Letter from this smart person with smart kids

I subscribe to a variety of blogs.  Far too many blogs probably, but I like to read and i'm too cheap to subscribe to a bunch of magazines, so when I find a good stream of articles, I like to hold on to that.  One of the blogs I subscribe to is API Speaks.  What is this?  It's the blog put out by Attachment Parenting International.  If you don't know what Attachment Parenting is... well... maybe that's just screaming for another blog post from me on the topic.  But regardless, that's what I was reading this morning.  And the title of today's post was "Letter to that smart person with smart kids".

And, despite the risk of alienating a bunch of my readers with my fantastic ego, I'm going to go ahead and write a letter back. 

Walk Like An Egyptian

As you may recall, last summer we dove into the world of caves and had alot of fun (and shhhhh learned a bunch, but don't tell the kids).  This summer's topic has been selected and it's a good 'un. 

Egypt.

Ancient primarily, but we'll do a little bit of "then and now" to keep it real too.  Today was the 5th day of summer vacation and we had done no Egypting yet, so we were overdue.

A few hours later, after a trip to the library, the thrift store, and Mama's makeup box, we had...

The Three Trumpeteers

It's good to have miscellaneous musical instruments laying around....

Virtual School

Henry has been doing Connections Academy online public school for two weeks now and I thought I'd give you my initial reactions.

Pros:

*We can schedule our days as we like.  Unlike regular public school (afternoon kindergarten - ick!) we can schedule school around our family instead of the other way around.

*Fun art projects.  I love art, but doing art with kids too often seems like sooo much work that I tend to shy away from it.  But when it's an assigned project, I have no choice, right?  And it's been fun.  Interesting projects, but not TOO involved, and much better than what he was doing at his last school.

"Art" project at his last school...

 And from this school...

If you're wondering, that last one is a rocket ship yarn sculpture launching in my kitchen.


*Accountability from the teacher.  As you may have guessed, getting things done and staying on task is not my strong suit.  We've gotten alot more done these last two weeks since I have to submit our hours and check off lessons as we do them.  It's helpful for me to have that external motivation.  It seems to also motivate Henry to have another adult who is checking up on what he is doing.  Could certain other adults in the house play this role?  Sure.  Do they?  No.

*Ability to skate through boring stuff.  Since I am the one facilitating the lessons, we can fly through easy or boring lessons, just doing the bare minimum, and we can take the time to really delve deeply into the things Henry is more excited about and really enjoys.  We can take things more at HIS pace.

*It's public school.  So when I tell people what he is doing for school, they are generally pretty interested and positive.

Cons:

*It's a LOT of work.  Henry has a lot of lessons to do each day.  And a decent amount of prep work is expected from me too.  It can get pretty tricky to get it all done with the baby slowing us down.  And some of the stuff seems like "fluff" that I would skip if I were the one in charge of lessons planning instead of the teacher.

*It's public school.  So they have lots of requirements on hours, attendance, lessons that need to be done (though some lessons are marked optional), etc.  And some of the lessons are fairly unimaginative.  It does give alot more flexibility than traditional public school, but it's NOT homeschool.

So, I think the final word today is that while it isn't perfect, and I'm not sure we'll still be doing it next year, it seems to be a really great option for us at this juncture in our lives.

Our School Year: Take 2

We've had a big shift in our schooling scenario, so I should probably bring you all up to speed on what's going on here in the mire.

The day has finally come that I NEVER thought I would see (and frankly, hoped not to see).  All of my children (Ivy excepted) are in public school.  It makes me both sick and excited at the same time.

