Leave Them Alone: A Moment of Unschooling

 

For The Birds: The Life of Roger Tory Peterson 

Today my little girl amazed me. You'll see why.

This past week I spent the majority of my time working up a PowerPoint presentation on blogging for my local homeschool support group, which required ALL my time to meet the deadline of Thursday night. (I volunteered for the job on Friday last.) I was even editing it one last time while waiting to go on! I was learning PowerPoint on the fly too. Thank goodness I'm a night-owl (or does 1 AM make me an early bird?)

So why am I so amazed at my "little" 12-year-old girl? Because she demonstrated so well how she is maturing. Not by picking up her room without being told (not there yet), or starting a ministry at church (definitely not there yet), but by her ability to work independently. WHAT a blessing! It was maybe only a year ago that I would have had interruption after interruption for one reason or another. ("I can't figure this out! I'm hungry! What do I do next? This makes no sense!" I only have one at home, but it can sound like four.)

But this time---this most-needed, blessed time--I handed her her daily list, and off she went. On one day, around 2  pm, I came down to check on things. I expected to see her watching TV (groan). Instead,  I found her painting at the table. Typically she would have had work left to do, so I was prepared to have to order guide her back to her work, but--ASTONISHMENT--she said she had completed it. AND  rather than watch TV, she decided to paint.

And what was she painting?? A full size copy of a bird from the book I had scheduled her to read!! This was completely her own idea and not one I can remember her choosing to do in forever.  Oh, and did I mention it

was very GOOD??


This last part--the voluntary painting---is what particularly astounded me. If I had scheduled that activity, I'm betting it would have been met with resistance. She has not been known for her inclination toward drawing. So not only had she been trustworthy to complete her assignments unmonitored, she chose something constructive, and she chose something outside her comfort zone. All on her own. She also made herself a healthy snack. Bonus.

My take-away from all this is : 1) that their IS value in unschooling or delight-directed learning, for that was what she was demonstrating, and;  2) my kid will mature, but on GOD's time table, not mine. What I need is patience and acceptance. And plenty of prayer.

Got comments? Got a success story? Tell Mother All About It!

Curriculum Fair Crazy

I just got back from charging through the Maryland Curriculum Fair. I'm wet from the storms, buzzed from the adrenaline rush and pumped for next year. This is what I grabbed for my 10yo Almost-FIFTH-Grader!!:

For Science, we'll be using Exploring Creation with Zoology: Land Animals in the Sixth Day by Apologia (apple-o-GEE-a, I'm corrected). Mei will be glad that I also purchased the Notebooking Journal .  I was entitled to a free DVD by Sherri Seligson from the Apologia Live seminar (which I MISSED because I didn't KNOW that it had just been in BALTIMORE! I'm on the mailing list now!)

For Spelling, I'm either going to switch from, or enhance, Spelling Wisdom (which we've been using this past year) with Natural Speller by Kathryn Stout of Design-a-Study.  I've been a little concerned that Spelling Wisdom might be a bit scattershot in its approach though I really appreciate the dictation of great quotes and passages from literature that it uses, a true Charlotte Mason text. (OOh, I used that dreaded 4-letter word.)

Natural Speller is also CM, but gets down to the task of using phonetic, or other type, groups of lists.  The beauty is I CHOOSE THE WORD LISTS!  I could even choose lists that contain some of the words in the Spelling Wisdom quote of the week. I'll have to play with that.

Another Holling C. Holling book, Minn of the Mississippi , is on Ambleside Online's Year 4 list. Got this copy like new for a discount at a used curriculum dealer. I see lots of notebooking and lapbooking in our future with this one.

I stumbled upon a charming looking Home Economics course for young girls (or boys that are secure in their Y-chromosome) called Lessons in Responsibility Level 3, also listed as Home Economics for Home Schoolers (age 10+) from the Pearables character curriculum writers. Nobody thinks of this! I'm already toying with inviting other cute kids to join us as a coop. In 30 weeks, it covers Nutrition, Cooking, Baking, Ironing, Sewing, CLEANING, Organizing, and Hospitality. There's stuff in  here I don't even know!

BTW, there is also a Lessons in Responsibility for Boys Level 1.

And for the horse-lover, I scored a used, hard-back edition of Marguerite Henry's Album of Horses. It won't matter if the pages are a little dog-eared; they'd end up that way in Mei's hands shortly.

Finally a toy: this Carson Microbrite 20X-40X Zoom LED Lighted Pocket Microscope to take on nature walks. Always wanted something like this. Found it at the Rainbow Resource Company's table (a must-stop-by site). If it's only passable, it didn't set me back.

