excuse our absense. We're quite busy, though it's generally not the sort of stuff I can brag about here. :) The good thing about unschooling is that I have faith that even though I'm not sitting down to make the kids to worksheets, that they're still learning valuable information.

Unschooling Definitions

Here's a great blog entry about what unschooling is: Nurtured By Love.

Nurtured By Love Link

Here's a link to a fantastic blog entry by the woman who writes Nurtured By Love: http://nurturedbylove.blogspot.com/2007/12/homeschool-beginnings-3.html. It's about how she started homeschooling and it's fascinating to see how it happened. She's a great, intelligent mom who unschools her four children who are quite precocious.

Unschooling Basics

It's come to my attention that not everyone in my family is familiar with unschooling and how my boys will ever learn anything this way. :) So, in case those few of you who read this blog are interested, here's how it works.

First off, let's figure out which subjects a four year old needs to learn. A very good argument could be made that there's only one: life skills.. but we'll ignore that for now. We'll assume the basics: reading, math, science, social studies, art, music, and phys ed.

Reading

The most basic way we cover this subject is reading to the boys. At an absolute minimum, they get four books a day (one at nap, three at bedtime). They usually cajole us into reading an extra book at bedtime, and often bring me books to read throughout the day. Very occasionally I'll suggest we read a specific book during the day. I've tried from time to time to introduce Colwyn to chapter books, but he doesn't seem fully into it, and I don't want to bore him.

We also write letters--thank you notes, cards to friends, and letters to family, favorite authors, whatever. Colwyn learns about the shapes of letters when he writes a few basic words I help him with, and he also learns about composition when he dictates to me.

A fun game that we play is the letter-word matching game. We have textured, foam letters and index cards bearing three-letter words. The easy version is just to simply match up foam letters to letters on the cards. Even Lachlann does this now. We can also name each letter and letter sound, and even sound out the word (Colwyn is good about this approx. 70% of the time). Occasionally we'll explore what changing one letter will do to a word (the index cards have words like sit, bit, hit, and hug, jug, rug--three words for each vowel, with the same consonant at the end). Colwyn is only sporadically interested in this right now.

The boys also watch Letter Factory occasionally for reinforcement about letter sounds, and they watch Between The Lions which is great for reading skills.

We take trips to the library every other week, and frequently talk to the librarians about our favorite books and favorite authors. They see lots of people in the library reading, and they also see me and Doug reading more or less daily.

Math

Colwyn has a math 'curriculum' that I bought for him. Basically it's two workbooks for his 'pre-k' year. We're most of the way through the first and so far he's already known everything in it. The concepts covered are: matching twin, identifying odd one out, recognizing relationships, matching/comparing sizes, matching colors, comparing length/height, sorting leading to sets and subsets, matching one to one to show a common relationship, matching one to one to show un/equivalent sets, comparing two sets, comparing amounts, recognizing numerals, tallying, simple graphs, couting orally, rearranging numbers in sequence, conservation of numbers, ordering by size/capacity, weight, recognition of shapes, reading/writing numerals, cardinal numbers, the empty set, counting backwards from 10, picture graphs, even and odd numbers, counting by twos, time sequence, ordinal numbers, open and closed curves.

We have several sets of math manipulatives. The counting bears are used for patterns, addition/subtraction, and more vs. less. The smooth river stones are used for addition/subtraction. The connecting blocks are used for patterns and more vs. less. The tangrams are used for geometry. All these manipulatives are used in games, not structured seatwork. For instance, we have parades with bears, pretend the river stones are food that the toy dinosaurs need for a party, and we make trains out of the connecting blocks.

Colwyn is exploring days of the week and time on his own. I make frequent mentions of what time it is, what day it is, that we'll do such-and-such on a specific day, and so on. He's working on making sense of it and I don't see the need to rush him, as he's picking up a lot of it the way I'm currently presenting it. Eventually, we'll get a calendar and a clock that I'll keep at his eye-level so he can explore more fully.

While we're out shopping, we talk about money. We talk about how this brand costs more than this brand, how I have X amount of money and what we can buy with it, and so on.

When the children are eating or playing, we talk about numbers. "Colwyn, you have two crackers left, would you like two more? Now how many do you have?" "Colwyn, you have five cars and Lachlann has only one, how can we make it even?"

Science

This is probably the easiest for us, and definitely interest-led.

