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March 20th, 2006
09:53 am - Biology 101
It seems we may have some unexpected biology lessons coming our way very soon.
Our adorable rat Athena died about a month ago of neurological problems. She just suddenly started having seizures.
A few weeks later, we decided that her cagemate Aphrodite really, REALLY needed a new friend --- that instant. Okay, so we're not good at delayed gratification. Off to the petstore we went. And home came Pandora, a spunky, sweet little girl.
Thing is, petstores largely are breeding rats as feeders for snakes. The employees and those who breed for them don't really have much concern for these animals or experience with them. We knew all this, and if we had any patience we would've gone to a rat breeder (yes, really!) and waited a month or two for a litter, and so forth.
Pandora is adorable, well-socialized, lovable, spunky..... and pregnant, it now appears. Seems that they didn't separate the boys from the girls early enough there. I'm not 100% certain -- but pretty close. Either that or she needs a serious reducing diet right now. We'll know for sure by the end of the week -- gestation period is about 21 days in rats, and we've had her for a little over two weeks at this point.
So it looks like the wonders of birth and nursing are in our future, and as city-folk, we don't get to witness this sort of thing often. I'm rather excited, actually, except for the part where we have to find homes for about 13 baby rats. I don't want them ending up as snake food.
At any rate, if I am right, the kid will be getting a whole lot of real-life experience with the wonders of reproduction in the next week or so. Should be an exciting week!
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October 1st, 2005
12:38 am
Why do adults tell children that the smart kid is harassed because the other kids are "just jealous?" Does anyone, in fact, believe this? Is it actually true that the popular kids were really "just jealous" of my amazing test prowess, and all along they hoped they could be the skinny nerd girl? Because I just don't believe it -- any more than I did when people used to tell me that as a child. Someone told Lydia this the other day (not in the context of *her* getting picked on, thank goodness), and I just wanted to bust out laughing.
Is it that this is the answer we'd most like to be true?
Thank goodness Lydia's never really been exposed to this kind of nonsense. She was picked on, a bit, at her Montessori school, but because the children worked individually or in small groups, the kids who learned easily didn't stand out as much. Overall, she always has been outgoing and social, and even when she was having a lot of difficulties with her OCD, she always had friends who clamored to be with her.
I was hoping that, by homeschooling, we would sidestep all of the cliquishness of the elementary school set, but it manages to creep into our life nonetheless. At Girl Scouts, Lydia made a friend who went on and on about how she was 'in with the cool kids' and how it 'took her a while, but she'd worked her way up to being in' and did Lydia want her to 'pull a few strings' for her, even though Lydia'd still 'have to work hard to gain their friendship'? Every once in a while, Lydia absently looked up from her book and said "uh-huh" rather noncommittally. It was particularly amusing since it was clear to me that this girl is somewhat of a social misfit herself, and even if there were strings to be pulled, she would not be, in fact, a person capable of pulling them.
I seem to remember age 9, fourth grade, as being the time when all of that garbage really started taking hold. Lydia's really rather oblivious to the whole thing, and doesn't have much patience for worrying about what's cool, or who's who, or anything else, and hopefully that's enough. In these large groups (there are 50 girls, all told, ages 5-17, in her Girl Scouts troop), I hope that doesn't mean she is marginalized. She has always been confident, happy in herself, and unconcerned about what others might think. I hope this doesn't get smashed.
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September 19th, 2005
12:14 pm
I wrote this in reply to a question on another blog: "Why do you homeschool?"
And since I've not bothered to update here in what appears to be a million years, I decided to copy it on over.
Why do we homeschool? Because I always wanted to. Because I don't want my daughter to ever see her intelligence, her love of learning, or her joy as odd. Because I remember well what it was like to be the smart, socially awkward kid in public school.
I love being the one to be there when she first hears the stories of King Arthur, of Don Quixote, of the Iliad. I love hearing how much she loves this collection of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poetry. I love watching her growing mastery of Latin. I love having our own schedule.