I ran into a friend who is selling her Latin for Children, Primer A Teacher's Guide and DVD, so I'll be ordering the Student Workbook soon. Only wish I had thought of it while I was there.

Lots to look forward to! My brain is humming. Listen!

Had any fun at curriculum fairs this year?

Do You Want Paper or Electronic with That Curriculum?

I am indebted to Blossom at North Laurel School for her meritorious efforts in cataloging all (or almost all) the Ambleside Online curricula that is available for use on the Kindle. At the turn of the year I always find myself re-evaluating our schooling and looking ahead to the next grade (I say singular "grade" because we are in this .02% of homeschool families with only one student). The thought of curriculum fairs--an excuse for shopping with the girls--fills my head and urges me onward through the dark days of winter (of which in truth I don't mind because they give me an excuse to go to bed earlier and sleep in later).
    Last year I had the notion, with that partly-Scottish blood kicking in, to do a side-by-side economic analysis of the cost of "paper" books vs. e-books to determine if I would be doing our budget a service by investing in a Kindle rather than obtaining curricula in the usual format. Alas, I could not justify it: too few books for AO Year 3 were downloadable. ("Tell Amazon you would like to see this book available for the Kindle!" the searches would always chirp.) It IS possible that my somewhat limited (zero) understanding of the Kindle's Wi-Fi capabilities, which would allow for accessing public domain books online from sources such as Project Gutenburg   , misled my calculations. Or whether that generation of Kindle had even been rolled out yet. It's hard to keep up. They change faster than hemlines on Paris runways.
    So I donated plenty of bread to well-deserving Mom-and-Pop curriculum dealers, especially the USED curriculum dealers. (Score one for the tight-fisted Scots.)
    But now, Blossom's blog convinces me that I've hit the break-even point! (Oh, joy, a toy!) And then she points us to another Jimmie "I'm-a-Homeschool-Mom-with-30-Hours-in-My-Day"  lens on Squidoo.com (love you, Jimmie) that not only gives us all HER reasons for buying--ready?--not one but TWO Kindles, Hers and Little Hers, but includes a video from Simply Charlotte Mason.com comparing the different e-book readers including the iPad. 
   Ok, now I'm really in trouble because NOW I have to decide if it's wiser to buy the iPad for a "little" more and get all its bells and whistles or go with the e-reader because I could sorta trust MeiWei with it. Great. I love decision-making.
    What would you choose?

  
   

"Understood MeiWei"

There is a book we're reading right now that should be on every helicoptering parent's reading list. I'm sure glad it's on ours, and I didn't think I was that much of a pilot.

It's called Understood Betsy.

It was written by my new educational heroine, Dorothy Canfield Fisher (I've even gotten her name memorized) back in 1916. For the many ways Mrs. Fisher contributed to our country, she was named one of America's most influential women by Eleanor Roosevelt, which included the introduction of the Montessori method of teaching to the US. There are many facets of a Montessori education, not the least of which is the child's self-pacing, but that is not what matters here so much. What matters is this book, and what it says to both children and parents.

And this is what it says.

To children, "You'll figure it out. You have what it takes. Have confidence. Try. Fail if necessary."

To parents, it says, "Let THEM figure it out. They DO have what it takes. Have confidence--in them. It's okay to fail."

I have been convicted by this book in my handling of MeiWei. I thought that because I derided over-protective parents who would fight all their children's battles and protect them even from the "dangers" of walking home from the busstop unchaperoned that I was not a 'chopper parent. But because she is rather clumsy and careless, I have gotten into a bad habit of hovering to avoid disasters. This has led to doing things for her. That in turn has created a child that lacks self-confidence, initiative, and risk-taking. It has fed her already innate desire to remain a baby.

The book is extremely funny and at the same time tragic when we realize how much of Betsy's life--nine years--has been wasted by her well-meaning guardian, Aunt Frances. Frances parodies today's helicopter parents: walking Betsy to school every day because she is "so shy", creating in her a fear of dogs, dirt, food, other children, and heaven knows what else. The child even fantasizes her own death since she believes that she is so "frail." Only when fate forces her to be taken in by the "horrid" Putney cousins, quintessential unflappable, unimpressible, mind-your-own-business Yankees, does the chopper land and does Betsy soar.

Understood Betsy is an AmblesideOnline Year 2 reading requirement for children around Betsy's age. What it should be is a reading requirement for every parent who wants to truly understand what a child needs.