Colwyn has always loved dinosaurs. We watch dinosaur documentaries, play with toy dinosaurs, categorize dinosaurs by size, species, and carnivore vs. herbivore. We talk about when and where dinosaurs lived. We learn about fossils and paleontologists. We made fossils out of salt dough and buried them in sand, then uncovered them. We have books about dinosaurs and visit museums that have dinosaur exhibits (Museum of Science in Boston, Smithsonian in D.C., and Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut). We drew a chalk line the real length of an apatosaurus and drew live-size footprints of apatosaurs and T. Rex.

We also learn about space. We've watched documentaries and read books. We've visited museums (Museum of Science in Boston, Air & Space Museum in D.C.). We've decorated a cardboard box to be a space ship and had lots of adventures in that. We dropped marbles into flour to see how moon craters are made. We made a model of the solar system. We talk about gravity and how you would walk on the moon vs. Jupiter vs. Earth.

We learn about animals in various ways. Whenever we encounter animals in our neighborhood, we talk about what they look like, their habitat, what they eat, and how they behave. Whenever we see animals in the zoo or the aquarium, or even in books or on TV, we do the same.

We've also covered a lot of human biology this year, mainly through discussion. Colwyn has asked about bones and how they work (and how they get broken!), why we need blood, and of course, with me being pregnant, they're getting a good education about what that involves. We also discuss things like hygiene, nutrition, and safety.

Baking soda and vinegar always contribute to good experiments--we've made volcanos out of playdough, and we've washed baking soda-filled tin foil moon rocks in diluted vinegar. We've also experimented with magnets, and we also did one fun experiment involving drops of food coloring in a pan of milk.

Social Studies

Colwyn really likes maps, and we have several to play around with. He has a U.S. states puzzle that he works on frequently, and we have several globes that he looks at and asks questions about. We also draw simple maps for him to practice map skills with--usually they're simple grids of streets with stores, houses, parks, etc drawn in. We talk about what's next to what, how you would get from point A to point B, and so on. All of this is done as a game, with toys ("Lightning McQueen is at the park, see? He wants to get to the grocery store where Sally is.. can you help him?")

We learn about different cultures fairly frequently. We try traditional foods, listen to music, try our hand at recreating artwork, look up pictures and maps of the country or area, and read books. I also make an effort to find any unique games that children like to play in that culture, or what stories/myths/lullabies might be traditional.

Writing letters also helps with geography, as we point out on a map where the letter is going.

We've only dabbled slightly in history--mainly the Middle Ages, since Colwyn loves knights so much. We've learned about castles and what life was like then, in addition to learning about armor, swords, jousting, etc.

Topics like world religions, racial/ethnic diversity, etc. we mostly cover in conversation when it comes up. For instance, a few days ago, Colwyn asked why a tree in front of the hospital was decorated in lights, but didn't have a star on top. We discussed how some people celebrate Christmas, and decorate Christmas trees with lights, ornaments, and stars, but that not everyone celebrates that holiday. We talked about various religions and what they celebrate, and how at a place like a hospital, that helps many, many people regardless of what they believe in, they like to make everyone feel welcome. So they only decorate with lights to make everything look sparkly and pretty. We also discuss diversity in our society when they ask questions--those usually embarassing questions about why people they see are different.

One of the main aims of social studies is to teach your child how to be a moral, upstanding citizen. For us, that means thinking critically, showing sympathy, and being environmentally responsible (among other things). Just through our life choices, the children see us evaluating societal norms and deciding whether they work for our family or not. With young children, discussions of sympathy are brough up in every day conversation (not hitting brother, not using mean words, not stomping bugs, not pulling the dog's tail, etc). As adults, Doug and I try to be as environmentally responsible as possible, and the children see that. They learn about recycling, composting, growing your own food, being kind to nature, not littering, and so on. We feel that the best way for our children to become responsible, ethical adults is to have good models, and through being at home with us, they get to see us in our roles in society every day--rather than learning it out of a book, stuck in a classroom.

Art

We study art daily in our house. Some days we color with crayons, other days we paint, and other days we cut and glue. We use water colors, tempera paint, markers, crayons, and colored pencils. The kids have a huge amount of art supplies--stickers, foam shapes, pom poms, glitter, play dough, glue, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, paper towel tubes, paper, you name it. Other days we appreciate art--in the books we read, in pictures we look at online, etc. In schools, children have art class once a week for a half hour, if that. At our house, when the children are inspired, they can do whatever they like for as long as they feel like it. They don't have to follow orders (oh, how I hated the classes where we had to draw still lifes), and will never get in trouble for making the grass purple or the sky yellow.