First, Violet is in the same preschool she has been in all year - no change there.  It is the local school district preschool, meets once a week, and is very fun and low key and play-based.  She enjoys going and I like her teachers - two thumbs up.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Next, Henry has been withdrawn from our local school and has been enrolled in a free public virtual school.  I didn't really like Henry's kindergarten class from day 1, but at first he was having a good time and so that was good enough for me.  At five years old, I'm not too concerned about academics, I just want him to have fun learning.  But as the year went on, the newness wore off, and the schoolwork was continually not very challenging, Henry began to loathe going.  And as a person who never liked the school to begin with, I had a very hard time forcing him to go.  I can put the smack down and be firm with my kids when it is something I believe in, but forcing him to go to a boring school every day just for the sake of attendance really rubbed me the wrong way.  So I let him stay home.  Often.  That was kind of our compromise.  He didn't have to go every day, but he did have to go fairly regularly.  It worked for us until January when the principal threatened to turn me in for educational neglect.  I just cracked up over that one!  He had finished the end of the year objectives a couple of months into the school year and wasn't learning anything new most days and I'M the one who is neglecting his education?  She informed me that he had missed approximately 40% of the school days so far and she was concerned that it was detrimental to his education.  I informed HER that if he can miss 40% of the classes and still master all of the work then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with how they are running that class.  And I withdrew him.

My hubby is pretty pro-public-school so my compromise with him was that I enrolled Henry in an online virtual public school.

I have heard from many homeschoolers that they really don't like the virtual schools because they aren't very flexible and many people just end up dropping out and homeschooling instead.  Fair enough.  But for us, I think it is the right choice for the rest of this year.  It keeps peace between me and hubby, makes my homeschooling job easier since the lessons are all planned out for me and the supplies are provided, and Henry will be able to work through the coursework as fast as he likes.  No waiting for the rest of the class to "get it" before moving on.  So for now, I think it will work - I'll keep you updated on that one.

Lastly, Mitchell is enrolled in a big fat brick-and-mortar public school (NOT the same school we took Henry out of).  Complete with bells, cafeteria, desks, and a crabby school secretary.  That is a decision I was very torn over.  In a lot of ways, it felt like giving up on him.  I feel like I could have kept homeschooling him, and we could have been successful academically, but the cost to our family dynamic and our relationship troubled me.  In the end we decided to give it a try and just see how it went.  He's been there for two weeks now and so far so good.  The teacher and principal both have been very responsive and seem to be more than willing to try to make the experience a good one for him.  It is a special school-within-a-school program so it has more of the small school feel that we are used to from our former private school.  They also incorporate skill groups and multi-age classrooms to both make sure that kids are getting work at their particular skill level and also to develop a sense of community among all the classes.   For him particularly I also think that the structure will be good.  It is something that is highly recommended for kids with ADHD and something I have absolutely no talent for. I feel like this is something I can live with, at least for now, and it seems like Mitchell can too.

I have no idea where any of the kids will be for school come September, but it feels good to be in a place where it seems like everyone fits.

And... Action!

Today we tried to complete part #2 of the Deep Space Sparkle Winter Trees art project, and thankfully it went much much better than part #1.  It might seem a little crazy to even consider continuing on after our last art debacle, but I figured if we can survive shaving cream without anyone getting strangled, Cray-pas should be no problem.  Turns out I was right. 

To increase our chances of success, we started while the baby was taking one of her rare loooong afternoon naps.  VERY helpful.  But now before I get too far, let me tell you that we did not in fact complete the winter trees.  All those swirly papers are still unadorned.  But something much much better happened.

In an effort to be a little more creative, instead of just saying, "Let's make trees", I asked them what the designs reminded them of.  Violet said swirls (obvious, but no less true), and Henry said wind or waves.  I rolled with the waves thing and showed him how we could make draw fish on construction paper and cut them out to add them to the picture.  He loved it and made a fish of his own, but he couldn't bear to glue them on to the paper.  They were too fun to play with.

Then he had a light-bulb moment. 

"Hey Mom, what we really need is some sticks!  Then it could be a puppet!"

What followed took up our entire afternoon and the swirly papers were forgotten.  I gotta tell you, making stick/paper/Cray-pas puppets is VERY gratifying.  You can get a kick-ass looking puppet made in about five minutes.  So you can imagine the volume of characters and whatnot we were able to make in an afternoon.  I made a bunch myself too because it was just way too fun not to join in.

After we were done creating, they spent a good long while developing a story and practicing it and just having fun.

