New Baby Adjustments

I tend to not write in my journal when life gets crazy, but those are the times I usually want to remember the most so that I can recall how to manage such difficulties.  So just a few short lessons...

Self-Discipline
Having three kids is really hard!  It's not difficult, really, it just takes up my time so quickly that I am already worried about homeschooling when Trevor is officially kindergarten-age in the fall.  It's a good thing learning is just a part of his nature.  I don't know how else I'd do it otherwise.  We didn't get to do any lessons yesterday, but Trevor just found an insect book and laid on the kitchen floor reading while I cooked.  Then he started following me around with the book asking questions.  There's no lack of motivation there.  I just need to learn how to channel it so he can be a little better self-directed.  I realize now why homeschooled kids must either learn self-discipline or falter. 

Sex-Ed
I also read an article a while back called, "The Baby is The Lesson".  I'll try to put a link up for it if I can find the source.  It was written by a homeschool mom who was getting flustered by baby interruptions during school-time, until she realized that those real-life expereinces were part of what she wanted for her kids' education.  So I'm trying to take advantage of this time to teach the boys about lots of topics relating to babies and families.  Strangely, I've had a lot of unexpected sex talks with Trevor.  I am not excited about sex talks.  But when Trevor asks me a million times why he can't watch his baby sister eat, the simplest explanation eventually failed to quiet his questioning.  Even though it's really hard to answer his questions delicately, and I'd rather say, "I'll tell you when you're older," I am actually really grateful that he's learning so young that it's okay to come to his parents and ask these hard questions instead of turning to peers or the wrong crowd to answer them. 

Yesterday was probably one of the more difficult conversations.  I'm too embarassed to even write some of the things we talked about (I know I still need to get over myself), but one thing was so cute I have to record it.  We were talking about who can see each others' private parts (including husbands and wives) and then he told me he wanted Abigail to be his wife when he grew up.  I love the innocence of a four-year old.  He has also asked if he could marry me several times.  I explained that his relationship with his sister is very special, but his relationship with his wife will also be special in a different way.  I'm glad I'm getting practice at this topic.  If this was hard to answer, I'm sure he'll have much harder questions when he gets older!

Discipline, Positive Parenting Style
I am convinced that all of my kids' problems come from my own weaknesses as a parent.  I know, I know.  It sounds harsh.  Friends tell me not to be so hard on myself, but really, it's just too clear to me.  The cause-and-effect relationship between how I engage with my children and how they react to my parenting is too obvious not to feel accountable.  And I am responsible for them, so why shouldn't I feel accountable?  Anyway, that is a topic for another day. 

What I'm trying to say is that I have yet again had to bring out the Positive Parenting book.  It is becoming a monthly event almost.  I get to the point where I am pulling my hair out, wondering what in the world I'm doing wrong as a parent, and then I bring out the book and do a little reading.  That's when I realize I'm doing this or that little thing wrong, fix it, and go back to living in paradise with my kids.  It's hard to admit your parenting is that bad.  But once you've figured out what you're doing wrong and how to do it right, it's so nice when you realize that things are getting better because of your efforts.  It's very empowering.  Let's just hope I can get it right before they reach the age of accountability and have to figure these things out for themselves!

Sibling Rivalry
This time my biggest mistake was how I was dealing with the little fights Trevor and Conrad have.  Before Abigail came along, I was available more often to be able to help resolve conflicts.  Now, when I'm nursing her or changing diapers or doing one of a million other things, I just can't be there every second to solve problems for them.  And reading the chapter on sibling rivalry this past week, I realized that I'm getting involved far too often anyway.  They may be 2 and 4, but they can handle a lot of their own problems.  When I try to get involved, often I'm only making matters worse by reinforcing the very acts I am trying to eliminate.  So these past few days have been much less stressful, though I've had to grit my teeth while turning my back a few times.  Once I got back into the habit of ignoring "junk behaviors", I realized that I didn't even need as much patience.  And the boys learn to resolve things on their own instead of waiting for mom to come save the day and put the other person in time-out.

I can't believe how often I have to learn this lesson!  Ignore inconsequential behaviors, reinforce good behaviors.  I've seen so many parents who just seem to do this naturally, sometimes I wish I didn't need to go back to the book so often.  I really don't want to think about what kind of parent I'd be without it, though.

