homeschooling

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thank you

February 25, 2010 in homeschooling, learning, writing | 4 comments

Thank you to all who left a comment on my last post. Thank you so much.

Here’s the cherry on top that I promised. I just wish I could give you each one of the actual profiteroles that Lulu made for her grandparents’ birthdays, with handmade bittersweet chocolate sauce, of course!

I was touched that so many of you took the time to leave thoughts that seemed deeply pondered, and were so wonderfully honest. You have no idea how much you’ve helped me. (And if you didn’t leave a comment yet, it’s not too late. I’d love more feedback!)

I feel a little sheepish about how most of you weren’t asking for advice, but I stepped right up and elected myself the Dear Abby of Homeschooled Writing. Somehow I can’t help myself. When people start talking kids and writing, I get giddy. I could put duct tape on my mouth and sit on my hands, yet if you started talking about your kids and their writing experiences I would bounce up and down and try to mumble through the tape, “I have an idea for you!”

One reason for my feedback is that I can’t lose the teacher part of me that loves to help people. But I write back for selfish reasons too. As I respond to your hopes and concerns, I’m figuring out my own thoughts on the subject. Like anyone, I crystallize what I think about a topic as I write about it–which is just one more wonderful reason for writing, and one that Susan and both Carries alluded to in their hopes for their kids. And crystallizing your ideas is pretty important, when you’re endeavoring to write a book.

What your feedback did more than anything was give me an audience for this book. Any writer will tell you that if you want your work to be effective, you need to know who you’re writing for. Now, when I sit down and write, I’m writing to you, you who leave me comments here, sharing your worries and your desires about your kids and their writing. You’ve become my audience, like it or not, and having you in mind has given me a focus that I didn’t have before. Finally, I know where the book should begin and I’ve begun it, because I know what I want to tell you.

I wish we could all sit around a table, talking kids and writing and eating profiteroles. But until that day comes, I’m ever grateful to gather with you here. Thanks for hanging out and telling me what’s on your mind. It’s just what I needed to hear.

pretty please?

February 19, 2010 in homeschooling, learning, writing | 44 comments

I need your help.

I’m writing myself in circles with the chapter I’m working on, and it occurred to me that some feedback from actual rather than virtual people would be incredibly useful.

I have two questions that I’d love to have answered.

What are your concerns regarding your kids and writing?

What goals hopes do you have for your kids as writers?

(Edited to add: after reading your comments, it seems that many parents once had concerns about their kids’ writing, but have let them go. Hooray! If you want to mention what your former concerns were, that would be helpful to me too. I think that parents of younger kids often have more concerns, as they haven’t yet been able to watch their kids evolve as writers.

Also, I changed the word goals to hopes in the second question, after reading Diane’s comment below. She’s right: goals connotes a sense of the parent steering the kayak and mapping the voyage. I’m really more interested in the hopes you have for your kids, regardless of your role in how they might get there.)

If you don’t have children (or even if you do), feel free to answer the same questions about yourself.

Quick responses of a few words are fine, as are wordy rambles. Any feedback will help.

Thank you. With a cherry on top.

norse myths, wii games and a whole lot of thinking

February 14, 2010 in books, creativity, homeschooling, learning, my waldorf guilt, writing | 19 comments

The latest episode of my waldorf guilt.

If you haven’t been reading along, these are the posts in which I wring my hands over how un-waldorfy things can get around here, and how I tend to feel guilty about it. Or try to justify why I don’t feel guilty.

I’ve been feeling less and less guilty lately. Brought on by a confluence of different ideas from different people.

First was Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs. I’ve already raved on and on about this book, so I’ll spare you. (Although if you can get your hands on the audiobook version, which Chabon reads, you must.) In my reflection on the book, I wrote this:

“There’s something about the way Chabon combines his Pulitzer Prize-winning style with the most base cultural references that captivates me. In his essay on Legos—one that had particular resonance for me as the mother of two Lego-loving sons—Chabon writes, “Time after time, playing Legos with my kids, I would fall under the spell of the old familiar crunching. It’s the sound of creativity itself, of the inventive mind at work, making something new out of what you have been given by your culture, what you know you will need to do the job, and what you happen to stumble upon along the way.” That making something new of what you have been given by your culture is a big part of Chabon’s genius. It’s precisely what he does in these essays, again and again.”

And one could certainly argue that Chabon made something new of what he was given by his culture when he took his lowly childhood love of comic books and fashioned it into a Pulitzer prize-winning novel.

Second was my reading of Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. I’m planning to write a post on the book soon, so I won’t say much yet. But holy sheep dip, this book has so many implications for educators–for homeschoolers especially–about the skills kids will really need in the future. So many of Pink’s ideas are what I and a world of other homeschoolers have intuited over the years, but what a joy to get such heavily-researched validation!

Third was yet another insightful post by Lori at camp creek about not limiting what our kids learn from. (You may have already clicked on my link to this post in the sidebar–if not, go read!)

Which all led to the morning when Mr. T was trying to come up with a project for our homeschool history fair, based on his interest in Norse myths. I can’t remember who came up with the idea first–it may have been my suggestion after I saw how he was “enacting” a video game by jumping across the family room furniture. But somehow the idea formed: he plans to design his own Lego Wii-style game, based on Norse mythology.

map of the nine Norse worlds

Now he won’t be actually making a playable game, of course. But he’s imagining levels and drawing pictures and narrating to me what happens in each. And we’re thinking of begging his big brother to help him make some stop-animation films for each level.

Here’s what he has so far. My waldorf guilt must warn you that there is a lot of virtual punching involved. But if you can hang in there, I’ll explain what I think the kid is getting from this.

map of level 1

LEVEL 1: THE BATTLE OF YMIR

Object: Defeat Ymir

First of all, go to Ymir and punch him three times. He will jump to a ledge. Beware, he’ll throw icicles down! Also, jotuns will fall from the sky. They’ll only take one punch to defeat.

Remember, don’t go into Ginnungagap or the sides of the board or you’ll die.

Go under Ymir’s ledge and pull down a lever. More ledges will come out of the wall. Jump on them to get to Ymir’s ledge and punch him three times. He’ll jump to a new ledge and the one you’re on will explode. You’ll fall to the ground.

Then, go under Ymir’s new ledge and step on one of the three red squares. Your teammates will step on the other red squares. Then Ymir’s new ledge will come down. Jump on to it and punch him three times. He’ll jump to the ground. Punch him three more times and the level will end.

Tips:

How to get the magic box: in Free Play, be Loki or a different character that can jump really high and jump on to the island in the middle of Ginnungagap. Collect the floating box.

If you win:

You unlock Odin and his brothers and you can be them in Free Play.

How this level is based on Norse myths:

Well, there really wasn’t any levers, red squares, floating boxes, jotuns falling from the sky, or an island in the middle of Ginnungagap. Really, there wasn’t any Lego things whatsoever.

What there really was were the characters of Odin, Loeder and Hoenir, who were brothers and the first of the Aesir gods. There also was Ymir, who was the first of the jotun race, or a frost giant. Odin and his brothers really fought Ymir and they did throw him into Ginnungagap. I didn’t put blood in because I didn’t want it to be too violent, but there was blood in the story. Ginnungagap was a giant pit in the middle of Niflheim and Muspelheim, the first of the nine Norse worlds.

Nifty fact:

The Star Wars planet Mustafar was based on Muspelheim.

First, I have to tell you how incredibly excited Mr. T is about this project. He thinks about future levels endlessly, and begs me to take more dictation. So there’s deep immersion.

Second, there are lots of writing skills at work here. After I wrote Level 1, he said, “Now do the dot-dot thing.”

I knew what he was getting at. “You mean put a colon in?”

“Yes, a colon.” And he came to check that I did it right. On the next line, after I typed object, he said, “Now put a colon.”

How can I not be charmed by an eight-year-old who requests colons in all the right places?

I asked him if he’d consider adding the How this level is based on Norse myths section (hoping to make sure the project looks somewhat educational for the homeschool fair.) Mr. T was happy to. He said, “Can the narrator be funny in that part?”

“What?” I didn’t see that question coming.

“You know, funny. Like this.” And he proceeded to narrate the section above, influenced, I’m pretty sure, by the disclaimer page that follows each Magic Schoolbus book. My favorite part is Really, there wasn’t any Lego things whatsoever. (I’m not fixing his grammar at this point–he’ll learn to use the right verb tenses in time, but for now I want to keep intact his eight-year-old voice.) I love how he’s picking up the notion that one can write with personality and humor, even in nonfiction.

“Oh, and I want to add a nifty fact.” A nifty fact? I have no idea where he got that phrase. From National Geographic Kids? From one of the many behind-the-scenes books on comics that he’s read? When I asked where he got this particular nifty fact, he ran upstairs and brought down his Star Wars encyclopedia. Surely wii games and Star Wars books are just the sort of “crap” that Michael Chabon writes about; my kid is using crap to learn how to make his informational writing captivating.

He’s using just the sort of right-brained thinking that Pink writes about to put this project together. He’s researching Norse myths and considering the wii games that he likes to play. Then he’s applying his research to design a game that takes into account those myths while also being entertaining. Silly as his project may sound, I’m convinced that these are the types of skills the kids of today will need in the future. It’s not the content that he’s working with that matters so much, it’s the thinking skills involved.

If content like wii games is what captivates my kid, I’m willing to go with it. And, surprisingly, I don’t feel even a smidge guilty.

chapter-a-month challenge: january

February 9, 2010 in chapter-a-month challenge, homeschooling, writing | 16 comments

It’s time for me to report back to you on whether I deserve a pat on the head or a kick in the butt on my book project.

Finding interesting photos for this project is sure to be a challenge in itself.

My goal is to write a draft of a chapter each month. I gave myself an easy start for January, since I had just the last part of a sort of triptych of three shorter chapters to finish up.

I felt compelled to start with a brief history of how my views on kids and writing have evolved over time, with each of my own kids. (Brief history sounds troublesome already, don’t you think?) So I wrote a short chapter on each kid, following the shifts in my thinking.

With H, I was still pretty locked into the school model, and felt that kids at six should begin doing all their own writing.

“On a bookshelf in our family room is a tiny yellow book, hand-stitched with dental floss by H. at six, and titled–with a backwards J–My Journal. Only a few pages are filled, with lines like I oent to a rastrant. I had pancacs. (I went to a restaurant. I had pancakes.) My articulate boy couldn’t manage more, didn’t want to manage more. Now, flipping through the empty pages that followed, I wonder: why didn’t I transcribe what he really wanted to say? Why didn’t I write for him more often? I know the reason, and there was just one: it wasn’t how schools did it.”

