February through May Experiential Learning

February:
1. Sean took the kids to the Flour Mill Museum, took the train there
2. Sang at the nursing home twice
3. Conrad's music class at the library
4. Trevor's Polymer Chemistry at The Works Museum, made slime
5. Toured the Ice Castles with whole family
6. Trevor's Nature Center homeschool class
7. MOA amusement park with whole family
8. Trevor's Base Camp through BSA (archery, rock climbing, group games)
9. Homeschool play groups, book discussion
Also library visits, play practice, dance lessons each month

March:
1. Breakfast on the Lake with whole family
2. Nursing home visit and visited the Jones' to teach yogurt while kids played
3. Children's Theatre backstage tour
4. Trevor's nature center class, geology
5. Baptism (Mark)
6. Eileen Ivers Fiddle concert
7. Trevor's 6th birthday party
8. MN Mormon Chorale Easter concert
9. Whole family went to 3D movie

April:
1. 2 Baptisms (one was Markus)
2. Youth music night concert
3. Mille Lacs Indian Museum
4. Bowling as a whole family
5. Went to James Sewell ballet w/ whole family- Carnival of the Animals
6. Cleaned church
7. Trevor's nature center class- layers of the earth
8. Homeschool friends over to our house for set building
9. The Works Museum homeschool class- kaleidoscopes

May:
1. Pilobolus performance with the whole family
2. MN history museum
3. Painted sets for the play at friends' house
4. Children's Theatre live showing of the play Alice in Wonderland (whole family)
5. Trevor's homeschool nature center class
6. Trevor performed in the homeschool play, "Felicia and the Pot of Pinks"
7. Father and Sons Campout/ Girls Night with Laura and Abigail
8. Dance dress rehearsal and dance recital

There are always things I don't include because it feels weird putting things on the list like doctor's appointments or dinner guests or helping families move, but what we're going for is a wide range of experiences, not just field trips or passive audience events, so in my mind, those things really are on the list.  Throughout these months, we also had dance lessons, play practices, library visits, playgroups/playdates, and nature walks.  I learned a lot about trying to give my kids in-the-real-world experiences this year, and I'm excited to share, but I hear Abigail waking from her nap, so that will have to wait.  :)

Carrots

I am studying (I did say that deliberately rather than just "reading"--I need something more than a casual read in order to improve!) another parenting book that is opening my mind a lot.  I'll have to post more on it another time, but for now, I want to share this quote that I really do agree with and relates to education:

"One researcher, after spending more than fifteen years following the careers of high school valedictorians, concluded that most of them simply 'know how to do school. They are not the group to look for, for creative breakthroughs...or for becoming notable leaders in a particular area."

I'm definitely not saying they are all like this.  But the point the book is trying to make is that sadly, many of these students are just the ones who have fallen into the trap of "doing school" for the carrots, the rewards, and once they end up in the real world where the carrots are more intrinsic in nature, they fail.

Book Review

Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement

I really enjoy reading research as long as it comes from a credible, uncorrupt, objective source.  I just like truth.  So this book was enjoyable for me for that reason.  There are tons of books that will slant either way, toward public school or (more likely) toward home education.  This one is basically just a comprehensive review of research, and answered some questions I've been curious about for some time. 

The first 2/3rds of the book was old news for me, having already read a lot of research online and in other books, but the last three chapters were definitely worth my time.  A few statistics I was interested to learn:

The average number of library visits per month for homeschool families is 3.8.

36.4% of homeschool families watch no television at home.  Wow!  I knew it would be high, but never would have guessed that high!

I've already mentioned this in previous posts, but homeschool kids overwhelmingly score higher academically than public schooled kids.  While I try not to focus on grades and scores, this is still a telling fact.  Sean and I both come from lower-income families and parents who were able to gain little or no college education, so even more interesting on a personal level is the fact that children from both low-income families and families with parents with lower levels of education do much better than children from similar families whose children go to public schools.  I also found it interesting that the race, income, parental education, and gender differences that sadly have a profoundly negative impact on achievement in public schools are muted or almost nonexistent with homeschooled children from the same backgrounds. 

More Insight on Chores

As you may know, we've been working on the basics this year for our family goals.  Those basics include teaching the gospel (i.e. scripture reading), family responsibilities, hygiene, and any other practical life skills that we consider essential. 

I've been trying to figure out a bit of a mystery in our house.  Trevor is really obedient when I ask him (and him alone) to do a chore, but if I ask both boys, Trevor will balk and drag his feet.  When I ask Conrad (whether alone or not) he complains and doesn't want to do what I've asked, which is why Trevor does the same thing when I ask them both at the same time to help.  Trevor sees Conrad acting that way and thinks that chores must be pretty awful and that he can get out of it if he does what Conrad does.

I thought back to what we did with Trevor, because Trevor really does obey when I only ask him.  I realized that we did several things different for him:

1. We didn't require him to do any chores start to finish on his own until he was about 5. 

2. We made chores into play for him and he was allowed to help with a few things and stop whenever he wanted.  It was never compulsory at that age.