Advent Lessons

I'm officially distracted...baby comes in the next 2 1/2 weeks.  Trevor was 3 days early and Conrad was a week early, so it could be half that time.  So "school" hasn't exactly been my focus this week.  But to me, this is a real-life lesson I hope the boys learn from.  I've been rearranging their room to fit the baby in our two bedroom house somehow and trying to mentally prepare the boys and myself for the big change. 

A couple things I have kept up with are Trevor's reading lessons and our advent calendar.  Trevor is actually getting the easy readers from the library now and is really fun to listen to when he reads.  The question I've been waiting to hear from him now comes almost daily ("Can I read to you, Mommy?").  He has finished 79 lessons.

We skipped the advent calendar last year, which would have only been our second year.  We were super busy remodeling the house and didn't have time for a whole lot of fun stuff.  We really did enjoy doing the calendar the first year, though, so I didn't want any excuses for this year, plus it's been helping to keep my mind off of you-know-what so the time goes quicker.  I think family traditions are so important, so I'm trying to keep it really simple this year so we actually do the activities.  A lot of the activities exclude Sean (he's too busy studying), and include learning.  Like yesterday we talked about how Santa lives at the North Pole and read some books about the Arctic Circle and tundra.

Rewind

I keep forgetting about ideas and resources that I tried to develop/used before I started this record.  Here are a few I really don't want to forget:

1.  The Core Knowledge Series by E.D. Hirsch:  Included in the series are books titled, What Your Preschooler/Kindergartner/First Grader/etc. Needs to Know.  I first read The Knowledge Deficit, also by E.D. Hirsch, which explains the series better than the introduction inside the books.  I don't want to use one person's list exclusively for my kids, because I like to tailor their education based on what they need and what I believe is important, but there is a huge reason I like the idea (and product) these books are based on.  Though I don't want to give my kids a "conveyer belt" education that public schools tend to give, I also don't want any holes in their education.  The Core Knowledge Series helps with this.  Basically, E.D. Hirsch and his colleagues spent a lot of time researching what the basic knowledge of an educated person looks like.  They made a list of topics, stories, and lessons that a person would need to know to be able to read and understand texts such as The New York Times. 

I borrowed the preschooler book about a year ago and I liked it a lot.  It has sections from several subjects.  I never looked at the others until recently, but I like the kindergartener book even more than the preschooler book.  The stories have little tips and questions in the margins to help you bring things up to your kids as you read.  I think it would be a good go-to book for the days when I'm struggling to find something to teach the kids without using too much brain power.  I'm hoping to get the preschooler, kindergartener, and 1st grader books from my favorite used book websites (thriftbooks.com or betterworldbooks.com) and use them for one of our reading times.  You can get them for around $4 with free shipping, but I recommend checking them out from the library first to see if they work for your family (and maybe even reading part of The Knowledge Deficit as well).

2.Scripture Reading Plan. A friend of mine helped me remember something I was doing about a year ago, but stopped for some reason.  I had totally forgotten about it until Tiffany mentioned on her blog that she was thinking about making up her own Five in a Row (FIAR) baed on the scriptures.  I started something similar when I heard a talk in church by a man who said that reading scriptures doesn't have to be formal with kids.  He said you can tell them scripture stories in the car or while doing chores together or just be creative.  A lightbulb went off in my head and I created something a little less spontaneous, but worked really well while I did it.

The original plan was very simple: read/tell/review the same scripture story every day for a week, and have some sort of activity to go along with it.  I knew Trevor was capable of learning more about the scriptures, but he had a hard time sitting still every time we formally read the scriptures.  I also just love the primary songs and wanted to incorporate them into our study somehow.    This is the original schedule:

Day 1: Tell the story in my own words and draw a picture of the story (we then put it on the wall and referred back to the picture all week).
Day 2: Review the story (asking for lots of help from the boys) and sing a primary song related to the story.
Day 3: Read the story in the childrens version of the scriptures (and sing song)
Day 4: Role-play the story and sing the song. (The boys get a kick out of watching me act the stories out or acting them out themselves.)
Day 5: Do a craft based on the story.
Day 6: Tell story (or have Trevor tell it) and sing the song.
Day 7: Daddy Day - have Sean do something with the boys.  If he is unable to, then role-play the story again.