We can choose our priorities. I want her to know more about the history of the larger world than the American-centered history in our schools would give her. I want her to come out of her childhood knowing the great stories of the Bible, of Homer, of Shakespeare. I want her to learn about how to treat other people from a wide range of adults and children, not a tribe of 30 children all within a year of her age.
I think that homeschooling allows us more freedom to center our life around family, human relationships, and social service. When my husband's grandmother had a stroke last year, we could drive out to Virginia and be with her, without worrying about missing classes. We can go up to Milwaukee to be with a friend going through chemotherapy, and we can bring our schoolwork with us.
It is not perfect. There are days where everything goes wrong and I find myself shouting "For goodness sake, it shouldn't take you 45 minutes to do 10 math problems!" Only, in reality, it is less cleaned-up-for-public-consumption than "for goodness sake." Days when I threaten boarding school. Days where I feel wholly inadequate and worry that I'm doing everything wrong. But I really wouldn't trade this for anything.
I could go on and on. I guess I already did.
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June 6th, 2005
04:35 pm - I survived!
Despite 90 degree heat and a few short thunderstorms, I walked the full 26.2 miles that I set out to do this weekend! And thanks to wonderful family, friends, and complete strangers, I raised more than $2500 for the Avon Foundation's breast cancer crusade. The entire Chicago walk raised over 5 million dollars.
It was a beautiful weekend, in spite of the hot weather. The volunteers, crew, and 2400 other walkers were all incredibly wonderful, as were the many, many people who cheered us on. My family was out there keeping me going, and my sister-in-law was kind enough to come walk a mile or so with me at just the point that I wanted to give up and get on the bus. Today I am on the couch elevating my feet, as I am not in fact in physical shape to walk 26 miles without consequences. But it was so worth it.
And Lydia, the sweetest daughter ever, spontaneously asked me to go lie down so she could give me a foot massage earlier.
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March 8th, 2005
02:17 pm
I was visiting with a friend and her baby this afternoon when Lydia shouted at me to come listen to the beginning of her story. Silly me, I wasn't even aware she was writing one. I think it's awfully well done, for an 8 year old girl. Once she's finished, we can give her some input on punctuation. I'm so proud of her efforts so far, though!
Here it is, written in textedit with no adult input whatsoever:
Anna slowly looked around, her elbows on her desk and her cheeks resting on her hands in boredom. The teacher said nothing interesting, his only words were boring. She made a list in her mind of all the interesting things about algebra and fractions that Mr. Tangge said that day, but it said nothing.
Later, as Ms. Pollothe, the kind knitting teacher, was knitting in her office, Anna excused herself from Mr. Tangge's classroom to talk to her. As she explained her dislike of boring fractions and algebra, Ms. Pollothe said, "Hmmm. I see. Then why did you decide to take algebra?" "I didn't know it would be SOOOO BORING! And NOW, Mr. Tangge WON'T LET ME QUIT!" said Anna. "When I was your age, I had boring classes as well. But I did learn from them...."said Ms. Pollothe. "THAT'S EASY FOR YOU TO SAY!!!!" Anna interrupted, suddenly exploding. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO THROUGH IT ANYMORE!" "Ahem." said Ms. Pollothe. "As I was saying, I learned from them, once I learned to ignore my boredom. You'll just need to learn how to ignore it, just like I did. Then, eventually, your boredom will go away completely. By the way, indoor voice, please." Anna took a deep breath, which calmed her down. "Sorry about that. You know, just, like, exploding at you? Sorry." she said. "That's all right." Ms. Pollothe said. She checked her watch and said, "It's time for art class. You missed all of algebra. Now, if you want to get to art class, then you should go to it." Anna took a deep breath, smiling. "Something fun. Finally." she thought out loud to herself.
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February 25th, 2005
04:17 pm
Lydia woke up with a fever and headcold today, so our usual Friday routine of violin and YMCA went out the window. It's not really slowing her down, but I didn't want to get the rest of the world sick.
At the moment, she's working on some Singapore math and listening to The Nutcracker. Math took some armtwisting to get into, but she just now told me "Actually, maybe this is just a little bit fun...."