Music

Our study of music is very informal at this point. Basically we do music appreciation, and the children experiment on their own.

We listen to a wide variety of music. Through our social studies, they get to hear a huge range of music from all over the world. They listen to the music that Doug and I like to listen to which has a fair amount of range. They also listen to their own kids music. In addition to all that, they seem to really pick up on the soundtracks on movies they like, which really broadens the range of music they listen to.

As far as experimenting with music, we have a huge collection of instruments for them to practice with. We have drums (real and electronic), guitars (toys, and real acoustic and electric guitars), keyboards, harmonicas, recorders, a pentatonic flute, and maracas, among others. They play around and experiment with the different sounds they can produce.

Phys Ed

With two little boys, phys ed is more or less a non-issue. Even at home, they run around like maniacs, getting plenty of exercise. When the wather is warm, they play in the backyard, we take walks and ride bikes around the block, we swim in the pool, and we go to the playground. In the winter, our options are more limited, but the kids can still get a good workout at the indoor playspaces we go to - they all have climbing structures that challenge and exercise their muscles.

Our Philosophy

When I think of unschooling, I think of our children being free to learn what they want, how they want, when they want. It doesn't mean they don't learn anything, nor does it mean that I never introduce them to new concepts. The crucial point is that I never force them to do anything they don't want. When has forcing someone to do something ever produced better results than if they had done it on their own? Plenty of parents can attest to the power struggles that arise when children are forced to potty train or learn to read or sleep on their own before they're developmentally ready or interested. Our parenting philosophy has always been to follow the kids' lead, and it's worked beautifully for us. Whether it's sleeping on their own, potty training, giving up a bottle, learning letters, or going on the carousel at Salem Willows, we've always given them the time and space they need while being supportive, and they've accomplished those things with nary a problem. Why wouldn't we extend that philosophy to their education?

I hope this explains things a bit. I hate to think that people might think we're being neglectful just because of the term 'unschooling.'

Value of Curriculum

On the homeschooling forums on MDC, someone asked whether it's possible to homeschool without using a purchased curriculum. Lillian J, who frequently has the best, most helpful responses ever, said this:

When you have a packaged curriculum - especially if it's cost a lot of money - it takes on a lot of power. Children can very well find themselves sucked into a plan that may have no relevance to the way they learn, their talents and inclinations, their basic personalities, nor much else that's supportive of them as individual learners.

It's understandably overwhelming at first to look at the enormity of providing an education for a child. What's really hard to know at that point is that an awful lot of it will be coming quite naturally and easily in the course of living, playing, using the imagination, having good conversations, being out in the world and observing all that's around, going to the library and to museums, field trips, being read to, being around other people, exploring interests, pursuing hobbies, taking community classes or attending community activities, doing their own building projects and participating in family projects, playing games ("educational" and otherwise), eventually reading on one's own when the time comes, occasional group classes or activities your group can organize around things your children are interested in, exploring Internet sites and good software... It all builds and builds into a pretty impressive body of knowledge and understanding - even with no planning or orchestration. Those are not just platitudes - promise - there are a whole lot of us who have experienced all this and have actually been as surprised as the next person to see how amazing it all is. I know of plenty of grown homeschool grads, my son among them, who got an excellent education without the use of a curriculum.

For more focus on various subjects, the library is amazing - take a browse through their juvenile non-fiction section alone and see all the things you have access to! And many libraries are catching on to the large market of users they can tap into among homeschoolers - serving homeschoolers can give youth librarians a lot more to do. I've been on a panel that was put on by a large group of youth librarians specifically to find out what homeschoolers would like to see in the way of services. Your group could probably think of things they'd like to request when their children are older.

I do see the humor in talking about not using curriculum when I just went and purchased the first two workbooks in a math curriculum. But there's a difference (to me, anyway) in picking two workbooks that I'd researched thoroughly and determined would be of the most enjoyment/use to us, which also happen to be inexpensive, and buying a full curriculum that tells you exactly how to teach all subjects.

I don't buy into the idea that kids need to learn certain things in a certain order. I mean, I suppose I can see the value in learning history and math in 'order' - clearly some math skills have to be learned before others - but it's not absolutely necessary. Who says it's wrong to learn about the Tudors before learning about ancient Egypt? As we learn more and more, we can create a timeline and talk about when things happened in relation to others, as it's meaningful to us.