After dinner Henry and Violet put on their show for the rest of us and I grabbed the video camera and was able to capture a moment (actually about eleven moments) that pretty much summed up all the children's personalities in a nutshell.  There was little plot, but tons of personality, just the way I like it :-)

Ceta-cular!

This week Henry has been showing a sustained interest (read as: asking about it multiple days in a row) in whales.  It started with a picture of mine that I unearthed from one of our moving boxes of a whales tail at sunset.  He was wondering what it was and I told him.  Then he started carrying around the plastic blue whale from our bath toy bin and asking a lot of questions about whales and the ocean as we drove around dropping off Mitch at school and picking him up (Mitch and school is a whole other post I will share later).  Yesterday he was asking a lot of good questions about blue whales.  I knew that blue whales were the biggest animal on earth, but that was about as much as I could tell him.  Most of his other questions I just had to say, "Hmmm.... I'm not sure, that's something we should look up."  So today we started looking them up.  I stumbled upon a fantastic interactive page on the National Geographic website that tells all about blue whales and compares their length and weight to all kinds of fun things like a space shuttle, a T-Rex, and a tank.  We also watched an animation of how whales feed.  There is a lot of fun information on the site and we didn't get to it all so hopefully we will be back another day to learn more (or if he doesn't want to, I'll go on there myself, it's a VERY cool site).

Here are some of my favorite things we learned today:

*A blue whale's heart is about the size of a Mini Cooper!  And if you are particularly agile, it's major arteries are big enough for a person to crawl through.

*A blue whale weighs about the same as 2,660 people.  About 100 people can fit in its mouth.  We had fun talking about who we would have to throw on the scale to reach 2,660 - our church, all our friends, all our family members, his class, Violet's class, Mitchell's class, and still we wouldn't be able to tip the scale our way!


When we were at the Science Museum last we needed to take a little break for Ivy to nurse and then crawl around a bit and found a lovely little book nook to rest in.  While we were resting we read one of the books they had out called "How Whales Walked Into The Sea".  A VERY interesting book that I highly recommend and one that I'm thinking we need to add to our personal collection because I really want to reread it.  Did you know that whales were land animals first?  I didn't until I read that book to Henry.  He and I were both pretty awed.  The natural world is just FULL of truly amazing stuff. 

Mr. Independent

I am very proud of Mitchell today.  He wanted cookies today and you know what he did?  He made them himself.  At first he wanted us to make them together, but I was in the middle of a math activity with Henry and Violet and said I wasn't in the mood to make cookies.  I told him if he wanted cookies he could make them himself though.  So he did.

He threw a bit of a fit at first because he wanted help reading the box and I wouldn't come in the kitchen, but eventually he brought me the box, I gave him a few pointers, and away he went.  That all by itself was an accomplishment.  Often, when he tries to do a big project, as soon as he comes across a bump of some sort, he gets derailed and moves on to something else.  I didn't think he'd actually make the cookies all by himself without me at least directing.

Imagine my surprise when not only did he make cookies, but he was also very benevolent in involving Henry and Violet in helping him AND they cleaned up all the mess when they were done!  He almost got distracted after the first batch went in the oven - 8 minutes is a looooong time for a kids with ADHD (or any kids!) to wait - but he managed to make it through and when they came out he was there to smell and taste and prepare another pan to go in.  After they were done, there was great feasting and I was the proudest mama in town.

My Perfect Child

Here she is!

Now, anyone who knows her will know that she's far from perfect, but I just had the "good mama moment" of the year here so bear with me.

Last night we had Violet's first preschool conferences.  I've done preschool conferences before many times.  Twice a year for Henry and Mitchell, two years of preschool each so that's... uh... do I add or multiply?  Mmmm... I think i've done eight.  Yeah, eight.  Plus kindergarten, first, and second grade conferences, so i'm definitely in the double digits in my conference experience.  So far the conferences have followed a definite theme.  That theme being, "He's very bright and we love him and he has lots of friends BUT we have some serious behavior issues to work on."  Over and over again the same things from each teacher for each boy.

Violet has a lot of similar traits as the boys, but is also much more compliant and cheerful by comparison.  So I was hoping her conference might go a bit better, but I was also prepared for a list of things we need to "work on".