"Lydia, how much free time do you have?"
(arms spread wide)
"And how much time am I asking of you here to do some math?"
(two fingers spread slightly apart)
"Okay, then, please get to work."
Today's object of interest: dolls. She got a handmade doll from a local coffeeshop on Wednesday, which sparked a sudden interest in dollmaking. Yesterday, we went to the library and got a bunch of the easier dollmaking books, as well as an adult book on the history of Barbie, which she has been poring over all day. Then a trip to the thrift shop for some interesting scarves to cut up for doll clothes, and a trip to Marshalls for some white socks to make sock dolls.
She's determined to make "lots of dolls, and keep some and sell some." We'll see how it goes; I love dolls and am happy to help her work on them.
Still committed to doing the science fair, though the topic remains a mystery.
I think maybe I'm fighting a headcold, too, so I'll blame that for the unfocused nature of this update. Off to read Story of the World.
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February 22nd, 2005
06:19 pm
Lydia's day was spent watching "The Best of Beakman's World" (twice), playing with magnets, drawing, and using KidPix. It was not spent working on her science fair project, as I'd planned. Science fair is in two and a half weeks, at the homeschooling conference, and so far a project has not even been picked. Oh well. She got all excited about the abstract idea of a "science fair" when she saw the materials for the conference, which of course got us (her geeky "we loved science fairs when WE were in school" parents) all excited too. But the enthusiasm really didn't run very deeply; she thought it sounded exciting because someone was in a science fair in one of the books she'd read.
So we'll see. I've told her she doesn't *have* to do this, but that we need to notify the organizers in the next few days one way or the other. I think I've been pushing this more than I should because it's an easy thing to bring up to the extended family to head off questions about academics. "Hey, she was in a spelling bee last month, and did really really well, and now we're getting ready for a science fair! Did I mention the chicks we're hatching at home for 4-H?" Not the best reason to pursue something.
Last week, we went up to the far north suburbs to visit our favorite unschooling family, and joined them at Fun Club - an idea I think we need to import down here. They've rented a VFW hall once a week for the kids to get together and play games, do crafts, or whatever. Much fun. A big group of boys were playing some RPG or another, some of the others were sitting around drawing, Lydia played Guess Who with her friend the whole time. I'd love to do this here, though I'd try to badger some parents into playing games with me, instead of socializing while the kids play. :)
What else? Lydia wants to make and sell bracelets to help raise money for the Avon walk, and this weekend we have training so that we can volunteer at the local animal shelter. We'll also be outside the library hawking Girl Scout cookies with our troop. I'll call it math practice.
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February 8th, 2005
04:06 pm
Okay, see, I keep waiting months to update, and then feeling obliged to make sweeping summaries of "what we've been up to this month."
So, the short form:
I've been:
* Doing a lot of soul-searching about what I'm REALLY trying to accomplish here
* Giving far fewer "assignments"
* Having fewer arguments, tears, and yelling over said assignments
* Loving our life a lot more
* Eating crow about a lot of my earlier proclamations about unschooling, structure, and so forth
* Walking and exercising and training for the Avon walk for breast cancer
Lydia's been:
* Doing a whole lot of scrapbooking
* Drawing, drawing, and did I mention drawing?
* Taking apart an owl pellet and examining the bones
* Cleaning and getting all excited about some ancient Roman coins (thanks, ebay!)
* Listening to "The Enchanted Castle" by E. Nesbit with me (boy, do I love that book)
* Playing around with flowcharts and "robot" programming with daddy
* Helping a lot around the house
* Spending lots of time on the computer
Today, we read a couple of chapters of Story of the World, and did some math games, which appeased most of my schoolishness for the day. She has now dubbed herself "Lydia, the greatest Celtic warrior of all time" and is working on a big battle-axe (made out of a wrapping paper roll, tinfoil and cardboard). I've forbidden getting naked and painting herself blue until AFTER her group violin lesson this evening.