The joy of not being tied down to a curriculum is that we can learn what we want, when we want, and because the material is what my children have picked as being valuable and meaningful to them as they learn it, that material will have a special place inside them. As it's currently popular to say, they'll "own" that knowledge, in a way that they wouldn't if I just said arbitrarily, "Okay, we're going to sit down and learn about the sacking of Rome."

Oh, how I love homeschooling, and unschooling in particular. It is such a good fit for our family, I can't imagine doing it any other way.

Following Your Kid's Lead

So much of our parenting is based on the idea that it's much easier if we take our cues from our kids. It's never failed us before.

Take sleeping habits, for instance. We start bedtime at eight o'clock. They never fight bedtime, we get into our jammies, read a bunch of stories, brush our teeth, hug and kiss the kids goodnight, and leave the room. They fall asleep on their own and only need a little reassuring every now and then. They're 3 and 1, and we never forced them into any of it, never left them alone to cry, nothing.

When Colwyn was a little baby, he started fussing and resisting when I would try to rock him for naps. I thought I'd give him a break and put him down in his crib so I could get a drink. He was quiet, and when I came back, he was sound asleep. We moved smoothly into putting him down awake from there, always gentle with him, and he never had to scream for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes or more. When he was sick and needed more soothing, we allowed it because we trusted that he knew what he needed.

The same thing worked for Lachlann, although it took a little longer. In fact, I had actually begun to doubt my theory when he decided he was capable of falling asleep on his own. Ah ha, validation.

This method of following their lead has worked in virtually every other area of parenting. If we wait until they are ready for something, it goes much more smoothly than if we tried to force it. So why wouldn't I apply that to my children's education?

I have faith that when my children see a need to know something, they'll learn it. And because they're motivated by their own needs and desires, they'll learn it that much quicker. I see it happening now. Colwyn picks up things that he finds interesting and we learn about until he's no longer interested. Without me pushing him, he's learned his alphabet and is starting to show interest in recognizing some numbers. Despite what his speech therapist advised, I never forced him to hold his pencil (or crayon) the proper way, and as he desires more precision, he's adjusted his grip to the proper way, all on his own.

Drawing

Here's a picture of Colwyn's recent artwork. He drew a few people, two ladders, and made some letters (C, O, L, and X). My budding artist. :) I have to say that I feel quite vindicated that he's discovered an interest in writing letters without me pushing him at all and making it into an unpleasant experience. I guess providing a print-rich environment has worked really well for us. All these little victories give me confidence that we can do this for the long haul.



So our homeschooling group has kind of collapsed. We still get together with the two families who were in it, and between that and our other playgroup, the kids aren't lacking for socialization at all. For example, last week we went shopping on Monday, to Bonkers on Tuesday ourselves, to the park on Wednesday with Calvin and Miles, to Bonkers on Thursday with Thomas and Aidan, and had a family day on Friday with mom and Kristine. Today we met Charlotte at the Touch-a-Truck event (more on that in my other blog) and we all went out to lunch after. Next week we'll do playgroup at a farm and probably have two one-on-one playdates.

I am working on forming a new homeschooling group for young homeschoolers in this area. I think the group I joined was a little too specific in who it accepted, so I'll try being open to people who aren't absolutely positive they're going to homeschool. My goal for right now is for the boys to form friendships, and to be honest, it's not a huge deal if their friends end up going to public school. But if we can eventually set up co-ops and stuff, that would be awesome. I'm hoping that people who are considering homeschooling their kids will see that there are fun activities and a good support system and decide to go through with it.

Intro

I suppose we should start with the basics, right? I'm Rachel, a (mostly) stay-at-home mom to Colwyn and Lachlann. Colwyn was born in fall 2003, and Lachlann in summer 2005. Before I got pregnant, I had always imagined myself being a typical mainstream mom - actually, I don't think I was aware that there were alternatives. As I've grown into motherhood, my ideals have changed a lot, and I now lean towards the crunchier side. I believe that my boys are valuable people whose needs and wants are just as valid as my own. Therefore, we practice attachment parenting as much as possible. The boys coslept with us while they were babies and only moved out of our room when they were ready. We've never let them cry it out, nor do we spank or use time-outs. Of course, we all lose our patience and I can't say that I've never yelled at them in anger, but I try to be as respectful as possible. I truly enjoy being around my kids, and a desire to homeschool has gradually evolved out of our parenting style.

