Last weekend, we went out to see the salmon run in a local creek. We got there at the tail-end of the run, so the smell of carrion greeted us in the parking lot. I’ve never smelled so much dead stuff. When we got down to the stream, it was clear what was causing the smell.
The dead fish are left in the stream, rotting away. This is important for the ecosystem, because the fish are like compost, introducing nutrients back into the system.
Down in the main trunk of the creek, there were some fish still swimming about. The naturalist standing by to answer our questions said they were “just waiting to die”. There were seagulls circling overhead, and Carbon said he “hoped he’d see a seagull eat out an eyeball”. Yep, boys see nature in a gritty kind of way.
Is it weird that seeing this gave us all a craving […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Driving around with Carbon in the back seat is an exercise in concentration for me. He likes to talk, and his conversations take crazy turns that keep me on my feet. And some of the ideas he wants to talk about are hard to explain! A sample:
Carbon: “If there are vampire bats, are there vampire spiders?”
Me: “No, there is just a bat that sucks on blood, so they named it after a vampire. There aren’t any real vampires - they are just a myth.”
Carbon: “Oh. Are Minotaurs a myth also?”
Me: “Yes. The Minotaur was in the greek myth about the maze, remember?”
Carbon: “But if someone said a word, and the word went into a black hole, could people never say that word again?”
Me: (Shifting gears, where did that come from?) “Well, the sound of that word - the waves that made that sound - would get stuck inside the black […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I am doing UU History in the Religious Education classes at my church, and I sometimes want to use puppets to make the story more interesting. But what if you can’t find the right puppets? And you don’t have time to make them all from complete scratch? Solution: Playmobile on sticks. It works great, and they come in so many different types that I can usually find something like what I need. And they are ridiculously fun to play with mounted on sticks.
Original post by learningumbrella
This weekend my little sister went to Homecoming. This makes me the only one of the four of us who did not go to a high school dance, which is pretty interesting in a family of four homeschooled kids. And I married a guy who also never went to a high school dance, despite the fact that he was a public school pupil.
The whole argument that kids should go to high school for social events like dances is pretty silly and shallow, in my opinion, but just in case this sort of thing actually worries you, here’s anecdotal evidence that homeschooled kids won’t necessarily miss out. If it’s dresses and corsages that make a teenage experience complete, there are lots of ways to get that. I know many homeschool groups put on their own teen dances, but we didn’t go that route.
My brother, N., went to a couple high school […]
Original post by learningumbrella
It’s the official start of the school year, but we’ve been doing Kindergarten since Carbon’s birthday. I’m definitely seeing that some things are working and some are not. First, the good news:
History
The Story of the World really is a marvelous book. History is currently Carbon’s favorite subject, and the way the book is written balances solid information with interesting stories in a way that is pleasing to us both. I’ve been intermixing it with other books that are picture-heavy, especially when we were reading about Ancient Egypt, and that seems to help as well. The only thing we’ve tried for history that has been unsuccessful was when I tried to get a documentary to watch with Carbon. There just don’t seem to be any good and engaging documentaries about ancient history made for little kids! They were all too dry, and he lost interest. Where is the equivalent of Walking […]
Original post by learningumbrella
It’s very frustrating to me, but my five-year-old boy still can’t remember the whole alphabet sequence. He’s still guessing at some letters and sounds, he will not memorize sight words, and we are making what feels like zero progress toward reading. His number sequencing is gradually progressing, but some days it seems like we have just taken a giant step backward there too.
Our daily school work is just the same stuff over and over and over again - ad nauseum to me. And I get a bad case of the kid-comparisons when I see other 5 years olds already reading and adding.
If it was someone else’s kid, I would counsel patience. I would tell another mom that brains are growing just like bodies, and there’s about as much point to comparing brain development between kids as there is in obsessing over their changing shoe sizes. Are they growing? Are they […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I’ve had the idea for this lazy susan organizer for a long time, and last week I finally finished it. I bought the lazy susan at a big box store, and collected cans for a while. We don’t eat very much food from cans, so it took me a long time to actually get enough cans for this project. I bought some juice in a can just because I wanted the big can it came in.
