Our Simple Life

August 6

M and J have both been learning so many new things lately! M is totally into the American presidents, getting her multiplication facts down and writing really well in cursive. J has learned all about adding and subtracting and is participating in math games with us; his penmanship is looking great as well. :)

Learning Letter Sounds

J has known all the letter names for a while and practices tracing and/or writing them daily. He really likes  to write! M detested writing up until maybe a year ago?? Isn't it cool to see differences in your children when you KNOW it has nothing to do with you, your parenting style, or the child's environment; it's their individual personality shining through? I think it's neat. 

At the first of the week I gave him upper and lowercases of each: a, b, and c to trace. I had decided I was going to tell him the letter sound of each as he traced each one and see what he thought and if he seemed ready to really learn them yet. He thought it was great! I said "A, aaaaaaaa" and did the ASL sign. He repeated me with a big grin on his face. :) Then I said the Hooked On Phonics word to go with A. I said "A, aaaaaaaa, apple" and again he copied me. It was really cute to see him respond like that. So we did the first three letters, and I'll probably do a few more next week. :)

Third Grade Spelling

Why the rush?

It seems like our society has become obsessed with children "schooling" at way too young of an age. I can't tell you how many times a parent has said something to me about their child not doing "enough" in the way of academics (and they're only 2 or 3 years old) or that their child is WAAAYYY above other children their age and will probably be a brain surgeon or something equally brilliant when they're an adult. I know parents naturally want their child to do well but, to me, it's too much. Look at how the stores all push the "brain-boosting" materials and toys for toddlers and preschoolers (probably even babies). Why do kids need to be pushed? They are natural learners. They learn to talk by listening and they learn to crawl and walk out of the physical desire to do it; so why all the pressure for "school"?

What is it that children are rushing toward? Late childhood, being a teenager, adulthood? WHY?!?  Early childhood is supposed to be a time of play and exploration; being read to and playing games; building with blocks and putting puzzles together. It makes me very sad when I see the stress the parent puts on themself who wants their child to excel so badly. Instead of enjoying the blessing of those first several years, they spend it worrying about academic achievement.

I have a four year old son, J (he turned four a month ago) and I guess it's been about a year or so now that people ask all the time if he goes to school (or rather, "Where does he go to school?"). It's just assumed that all preschool-aged children attend school now. For the love of Cheerios-WHY?!? 

About a month ago I found out from an over-zealous mother that they actually have 2K classes in private schools! (And that her daughter was learning to read) The following week a father expressed his concern to me that his son would be starting a 2K class in the spring and he didn't feel he was ready. Today a woman showed surprise that we homeschool and said her son doesn't learn from her and that she could never homeschool him. She said she tries to give him worksheets but he doesn't follow directions. I then  asked how old her son was, and to my shock (but not really) she said, "He's three." I tried to help her relax and encourage her that her son was where he should be and that games work much better for learning at around 4 or 5 years old, but alas, she was content to be miserable about it.

I won't stop trying to help anxious parents, though. Sometimes I get through to a few. They can see the peace I have and I think it's appealing to them. It also seems to help when I mention that even though we don't make "school" a huge thing and that we have a lot of outside time and playtime, that both of our kids are beyond where they would be if they were in school. For example, a lot of what M learns is self-motivated. We give her math and grammar, etc. but she natually loves science and geography and reading. J knows all the letters and practices tracing a lot; he loves to do computer games and 24 pice puzzles. We spend 30 minutes to an hour on "school" each day and then they learn the rest of the day through play and exploration. We school year round since it's so laid back but take days "off" when the need arises (like a day of swimming , etc.)

I pray that things change and parents start backing away from the pressures society puts on them. Children don't need to be little geniuses.

Just my humble opinion.

Cursive writing and spelling

M has been doing some casual learning of cursive writing for several months now. Her name looks great and tracing individual words is easy for her. I have yet to have her practice writing things in cursive without tracing but I think she's almost ready.

I asked her tonight at dinner how she felt she was doing with it and she fist, LOL, said "Why? Why are you asking that?" ;) And I said that I was just wondering, just curious. She said she felt o.k. but that she wasn't very good at it. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, I asked her what she thought might help her do better. She said that each day for school she should practice tracing the whole alphabet, first lower then upper case. I asked her if she wanted the arrows on it and she said that, yes, that that would probably help.

M will be 8 in April so she would be in second grade if she went to school. Well, from when she first began writing at age 5, I never pushed the spelling thing. If she wanted to know how to spell a word I would tell her or write it down for her to copy. She is somewhat of a perfectionist so if she wanted to know how to spell the word, she wanted to know! not "guess" or "think" she might be spelling a word right. Inventive spelling would've been torture for her.

When she was 6 I bought her a personal dictionary that has many words for each letter as well as lines you can write more words on. She enjoyed this a lot and it quickly taught her to alphabetize as well. Over the course of a year she had begun needing it less and less, epsecially with high frequency words. Also, her confidence grew on her ability to sound words out.

Starting this past August (when she would've entered second grade) I started a spelling notebook with her. I gave her ten spelling words a week and an activity for each day (M-F) to review them. The activities I found online were: Use the words in sentences; Alphabetize the ten words; Draw a picture for each word; Rainbow words (write each word in a different color using marker or colored pencil; Write words in cursive; Type words on computer using different fonts and sizes & then print; Write each word and then write a word next to it that ryhmes. She did very well with memorizing the words and she didn't complain too much about the activities because I'd let her choose which one she wanted to do each day.

A month or two ago I was browsing spelling lists online and I saw more second grade words that I had yet to teach/test her on. But, as I was looking I wondered if she didn't already know all those words. M was sitting on the couch in the same room as me at the time so I handed her a piece of paper and a pencil and told her I wanted to see how many of the following words she could spell-no pressure, I was just curious. Well, do you know she got all the 15 words right? It boosted her confidence so much that I decided to start doing that more often. Now, every time I "quiz" her she usually gets all of them right (there've been a few times she's missed one).

One thing that has helped her tremendously is her ability to read so well. She reads between fourth and fifth grade level (of course, fiction at that level is almost always inappropriate for her, maturity wise, so she sticks mainly to long non fiction books). Because of her strength in reading, she knows what words look like. If she writes a word and it is spelled incorrectly, she sees it immediately. She may not always know the correct spelling, but she does know when it's wrong!

I think I'll move on to third grade lists soon and start the ten words a week again. It was very effective in teaching her new words. :)

Back to School

Since we don't take summers off from school we just take breaks throughout the year as we need them. They're not usually planned except in the case of the weeks before and after Christmas. Well, we've just finished an unplanned week and a half break. I have been focusing on our home; organizing and simplifying a LOT so I just decided it was a good time for time off. The weather has been fabulous so M and J have been outside more and I've taken them to a park almost every day in the afternoon.

Speaking of which, I guess they have been doing "school". Autumn changes teach a lot about science. Geese have been flying overhead in their migrating "V"; squirrels have been busy collecting acorns so they can eat throughout the winter; leaves on M and J's favorite climbing trees are changing beautifully and then dropping to the ground. :)

Anyway, today we'll start back having organized school in addition to "real life" school.