It's very simple, but it was a good starting point.  I think the boys just needed something a little different every day to help them remember and stay interested.  I also planned on getting the full gospel art kit and a cheap picture frame so I could put up a painting about the story, but I never went that far with it.  I'm so glad Tiffany helped me remember this because I think it would be a good thing to implement again (I'll post a revised schedule if we change it).  I was really amazed at how much the boys could remember when we stuck to the same story for several days.  It's hard to remember all the details when you have a new story each day!

Oh, and FYI, FIAR does make a scripture based program, but I assume it is only with the bible.

It was a pretty typical day.  I think I need to start recording examples of typical days more often.

Trevor had his reading lesson (lesson # 62).  He is sight-reading all sorts of words now.  The list is now too long to make.  A couple days ago Sean watched Trevor do half of his lesson, which is unusual, because we usually do Trevor's lessons while Sean is at school.  Sean was vocally amazed at Trevor's progress, which made Trevor beam and he read his story exceptionally fast that day. 

For Conrad's "lesson" we threw bean bags into containers.  I also taught Trevor the difference between underhand and overhand throwing.

For a practical life lesson, the boys peeled their own tangerines.  They don't really like citrus lately though, and just squished the wedges once they peeled the fruit.  I guess that's a sensory/tactile lesson, too.  :)  I'll just tell myself that so it doesn't feel completely wasteful.

For math, Trevor asked to do patterns again with the bag of buttons.

Trevor was asking this morning what green and red make when they're put together, so I thought it would be fun to copy my friend Tiffany's idea of food coloring and water mixtures.  I don't know why, but when I thought of teaching color blending (if that's what it's called), paint always popped into my mind.  I like the food coloring idea much better...it's less messy.  So we got out a notebook for Trevor and made three columns.  The first two columns were of colors he wanted to try together, and the last column was what color they made together.  Both boys loved it.  They used straws to stir, and drank plenty of the colorful water.  Trevor looked at me funny after his first sip and said, "It just tastes like colored water." 

After the art project, the boys just wanted to do their own thing with paper, crayons, markers, and scissors.  They've been doing that a lot lately, which makes me happy because Trevor hasn't really taken a huge interest in art until recently.  I think Conrad has influenced that new interest immensely because Conrad loves to cut and glue and color.  It's something they can do together with minimal contention since they work near each other, but independently.

We also had devotional with Sean and reading time somewhere in the mix.

After I finished this post, Trevor also wanted to make a book again.  This time I had him tell me the story, I wrote it on a piece of notebook paper, then I copied it into a homemade book made of construction paper, and he drew the pictures.  It was about a lost dog that is found by a man in a cop car.  It was cute.

The Montessori Review Post

As promised, here I am to talk about Montessori.  I still haven't researched it enough to feel like a resource on the topic, but we've implemented much of the method.  I don't think we'll get totally "into" it as much as other families might.  I'm really quite eclectic when it comes to education methods.  I just do what works, I suppose. 

I really like the ideas about setting up a classroom and managing it the Montessori way.  One of the biggest resources for ideas for anything homeschooling is all the other homeschool blogs on the internet.  When I wanted to set up a little space for the boys, I mostly used this blog post as a model.  Montessori suggests using child-size furniture, which I agree with after trying to give poor Trevor his reading lessons at the counter on bar stools.  He's afraid of falling and slips around a lot.  We bought chairs ($9.99 each) and a table ($3 in the clearance area) at Ikea (I also bought myself a short stool for $2 so I can sit with the boys).  Then I prepared materials for as many free activities as I could find in the books.  It is suggested that you use trays for each activity, but I just used what I had and bought various types of containers at the dollar store.  I think the point is for the materials to always be available and for the kids to be able to see and access them easily.  Here are photos of what we've done:

I also read a book called Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius, by Angeline Stoll Lillard.  I like reading about others' ideas, but I also like knowing they're backed by research.  This book is just a lot of research backing each part of Montessori's methods.  I REALLY liked the chapter about time management and schedules.  I didn't like what the author said about behaviorism, and I think she got it wrong from several viewpoints.  I'm beginning to realize how aversive I truly am to "unschooling."  I like a lot of those ideas, too, but our family just needs a little more structure than unschooling gives.  I'd also like to read Montessori's own guidebook on her methods someday.