The kids picked out fabric scraps from my closet, and I glued the fabric on. I wrapped duct tape over the open lips, so there wouldn’t be any exposed sharp edges for little ones to get cut.
I experimented with a couple different ideas for attaching the cans to the board. I didn’t have any screws that would go through the cans, and nails didn’t have good grip. In the end, I just glued the cans down, […]
Original post by learningumbrella
It’s funny, but several people have expressed concern that my kids won’t “get any socialization” since I shut down my home daycare. As if seeing the same 4 kids every day in our house was any different from just having lots of siblings!
So, let’s see here. What have we done since we stopped daycare? Last week Carbon was camping for the whole week with his dad and grandfather, and I hear reports that he built a fort on the beach with other children he encountered there. But yes, for most of that week he was deprived, as he fished and camped and had time with his dad and Poppy, but no planned playtime with same-age peers. Just nature and adventure and family - poor boy. Hypatia had a playgroup last week, and I took her to the playground twice where she played with other kids. She also had her nanny […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I had a chemistry professor once tell me that studying science was a progressive discovery of all the lies you’ve been told along the way. That, basically, to simplify things so that most people/kids can understand them, bits of the real truth have to get left out. That idea really stuck with me, and I’ve always wanted to be able to present as much of the truth as I understood to my kids from the very beginning, while being honest about what was too complicated or “weird” to get into.
And I’ve tried, even as people roll their eyes while I launch into some complicated explanation of electrons or molecular bonding with a two year old. The result? A child that comes up to me this morning (before I’ve had any coffee, too) and says he “doesn’t understand time” and “does it have anything to do with electrons?” and “can you […]
Original post by learningumbrella
We are still using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Nebel. I see some drawbacks to this program, however. The lesson plans are written in full-on, formal educationese, and I honestly don’t want to read that much to figure out what I’m supposed to do. I’d rather have a bulleted list of steps, because I’m looking for something quick to skim and follow, not a huge chapter to read before I sit down with him.
But it’s still going well. After our first lesson with sorting and categorizing, we had a lesson to learn the difference between solids, liquids, and gases. Then we’ve had a few lessons focused on air, with a few good experiments from the book Let’s Try it Out in the Air. We also read Air is All Around You, and Carbon seems to understand the tricky concept that air has mass and volume - that it weighs […]
Original post by learningumbrella
The 100-Species Challenge
I saw this challenge at Ragamuffin Rosies, and we have to do this one! The idea is to identify 100 plant species within walking distance of your house. We are going to have fun with this! I’ve created a page to keep track of our 100 species, and I’ll try to get some pictures too if I can.
1. Participants should include a copy of these rules and a link to this entry in their initial blog post about the challenge. I will make a sidebar list of anyone who notifies me that they are participating in the Challenge.
2. Participants should keep a list of all plant species they can name, either by common or scientific name, that are living within walking distance of the participant’s home. The list should be numbered, and should appear in every blog entry about the challenge, or in a sidebar.
3. Participants are encouraged […]
Original post by learningumbrella
You may have noticed that not many of my posts have been about homeschooling lately. That’s because we haven’t really been doing any school for the last few weeks. When I got sick, we didn’t do any school, and it doesn’t take long for habits and routines to get all messed up. I tried to get us back into the habit of “school time” after I was feeling better, but it hasn’t been working very well. With the sun out, the kids just want to go back outside after lunch. Daycare Baby has been very fussy and demanding of late, and it’s hard to supervise school with a squirming babe in arms (who screams if you set him down and naps in little 20 minute stretches). And my own mind has been distracted by the transition we are working toward, getting ready for the end of daycare and the start […]
Original post by learningumbrella
This week we began Kindergarten with science. I’ve decided to use Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding by Bernard Nebel, because why reinvent the wheel? It is comprehensive, and it’s based on contructivist educational theory. Although it’s designed for classroom use, I don’t see a problem adapting it for our purposes.