I go on to tell how at seven, H. slammed his pencil to the table and hollered, “I hate writing!”

Lulu’s chapter is all about cheating as a homeschooling parent:

“Any parent of more than one child knows what happens with the second. You learn to cheat. You learn to slacken the rules that meant so much with your first. You permit pacifiers past first birthdays, you let bedtimes creep late, you let broccoli be snubbed and allow ice cream anyway. You know it’s cheating, but you try not to care. Anything to bypass a tantrum, to speed up a grocery trip, to let you sit at the table until you’re ready to deal with the dishes.”

With Lulu I knew that, more than anything, I didn’t want her to hate writing. So instead of forcing her to write, I cheated: I often took dictation from her. Still, I saw my transcribing as a temporary fix, just a little help until she could write on her own without difficulty.

Mr. T came six years after Lulu, and almost ten after H. That’s how long it took me to realize that all the times I’d thought I’d “cheated” with homeschooling had really been homeschooling at its finest: me, offering my kids just what they needed at the time. I took dictation from Mr. T as I’d done with Lulu, but this time around I began noticing what he seemed to be learning from the process.

“T. narrated his tale, his head whirling with ideas, and I took notes, my head whirling with my own.

I compiled quite a Post-It list at the kitchen table that morning. Slowly, I began to realize that T. had intuited an awful lot about writing from our dictation sessions. Not merely rules of grammar, but also the writerly choices that authors make, like using strong verbs such as tore to describe a character eating his food quickly, or ending a chapter with a cliffhanger.”

That was when I first began to see that taking dictation has real potential as a writing tool for homeschooling families.

So now I have three chapters–but I’m not sure I’ll use any of them. Part of me thinks telling my stories as the start of a book is too self-indulgent; part of me thinks readers love stories, and long to see how others trip up and figure things out. And that my history is a necessary lead-in to what I’ve come to believe about kids and writing.

I don’t know. This may not be my beginning. I may take stuff from these chapters and insert it elsewhere. I may not use it at all. I think I just need to keep writing and see where the pages settle, see what form the book wants to take.

One thing I’ve learned with writing, that I tell the kids in my writer’s workshops, is that the beginning you start with may not be your ultimate beginning. So often we feel compelled to start with something that drums at our minds, but that may just be a warm-up, a way into our true beginning. Our first efforts may simply be what I call making clay. Unlike the sculptor who begins work by taking out a block of clay and shaping it, the writer has nothing to work with, no clay at all, until he or she writes a draft and makes some. Only then can the shaping start.

the plan for february:

I’m forging ahead and starting a chapter on voice. To me, the most important part of a writing education should be nurturing a child’s written voice. If you’re baffled by the term as I once was, if you’re befuddled at how an auditory word like voice can have anything to do with writing on a page, stick around. I’ll try to explain.

on rice-a-roni and inspiration

January 15, 2010 in homeschooling, learning | 28 comments

I decided against posting my thoughts on my essayist project just yet. I thought that maybe two essayist posts in a row might be about as thrilling as back-to-back episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger.

I’ve been thinking about how homeschooling ebbs and flows. There are days and weeks when the kids come up with projects that enthrall them, that keep them busy and buzzing. There are weeks when it seems that we’re doing nothing more than running around, to performances or classes or appointments, or we’re preparing for a holiday or a few days out of town, and all we manage is a little reading together. Then there are days that just don’t feel inspired, when we’re home and the kids are dabbling at a little math here, a little reading there and no one seems thrilled about anything.

This, however, has been a particularly good week, one of those busy and buzzing weeks. Lulu and Mr. T have both found projects that have them all worked up.

Lulu decided that she wants to study the history of American food in the last century. She’s been looking at popular recipes for different decades, at particular products and when they were introduced, at typical lunches and dinners through the years, at how food trends are often tied to what’s going on in the world. It’s fascinating.

She’s just done a quick overview so far. By the time she got to the 70’s, she started asking what products I remembered and before long, that Great Talent of mine, which you may remember from the beginning of my last post, began to rear its ugly head. Lulu would name a food product, and I would sing its jingle. I spent the morning singing:

“Every single Pringle’s potato chip is a perfect (doo doo doo) potato chip…”

and

“Hamburger Helper helps her hamburger help her…make a great meal.”

and

“Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.”

(But why is it the San Francisco treat? I have lived in San Francisco, and never once saw a person eating Rice-A-Roni. Look, even Rice-A-Roni’s own website “explains” the connection without explaining anything. Oh, but Wikipedia has the story! A deep sigh, after decades.)

And of course, once I started jingling, Lulu had to search out the old commercials on YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites. My best friend and I performed this endlessly, as a duet, for our parents, who acted as if they found it entertaining.

Fast Tube by Casper

In between the commercial karaoke, Mr. T wanted to learn about spiders. As I read to him, he began to notice how spiders come in different types. How they have particular strengths and weaknesses. And methods of attack.

Is this beginning to sound familiar?

He began to notice that spiders are a lot like Pokemon.

It was just a small suggestion: “You could make spider cards, like Pokemon cards.”

Suddenly, he was bouncing on to the arm of the couch on his knees. On and off and and on and off. “I don’t want to just make cards! I want to design a game! There will be a game board and enemies and…”

He was off.

So they’ve been blissfully busy all week. As a homeschooling parent, I wish all of our days were like this. But hard as I try to make that happen, I can’t. You can’t manufacture inspiration. I try, I do, but sometimes a little suggestion like You could make spider cards, like Pokemon cards is met with nothing more than a grunt. I remind myself that we need the slow, stewing, simmering days for ideas to form and collect into something grand. You need to make lots of pots of rice, lots of pots of vermicelli before the notion strikes to throw them into a pot together and cause an entire generation to sing a jingle that no one really understands.

Some days are ablaze with singing in the kitchen, with the invention of epic games. And some days are about as thrilling as back-to-back episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. That’s just how it is.

woman with a mission

January 4, 2010 in homeschooling, learning, writing | 27 comments

I hesitated about posting this photo. But I checked with its author, Mr. T, and he okayed it.

This was a slip for our Advent box. A box in which, during Advent, we place slips of paper sharing how we’ve brought light, somehow, to someone else.

Mr. T wrote this one. He didn’t fold it in half, so when I opened the box to add a slip of my own one day, this was sitting on top, waiting to charm me. In his own quirky spelling, Mr. T had written I did not interrupt when Mama was doing the Writer’s Workshop.

The workshop is something I facilitate for a group of kids who are Lulu’s age. And whenever we meet, Mr. T has to keep himself busy and stay out of the way for two hours. Not always an easy task for an eight-year-old boy, but clearly he recognizes that it helps me when he does.

I post the slip here for a few reasons. First, I’m making just two resolutions for the new year. One is to make substantial progress on my book project. The other, a sort of extension of the first, is to post more often about writing with kids.

Because, as you can imagine, I’m fairly immersed in the topic these days. But even more, I want to put other parents at ease when it comes to kids’ writing. Whenever I give workshops on writing, whenever I post here on the topic, whenever I simply find myself in a conversation with other parents about writing, I realize that many parents have a lot of anxiety about kids and writing.

And I have a personal mission to help them stop worrying so much.

Look at that little slip of paper. Isn’t the spelling a mess? My kid is eight years old; if he went to school he’d be in second grade. I think his teacher might be concerned that he spells doing as doni and shop as soepo. Soepo?

Am I worried? Nope. (Noepo?) See, this kid only writes on his own in little bits here and there, when he wants to. On his comics, on lists, for games he’s imagining. Mostly, I write for him, taking dictation. He’s quite a storyteller.

With my oldest, I did a fair amount of forcing when it came to writing. And he was the only one of my kids to say he hated writing. (Luckily, he grew out of that frustration before long.) With my younger two, I decided that nothing was worth making them hate something that I loved so dearly. So I took dictation from them and let writing happen more slowly and organically.

It’s still happening slowly and organically with Mr. T.

I love that slip of paper. It may not look like much from an eight-year-old, but it was writing that Mr. T did without prompting, because he wanted to. I don’t think he worried much about the spelling. And I think spelling will always challenge him somewhat–he’s more of an auditory learner than a visual one. But then again, look at how he uses an apostrophe in the word writer’s. He can’t spell the word correctly, but he can punctuate it. Interesting, huh? (He picks up a lot of grammar naturally when I take dictation from him.)

If posting that little slip helps even one parent breathe easier about his or her own kids’ writing, then I’m glad I did it. And I plan to continue writing about writing. If you have questions or comments about your kids and their writing, let’s start talking here. Because it’s a new year, and I’m a woman with a mission.

projects, part one

December 16, 2009 in books, creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 20 comments

Hey, how about a less wordy post for a change? How about some projects?

The first is a knitting project that I actually finished a while back, and have been meaning to share.

This is the sweater that made my sweater coat jealous.

The sweater is Jane, from Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. The bottom portion of the sweater as written is designed with a chevron pattern; I decided to try something lacy instead. I used the lace pattern from the Lacy Skirt with Bows that I knit from Greetings From Knit Cafe.

I’m happy with how it came out. (Just don’t tell my sweater coat how much more often I wear this one.)

More (typically) ramblesome details here for you Ravelers.

I also have a writing project to share. I have a new essay in the November/December issue of Natural Life magazine. This is the second time running that one of my essays has been retitled for publication–I originally named this piece “Homeschooling My MFA” (and I have to say that I prefer the cheekiness of that title.) In the essay I look back on nearly twenty years of trying to teach myself to write–and realize that what I’ve been doing looks a lot like what my kids do as homeschoolers.

You can read the essay here. I’ll try to pop back in soon to post more projects. There’s fun stuff happening all around. Lulu, in particular, is crafting herself silly.

science and silliness

November 20, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning | 14 comments

Last week, our homeschool group had a math and science fair. Kids shared displays on a math or science topic. At our history fair in the spring, Mr. T had been disappointed that few kids seemed interested in his “history of the planets” display. He wanted more visitors this time.

No problem. He decided that he wanted to do “fizzy” experiments. To guarantee an audience, he would display as alter ego Dr. Curlybrain, mad scientist.

