Lightbulbs going on

I am thankful that, for the most part, our kids haven't struggled much with any subject. Ethan was a bit of a reluctant reader at first, but we put it away for awhile and took it out later when he was ready. Other than that, it's been pretty easy to teach them.

But I knew that the first place we would struggle would be math, because in teaching math I am like the blind leading the blind. Ok, maybe the legally blind leading the blind, but that doesn't up our odds much. Ethan is now doing long division - double digits into triple digits. And the thing is, the program we follow teaches it differently than how I learned. Try teaching a kid something you don't understand! In the teacher's defense, once I did figure it out, this makes more sense. The first two lessons this week were painful - working through each problem together, probably 5-10 minutes on each one. The key was that we pulled out the manipulative blocks and used those. Despite that help, I saw a long road ahead of us filled with numbers and tears.

Then day three, I noticed that Ethan was pulling the blocks out more quickly, and, if I wasn't mistaken, was enjoying the problems. I pointed this out to him and told him to stop, because math is not supposed to be FUN. If you don't know me, well, first of all I'm surprised you're reading this, but secondly, you should know that I am kidding. I kid like that.

Today, he grabbed the blocks, headed off for a corner, and did the whole page without complaining. It was such a "this is why I do this" moment.

Future Note Taker

Monday was a red letter day because we did science experiments that ACTUALLY WORKED. That's right, folks, you heard it here first. It's possible.

And I have proof! Megan decided to take notes while we were experimenting. At some points she was writing down everything I said, which got a little creepy even. I could tell you about the experiments, but if you click on the picture you can see what they were all about. I told her she was learning a great skill for the future!

Want to know something wild? She spelled, "ethanoic" on her own! And I just noticed that a few of her actual spelling words are thrown in there too (piano, moose).

On reading to little (and not so little) ones

When Ethan was young, I wondered what I should be doing with him, given that we were living overseas and the options were not as obvious. The older homeschool moms and educators I met all said one thing, "Read to him. Read as long as he'll listen." Thankfully, that turned out to be a lot of time, as Ethan's attention span is vast. That helped a lot when I was pregnant with Megan and couldn't do much! We would grab a pile of books and read for up to an hour.

There was always a nagging voice in my head though that said, "Shouldn't you be doing MORE with him though?" Then today I found this article which encouraged me once again to say "no" to that little nagger. It also reminded me that I should never stop reading to my kids, even if they can read to themselves. Have you read to a kid today?

Haiku

When he was in high school, my brother got on this haiku kick. He wrote a lot of them. Here's one I remember:

Wind blows through the trees
It is blowing in the leaves
Preparation H

If you don't know my brother, well, you should. Because he's funny like that.

Friday is poetry day in our homeschool (at least in theory, if not always in practice) so I chose haiku this week. Thankfully I had other examples to present to the kids. I didn't have high hopes for our time because the kids generally gripe at writing (which kills me, the obsessive writer). But I was more than pleasantly surprised that not only did they write quickly and creatively, they enjoyed it! Ethan even did two. Here they are:

Spring (by Ethan)
Warm in my jacket
Snowmen melting in the sun
Goodbye to the snow

Summer (by Ethan)
Shining sun so hot
Hot sand and salty water
Good fun at the beach

The Rose (by Megan)
A beautiful rose
shiny and red, blooming bright
with velvet petals.

Not bad for first goes. At least they stuck to nature instead of medicating cream.

Homeschool from the couch

I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately, having contracted the cold my kids had last week that kept them home from co-op. Yesterday it kept me home from co-op, and today it's keeping me on the couch.

No matter - thankfully the kids can do a lot of their schooling with a measure of independence, and when I can't be fully engaged, we pare it down. (Pare - that was one of their spelling words a few weeks ago. Good to see mom learned it too). So while I lay here, they peek in the door to the living room and say, "What next mom?"

It's not the education I'd like them to have for the long haul, but it gets the three R's done for today.

There's no crying in homeschool!

I just started teaching a friend's daughter to play piano. She's highly motivated and eager to please, so she's progressing quickly and our lessons are pleasant. One of the biggest reasons is because there is no crying. When I teach my own children, inevitably there is crying because they are frustrated that they cannot immediately play a new song well. It is, in fact, one of the most difficult parts of homeschool and the one I am most likely to farm out to someone else.

The other time we're likely to see tears is the spelling test. Our kids both have perfectionistic streaks (hmm, I don't have to think long to figure out where that came from) and are competitive with each other. Add to that the fact that they are in the same level for spelling, and it means that if one of them gets one wrong (and the other doesn't), there are tears. Like right now. Ethan is in his room crying because he got 4 wrong out of 40 today - all careless mistakes he would not have made if he weren't trying to best his sister. He started the test before her, so I was giving them different words, and of course Megan was trying to catch up and Ethan was trying to finish first. Ok, so my bad and we won't ever do that again, but the crying is a little much.

Whenever there are tears, I think of that line from League of Their Own, "There's no crying in baseball. There's no crying in baseball!!" And I think the same of homeschool.

But the reality is, there is crying, and I think it's probably good. It reminds me that what I get from having my kids at home with me is them being real. If they were in school, I doubt they'd cry. But they'd probably want to, and instead take that hurt and not be able to express it. It might come out later (probably in some other way that would make me think, "What on earth happened at school today?") or it might not. Whether it's tears, rudeness, anger, frustration - I'm glad it comes out at home, because I can actually address it (though the fact that I'm typing this instead of talking to Ethan shows I don't always want to address it right now). Yet another benefit of homeschool.

Psst . . . your personality is showing

Our kids are currently hard at work drawing pictures of Native American housing, and the difference in their personalities couldn't be more clear. Ethan is busy replicating a Cahokian temple with his ruler, measuring the pictures and then drawing it carefully. Megan is drawing teepee after teepee so that she can continue decorating them in creative ways. It's fun to see their personalities come out in their work!