3. We always did chores with Trevor before he was 5.  I really believe it's important for kids not to be commanded all the time.  They need to be shown and guided, not ordered around, especially when they're really young.  I don't like it when I hear moms say, "I don't know why they won't obey me!" Maybe it's the stubborn, willful, (and maybe sometimes disobedient) part of my personality, but why in the world should parents set themselves up as a dictatorial authority?  Most of the time, I do believe it's okay for my kids to question me, and I will answer their questions kindly (while still being firm if it's something I know I shouldn't move on). There's nothing wrong with a little dialogue about why they should be obedient to this or that rule.

So that brings me to my own problem: I don't know why they won't obey me!  Okay, so the previous thinking exercise helped me to see why Conrad is having a hard time obeying when it comes to chores.  He's too young!  He's just too young to be required to do chores.  Really, I already knew this, but I look at the boys play together and they seem so...equal.  Physically, they can do so many of the same things.  Conrad is witty and wily.  And so I've felt unfair when I've required something of Trevor that Conrad doesn't also have to do.  Conrad is only 3 and Trevor is 6!  Of course I shouldn't expect the same things from them yet.  Sheesh, mom, get a clue!

So I've been trying to not feel guilty when I require Trevor to do something and not Conrad.  I'm also trying to make work fun for Conrad and not be too strict with making him finish a job he starts.  He still needs a lot of help with things over his abilities.  I feel more relaxed already! 

Hold Everything!

Ugh.  Every now and then I come to a point when I realize that my parenting needs some work.  I try to work on it constantly, but there are times when it seems I've been neglecting something for months and haven't realized it needs to be worked at, or have just not given it the proper attention.  Poor Conrad.  He has suffered the pains of my parental weaknesses the most for a long time now.  It must be so difficult to be the middle child, especially when you're three!  Everything is going great with homeschooling, but with my relationship with Conrad, I feel that he's being dragged behind a horse and the horse just keeps going.  I need to stop everything and take a good look at his needs and what I can do to help him grow and feel loved.

Homeschooling is just parenting 24/7 really, and I feel the need to brush up on my parenting skills very often.  So for now, I'm putting aside my book list (again), to review The Power of Positive Parenting and look into a few new sources (friends have suggested Alfie Kohn books).  And trying to read scriptures and pray more regularly in order to keep the conduit of the Spirit open for revelation and reinforcement for my efforts.  So Sparks of Genius will have to wait.  And my list of improv books and Unschooling Rules.  I'm still getting used to my new calling at church (primary chorister!) and we have the play performance (for which I need to make a costume for and help with sets/props) and the boys' dance recital coming up in about a month, not to mention various field trips. 

It's all good stuff, and I'm not overwhelmed at all right now.  I'm learning the value of staying organized and regularly reviewing my planner calendars so I'm not caught off-guard by some forgotten committment.  And not forgetting my most important commitments--my family relationships...which means dropping my own favored agenda for relearning weak parenting skills. 

Improving

So that's a lot of good news in the last post. Something that is not going so great that we need to work on is finding happiness in the basics, the things we do every day, no matter what else is going on. There have been not a few complaints about scripture time and chores and things like dressing in the morning and brushing teeth. Maybe it's the kid in me that will never really grow up and disappear, but I still don't believe duties HAVE to be un-fun, even things that have to be done. I've heard plenty of people say that "kids need to learn that some things in life that just have to be done."  Yeah, but what about Mary Poppins' "element of fun"? Don't tell my mom, but to this day I still enjoy cleaning toilets. Toilets! (Maybe that's why my boys fight over who gets to do it!) And there's something very soothing about washing dishes by hand in a sinkful of warm soapy water. And on the days when I push through a few boring verses of scripture, I am always rewarded with something inspiring before I'm finished. To me, it is more an issue of attitude than one of duty. Yes, there are things that need to be done, but how we feel about them is up to us.

You can always find something negative in a task, but you can also always find something positive, even if it's the tiniest little good thing, it's there. In fact, we make clean-up a game every time if we can, and we're always thinking up new ways to play clean-up. Sometimes the boys get tongs from the kitchen and pretend that the clutter is hot lava rocks and they have to carefully pick the items up with the tongs to put away. Other times we do Tornado Clean-up, where we clean as fast as we can, sort of crazy like a tornado. We also do Box Clean-up, where we put a box in the center of the room and throw everything in the box as fast as we can, and it's instant gratification for us because it looks clean immediately, and then we put everything away from the box. Every now and then we do a competition, where the first person to clean up 4 things gets a chocolate chip, though I don't like this one as much, the boys sure do! Another way we haven't tried yet is to tape a line accross the room and have a competition to see who can get their side clean first.  I try not to be the one who invents the games, because it's also important for the kids to learn to find their own element of fun.  One game the boys made up is using their construction toys (dump truck and the like) to clean up, or they use their stuffed animals and pretend the animals are doing the cleaning.  Edit: Trevor just made up another game after I posted this. We played I Spy Clean-up: one person spies something on the floor that needs to be put away, and when another person guesses correctly, they put it away and get to spy something next.