For a few weeks we tried out simple experiments at home to find a few good ones. Our inspiration was the fun book Cool Chemistry Concoctions: 50 Formulas that Fizz, Foam, Splatter & Ooze. The winners: cleaning pennies with salt and vinegar; a lava-lamp-like jar to shake, filled with oil and food-colored water; a jar with layers of liquids of different densities in which small items could be dropped and their landing layers predicted. But the real crowd magnets were the one in which a hard-boiled egg got sucked into a small-necked bottle by the force of a lighted match, and the one that had him inflating a balloon by filling it with baking soda and attaching it to a vinegar-filled bottle.

As his audience started growing, Mr. T seemed to forget he was a mad scientist, and morphed into a stand-up comic instead. He tossed off stream-of-consciousness jokes that often made no sense–anything to keep that audience from moving on. What, you don’t think vinegar is funny? How about if I pour it on my mom?

In the weeks of trying out the experiments, Mr. T kept a logbook. He made that fun too. (And yes, he drew a log on the cover.) He gave each experiment a silly name–the baking soda-inflated balloon experiment was christened The Power Pump–and eventually started drawing comics for each experiment.

In the penny-cleaning experiment, the chloride from salt combines with the hydrogen from vinegar and forms hydrochloric acid, a solution strong enough to clean pennies. He came up with this (I wrote the characters’ names for him):

After the fair, the science fun continued, as my friend Susan from In the Kitchen wrote a post recommending They Might Be Giants’ new science album, Here Comes Science. (Go read her post. There’s singing! There are many reallys!) We bought the CD the next day–it’s just Mr.T’s cup of hot chocolate. There’s science! There’s silliness! He was especially taken with the song “Meet the Elements”.

“Hey! I want to draw a bunch of comics about elements that react against each other!”

This announcement came as I was trying to get us to some appointment or meeting, and I was madly dashing to assemble snacks, coats, assure the rabbits had been fed…

Him: Can you Google some chemical reactions for me?

Me: Buddy, I’m trying to get us out the door.

Him: Just Google it real fast and I’ll read it.

Me: You can’t just Google chemical reactions. Why don’t you draw a comic for water–two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen? (This was the best I could manage in my mad dash to fill water bottles. I do not possess multi-tasking skills.)

Him: (wailing) I can’t have two of the same element in my comic!

I promised we would research the next day. (But can you Google some chemical reactions for me makes me smile, now that I’m not rushing out the door. Ah, the fathomless faith of an eight-year-old in his mother’s ability to work out what he dreams up.)

So today we researched. And he did make that comic about water. With just one hydrogen atom.

He also made one about gold. (Apparently he got over his distaste for drawing two atoms of the same element.) I’m not sure there’s any solid science in this one, but it cracks me up. Do you see what the two gold atoms are saying to each other upon meeting? (I probably should have added an extra e to make Spar-kle-us three syllables.)

“I’m Sparkleus!” “I’m Sparkleus!” That’s Mr. T’s little homage to Spartacus. You know, the scene when all the slaves claim to be Spartacus, to protect the real Spartacus? I’m Spartacus! No, I’m Spartacus!

I have no idea what that has to do with gold. I’m telling you, this kid is twisted. But hey, I’m up for anything, if it makes science fun.

take five minutes and try this

October 23, 2009 in homeschooling, writing | 23 comments

I gave my Nurturing Young Writers workshop to a small group of homeschoolers the other night. Part of the workshop is a quick exercise, which, judging from the reaction it gets, is effective. The following is a snippet from a book chapter I’m working on, explaining what I ask them to do.

Participants in my workshop this summer. I must have taken this photo during the second part of the exercise: I only see one lefty.

When I give workshops to homeschooling parents on nurturing their children’s writing, I often start with a writing exercise. I allay their anxieties right off, explaining that they won’t have to share what they write. And I entice them with an assignment both simple and intriguing: write a description of the room we’re sitting in. “Focus on whatever interests you: the people, the room itself, the chairs, the walls. Use your senses and describe what you hear out the open door, what you smell, the feel of the desk beneath your fingers. Take two minutes, and try not to think too much. Just write.”

   And then, as they’re cracking their notebooks and picking up pens, I lay it on them: “Oh, but wait! I have a few constraints for you.”

   Whereupon I ask them to place their pens or pencils in their non-dominant hands: lefties will write with their right hands, righties with their left. Also, they should write from right to left, rather than the traditional (in English anyway) left-to-right. Each letter should be a mirror image of its usual form. “And when it comes to vowels, I want you to think in alphabetical order: A-E-I-O-U. Each time you need to write a vowel, rather than writing the vowel you intend to, write the next vowel in A-E-I-O-U order: a’s become e’s; e’s become i’s, and when you need a u, write an a instead.”

   They look at me baffled, as if I’ve just asked them to remove their tongues, and I pick up my timer and smile. “Ready?”

   It’s a fun two minutes. As they work, some giggle at their own ineptitude. Some groan. Others gasp in dismay.

   When the timer goes off, they exhale with drama. They drop heads to desks. I ask how much they got down. Most finish a single sentence; a few manage part of a second. Without discussing much more, I reset the timer and ask them to repeat the assignment once more, but this time they can write as they usually do. “A description of the room. Focus on what you want to. Don’t think too much. Two minutes. Go!”

   ”How much did you get down this time?” I ask the participants, as the timer goes off a second time.

   Most say they wrote at least five sentences. “I could have written more,” one woman points out, “but the sentences were more complex this time.”

   ”When you wrote the first time, what were you thinking as you wrote? Did you have a sense of where you were going, what you would write next?”

   “I just focused on one word at a time,” says another woman. “I couldn’t keep track of what I was trying to say.” She shakes her head back and forth slowly, like a sad farmer appraising the damage after a storm. “Now I know how my five-year-old feels when she writes.”

   Exactly. I want parents to remember how formidable it is to be a beginning writer.

Confusing as interchanging vowels might seem, it’s not nearly as difficult as spelling words is for a beginning writer, although the vowel-shuffling is my attempt to replicate that struggle somewhat.

Regardless, the task is challenging. I encourage you, especially if you have a young child at home, to take five minutes to try it yourself. Just reading about it won’t give you the tangible experience of doing it. Try both parts of the exercise–first describing whatever room you’re in with the above-mentioned constraints, and then without–to experience the difference between the two. The difference between being a fledgling writer and a fluent one.

Then maybe you’ll have a better sense of why I think taking dictation from young writers is so important.

the homeschooling habit

October 14, 2009 in books, homeschooling, wondering | 24 comments

For years I’ve struggled with the term unschooling. It’s such a great word, implying a complete departure from school. To me, it conveys a sense of kids leading their own educations, which is something we value around here. But it’s also come to imply, it seems, a certain lack of structure, and that’s the part that keeps me from embracing it. I’ve never felt that we could call ourselves unschoolers because we have a definite structure to our days. Or at least part of our days.

Structure. Now there’s another loaded word. Structure seems reinforced with negative connotations: rigidness, confinement, predictability.

I realize that I’ve written about this before. But it’s something that I think about often. And the more new homeschoolers I meet, the more I notice that many people still believe that there are two basic camps of homeschooling: unschooling and school-at-home. Sometimes new folks don’t realize that there’s a stunning variety of shades across that spectrum.

I know I’ve said this before too, but here’s a nutshell history: when we started homeschooling, we were fairly schoolish. It had only been a few years since I’d been a classroom teacher myself, and that was what I knew. Granted, I was a pretty creative teacher, and I had lots of neat projects in mind! But my oldest child quickly cured me of all My Good Ideas. “I don’t want to do that art project,” he’d say, or “I don’t want to read that book.” He asked questions like, “Why should I write down my thinking on that math problem when I can just tell you? You’re sitting right next to me!”

Good points. He was right. When I let him do projects that interested him, he was immersed. When I forced him to do work he didn’t want to do, he was angry and frustrated and didn’t learn much. I learned to stop doing that. (Well, I slowly learned to stop doing that. Sometimes I’m still learning.)

I got better and better at dropping the schoolish thinking that had me teaching him, and planning lessons for him. But we kept the habit of working together for a few hours most morning. We had fun reading together, making things together. Knowing we had a few open hours meant we could take on big projects, make big messes. Plus, it was the one time of day that the kids knew they had my full attention, that I wasn’t going to get lost on the computer, or start talking on the phone. Still, the fact that we did it every day, at a particular time, made it a structured activity. With all those negative connotations.

I finally came to terms with our homeschooling style a few years back when I read The Creative Habit, by choreographer Twyla Tharp. I read the book for help with my writing practice; only later did I realize its implications in our homeschooling life.

Tharp writes:

“There’s a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.”

And:

“I will keep stressing the point about creativity being augmented by routine and habit. Get used to it. In these pages a philosophical tug of war will periodically rear its head. It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work.

If it isn’t obvious already, I come down on the side of hard work. That’s why this book is called The Creative Habit. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell.”

Reading her book convinced me of what I’d already sensed: that scheduled practice doesn’t have to undermine creativity; rather, it can help it to thrive. I could see this with my writing. I don’t have the freedom at this point in my life to write whenever the muse strikes; instead I have to plan time for it. And I’ve done it for long enough now that my creative mind is conditioned to get right into the work, pretty quickly after I sit at my desk. I only have so much time, and I don’t want to waste it.

I think it’s the same for my kids. Gathering in the kitchen at 9:30 or 10:00 each morning for tea and a snack is their cue to start thinking, start bouncing ideas from their heads to the ceiling to the yellow counters and back again. I’ll often throw out a few suggestions, depending on what they’re working on, but more often than not, they have their own ideas. Today Lulu wanted some ideas for writing and I pulled out our copy of the utterly fabulous Don’t Forget to Write for her. Something there gave her the idea to make found phrases poems from the newspaper. Mr. T wanted to do more work on the game he’s designing. Would they have done these activities later in the day, on their own? Maybe. They do lots of interesting projects on their own, in the afternoon. But this morning, Mr. T needed my help to write his game rules, and Lulu wanted help brainstorming a project. And I was there to help them. Then they were on their way.