Still and again finding my balance here. I've been reminding myself that she could sit and watch television all day every day for two years and still not be "behind" her age-peers in "academics," for whatever that's worth. This helps to calm my fears on days when I'm full of self-doubt. But most days are good; we live our lives. I try to fill our days with joy and new experiences, to expose her to beautiful things, to help her to acquire life-skills. We still pull out the Miquon math and the geography workbooks, the history and the English, but I'm realizing that a day spent scrapbooking or caring for friends isn't "wasted," either.
Loving our life right now. If we could just get to the place (financially and otherwise) where daddy could work from home and not have to spend so much of his life dealing with office politics and stressful deadlines, life would be very close to perfect.
On a slightly self-serving note, come support my breast cancer walk! I promise to update that site with a real picture and more information by this weekend. Lydia's excited about training with me, though she wishes she could actually participate in the walk itself. I'm excited that I'm finally doing this, after years of talking about it -- and trying to remain confident that 18 weeks is plenty of time to work up to a 40 mile walk from my current pretty-darn-out-of-shape place. Wish me luck!
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November 29th, 2004
07:58 am - Still moving along....
Wow! I didn't mean to take such a long hiatus from updating!
We're slowly getting a better picture of just what this new lifestyle looks like for us. It's still evolving. Too much structure, and Lydia loses all self-motivation and is only interested in checking-off assignments as quickly as possible. Not enough, and I'm a mess of worries about what I'm "doing to" her. So we're finding a balance. Some days work better than others. All life is like that, I suppose.
History is still her favorite pursuit, so we've spent a lot of time on Cleopatra and Julius Caesar of late. We'll get to Jesus just in time for Christmas, from the look of it. If anyone has suggestions about good books about the historical Jesus for our UU household, I'd love to hear them -- or winter holiday books in general. We'll do a lot of talking about light festivals and dying Gods this month.
More soon.
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July 22nd, 2004
02:34 pm
To no one's surprise, least of all my own, the aforementioned schedule lasted all of, oh, three days. Then Lydia went out of town and other things fell apart here.
I am a chronically disorganized and probably somewhat lazy person. Left to my own devices, I'd probably still be in my pajamas with crazy bedhead at dinnertime. Not that I don't get things done (I do! I promise!), but it tends to be in fits and starts. So, periodically, I resolve to Do Something About This Situation and go off the deep end, scheduling in five minute intervals and resolving to have the house in magazine-perfect condition by this time next week. Unsurprisingly, this seldom works out as planned.
I do think that I need a game plan in place in terms of what we will basically cover in a given day (or week, or year...). I want her to have a rigorous education, and I do have specific goals in mind for that education. Ultimately, though, my overarching goal is to nurture the love of learning that she already has, to give her the skills that she needs to think critically and learn independently, and to help her grow into a confident and happy adult.
Lydia benefits from routine; life functions much more smoothly for her if, for example, she knows that bedtime is always the same. It saves everyone the stress of negotiating anew every evening. I think perhaps that what might work best for us will be a set time period during which we "do school," whatever that is, every day. I think that the more micro-scheduling I was trying to do might be more trouble than it's worth.
More thought on this later. Right now it's time to finish The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
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June 14th, 2004
09:15 pm
Today was our first day loosely following a summer schedule, and I think it went quite well. The whole "go for a walk with mom" thing didn't quite work out, as we had sudden freak thunderstorms that lasted just long enough to convince us to stay inside. She did some jumping jacks, instead, and a round of "Simon Says," which helped stave off the hyperactivity till at least mid-morning.
She worked on some Miquon math worksheets, which are on the simple side, but do a good job getting her to think of multiple approaches to the same problem. There are 6 workbooks, intended to be a 1-3rd grade curriculum, but we will be using them as a diversion from, and supplement to, the Singapore math materials.
Then she started memorizing her poem of the week, "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Edward Lear, which I thoroughly adore. She can now recite:
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
We'll do four more lines tomorrow.
Next was Latin. She could now, with prompting, tell you a simple story about a girl chasing a mouse.