You could have knocked me over with a feather as I walked out of that conference.  I was stunned.  They did nothing but rave about Violet and tell me how impressed they were and how well-rounded she was.  They used words like friendly, social, independent, self-directed, and well-behaved.  She uses all the materials, she makes friends, she sings the songs, she counts, she gets a teacher when she needs help or has a disagreement with another child.  She is handling all the academic work just fine (which isn't much - counting and identifying colors and such - but still).  They couldn't think of a single thing she needed to work-on.  On the part of the conference form where you write down goals for the rest of the year they could only put "Keep up the good work!"

It just made me a little bummed that she was going to the public preschool instead of the Montessori school that the boys attended.  They both had the same teacher (poor woman!) so she got five years straight of dealing with my boys.  I was really hoping that she might have gotten to see that I'm not an awful parent.  I really CAN raise obedient and pleasant children.

Though in their defense, while obedient and pleasant is a refreshing change for our household, it is somewhat overrated.  There is definitely something to be said for wild and ornery little boys who have an incredible zest for life and a curiosity that can't be beat.  They are so much fun.  I feel very lucky to get to raise some of each kind of child.

We're Heeeere!

I've been missing in action for quite a while now, but the move is DONE!  Well, in the sense that we are living fairly comfortably in the new house anyways.  Our old house is still full of miscellaneous stuff that we still need to move either into the trash, the Goodwill pile, or boxes to bring over, but the heavy lifting is done.  Besides the physical move, we've also been having quite the homeschool journey as well.  More and more of my ideas about what to teach and how to teach just keep flying out the window.

Mitchell just keeps rebelling against any attempts on my part to TEACH him.  Though now that I think about it, he's been that way for the last eight years.  Even as a toddler and preschooler, if you tried to show him something, like say how to hold a baseball bat properly, he would always say either "I already KNOW how to do that" or "I don't want to".  He always wants to do things his way.  Partially out of orneryness I guess, but also because he has so darn many ideas about the world and how it works and how it SHOULD work that he doesn't have time for anyone else's ideas.  And I suppose he's been "spoiled" by his last five years of Montessori schooling (in a good way).

I was having a really hard time finding anything that would let him have the level of independence he was used to.  There were some computer based curriculums, but those were pretty spendy and I don't think he would have allowed himself to be chained to a computer either.  But God watches over us and a book that I put on my PaperbackSwap wishlist a long time ago arrived in the mail.  It was Elizabeth G. Hainstock's book "Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years".  It has been a lifesaver!  Not only does it tell me how to introduce the different activities, it also gives me tips on how to make or buy the Montessori materials I need cheap or free.

So far for Mitchell i've just gotten together the materials for the multiplication board and the multiplication summary sheets, but my plan is to try to make at least one new material a week for Mitchell and also for the rest of the kids. Watching Mitch work on math happily and excitedly (and independently!) inspired me to start introducing Montessori works to my other children as well.

We've already been doing a pretty good job with our Montessori baby I think.  She uses the potty, has toys of all different materials, eats the kitchen utensils, and doesn't wear restrictive clothing so she can move and groove on the floor with the best of them.  Last week I started introducing some cursive to Henry and he's just eating it up.  My goal is to slowly but surely increase my collection of Montessori preschool and elementary materials so by the time Ivy is ready for them, i'm ready for her too.

That's the bummer about being the oldest I think - you are always the guinea pig.  But you also get to be the teacher too.  Mitchell has taught me sooo much about what it means to teach, what it means to be a mom.  He took all the ideas I had about kids when I was a high school babysitter, how I was going to parent someday, and just ripped them to shreds.  Sad kind of, but i'm older and MUCH wiser now thanks in no small part to him.

Getting Started "For Real"

The move to our new house is looming over us - just two weeks away.  I was hoping to wait until after we moved to really start homeschooling in earnest, but when school started for Henry and preschool for Violet, it seemed like it was time to dig in a little with Mitchell too.  Our old school ended in May so it had already been a long summer.