Sometimes I call what we do structured unschooling because the phrase is so laughably oxymoronic. But I think I’ll just strike the word structure from my vocabulary and use habit instead. A homeschooling habit. That’s what we have most mornings around here–complete with tea and snacks.

atwitter: september

September 28, 2009 in atwitter, books, from the kitchen, homeschooling, makin' stuff, out and about, writing | 14 comments

A blogging mama meet-up. A while back I wrote about meeting some blogging friends in person for the first time. Well, we did it again, but this time there were seven of us. The photo above is what Mr. T came up with when I asked him to use my camera to take a picture of us lined-up mamas. That’s the back of my head–guess the boy likes close-ups. Tara.mama.wendy’s Finn got a much better one. Maya of Urban Organica did a fun write-up of the day. And Amy of Diary of a Domestic Animal wrote a musing that made me teary. I’m still amazed at how you can find kindred souls via computers. And I’m still feeling the magic of the day.

making mozzarella. Ever since reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I’ve wanted to try making my own fresh mozzarella. I finally got a cheesemaking kit, and have made two batches. I’m still learning and tweaking, but it’s been fun! Good, local organic milk seems to be key. I’ve used full-fat milk in both batches, but I’m going to try lowfat for my next batch; the locally-made mozzarella that I like tastes like it’s from part-skim milk. And while our tomatoes haven’t gone gangbusters this year–note to self: plant favas and amend soil–we’ve had a steady stream. Perfect with homemade mozz.

new books. Spunk and Bite: A Writer’s Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style, by Arthur Plotnik is very naughtily tempting me away from my essayist for this month, M.F.K Fisher. The book was recommended by my writing friend Carolyn, after reading my E.B. White post, and the comments on Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. Spunk and Bite is the antidote to all the confining rules of Strunk and White. Here’s a quote, showing Plotnik’s response to a quote by White: “Stick to the standard, White decreed, because ‘by the time this paragraph sees print, uptight, ripoff, rap, dude, vibe, copout, and funky will be the words of yesteryear’. That was some thirty years ago–and, dude, those words are still very much around.” Funny. The whole book is written with that kind of wit. Good writing advice that takes its own advice.

making kombucha. Now I’m really going to be accused of going off the deep end of the earth mama pool. But I’ve developed a craving for the stuff. I’ve always been a vinegar fiend, and kombucha is vinegary, fizzy and thirst-quenching. Plus there are lots of purported health benefits, which you can read about online, or in books like Nourishing Traditions. But at $3 and up per bottle, I thought I’d try to make my own. You need a kombucha “mother” to start a batch, which means you need a friend with a working batch, or you can buy one (fairly expensively) online. I’m trying to start my own mother, using a store-bought bottle and this recipe from Paprika. I started mine on 8/25, and it’s just about ready for brewing a first batch. Of course, I think it’s developed especially well over the last few days, because my jar got a new cover. Isn’t it exquisite? It was crocheted by Molly, using thread from her husband’s grandmother. Looking at every tiny stitch in its pattern, I’m awed by the artistry and the fact that it’s been gifted to me. It’s really far too beautiful to be on a jar of kombucha; look at how pretty it looks on Molly’s pitcher. Then again, I kinda like having it over my pet project. Like I told Molly, it’s sorta perfect, resting over something that’s alive and growing and changing–like friendship.

knitting progress. This one’s coming along much faster than my sweater coat. One sleeve almost finished, one more to go. It’s in linen and cotton–perfect for the Indian summer weather we’re having, and I want to wear it now! My version is a bastardization of two patterns. Details here for you Ravelers.

So tell me, what has you all atwitter?

you spin me right round, baby, right round

September 21, 2009 in books, homeschooling, learning | 20 comments

Mr. T and I have been playing with probability lately. The other day he made a spinner.

We got the idea from Math By All Means: Probability, Grades 1-2. I really like these books by Math Solutions, particularly the Math By All Means series and the Teaching Arithmetic series. I used them back when I was teaching (and was even one of the test teachers for the first Math By All Means book, on multiplication.) Each book is a series of activities on a single math topic, geared for a certain age group. The emphasis is on presenting interesting activities, and letting kids figure out their own ways of making sense of the problems. The books aren’t for everyone: each activity has many pages of explanation, with word-for-word dialogues of how a teacher introduced the idea to her classroom, what the kids said, and examples of their work. For some that’s overkill, but if you’d like to get a better sense of how to let your kids use their own smarts and learning style in math, the books are fantastic. The math philosophy behind all Math Solutions books is sound: it’s always about comprehension, rather than rote learning.

It’s also nice to have the work of other kids to share with your own child–hard to do in a homeschool setting. And when activities require looking at larger pools of results than you’d have with one or two kids, you can always look at the classroom results reproduced in the book.

And no, I am not a rep for this company–I just think these might be books that homeschoolers might not come across on their own. We’ve never used math texts until my kids were close to their teen years; we use a variety of activities, games and books. These Math Solutions books are a backbone we return to often. But even with them, we don’t do all the activities. We just pick and choose, depending on the kids’ interests and what they already know. And we adapt them, as you’ll see.

Anyway, Mr. T made a spinner. The book instructed kids to make a spinner that was one-quarter red and three-quarters blue. Well, I know Mr. T, so I told him he could make any categories he wanted on the spinner. When I said, “Even characters, if you want to,” little fireworks practically shot out from his eyes.

He drew an alien in each of the two spinner sections, and named them 2-MO and Z-31. Actually, he didn’t use dashes; he drew sort of a flattened T symbol for one alien, and an upside-down version of the same for the other. When I asked what the symbols meant, he just rolled his eyes and said, “They’re aliens.”

Oh.

The book’s design for these spinners is pretty brilliant. You basically use some 4-by-5 index cards (I used cut-up manila folders ’cause that’s what we had). You draw a line from one corner of the bottom card to the center of it, which indicates which part of the spinner “wins”. Then you poke the bent spoke of a paperclip through the bottom card and the round spinner, and tape the rest of the clip flat to the bottom of the card; a little flag of tape will keep the spinner from flying off the card. But the secret mechanism is a one-quarter inch cylinder, cut from a drinking straw, which goes between the bottom card and the circular piece. That makes the spinner really spin, in an obsessively fun way. Like a record, baby, round, round, right round.

The fact that the spinner featured aliens made testing it all the more fun. Filling out the results graph became a race between aliens. Of course, Mr. T didn’t want to just color in or put an X in the graph paper squares–he wanted to draw each alien’s personal planet in his square whenever the spinner landed on his spot. Which was fine by me; graphic graphs are more fun to look at anyway.

Poor Z-31 was pretty much doomed from the start, getting only one-quarter of the space on the spinner and all. Plus, luck wasn’t on his side: out of 22 spins, the spinner landed on 2-MO eighteen times, and Z-31 four times. Which led to a conversation about how chance factors into probability.

We’ve been talking about probability in terms of game design. Mr. T is still making his own Pokemon-style card game called Dinkers; until now he’s planned for players to use dice on their turns. But he’s starting to see how spinners give the game designer more control. If he wants a rare outcome, he can allot it a very slender slice of the spinner’s pie. Plus, you can make a spinner have words and pictures and personality.

But mostly, spinning a spinner is just dang fun.

how to set a house on fire

September 1, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, out and about | 18 comments

A titillating post title (but perhaps an inappropriate one given the number of wildfires tearing through California right now.)

I’m using it because it’s the title of H’s latest film. It screened at the SF Museum of Modern Art last night. It was part of a selection of youth films which are being released on a companion disc with the latest issue of Big Bell, a local literary magazine.

going to the moma

I will probably get in trouble for posting about it, once H finds out. And he will find out, because he googles his film titles on a regular basis, to see what’s happening with them. That’s how he found out that one of them had been screened in places as far-flung as Syracuse and Denver and Weeneebeg, Canada.

I’m going to risk his wrath because I’m proud of him. He screened a film at the MOMA!

How to Set a House on Fire is H’s adaptation of a short story by writer Stace Budzko. H decided to go with an adaptation for this film because he wanted to focus on the cinematography, which is his particular passion. It was filmed mostly by lantern-light, around the time of the summer equinox (which Chris would translate as “very late at night” ’cause he helped H on this film and it took a lot of waiting for it to get dark enough.)

If you want to take a look at the film, here it is:

Fast Tube by Casper

When H decided to go to school last year as a high school junior, I felt somewhat like a failure as a homeschooler. It wasn’t a choice his homeschooling friends had made, and I wondered if I could have done something to prevent it. But one of my firmest homeschooling beliefs is that learning should be directed by the kids. It must be meaningful to them. If H wanted to go to school–and he was 16 and old enough to make such a decision–then, ultimately, one of the most homeschoolish things I could do was support his decision.

And despite so many things that I don’t like about school–how H gets little say in his education, that there’s so much busy-work, that his schoolwork is directed from the outside rather than being fueled from within–I can reconcile myself with it because H is happy. And because he has his filmmaking.

In H’s filmmaking life, he’s still working like a homeschooler. He’s directing (literally and figuratively) what he wants. He’s pushing himself in new ways constantly. He’s making things happen through the sheer force of his vision and his dedication. (I would love to link the program that’s helping H with all of this. But he forbade me to link to it, not wanting Mama to show up on blog searches, which I probably will in this case anyway. If you’re curious about the program, ask me!)

There’s more than one way to set a house on fire. You could start with a match. Or you could make sure the inhabitants of that house are rubbing their creativity and inspiration together often enough to set things smoldering. And then you’ll have a different sort of fire.

nurturing young writers

August 4, 2009 in homeschooling, wondering, writing | 20 comments

I’ve spent every spare moment lately getting ready for the workshop I’m presenting at the HSC homeschool conference this Friday.

*my desk these days*

The workshop is called Nurturing Young Writers. I’ll be speaking for an hour-and-a half. Yikes. I’m sure my family can sympathize with anyone who has to listen to me ramble on for an hour-and-a-half.

Well. I do plan to open up the workshop in the last part, and have the group brainstorm writing ideas and audiences for their kids.

Anyway, getting ready for this workshop has been good for me. It’s forced me to look at my thoughts on how kids learn to write, to organize and outline them. And the exciting part? There are some ideas here that I haven’t seen elsewhere. That might even be original.

Everyone should have a brilliant friend, and I have a few. One of the shiniest is my old college friend Emily, who designs websites for writers. On Sunday we trawled the farmer’s market, following her adorable and likewise quite brilliant three-year-old and letting her eat too much ice cream so we could talk. I described my book idea to her, and she had some very interesting thoughts about how I might share portions of the book as I write it. To see how it goes, and, as they say in the industry, to create buzz. (I don’t really like that phrase–unless I think of it in terms of bees: working together, singing in a low hum.)