Finally, we read the next chapter in Black Ships Before Troy (the children's Iliad). In this chapter, Hector tells his wife that he probably won't be returning from battle, but that it is for the best, for he would not want to live to see Troy in flames and his wife and baby carted off into slavery. I kept crying too much to read it.
This afternoon, she had an appointment at the occupational therapist, which pretty much involves an hour of swinging, climbing, and jumping around. She played outside most of the rest of the day, and just now came in to practice violin and get ready for bed.
She's being sweet and responsible and awesome today, and we got a lot done, so I'm feeling good.
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June 9th, 2004
11:13 pm
Woo hoo! Our new Latin materials arrived today!
They come with CD's, see, so I can get over the "oh gods I can't teach her Latin all by myself" bit.
Lydia was quite excited, too, and was flipping through them shouting things like, "HEY, now I know where we get the word duet from! Cool!"
I must stop using homeschooling as an excuse to buy obscene amounts of books. Like I really needed another excuse.
In unrelated news, yesterday we got up at 4am and headed down to the Adler Planetarium to see the Venus transit. It was awfully cool, and Lydia and her friend were quite interested and excited about the whole thing. We were able to look at the sun through several telescopes that were set up outside, and then we watched the rest on a projection screen in the planetarium's restaurant area.
It's past my bedtime. Maybe one day I'll update while awake.
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June 6th, 2004
10:29 pm
Friday was Lydia's last day of school. I came to her classroom to help the students give their end-of-year gifts to the teachers (some memory books and a knitted - thing - pieced together from different sized bits of knitting by each child), so I got to be present when she said goodbye to her teachers and friends. Which meant that I was walking through the hallways weeping like an idiot while she was relatively fine.
I needed to sustain my irritation with the school in order to get through the whole decision-making process, and, indeed, there are many reasons that I'm glad she won't be returning next year. Still, her five years there were generally good ones, and there are many things we will miss about it.
I'm trying hard not to be second-guessing myself right now. I am, generally, confident that we've made a good decision, but I'm very good at the 2 am "What the hell was I THINKING?" sessions. I do that with everything; this is just a particularly easy subject to indulge in self-doubt about. Most of the time I'm pretty excited about our new adventure. I just need to keep the anxiety in check.
I've worked up a summer schedule of sorts for us. Four days a week, we will do schoolwork in the mornings, from about 10:00-1:30. After 1:30, she's free to play with her friends, go to the pool, etc. At the moment, she's hoping to spend several afternoons doing 'chores' to earn spending money for her impending vacation in New York with her friend's family.
( Our full schedule... )
None of the neighborhood kids are ever outside before early afternoon, anyway, and she falls apart when her days are totally unstructured. We will be taking breaks from this schedule over the summer if we end up traveling or are just going bonkers. I'm sure I'll be tinkering with it as the summer progresses, and at some point before September I'd like to get started on her Latin as well.
My next task: cleaning and organizing the basement office so that we have a better space to work in. Right now, books and materials are stacked up on the living room bookshelves.
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March 18th, 2004
10:20 am
We have a name! Lydia suggested "Growing Minds," which I rather like. It lacks the hipster-appeal of, say, Arkham Academy, but that's a poor reason to choose a name anyway.
I've written the withdrawal letter and the request for school records, but I think I'll wait a bit to mail them to the school.
Dear Ms. M******:
This is to inform you that as of June 8, 2004, our child, Lydia E*****, will be withdrawing from attendance at A***** Montessori school. Lydia will be enrolled at Growing Minds School. Growing Minds is a private homeschool.
Lydia will receive instruction in the branches of education taught in the public schools and in the English language. This instruction is in compliance with the requirements of Chapter 105, Section 26-1 of the Illinois School Code, commonly known as the Compulsory Attendance Law.
You will be receiving a letter from Growing Minds School formally requesting a Certified Copy of Lydia's records.
We have appreciated the commitment and affection of Lydia's teachers in the 5 years that she attended A*****. Their attention and affection have helped her to grow into a child who continues to love learning and care for her community. Mr. A**** and Ms. B***** will always have fond places in her heart. We are also quite grateful for the assistance and advice given to us by Ms. C***** this year.