Carbon was very excited to start with science - his “second favorite subject” (these favorites change constantly, depending on what we’ve recently done).
But the first lesson was a disappointment to him. We had a big pile of random stuff from around the house, and the task was to sort/organize/categorize it and discuss the meaning of those terms. He was good at this - he even asked for a ruler and made a pile of “less than 5 inches” and a pile of “bigger than 5 inches”. But he was not thrilled by the exercise.
“I thought science would be something cooler than […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I can finally tell you all about this, because everyone who needed to find out first hand has been told now. It’s very exciting- I have a new full-time job, as the Director of Religious Education at my Unitarian Universalist church. I’ve been feeling a tug on my heart-strings, calling me to do this work, and it is the kind of work that I love the most. I will get to play with curriculum, find and create stories, organize people, try out new programs, write, read, listen, and watch children grow. I’ll also have the mundane chores of keeping a program going, but even those are things I enjoy (maintaining records, budgets, organized space, etc.).
It’s going to mean big changes for my family. I’m closing the daycare, which is sad because the kids will miss each other. I need to find part-time care for Carbon and Hypatia. I’m going to keep […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Check this quiz out. It’s pretty funny.
I scored 32, which translates to a “getting there” overachiever that inspires plenty of insecurity in others but only local envy.
Original post by learningumbrella
There hasn’t been any homework done around here while I’ve been sick and recovering. But there really is learning in everything, so here’s a sample of what has filled our time:
1. Too much TV. Probably not educational in the least, but we have caught a bit of interesting news coverage and some good stuff on PBS and Discovery. I’ve reached my quota of old episodes of CSI and Law & Order.
2. Movies: The Last Mimzy, Becoming Jane, The Bee Movie, and Juno.
3. Cooking with other people. Carbon’s new ambition is to be a chef when he grows up (inspired by watching Top Chef with me). He’s been practicing with his aunts and his dad - although they aren’t as sanguine as Mom and won’t let him use the sharp knives. But he’s had fun seeing how other people do things in the kitchen.
4. Reading: The River of Green Knowe and […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Sometimes people become incredibly attached to their “method” of homeschooling and seem unable to see any other way of doing things. I think of these people as being very similar to a new religious convert, eager to tell everyone why this way is the best and convince everyone else to join them. They are also willing to say that this method is the best for every child, and that those who “failed” with this method just weren’t doing it right, not that the method didn’t work.
If you feel very strongly about your method, that’s fine. Clearly, it is working for you, and you should keep doing it. But, I don’t think there is any way that the complexity and miracle of humanity, including children, can be completely explained by any one theory or addressed by one method. Children are far more complex than we sometimes give them credit for, and […]
Original post by learningumbrella
We are doing Spanish for our language, although I think I’d like to also do sign language with the kids. But for now, we’ll stick with the Spanish. It’s currently on our schedule one day a week.
My goals for Carbon for Spanish this coming year are: to be able to count to 20 in Spanish, to know all the colors, to know the body parts, to know the days of the week, and to work toward a vocabulary of around 200 other words.
I’m not completely satisfied with the materials we are using, so if anyone has a suggestion, I’d welcome it. What we are using:
My First Bilingual Little Readers
Let’s Learn Spanish Coloring Book
Hablo Espanol: Creative Activities to Teach Basic Spanish
Spanish For Kids
All of these resources are OK, but a bit slim. I suppose I would like a fun and complete language course for little kids, that wasn’t expensive (we’re not […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Carbon turns 5 next month, and we are “officially” starting Kindergarten after his birthday. As year-round schoolers, we don’t see a need to wait until Fall.
So I get to make plans! The schedule is going to be a short “pull out” for Carbon 2 days a week, and then gradually moving up to 4 days a week. He’ll still get the “school time” with the daycare preschoolers, and then this Kindergarten time will be something special just for him.