Which made me think of you, my faithful blog readers. If I were to share some ideas about writing with kids, I wonder if there are any that might be of particular interest to you. These are a few topics I’ll be exploring in my workshop:

Transcribing kids’ writing–how it can be a powerful tool for helping kids develop their voices as writers, and how we can use it for years, until kids develop fluency at writing.
How the main goals of a writing education should be helping our kids develop their writing voices, and helping them enjoy writing. And how to let kids lead their educations as writers.
How the mechanics of writing–spelling, grammar, penmanship–should be of far less importance than developing a young writer’s voice. And how those mechanics can fall into place naturally through transcribing kids’ writing, and helping them enjoy writing.
How creating a literate environment in your home can have a major impact on kids as writers. How kids can explore the craft of writing through casual, spontaneous conversations about the books you read together, and the films you watch.
How to help kids find genres and styles of writing that interest them. How to make writing topics of any personal interest. How allowing kids to select their topics is much more powerful than assigning them.
The importance of audience in motivating kids to write. And how to find audiences for homeschooled writers.

So, what do you think? Are there any topics here that hold some interest for you? I’d love your feedback.

how to homeschool

June 17, 2009 in homeschooling, wondering, writing | 20 comments

A few of you kind readers have been oh-so-gently urging me to provide a link here to the essay I wrote for Mothering last spring. I’ve finally done it. If you go to the “finally getting published” link in the right sidebar, you can click on the essay’s title and you’ll get a PDF file.

About that title…

in print

I had, cheekily, submitted the essay with the title “How to Homeschool” since the piece is written in the guise of a how-to-manual. There had been some emails back and forth with Mothering about changes to the essay; one of their suggestions was adding a subtitle to my title, something like One Mother’s Instruction Manual.

It wasn’t until I saw the published article–while shopping at Whole Foods with Mr. T–that I realized they’d changed the title altogether to “The-Never-At-Home Homeschoolers”. The title seemed a little odd to me, since never-being-at-home is only one small part of the essay. But I was too thrilled about seeing my writing in a magazine to fret about it. Plus there was another surprise: those charming illustrations, which I hadn’t known about either. Aren’t they fabulous? What amazes me is that they really look like our family, although the illustrator, Ben Hatke, had only the text of the essay to work from. (Do check out Ben’s website–his work is impressive, and his blog lets you into the intriguing life of an artist.)

The illustrations were my main reason for linking the essay as a PDF file. I’ll bet I don’t really have the rights to display the essay in this format, but I’ll give it a go. I’d like the essay to be accessible to folks who are considering homeschooling, so please feel free to pass the link along. Let me know if you have trouble opening the file.

* * *

In other news of things I’m doing that I really shouldn’t, one of my dear friends sent an email about the tadpole-collecting of my last post. She pointed out that collecting animals in California is illegal. Yikes. She also noted that if I was going to partake in illegal activities, I should probably not mention in the post the location of my illicitness. And also the concern that I might have inadvertently collected eggs of a protected species.

Oh dear. And here I was thinking it would be better to raise a local species that could be returned to the proper habitat.

Life seems so complicated these days. Oh, for the summer days of my childhood, when my brother and I could ride our bikes, unaccompanied, to the creek that ran at the edge of our housing tract and collect interesting creatures in jars without anyone caring. Kids these days seem to have fewer and fewer opportunities to interact with life as directly as we did.

Sigh.

frog egg afternoon

June 10, 2009 in homeschooling, learning, out and about | 8 comments

I got the idea in my head that Mr. T and I needed to raise tadpoles this summer. It’s something we’ve never done before. I was already thinking about it when Lori of In Heywood’s Meadow wrote about her son finding frogs’ eggs and raising tadpoles. She recommended the book Pets In a Jar: Collecting and Caring for Small Wild Animals by Seymour Simon, which we handily found at our library. Armed with the proper know-how, we set out to a local small pond where I’d years ago seen frog eggs.

We didn’t find any eggs in the first pond, so we moved on to a second, and lo and behold I saw a jelly-like cluster right off. We scooped it into a jar and studied it.

I’m not entirely sure these are frogs’ eggs. It’s definitely a cluster of some sort of egg. The dark bits you see are actually algae; I don’t see the dark spot in the egg that frogs’ eggs are supposed to have, but perhaps these were freshly laid and the dark area is still quite small.

Mr. T enjoyed the egg cluster, but he was much more interested in the small creature we’d inadvertently captured along with it.

We identified it as a backswimmer in our little pond guide.

Mr. T wanted to keep it, until we read that backswimmers like to eat tadpoles.

We brought the cluster home, where we’ll keep our eyes on it and see what happens next.

Being at the pond with Mr. T was a little bittersweet for me. Call me slow, but I’m finally starting to realize that once kids like my older two reach teenage-hood, they prefer to learn on their own. I’m sure that’s not true of all teens, all the time–but for the most part, my older kids aren’t so interested in exploring parks with me. Can you imagine: thirteen and seventeen-year-olds would rather hang out with friends than go to a park with their mother? Shocking! But Mr. T is still happy to explore ponds with me for an afternoon, to stalk frogs’ eggs, to read field guides. I know these times together are fleeting, so I’m relishing them like the last bites of a pint of ice cream. I’m scraping the bottom of the carton with my spoon, and I’m not going to miss a drop.

I’ll keep you posted on our mystery egg cluster.

eric carle art

May 31, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 8 comments

A few weeks back, Mr. T and I watched a video from the library called Eric Carle: Picture Writer. It’s a movie I watched years ago with H and Lulu, about Eric Carle’s art, and his stories about how he became an artist. It’s a quiet, sweet film. One of my favorite parts is the story of his kindergarten teacher, and how she saw that he had a gift for art, and urged his parents to nurture it. Carle believes it’s what led him to become the artist he is.

The other fascinating part of the film is watching Carle in his studio, painting the tissue papers that he uses to make the collaged art of his picture books. It’s so fun to watch him, and then to study his books, and see how he uses those papers. At the end of the film, Mr. T said definitively, “I want to do that.”

So he did. I pulled out paints and papers and brushes, and a few other tools like toothbrushes and combs for making texture in the paint. I offered Mr. T plain white paper; I was afraid tissue paper might be too delicate.

And oh boy, did he go to town.

It wasn’t long before his sister had joined him at the table. I love how having a younger sibling gives an older one “permission” to do something that might seem to babyish to do on his or her own.

When H and Lulu watched the Carle film years ago, they made Carle-style papers too, and then used them to illustrate a book about the sea called, “Over by the Seashore”. It followed the pattern of the old folksong, “Over in the Meadow,” and I helped them make up verses about sea creatures. This time, as Lulu and Mr. T worked, they came up with a grand scheme of writing a new book together called, “Over in the Jungle”, which would be based on jungle creatures from India.

They made papers to use for monkeys, tigers, elephants. They wrote the first three verses together.

They worked at it for two mornings straight, and Mr. T made more papers on a third.

And then the project died. Lulu lost interest. Mr. T decided that he didn’t want to use the papers to make animals. He just wanted to make more papers.

I’ll admit it: I had a hard time with this. They’d spent days making the papers, and I hated to see them give up before making something with them. I tried to encourage Mr. T to use the papers to make something: a galaxy scene, some imaginary creature. I pushed too hard and he got mad. It was making the papers that he’d originally wanted to do. That was what captivated him; that was what he’d enjoyed.

So I let it go. We now have a nice collection of art papers for some future project–maybe. Then again, if making the papers gave two kids born six years apart a few mornings of shared joy, I suppose I should be satisfied.

And you know what? I am.

atwitter: february/march

March 27, 2009 in atwitter, books, homeschooling, learning | 7 comments

I never got around to writing an atwitter post last month, so there’s more to share this month. A few of the things that have me all worked up these days:

beekeeping. About ten years ago, we planted our front hillside with more than sixty lavender plants. Every July the hillside is smothered in bees, and I’ve always thought we ought to have a beehive. Of course, I envisioned some other beekeeper maintaining the hive, and leaving us with a share of the honey. But several of my friends have been keeping bees themselves–Stefaneener, Susan and Kristin–so I’m encouraged to try it too. (My beekeeping friends are also bloggers–what’s the personality trait that draws people to both blogging and bees? What, did you say geekiness?) My honey is building me a terraced bee yard out amongst the lavender, and I’m reading The Backyard Beekeeper and Beekeeping for Dummies, planning to get my bees in April. And of course I’ve found some fantastic bee bloggers who are already convincing me to do things differently and be a beekeeping rebel: Backwards Beekeepers and Linda’s Bees.

spain, on the road again. I bought this book for my Spanish-blooded husband for Christmas, and we’ve been enjoying the accompanying PBS series on disc. It’s basically a show about Mario Batali, Gwyneth Paltrow and friends driving around Spain, taking in its gorgeousness, and eating delicious food at every opportunity. My kind of trip. They visit many of the same places we visited when we went to Spain in ‘05, along with the kids and Chris’ parents. (Where I had the distinct pleasure of pronouncing my name Pa-tree-thee-a Tha-ba-yosh. And picked up that cute little olive dish pictured above.) We love Mario Batali around here–he’s such a happy hedonist. It’s hard to watch all the food talk without getting hungry, but watching with a glass of Spanish wine in hand helps.

learning how to make perfectly hard-boiled eggs. Just in time for Easter! Why is it that Americans don’t seem able to boil an egg without rendering the yolk grey and chalky? In Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (favorite cookbook ever), Deborah Madison writes, “When cut in half, the yolk should have a dime-sized moist dot in the center.” Yes! The yolk is so gorgeously gold and succulent when boiled this way. A while back, Clotilde from Chocolate & Zucchini gave directions for perfect hard-boiled eggs, and the instructions are spot on. Follow the ones for a 9-minute egg and you will not be disappointed.

studying india. We’re wrapping up our India studies. Mr. T is anxious to move on to Mongolia, and Lulu to Japan. But I sure loved learning about India and would be happy to linger there a little longer. I’m planning to listen to A Passage to India on disc (which might also be the motivation I need to work up some steam in my knitting and finish that dang sweater coat!) But it’s been fun reading Indian tales, visiting local Indian shops and restaurants and learning how Indians live. Check out this fascinating video on the complex Mumbai system of home-cooked lunch delivery, carried in tiffins, those stainless steel stackable food containers that are now all the rage amongst the green crowd. We finally bought our own, after insuring that the one we bought was authentically Indian.

a new blog. I really like Homeschool. Style. Bytes. It’s sort of a homeschooling blog co-op. Helen gathers beautiful photos and text about homeschooling from Blogland and makes a lovely bouquet of them. I keep meaning to write down our own homeschooling recipe and send it her way.

So, what are you all worked up about this month?

highlights from a history fair

March 23, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, makin' stuff | 7 comments

Our homeschooling group hosts a history fair every year and I love it.

I love talking to kids who are excited with what they’re learning about.

I love seeing the handiwork of little hands.

(Those are Mr. T’s hands and planets.)