I felt prepared though.  I had chosen a math curriculum and an English curriculum and decided to do more unschooling and child-led learning for the other subjects, so we got started.  It seems to me like things have been going well this last week, but there has been a certain theme that has carried through our week and continues on as we start this week.  And the theme is "That's not how my other teacher did it".  It seems like everything I try to do with Mitchell, he's comparing me to his Montessori teacher.  And let me tell you, those are quite big shoes to fill.  I feel really bad that he's had such a good educational experience and now I'm not living up to that.  I thought I would be a good teacher, and I do feel that I'm doing a decent job, but it really hurts that I can't offer him the kind of teaching he is wanting right now.  I'm doing my best, but I'm just not Montessori trained, and while I have a pretty good grasp of what goes on in a primary classroom, I'm not as familiar at all with what they do and how they do it in an elementary classroom.  He wants me to give him fewer, shorter lessons and then let him work independently, but I just don't have things set up that way here now.  Frankly, I don't have anything "set-up", we're working out of a box as everything gets packed for the move.  But even worse, I have no idea how to set up a framework for homeschool where he can be hands-on AND independent like he was at his Montessori school.  It seems like for the most part, the hands-on type of things require more parent involvement, and the independent curriculum are all on the computer or are heavy on the workbooks.

Henry too is not having a stellar start to the school year.  Already I'm communicating frequently with his teacher about his behavior.  Typical Henry stuff, nothing too dramatic, but still.  I am also not very impressed with the coursework.  They are starting out the year with their letters and numbers and shapes and friendship skills.  Henry covered all that in kindergarten (though you can never practice friendship skills too much).  It seems like they will be getting to some topics that will be new to him soon, but he too is lamenting the loss of his old school.  He misses the practical life activities and thinks it is ridiculous that they don't get to bake in kindergarten.  He vacillates between saying school is awesome and saying it is boring and he doesn't want to go.  As long as I keep getting the "awesome" answer regularly, we'll stick with it, but I'm predicting I may be homeschooling both boys much sooner than I had originally planned.

I'll keep searching for the right fit for us, educationally, whether it be finding the right curriculum or finding a way to get the kids back into their old school, but right now I'm feeling pretty discouraged.  It has not been our best "back-to-school".

I think we just might be okay...

Last night I got one of those rare glimpses of how siblinghood SHOULD be.  One of those moments parents dream about but rarely happen in real life.

I did a fairly adequate job of putting everyone to bed last night.  They got a bedtime snack, a story, AND got to pick where they wanted to sleep.  Henry picked Ivy's bed in the basement (Ivy picked the cosleeper in our room), Mitchell picked the couch, and Violet picked the floor in her room.  I find that when I have the guts to go ahead and let them sleep wherever they want, they usually fall asleep pretty fast.  It's annoying when they pick to be in our room or the livingroom because that kind of puts a damper on mine and hubby's nighttime "adult" activities (no, no, not THOSE adult activities, I mean like eating Kempswiches and swilling Dr. Pepper while playing cribbage).  I am pretty sure though that Mitch picks the livingroom for exactly those reasons.  He likes to eavesdrop on us and beg for some of our snacks.  Henry hasn't realized what kind of things his parents do at night so he picks the basement so he can be closer to us when we go to bed.

Anyways, everyone got tucked in bed and Mitchell informed me that he was really going to sleep in Violet's bed (since she wasn't using it anyways) but that he wanted to stay up and read on the couch until she fell asleep because she's annoying and loud (a fair evaluation).  So Henry toddled downstairs and fell asleep the minute his head hit the pillow, and Mitch started looking for a book.  I had already packed up a few boxes of books so the picking was slim. 

He turned to me, pointed to a faux-leather bound volume and asked "Is this a book of poetry?". 

I looked at the title, shocked, "No buddy, that's not poetry, that's Edgar Allen Poe.  Actually I think there are a few poems in that one, but mostly it's short stories."  This was like a dream come true.  I LOVE literature and poetry and all things related to the English language, but so far it seemed like Mitch was only interested in stuff like "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (which I am fairly certain may have been written by the devil?  I hate those books, but hey, at this point i'll go for anything that gets him to do some independent reading.)  I looked through what was left on my shelves and found a large volume of American poetry and handed it to him.