Being that our kids are so young, we're still exploring our options in regards to materials and approaches to homeschooling. There are a lot of things I like about a lot of different methods, so the term that best describes us right now is eclectic. Some of the approaches I'm interested in are unschooling, unit studies, Waldorf, Montessori, and Charlotte Mason.

My husband doesn't like the term unschooling, but I feel that it gets the point across quickest. Unschooling is really hard to define (like most things about homeschooling). For us, unschooling is not forcing our kids to learn at a pace that doesn't suit them. It's not forcing subjects on them that they're not interested in or ready for. It's not pushing academics at an early age. It's not doing worksheets or other busywork. It's about following our kids' lead.. after all, we've followed their lead in almost everything else, and it's always worked out wonderfully. We'll probably stick with this approach until our kids reach mid-elementary age, at which point we will encourage certain subjects a bit more strongly. I do feel that there are certain things that kids have to learn.. it's just a matter of when. I also initiate and introduce a lot of activities and concepts to the kids, something that doesn't really fit with the unschooling definition. But the difference is that while I may initiate and encourage participation, it's certainly not required.

Unit studies are something we're already doing. For instance, right now Colwyn is interested in dinosaurs. We're making a dinosaur ABC book (which teaches letters, art, fine motor skills), we pretend to be dinosaurs (gross motor skills) and read books about dinosaurs (reading skills, literature). We sort his toy dinosaurs by size, or color, or by what they eat (math). We'll be making dinosaur masks this week (art, fine motor skills), and we'll do an activity where Colwyn will dig for dinosaur fossils in some sand (fine motor, science). We'll also make a diorama with playdough and his toy dinosaurs, and we'll make a volcano with baking soda and vinegar (art, fine motor, science). We also show him on a globe where certain dinosaurs lived (geography). So, just by doing some fun, playful activities about dinosaurs, he'll study his letters, art, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, reading skills, literature, math, science, and geography.

The Waldorf philosophy is fantastic, with few exceptions. A Waldorf education is based in the arts, with young children spending the majority of their day singing songs, listening to stories, engaging in handwork (craft activities), and playing imaginatively. Instead of using textbooks, they create their own books of what they're learning (dino ABC book, anyone?). Waldorf students celebrate the seasons and have nature tables to display treasures they find outside that symbolize the season. This fits very well with our pagan traditions. Children in a Waldorf school (or homeschool) often aren't taught to read until age 6 or 7. While I don't have a problem with my kids not learning to read until 6 or 7, I certainly won't discourage it if they're ready earlier. The way I see it, if they're ready at 5, great, but I'd rather them learn to read quickly at age 7, than cause a power struggle trying to force it at 5. One of the few things I don't like about Waldorf is that some of the literature they use is a little too Christian for me. Technically, Waldorf isn't Christian, but it feels that way to me sometimes. I also don't think they put enough emphasis on science. Again, not that I'll push science if they're not interested, but if they are, they'll learn more about it with me than they would in a traditional Waldorf school.

For Montessori, I'm more split about whether I like it or not. There are some things I love: encouraging independence and responsibility - children are allowed/expected to get their own drinks and snacks when they can, wash up by themselves, and clean up their messes. They're allowed to work cooperatively or independently, whichever they feel suits their needs best. Teachers demonstrate a task/concept for the child, and then the child practices it until he masters it. Some of the Montessori things we do including scooping/pouring pompoms or beads or picking them up with tongs. We also have snacks, cups, and a pitcher of water available for Colwyn to serve himself if he wants. We don't have a stepstool high enough to let him reach the sink, but we do encourage him to use the potty with as little help from us as possible (we clean up, obviously). The thing I hate about Montessori is that they don't value pretend play. I think this is a huge mistake, as kids learn so much from creative and imaginative play.

I'm just starting to look into Charlotte Mason's philosophy, and I think it's another method that we'll pick and choose from. Charlotte Mason advocated teaching children using high quality literature.. which I'm obviously all for. She said that instead of children having lots of books, that they should only have a few of the very best.. which is something I disagree with, personally. We have tons of books, and get armfuls from the library. Charlotte Mason also said that after a child reads a book or passage, that they should narrate back (orally) what they've learned. These narrations shouldn't be corrected, as a child should be allowed to pick and choose what they want to take from a piece of writing. I think that's a great idea, and probably something we'll put into practice. Although when I think about it, that's sort of what we're doing when we ask Colwyn questions about things we've just read.

Well, this has been an enormously long post. Next up will either be pictures of what we're doing now, or some info on why homeschooling is great. :)