A collection of Native American dwellings.

I love seeing the creativity of their displays.

This was a display on the history of spices. Look at how the seven-year-old creator worked in her love of fabric!

I love seeing kids chat with each other about what they’ve learned.

They had their Trip Through Time “passports” stamped or stickered at each exhibit.

I love seeing how proud they are of their work.

This shot gives a little perspective to the photos of Lulu’s kitchen from my last post.

And I absolutely love seeing thirteen-year-old boys try on tap shoes at a friend’s “History of Tap Dancing” display.

It was a wonderful day.

Postscript to my fabulous regular readers: The last two weeks have been ridiculously busy. Hence, few posts here, and even fewer visits to, and comments on your blogs. I’ll be catching up and making the rounds this week–I miss you.

I’d like a thimbleful of channa masala, please

March 16, 2009 in homeschooling, makin' stuff | 8 comments

Lulu is finishing up her project for our homeschool group’s history fair. It’s an Indian dollhouse kitchen inspired, I think, by her fairy house building with Mr. T.

My favorite parts are the tiny clay spice dishes, and the window out to an authentic Indian street.

She wanted to build a modern-day Indian kitchen. It was hard to find resources, but she and I found photos here and there. She used lots of foamcore and Fimo, a few Playmobil pieces, and lots of imagination.

Since it’s a history fair, she plans to point out the Indian history alive in a modern-day kitchen. Not too hard considering India is a country still steeped in its history.

I’d like to crawl in there, and sip a cup of chai tea.

the scribe and the storyteller

March 10, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning, writing | 15 comments

One of Mr. T’s favorite things to do is to tell me a story, and have me write it down. Actually, he’s been adding on to the same story for months now–Scritch and Scratch, about a boy and a girl turned into wolves who have many adventures in space.

Yesterday he was jumping out of his skin when he realized that he had a new story to begin, about a boy named Todding Toddington and his adventures in an alternate world, which other people can’t see. It’s part of what he’s calling The Series of Wonders. (And you know his Wonder Farm mama is lapping that up.)

Mr. T would be happy if I’d take his story dictation every day–even several times a day. But I don’t. It’s time-consuming. And it’s tedious. But I try to get to it a couple of times a week because it brings him such joy. And, I realize, he learns an awful lot about writing in the process.

As prone as I am to making teachable moments of every gosh-darned thing, I try not to lapse into teaching mode when I take down his stories. I don’t say in my Dana-Carvey-as-The-Church-Lady voice, See how I start each sentence with a capital? or Did you notice how I spelled this word? Nope, I just write down what he tells me, and ask for clarification when I’m honestly curious about something.

Still, he’s learning so very much every time we do this. Yesterday I tried to take note of what he was picking up:

He knows that sentences end with punctuation, because whenever he continues a sentence that I thought he’d finished, he sees me erase the punctuation and add it later.
He knows that exciting sentences end with exclamation marks.
He knows how to use quotation marks because he sees me do this whenever one of his characters talks. He’s also learned how to add he said or she exclaimed in the most dramatic places in the dialogue. I assume he’s picked this up from being read to, and from listening to audio books.
He knows that titles are centered on the page and capitalized. He’s even noticed that minor words like of and the don’t get capitalized.
He knows about starting new paragraphs when the story shifts gears. Often he’ll tell me to “start down here now” when he’s ready to move on in the piece. Paragraphing is something that’s often hard for much older kids to grasp; Mr. T has intuited it by watching where I add paragraphs in his stories. Often I’ll simply ask him, “Do you think we should start a new paragraph now? Is the scene changing?”
In his story yesterday, Todding Toddington found a piece of paper with a poem on it. As I wrote down his poem, Mr. T said, “Shouldn’t it be slantways ’cause it’s a poem?” I realized he meant that part should be written in italics; I’m not even sure where he picked that up. So I erased it and wrote it in cursive.
In his story one character said to another, “Are you a windquist?” I asked Mr. T what a windquist was, and I pointed out that his reader might wonder. So he said, “This is the narrator talking now,” and he defined a windquist. I said, “I’ll make a new paragraph, since we’re switching to the narrator.”
He narrated the sentence, “At that second a giant thing of wind blew into the room.” I’m all for writing down lines as he says them, but if he uses vague words like thing, I’ll often check to see if he can come up with a better one. He struggled with finding the right word, so I became his thesaurus and suggested a few: blast, gust. Yes! Gust was just what he wanted.

My hand and my attention usually peter out after two pages or so. It would be easier to type his dictation into the computer, but I don’t think it would allow him to notice what I’m writing quite as well. Watching me erase and rewrite as we go seems to be a tangible learning experience for him. And allowing him to watch me write seems like a natural bridge to his writing himself eventually.

I love the thought that my kids have never needed grammar instruction; they’ve picked up the tools of writing by loving to write. Even if it meant that, for a long time, I was the one doing the physical writing.

As I was writing this post early this morning, Mr. T woke up. His first words to me: “What are we doing today? Will you write my story?”

making space, literally and figuratively

March 4, 2009 in homeschooling, learning | 8 comments

The ever-wonderful Lori has a truly inspiring post up over at Camp Creek. It’s called Making Space For Their Ideas, and it’s all about how to help kids facilitate their own projects. How to let go of your own ideas, to make space for them to have their own ideas.

If you haven’t read it yet, do.

It goes right along with my last two posts. Makes me realize how far I’ve come with child-led learning, since my days as a teacher–and how far I still have to go.

Take Mr. T’s planet project. We’d talked many times of the papier-mache planet models that H made when he was Mr. T’s age. So when I asked if he might want to make his own models for our homeschool group’s upcoming history fair, I knew he might be interested. He was happy to go along with my idea for a project.

Just yesterday he started it. But I didn’t let him guide things at first. I just assumed I’d show him how to do it; then he’d take over once it came time to do the papier-mache and the painting. I hadn’t yet read Lori’s post, you understand (she says sheepishly).

But here’s something I love about my kids: when I start taking over their projects, they stop me. I must have done something right, because they know what they want.

First, Mr. T explained that the book I showed him giving scale explanations for the planets–if Jupiter is a large cabbage, then Earth is a walnut–was wrong. He led me to a video on Flixxy about the scale of planets, which was forwarded to us by my friend, Carrie. It’s a fascinating video, and Mr. T has watched it dozens of times, and studied the scale pictures below the video.

“That book shows Uranus and Neptune too big. And Uranus and Neptune should be almost the same size.”

He was right. The book I’d so carefully tracked down from another library system, the one I used back when I was teacher, was published in 1977. It’s outdated–and Mr. T didn’t need it anyway. He could have figured out how to make the models himself, based on the video that’s enchanted him so many times.

Earlier, he’d tried making a foil ball the size of a walnut for Earth. He tried to trace the shape of the walnut on to the foil, so he could make a walnut-sized foil shell, which he would then fill with foil.

When forming the shell became difficult, did I ask if he wanted help? Nope. I just blurted out that it might be easier to make a small foil ball and keep adding to it until it was the size of the walnut.

I knew when I said it that I shouldn’t have. I knew I was hurrying him along, wanting him to make progress on the project–because our history fair is in two weeks.

About an hour later I read Lori’s post. Just when I needed it. As much as I’ve learned to follow my kids, I need to step back even more. I want to step back even more. I want to see what Mr. T’s wondrous imagination comes up with, when I don’t climb in there and muck things up. Even if it means his history fair exhibit might look like it was made by a seven-year-old with a wondrous imagination.

I think I’ll print out Lori’s post and hang it beside my desk.

I’m glad I read it before Mr. T got deep into his project. I haven’t taken it from him yet–there’s still time to let him grab it from my hands and run with it.

And the other good news? He didn’t take my advice on how to make a foil walnut. He did it his own way.

the duomo

February 26, 2009 in homeschooling, learning, makin' stuff | 5 comments

Ooh, the comments on my last post have been interesting–have you seen?

So much talk about child-led learning, and parental support, and the many possible ratios of the two.

That last post was about me trying to let go and let Mr. T lead; this time I’m switching angles and writing about a time when I didn’t let go.

A couple of years ago, before our family took an amazing trip to Italy, H made this model of Florence’s Duomo.

The model was his idea. He was reading Brunelleschi’s Dome, by Ross King and was fascinated with the dome, couldn’t believe how big it looked in Florence, when viewed from above on Google Earth. H’s dome might not look that impressive on first glance–it’s just a foamcore model. More impressive was the fact that he made it on his own–with no instructions, no blueprints, no measurements to work from. He looked online for architectural plans, and found some drawings of the dome, but nothing with measurements. So he made his own scale plans by measuring photos on the internet.

This might be a workable concept if making a traditional building, with traditional right angles. But look at the terracotta sections of the dome and try to envision how they’re shaped. Then envision how you would cut the pieces from foamcore to make them come together into a dome.

Now, spacial-visual skills are one of H’s strengths–you may have heard me talk of the dizzying Lego diagrams he could follow at five. He was sure he could work this out, and he tried. He cut piece after piece out of foam core for the dome section and tried again and again to fit them together. Eventually he got so tired of cutting them that he was hacking them from the foamcore, with an X-acto knife. Then finally, one day when he was so close to getting the thing to work, he had enough. He picked up his duomo-in-progress, hurled it across the living room where it smashed against a cabinet, and said he never wanted to see it again.

Well. Any parent who ostensibly follows their child’s lead with his learning would take this as a not-so-subtle signal to move on. But no-o-o. Not me. I just couldn’t let go of the project. H had put so many hours of research and effort into his model, and he’d come so close to making it work–I couldn’t let him throw it all away.

So Chris* and I appraised the smashed model. We could see that H’s last version of the domed roof had actually come close to fitting–it was just that the hacked edges weren’t lining up. So Chris used H’s pieces as a template, and recut the pieces as only an un-frustrated person can.

Then I begged and cajoled H to try one more time. He said no! I begged more. Eventually he caved. He made the dome pieces fit, and finished the model, up to the brass cross at the tip.

I’m so glad I pestered him. Look:

That was the view from our hotel room in Florence. It was directly across the street from the Santa Maria dei Fiori Cathedral and Il Duomo. The old, eight-feet high wooden windows were worth the price of the room. We never tired of the dome’s ringing bells, or looking out the windows at that ancient terracotta roof, at the crowds in front of the cathedral. Each morning I drank my cappuccino at the window, watching people ride their bikes across the square to work–my favorites were the nuns, and the women riding upright in their stylish skirts and scarves, looking like extras from Roman Holiday.