"I like poetry", he said.  "When I read the words it makes music in my head like a song."

"Well," I said, "Songs are just poetry with music added to them, so you're right on there."  I pointed to a couple of poems in the book that were also songs - The Star Spangled Banner and America The Beautiful.

We sat down on the couch and he perused the poetry book while I sat next to him and worked on my knitting.  He then decided to write his own poetry and invited me to help him (I enthusiastically agreed).  Here's what we came up with together...

A possum, A blossom
A piece of cherry pie
A seashell on the shore
Just like a star up in the sky
Bright as a firefly

I was so proud I could burst.  When I was a teenager and imagining what my kids would be like, what motherhood would be like, THIS is what I imagined, not all the other stuff.

After he got bored of writing poetry he asked me when we were going to start homeschooling and I said "Whenever you want."  He decided he wanted to start right then.  He made himself a math folder to keep his work-in-progress in, then asked if he could work on teaching Violet to read.  Violet certainly wasn't asleep (she kept poking her head out of the door and looking at us) so I said "Sure, go ahead".  He asked her if she wanted a lesson and she was bouncing up and down and grinning as she said "Yeah!".  They went into the kitchen and Mitchell helped her spell some simple words like mom and dad with the magnetic letters.  Then they called me in to see and I watched Violet put m-o-m on the fridge.  It was adorable.  After they tired of that, the hubby tucked Violet back into bed and we taught Mitchell how to play Pente.  He did pretty well on my team (we battled Daddy) but then I played Daddy on my own a few rounds to show Mitch how to kick someone's butt at Pente.  After a bit we tucked him into bed on the couch and went outside in the garage to have a beer in private, but it was really a great night.  The kind of night that renews my faith in my kids and in my ability to mother them.  Maybe I haven't completely screwed them up yet.  Maybe there's still hope for our family :-)

For Love or Money

So, while I have NEVER done anything worthwhile that I have gotten paid for (wait, the one exception is the summer I was a camp counselor, but that's it)  I HAVE done lots of cool stuff for free.  In my latest brush with fame I was interviewed by a reporter from the Wall Street Journal about what parents think about grade retention.  I was a little ticked that they got my story wrong and misrepresented ADHD drugs as the wonder cure, but hey, at least I was in the national media.  Up until now i've just done local stuff like this and this and this and this and this.  The Pork Wars one was actually listed as one of the most memorable stories of 2008.

One thing I just did that I did get paid for though, was write a 350 word article about rice.  I got paid 5 bucks through Amazon Mechanical Turk.  It's a nifty little deal through Amazon.com where you do different tasks (mostly online) and get paid.  Lots of tasks pay less than a dollar, but there are a few that pay a bit more.  Some skilled (like translating) and some unskilled.  It won't make me famous, or rich, but hey, it's five bucks and I didn't have to deliver a pizza to get it.

My 15 minutes of fame

It seems like i've been getting my 15 minutes of fame in about 3 minute increments. I was interviewed for about 10 whole seconds of on-air footage on the local news when my step-dad passed out behind the wheel and drove through someone's house in his truck. I've done a few different segments for Minnesota Public Radio. The Star Tribune interviewed me for a story on cloth diapers. But this is the first time i've contributed to something national.

A reporter from the Wall Street Journal called me for a phone interview on retaining kids a grade. It was very exciting to thing that my thoughts will be going out to WSJ readers all across the country and maybe the world! The reporter found me through Cafemom.com, where an interesting debate has been going on about whether holding kids back is good or bad. For those of you who may not know, we decided to hold Mitchell back for a second try at first grade, so weighing the pros and cons was something we spent alot of time researching and thinking and praying about.

My take on it? It is a very individual decision. Sometimes it can be just what a kid needs to get a firmer grasp on the basics, gain confidence, and mature a bit. On the other hand, it can also make a bad situation worse. So I think that only each parent can decide for their own kid whether holding them back will be good or bad.

What do you think about holding kids back in school?