The “3 R’s”
Because handwriting is just worksheets, he’ll keep doing that during preschool time.
He’ll also have worksheets for math during that time. The rest of math will most likely be the Miquon Math Lab with cuisenaire rods. The emphasis for us is on truly understanding the number line and being able to count, skip count, backwards count, etc. Then we will start a very small amount of addition, always using real physical […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I just read an “interesting” article about Muslim homeschoolers. It states, in part, that choosing to homeschool for Muslims is part of creating “social ghettoes”, and that the wider culture has to pressure “the melting pot” and reject “multiculturalism”. It also says that the melting pot has worked well for previous generations of immigrants.
My problem with this argument comes from my readings of American history, especially the history of education in America. Did it really benefit the Native Americans to have their languages and religions forbidden in school - forced boarding schools for many of them? Language has always been a big part of “Americanizing” new comers, but there is also religion and culture. I am very uncomfortable with the notion that we have to force people who are different to assimilate into one culture. I don’t want anyone to force me to be just like the mainstream - for […]
Original post by learningumbrella
My father liked the saying “do as I say, not as I do”. It’s basically permission for parents to be hypocrites, drinking and telling their kids not to drink, spending crazy amounts of money and telling their kids to be thrifty, etc. I’m sure he didn’t plan on being a hypocrite, it’s just that he also knew there were plenty of things he didn’t have down “right”. And it’s normal to want your children to do better than you did, to avoid the mistakes you made, and somehow be the people we talk about but aren’t necessarily ourselves.
The problem is, why would any child do that? Sure, there are some cases where we can learn from the mistakes of others - but isn’t it usually when that person is “reformed” and looking back with regret at those mistakes.
Children look to their parents to see how they should behave in this […]
Original post by learningumbrella
My father liked the saying “do as I say, not as I do”. It’s basically permission for parents to be hypocrites, drinking and telling their kids not to drink, spending crazy amounts of money and telling their kids to be thrifty, etc. I’m sure he didn’t plan on being a hypocrite, it’s just that he also knew there were plenty of things he didn’t have down “right”. And it’s normal to want your children to do better than you did, to avoid the mistakes you made, and somehow be the people we talk about but aren’t necessarily ourselves.
The problem is, why would any child do that? Sure, there are some cases where we can learn from the mistakes of others - but isn’t it usually when that person is “reformed” and looking back with regret at those mistakes.
Children look to their parents to see how they should behave in this […]
Original post by learningumbrella
I try to think of my TV as a “window on the world” and not just an “idiot box”. There’s a lot of stupid stuff available through the TV, but then again there’s a lot of stupid stuff available through print and on the internet too. It’s all in how you use the tool, I think.
The kids enjoy, but also learn a little tiny something, from shows like Dora and Sesame Street. I try to get Dora on DVD or On Demand, so there won’t be commercials to fill their minds with consumer messages. Then we have The Discovery Channel, and the fascinating show How It’s Made which shows the manufacturing process for all sorts of strange things. Animal Planet and the History Channel also sometimes offer up things we can learn from.
Netflix lets me match documentaries to the school schedule. When my sister was studying colonial history, she watched […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Goodness I am behind my usual schedule! This weekend we had birthday parties and other stuff to do, and then Monday Carbon threw up and was sick, and then yesterday a wind storm blew a tarp off our roof into our power lines …
Somehow I feel like I am just keeping my chin above the water line right now. But to try and get back into the swing of things, here is my February planning post.
Preschool
We are reading all the Snow White and Snow Queen stories. We are making crafts for Valentine’s Day. And we are still reading books about Asia and doing projects related to Asia. I plan on doing some more origami, making a fish wind sock out of the sleeves of some old men’s shirts from the thrift store, practicing eating with chopsticks, and watching some kids Anime movies. I have a new math manipulative, a number […]
Original post by learningumbrella
Go read this Wonderful post at Handmade Homeschool
Original post by learningumbrella
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