But I think no one loved that view more than H. He owned that dome. He had conquered it. It was his.

Which brings me back to the little dance in which sometimes my kids lead, and sometimes I lead. I try to let them take control, but sometimes, I think, they can use a little push. A little insistence even. They need someone to say, I think you should try to do this and here’s why. H needed me to hear me say, I know you don’t want to work on that Duomo any more, but I’d really like you to make another attempt at it.

I try not to do it too often, or my words lose their power. I do a lot of biting my tongue.

But here’s what I’ve discovered: if you make an effort to listen to your kids and follow their leads most of the time, they may, on occasion, listen to you.

——————————

* Chris has decided the he doesn’t want to be referred to as My Charming Husband. Too much pressure, I guess. He suggested Cristiano, his commenting pseudonym, which was actually the name of our concierge at this particular hotel in Florence. But I don’t know–referring to him as Cristiano makes me feel like I’m married to an Italian concierge. So I’m going back to using his regular ol’ name; hopefully if some business acquaintance googles his name, Chris won’t be embarrassed by his shenanigans on the Wonder Farm.

in his hands

February 22, 2009 in homeschooling, learning | 10 comments

boy holding pomelo

Because I like to have a photo with each post. Because I thought I could make one more contribution to yellow week. Because the pomelo looks like a planet. And because the image itself could be a metaphor for the words below.

Our homeschool group sponsors a history fair each spring. Kids display exhibits on an any interest related to history. We encourage them to include an interactive element–something to do, or taste, or try. Kids take turns visiting exhibits, and staying at their own exhibits to answer questions. They also create stamps or stickers related to their topic, which they use to mark visitors’ passports. It’s always a fun, inspiring morning.

I try to help my kids come up with a display idea a couple months before the fair. Since we’re studying India these days, I figured I’d help them come up with projects related to that country. Lulu quickly came up with her idea of making an Indian dollhouse–although her interest is flagging a bit, not helped by the fact that she made a set of Fimo pots and utensils for her kitchen, which I inadvertently burned while preheating the oven to make pizza on Friday night. Doh!

Mr. T has been playing with options for a few weeks. First he said he wanted to make some sort of forest sculpture, so we researched Indian trees–mangroves and banyans. I was especially excited about the idea of him making a banyan tree out of Model Magic, because he loves that material, and because we read In the Heart of the Village: The World of the Indian Banyan Tree. It’s a beautiful book about a small Indian village and how life revolves around the old banyan tree in the village center. Mr. T could make animals to go in the tree! He could make shrines to Hindu deities at its trunk! He could talk about how banyan trees factor into so many traditional Indian tales!

But no. Mr. T decided he didn’t want to do that. So we shifted gears–me feeling a little disappointed. We talked about doing a project about Hindu deities. Mr. T has always loved deity legends, which began when he first listened to the wonderful D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths on disc when he was four. He’s gone on to listen to them again and again and again. Last year he learned about Norse gods for the history fair, this time using D’Aulaires’Book of Norse Myths, and The Adventures of Thor the Thunder God, among others.

We’ve been reading the fun Little Book of Hindu Deities, written and charmingly illustrated by Sanjay Patel, an Indian-American animator at Pixar. We played with the idea of making a comic book about Hindu deities. This seemed like an intriguing idea, given Mr. T’s love of drawing fanciful characters.

But again, no. Mr. T just wasn’t excited about these ideas, nor any of the many others we discussed.

I knew what the problem was.

As interested as he is in India, in the tales we’re reading, and the food, and the photos and the videos we’ve seen, what’s he’s really excited about right now is–space.

It started when he watched Wall-E once again, and started asking questions about galaxies. Then he started inventing his own galaxies, and journaling about the moon. When I was too busy to constantly read him books about the planets, he pulled out the books himself and started studying charts and using his budding reading skills to learn about moons and rings and orbits. I’m amazed what he’s picked up on his own.

I knew what I needed to do: I needed to let go of my idea of an India project. So I asked, Hey, Buddy. What would you think about doing your history project about the history of the planets?

His eyes grew wide.

If you want to, you could make papier-mache models like your brother did when he was your age. Now his eyes were as wide as his brother’s old scale model of Mars. Yes! he said. Yes!

So we’ll do it. We’ll whip up some flour paste and rip up some newspaper. He’ll make a mess with paste and paint and I’m sure he’ll love it. Since he’s doing this for a history fair, not a science fair, I’ll help him focus on how people have interacted with the planets: how they discovered them, how they named them. Which will bring us back to those gods–we’ll work Hindu deities into his project yet.

But in the end, it’s his project. One of my biggest challenges as a parent is knowing how much to support; how much to let go. It’s an art, really, offering just the right amount of enthusiasm and help to make their ideas come to life. It’s an art that I make a mess of constantly; luckily I have three fabulous teachers, trying to help me get it right. Trying to help me leave things in their hands.

what homeschooling looked like this week

February 6, 2009 in homeschooling | 6 comments

Oh dear, I’m afraid I have bored the hand-knit socks off of you! My last post received exactly zero comments, a low that hasn’t happened since my first month of blogging. (Correction: In the time it took for me to publish this draft, Lori left me a comment. Thanks, Lori!) My essayist project is a selfish one–I’m doing it for myself, not because I think anyone else will be interested. I appreciate you indulging me once a month. (But what will you do when I post about a 16th century essayist later this month? I can just see the Google Reader subscription cancellations now…)

Let me make it up to you with some pretty photos. I know you like pretty photos.

what homeschooling looked like this week

planning for an Indian dollhouse • drawing a banyan tree scene • using base 10 blocks to understand the difference between “402″ and “four hundred plus two hundred” • starting a moon journal • plowing through the newest stack of library books • also: Shakespeare class for Lulu • shelter class for Mr. T • reading Indian tales over hot chocolate in a cafe • playing tetherball • algebra • watching animated tales of Hindu gods • Rosetta Stone French • overnight literary conference for Lulu • a rather wet Park Day • lots of ballet • Lulu’s book group • Zoombinis on the computer • written response to a Langston Hughes poem • a new journal of creatures for Mr. T • a video about rovers on Mars • dictating the neverending story of Scritch and Scratch, two children-turned-wolves • starting a fictional journal of a 16th century girl for Lulu’s Shakespeare class • reading Farmer Boy to Mr. T • more Unfortunate Events in the car, driving from place to place

It always surprises me how much they do, when I write it down.

atwitter: january

January 31, 2009 in atwitter, books, from the kitchen, homeschooling, makin' stuff, wordlover | 6 comments

A few things that got me all worked up this month:

A Series of Unfortunate Events. I listened to several of these books on tape with H and Lulu way back when, and have only just started listening again with Mr. T. I’d forgotten how brilliant they are. They’re hilarious, if you have the warped sense of humor that my family has inherited, for better or for worse. I wouldn’t even consider reading them aloud–not when Tim Curry does it so much better, Mr. Po’s hacking cough and all. And if, like I am, you are a wordlover—a term which here means someone who takes a slightly odd pleasure in the sound and meaning of words–you will appreciate Lemony Snicket’s tendency to employ words and phrases not typically found in children’s books, and also to explain their meanings. You would not believe how these words and phrases managed to creep into Lulu’s vocabulary when she was younger; now I have a seven-year-old son whose conversations are embellished with gems like, “with all due respect” and “dwarfed in comparison”. (Do I recommend these books for other seven-year-olds? No, I do not. As you can see in Mr. T’s drawing, they’re full of death and darkness and malevolent adults. But if you have a seven-year-old with older siblings who is twisted already–enjoy!)

It’s kumquat season. I love having these beauties sitting in a pretty bowl on the counter, and popping them into my mouth as I pass by. An acquired taste, I suppose, but I find them irresistible.

Studying India. Such a fascinating culture, and I’m enjoying every minute of it. We were lucky enough to start our explorations just as the fabulous Story of India appeared on PBS–hopefully they’ll replay it if you missed it. The kids have each come up with a project–Lulu is planning to make an Indian dollhouse, inspired by this stunning Frida Kahlo studio dollhouse. And Mr. T is thinking about making a model of a banyan tree out of Model Magic, with creatures in and around it. Should be fun…

Taking a break from an endless knitting project. So I’ve finished the sleeves and the back of my Sweater Coat with Lace Pattern.

I’m generally a ridiculously monogamous knitter, but I’m taking a break to knit myself a pair of Toasty mitts. I’m adding thumb gussets because I think they look nice and adapting the pattern is good for my math brain.

What’s that you say? It looks like the same yarn as I’m using in the sweater? No, Silly, the sweater is Sublime Kid Mohair, while the mitts’ yarn is Rowan Kid Classic. But it would seem that I’ve fallen into a slate blue, mohair rut and I can’t get out.

Making yogurt. This was my first try, inspired by The River Cottage Family Cookbook. Lacking a pilot light in my oven, I tried to make a “warm place” by putting my crockpot on low, and lining it with several cloth towels. That still seemed to keep the milk too warm, though. The finished yogurt tastes good, but is very runny. My Danish, yarn shop-owning friend–who ought to know a thing about making yogurt–suggested wrapping the warmed milk in towels and just keeping it in a cooler to insulate it while the bacteria develops. I’ll try that with my next batch.

New blogs. A couple of particularly beautiful ones: good + happy day and the habit of being.

So what has you all atwitter this month?

invented spelling

January 27, 2009 in homeschooling, learning | 11 comments

Yesterday Mr. T was illustrating some of his “galaxies”. These are the newest creatures to pop forth from his imagination, based somewhat on facts he knows about real planets and galaxies, and somewhat on the fascinating flotsam that collects in his brain. I asked if he wanted me to write down the galaxies’ names for him.

“Nah, I think I’ll write it myself.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said, and tried to bite my lips shut so I wouldn’t say more and undermine the whole endeavor.

It’s so fantastic when kids are willing to write words their own way, based on the sounds they hear and the letter combinations they remember. Back in my teacher days we called it invented spelling. It’s exciting because it frees kids up to write without the help of an adult–and helps them focus on words and learn conventional spelling more organically.

I love this photo--you can see him saying aloud the sound he's trying to write.

Kids typically focus on consonant sounds first, and then start working with those baffling vowels. In the picture above you can see his Sombrero Galaxy, which he spelled The Sambro. (And it’s an actual galaxy name–did you know?) I was sitting beside him, and sometimes I helped him say the words slowly, so he could focus on the sounds. But mostly I tried to stay out of it.