Please contact us if you have further questions.
Sincerely,
Corey and Lisa E*****
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March 14th, 2004
05:40 pm
Lydia's very excited about homeschooling. As far as she's concerned, we should start right this minute. She loves the history that we've been studying at home, and I think she's probably one of very few American seven-year-olds who can make Gilgamesh jokes. But, she has a very limited curriculum in mind.
"We are only going to study Latin, history, and how to fly. That's all."
"But, Lydia, the most important subjects for you right now are math and English, because they lay the foundation for other learning. If we miss something in ancient history this time around, we will get to it in four years when we study it again. But if you struggle with basic math, none of what follows will make sense. As for 'how to fly,' do you mean 'how to be a pilot?'"
"Mom, I KNOW how to read and add. Duh. And I want to fly. Like a superhero."
There you have it. We'll be reading about ancient Greece soon. I'll make sure we cover the story of Icarus.
As for Latin, I wasn't going to start it until this school year was over, but how can I reisist "Please, please, please can't we start Latin now??!?!" Really, she's just interested in Minimus, the cartoon mouse in the Latin books. I hope that her excitement carries over into verb conjugation.
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March 3rd, 2004
01:07 pm
Illinois has incredibly liberal homeschooling laws. Homeschools operate under the laws regulating private schools, which say, in a nutshell, that you should be teaching the same subjects as a public school, in English. That's pretty much it, at least in my reading of them. There are no obligatory testing or record-keeping requirements. We will probably continue with the standardized tests yearly, if only to keep the extended family's worries about us ruining her life at bay. Certainly, we'll keep records, for her sake and ours.
It follows that since we will effectively be a private school all by ourselves next year, we need a name. Corey's rooting for Miskatonic Elementary. As I'm not terribly fond of Lovecraft and I don't think I could, with a straight face, write that on official documents, I don't think that'll fly. But we should come up with something by the end of this school year, so that I can write the obligatory letters to her current school requesting all of her records.
We'll see if Lydia has any ideas.
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March 2nd, 2004
08:26 pm
I love books. The most cursory glance around our house would reveal that this is a family of readers. The bookshelves spill over to the floors around them. Most flat surfaces of our house, in fact, are likely to be littered with books, magazines, and catalogs.
This cursory glance would also reveal something else: I'm habitually disorganized. Oh, I'm good at reading about organization. I'm sure there are at least 12 books here about time management, household organization, and the like. If only I could find them.
I also don't like to make decisions. I am riddled with doubt over the most mundane choices, wanting to make sure I've explored all of the options.
All of this comes together to mean the following: I am much better at reading about things than I am at implementing them. In the few months since we began exploring the idea of homeschooling, I have read at least 20 books on the subject, and spent countless hours online doing "research." One can translate "research" roughly as "staring bleary-eyed at yet another website when I ought to be sleeping." I am not yet closer to producing any sort of written plan about what the next year of schooling will look like for us. First, I'm waiting for a book on "scheduling in the homeschool" to arrive.
I'm starting to implement limits, though. Really, I am. Otherwise, I could tie myself in knots, searching for the perfect resource, the just-right approach, the magic key. We will follow, at least loosely, the guidelines for a classical education set forth in The Well-Trained Mind. I will settle on a curriculum by the time the Illinois Home Educators Conference rolls around. I will not second guess myself. Okay, I will. But I'll do my best to ignore it.
I'm sure our plans will evolve as we move along on this journey. A loose framework will work just fine. Lydia is an incredibly intelligent girl, and she will learn well even if the resources are less than perfect. If I repeat all of these things enough times, maybe I can convince myself.
In the meantime, some new catalogs arrived today. I'm going to go page through them.
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07:58 pm
If I tried, I could sit here and deliberate for hours about how to begin this journal. So, at some point I'll go back and write all about the background of this decision, about how we came to this journey in the first place. But for now, I'll start where I am: three months away from the end of Lydia's school year. Re-enrollment contracts at Alcuin were due yesterday. The school won't be getting one from us. That's as good a place to start as any.
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