Of course, I prefer that we don't get to the point where we have a whole room of junk to clean up and we strive to instead clean up as we go, but big messes are inevitable and it's better not to dread clean-up.

With scriptures, I just need to continue introducing variety.  Trevor is great with doing things the same way every time, but Conrad will start to crawl all over us and be very distracting if he's bored, which has been a lot lately.  We usually take the gospel art book and Trevor's large-print scriptures and use those to do scripture time, but I think Conrad needs more interaction still.  Role-play is usually his favorite.  If he gets a choice, Samuel the Lamanite is the story he chooses because he loves acting out the scene on the wall with arrows and rocks flying.  It's so simple and doesn't need any preparation, but is very effective.  We could also use the children's version of scriptures, which we haven't utilized in a long time.  I want my kids to love reading scriptures and to develop that love early on.  So we'll keep trying new things and finding that element of fun wherever we can.

Natural Learning Connections

I love it when the kids make connections on their own.  Here are a few recent stories:

1. Today during General Conference, Trevor was making up his own rebus messages.  We had just seen rebus messages and stories in a few places like The Friend magazine and an I Spy book, so he knew what they were and was doing a really good job making his own.  It was a great time to ask him about a previous conversation on China.  I asked him if he remembered what it was called when people use pictures for words (he knew they're called pictograms) and then I asked if he remembered one group of people who used to use them before they used letters (he remembered the Chinese people did).  I LOVE those moments when connections are made and lessons reviewed without a paper quiz. 

2. A few months ago, Trevor and I were reading the Friend magazine while the little ones napped.  We read an article about President Packer and his woodcarving hobby (Feb. 2013 issue).  It had several photos of his drawings and carvings.  Trevor was really excited about it and asked if he could have a pocketknife.  He repeatedly asked for one over the next several weeks, so we got him one for his birthday. Now we've been checking out library books with simple woodcarving projects and he looks for good pieces of wood to carve every time we go for a walk.

3. Another interest of Trevor's that keeps coming up is sewing.  He has done a little bit of sewing with my mom, but he's always asking me if we can do some sewing at home.  Since my sewing machine has been buried under storage for the last several months, and we didn't ahve a good place to put it while we worked on anything, the answer has been no.  But we finally finished most of the basement and rearranged things so we can start on something soon!  (He was inspired most recently by a sock monkey in a really cool book we read called How Things Work In The House).  He was a little distracted by something else, though, so we haven't started yet.  That "something else" is...(drumroll please)...

4. His snap circuit kit!  Whoo hoo!  Finally!  We went to an electricity museum (The Bakken) last summer that just happened to be having a really awesome workshop where the kids could build their own circuits.  Trevor and Conrad both loved it and we didn't see much else of the museum that day, though we did go back later a few times (I had to see their Frankenstein exhibit--really neat!).  I asked where they got their stuff from and went to the store later to get Trevor started on his own little kit.  Well, I am no electrician and the pieces I bought were mismatched and the voltage didn't match up, and while it was still fun, it wasn't much.  We also give Trevor any electronics that break down so he can take them apart and explore them with his own tools from his toolbox we gave him for Christmas.  But I knew he needed more.  Trevor got to try out a few homeschool friends' snap circuit kits and wanted one of his own.  He got some birthday money from Sean's dad and he wanted to spend it on his much-awaited snap circuit kit.  He's been having such a blast with it and learning a ton.  I just love that boy and his curiousity.

5. In other news, I've been catching Trevor reading on his own more and more.  I love it.  Love, love, love it.  Especially when I find him reading to Conrad.  It brings tears to my eyes and is one of the most rewarding things I've witnessed so far as a mom.  My active, rambunctious boys snuggling close, quietly huddling over a book with the "eyes of learning".  I don't know how else to describe it, the look kids get in their eyes when they are deeply engaged in learning.  I could watch it all day...oh, wait, I do!!

Here's another story I shared a few weeks ago with my local homeschool group:

6. A few nights ago Abigail and I were having a rough time with sleeping, and we both slept in the next morning. I awoke hearing two little voices outside my door where we keep a small bookcase containing a set of encyclopedias. I love eavesdropping on my boys’ conversations (they’re 5 and 3), so I lay there listening. I could hear Trevor instructing, “Now we’re going to put them in order. Can you find the number 4? Good! The number 4 goes here…” I guess Trevor has heard me talk this way so many times, now he enjoys helping Conrad the same way. Conrad also enjoys the attention he gets from his big brother and is eager to learn with him. Teaching others is an awesome kind of review. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down with Conrad and tried to teach him numbers, but we count all the time and talk about numbers whenever they come up in life or in a book. Yesterday while helping me do some baking, Trevor noticed the settings on my Kitchen Aid go up by twos. So we counted by twos forward and backward for a while. We’ve been talking about skip-counting a lot lately because Trevor has been asking me about the time and we’ve been skip-counting by fives, just like the minutes on a clock. It was really satisfying to see him make the connection between that and counting by twos with the mixer settings. Maybe soon I’ll wake up to my encyclopedias in reverse order skipping every other book.