Two books I really liked for implementing Montessori (books I like enough to buy eventually and not just borrow) are David Gettman's Basic Montessori, and Maja Pitamic's Teach Me to Do It Myself.  Both books are full of Montessori activities and instructions.  Basic Montessori also gives a thorough and short summary of Montessori, complete with an explanation of the activity categories.  Pitamic's book is ecpecially helpful for two reasons: 1. It has activities that can be made with materials I have at home (cheap!), and 2. It has photos and drawings of the activities, as well as detailed instructions and variations.  Categories include life skills, developing the senses, language development, numeracy, and science.

This method works well for us.  Conrad especially loves Montessori and will quietly work with a tray of materials for quite some time before moving on.  And even at two he can learn the rules.  I usually set him up with a Montessori activity before starting a lesson with Trevor and I only have to help him once or twice, sometimes not at all, depending on the activity and how long he is interested.  Trevor also likes Montessori and plays with the materials during Conrad's naptime when he is expected to choose quiet activities or rest.  At first I tried having the boys do Montessori for a couple hours in the morning, but I might switch it around a little.  We still have a adjusting to do.

Trevor also finished his 56th reading lesson today.

Trevor finished his 50th reading lesson today!  It went so well, and he read the story so quickly at the end.  I had to think back to when we first started the lessons this past summer and I was so cautious, worrying that four was too young to start him with reading lessons.  I just want to mention one thing about consistency that I keep learning over and over.  I may have said this before, but I have to be just as disciplined as Trevor in order for him to enjoy his lessons.  Sometimes it's so easy to make an excuse for not initiating the lesson for the day because Conrad might be in the mood to interrupt too often or maybe I just didn't sleep well the night before.

I have found, however, that if I allow myself to become lax and skip too many lesson in a row, Trevor loses progress and struggles a little.  Of course that is no fun (or fair) for him to have to muddle through a lesson because I was not disciplined enough to start one for a few days.  He only enjoys reading if we're consistent and diligent.  Otherwise he actually tells me he doesn't like lessons.  If I wasn't discerning enough to understand that he is really just telling me he is having a hard time, I might be tempted to quit giving him lessons for a long while.  Even a half lesson or portion of a lesson is better than no lesson at all. 

I need to remember this whenever we start any sort of lessons or units--that I better look before I leap and be sure I am willing to follow through with it consistently, for Trevor's sake. 

Two Math Lessons

Trevor's math lessons are a bit random right now.  I just create them from whatever he's interested in, while supplementing with examples from a very visual "My First Math Book". 

Last week's lesson: Actually, this counts for the week before as well.  We've started addition!  Trevor just soaks up knowledge when it's hands-on.  I made some Paper Plate Numbers from The Toddler's Busy Book (but since he already knows his numbers through 10, we use them for addition rather than learning numbers).  He's supposed to put the beans on top of the shapes and then count them up and look for the plate that equals the sum of the two numbers he's adding.  Then he puts the beans on the shapes of the answer plate to check his answer to see if he added correctly.  He really enjoys it.  And Conrad actually plays at counting with these, too.  He says, "duh, duh, duh," each time I put a bean on a shape.  It makes him feel like he's doing important schoolwork like his big brother. 

This week: Today he was working on an art project outside while I was doing my own painting project (very exciting Christmas gift for the boys!  I'll post something about that on our family blog eventually).  Trevor decided to draw a picture of the earth being flooded and glued a drawing of the ark onto the earth.  Then he started cutting out squares so he could make a house.  I finally realized he was trying to make a 3D house by taping the squares together, so I decided it was a great time to talk about 3D shapes.  We made a net (pattern) for a cube, then we cut it out and made a house out of it.  Then we got out the trusty picture math book and talked about cubes, cylinders, pyramids and the like.  And he got to play with it afterwards!  Here he is holding up the net and the picture he drew of the earth flooding (2nd photo), with his cube house on the table.  He's now telling me his toy chicken also needs a garage.  Sheesh!  Spoiled poultry!