Some kids don’t like using invented spelling. H hated it for a long time. He wanted his words to be right. And actually, thinking back, it makes sense. He’s always been a very visual learner. It probably bothered him to look at a word, and recognize that it was wrong.

I’ve also learned, through many years of eating my words, that it’s best not to push invented spelling. You know the theorem: the more you push, the less they want to do something. So I’ll keep biting my lips and only occasionally suggest that Mr. T write on his own. Maybe he’ll do it without any encouragement. But I’ll still take plenty of dictation. I made the mistake with my poor firstborn to assume that once he was proficient with writing, I was off the hook and he could do it on his own. The trouble with that notion is the writing becomes shorter and more limited because the mechanics of writing can be such a chore. Instead, if you’re occasionally willing to take dictation– years after they’re able to write on their own–kids will have the experience of writing the more developed, sophisticated work that their brains and imaginations are capable of.

But for now I’m just enjoying what Mr. T is doing. See that dark, scary creature at the bottom of the page? He’s Karpt, pronounced Corrupt.

I’m not sure which tickles me more–the name, or the spelling.

10,000 hours

January 23, 2009 in creativity, homeschooling, learning | 2 comments

A few weeks ago on Camp Creek –my new favorite blog about project-based homeschooling and authentic art!–Lori wrote an interesting post after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success. In the book, apparently, Gladwell states that to become excellent at something, you need to spend about 10,000 hours at it.

In her post, Lori considered how homeschooling might play into that theory. If you haven’t already, go read what she wrote instead of a poor summary from me.

Now, here’s something exciting which might seem completely unrelated: right now my 16-year-old is at the Sundance Film Festival for six days. I couldn’t be more thrilled for him.

And I think that fact has an awful lot to do with Gladwell’s 10,000 hours, and Lori’s thoughts on homeschooling.

But to tie that all together, I’ll have to tell you a little story. Or a long story. (I have to be careful: my oldest doesn’t like me writing about him here. But, I figure, I took his name off the blog. And I just want to share a little about his path; I’ll try not to get too personal. Plus, the kid’s at Sundance–my blog is surely the last thing on his mind.)

Anyway, a couple of years ago, in November 2006, H and I had one of those explosive homeschooling days that made it clear things weren’t working. At that point, he was what a high school would consider a freshman. And since he’d started “high school”, things had changed with our homeschooling. I’d changed things with our homeschooling.

Suddenly, I’d realized that if H planned to go to college, he would need a transcript, and for the first time in our homeschooling lives we needed to account for how he was spending his time. I wanted him to continue as we always had: “covering” less, but letting his learning be more in-depth. Having him choose projects to explore interesting topics, rather than skimming through endless textbooks.

But that transcript kept hovering over my shoulder, and I was suddenly pushing him to cover more. Do it in an interesting way, of course, but cover more…

Well, there isn’t enough time in the day to learn both ways, and H was justified when he told me in no uncertain terms, “I can’t do all this!”

We spent a lot of time talking about what we should do. I could see that learning had become less exciting for him, and it saddened me. But neither of us wanted to completely ignore the fact that eventually colleges would be interested in what he’d done for four years.

We didn’t figure everything out that day, but we decided that he would change his focus. He would “cover” some topics that interested him less more quickly–science, math–and leave time to explore the areas that he liked in more depth–English, history.

And filmmaking.

H had started using the family camcorder to film movies with his friends and siblings that summer. He’d taught himself how to edit with iMovie. It amazed me to see how immersed he became when he was editing a film, how he could spend hours at it, completely focused.

I wanted him to bring that excitement about learning back to his homeschooling. Together, H and I designed a “class” that we could add to his transcript: Introduction to Filmmaking.

He started with Hitchcock, because back when I was in college, I decided that one ought not to graduate from UCLA without taking a film class, and Hitchcock was the spring quarter offering. So H watched one Hitchcock film after another and read my text from the class: a fantastic set of film-by-film interviews between Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut.

Hitchcock turned out to be a fortuitous introduction, I think. His careful attention to camera angles and shots had an effect on H’s own very visual style.

He read Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez and watched his early films with the director’s commentary. He learned a lot about making films as a beginner, with little money.

While studying WWII, he filmed and edited an extended interview with a family member who’d served there.

I helped H load up the Netflix queue. Classic films, newer films, he watched them all. He wrote a few papers. And he spent a lot of time behind our camera and with our computer editing program.

A year or so before, a friend in my homeschooling group had forwarded a link to a free (!) filmmaking program in our city, for kids 15 and up. I’d saved that link–because squirreling away possibilities for our kids is what homeschooling moms do best. When he turned 15, H started attending the program, and it’s been an amazing opportunity for him. He’s been using professional-quality cameras and editing programs for over a year now. He’s made three short films of his own, and done collaborative work on others. He attended a program on an Indian reservation outside Seattle, in which teams of kids had 36 hours to film and edit an adapted scene from one of Native American writer Sherman Alexie’s books. The films were screened at the Seattle International Film Festival, and Sherman Alexie was there.

And now they’re at Sundance.

But back to Lori’s post. What’s interesting is that H decided to go to high school this year as a junior, for his own reasons which I won’t go into here. It’s been a lot of work–I’m not sure he understood entirely what he was getting himself into. But what’s wonderful is that he took on school with the understanding that filmmaking wouldn’t lose its priority in his life. As a homeschooler, H had two years to explore film at his own pace, to let it seep into him and become part of him. And there’s no way he’s going to let a set of required classes stop him from continuing that.

I don’t think he’s come close to his 10,000 hours yet, but they’re clicking by pretty quickly. And I’m so grateful that homeschooling helped him get that clock going.

season of light

December 16, 2008 in celebrations and traditions, homeschooling | 3 comments

That’s a photo of our Advent wreath, taken during our annual raising-of-the-Christmas-tree fondue dinner. Years ago, Chris and I started the tradition of eating fondue on the evening when we put up our Christmas tree. After all the work of decorating the tree, it seemed so easy to slit open a pack of Swiss Knight fondue cheese and squeeze it into the fondue pot. Nowadays we make the fondue from scratch, and there are lots of dippables to cut, so it isn’t particularly easy. But it’s a tradition, and one which H and Lulu almost always mention when questioned about their favorite family traditions. (Mr. T isn’t so sure. He doesn’t like all that cheese–but he does love the fabulously pokey fondue forks.)

So many cultures celebrate with light during the dark of winter. Candles and lights are an important part of Christmas. They’re also central in solstice celebrations, on St. Lucia Day in Sweden, in Posada processions in Mexico, during Hanukkah, on Diwali in India, during Kwanzaa.

Back when I taught school, my classroom was quite diverse. I had many African-American students, as well as students from Mexico, Guatemala, Afghanistan, India, the Philippines, and Vietnam–to name just a few. Given that diversity, I didn’t feel I should do a lot of Christmas-y activities during December. Instead of dwelling on Christmas in my classroom, we researched the variety of light-centered celebrations that occur around the world during winter. We looked at how those celebrations differ from each other. And how, in many ways, they’re similar.

I liked to culminate our “Season of Light” study with a big potluck lunch in which the students’ families brought food from their own traditions to share. One of the highlights of my teaching experience was seeing the feast that came together from my students and their wonderfully rich backgrounds. We had cornbread and lumpia and a rice dessert from India, and baklava, and chile verde, and–oh, I can’t remember them all.

I do remember the year we had homemade tamales. These came from the family of a Mexican boy in my class. His family was quite poor–as I recall, they lived in a single room. The parents didn’t speak any English, and although I tried to reach out to my Spanish-speaking families with own shaky Spanish, this family seemed too humble to want to bother me. Nevertheless, on the day of the feast this student and his parents brought in two huge trays of tamales. This kid was always a happy kid, but I wish you could have seen him beam as he carried in his tray of tamales. He told me later that his mother had woken up at four o’clock that morning to make those tamales for us.

It’s one of my favorite teaching memories.

This year I’m reading some of the books I read to my students to Mr. T–and Lulu too. And there are so many new ones, sixteen years later! I couldn’t find books on Diwali and Kwanzaa back then. The kids are making some Season of Light accordion books. We’ll learn again what the characters on the dreidel signify, and we’ll play the dreidel game-although we may not get to making latkes this year, with Hanukkah starting so close to Christmas…

Here are a few of the books we’re reading. This certainly doesn’t list all the wonderful books out there; this is just a sampling based on what we own, and what we found at the library.

Children Just Like Me: Celebrations, by Barbara and Anabel Kindersley–beautiful DK book with photos and stories of real children celebrating all the holidays I’ve mentioned (except Kwanzaa), and many others.

The Whole Earth Holiday Book, by Linda Polon and Aileen Cantwell–overview of many holidays celebrated throughout the world.

Las Posadas:

Las Posadas: An Hispanic Christmas Celebration, by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith–photos and stories of actual families celebrating La Posada.

Pedro, The Angel of Olvera Street, by Leo Politi–sweet picture book about a boy and his Posada. A favorite.

Nine Days to Christmas, A Story of Mexico, by Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida–another classic for younger kids.

The Night of Las Posadas, by Tomie dePaola–nice book which highlights the religious story behind Las Posadas.

Diwali:

The Story of Divaali, retold by Jatinder Verma–beautifully illustrated book retelling the story of Rama and Sita.

(edited to add: After reading this book, Lulu and Mr. T watched the gorgeous 1995 version of A Little Princess, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, which has scenes from the Rama and Sita story interspersed throughout.)

Hanukkah:

(There are lots and lots of Hanukkah books–we read different ones each year. Here’s a list of ten good ones. The Trees of the Dancing Goats sounds wonderful! I’m ordering it from the library…)

Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, by Eric A. Kimmel–my boys in particular have always loved this one.

Kwanzaa:

(Another list of 10 great books.)

My First Kwanzaa Book, by Deborah M. Newton Chocolate–nice book for younger kids.

Seven Spools of Thread, by Angela Shelf Medearis–I’m looking forward to reading this one.

Are there any other light-filled celebrations that I’m forgetting? Books you’d recommend? Special ways that light figures into your traditions? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

on homeschooling and teaching credentials

October 23, 2008 in homeschooling, learning | 4 comments

I’ve had a lovely correspondence with a new blog-friend, Melissa of WhatKnot. (Do stop by her blog and take in her beautiful photos of her kids and her crafts, and her charming way with words.) In an exchange of emails about homeschooling, Melissa pointed out that many people who homeschool (including me) seem to have a background in teaching. She wondered about homeschooling without such a background.

I’ve often said that my background as a teacher has been as much a hindrance as a help to me as a homeschooler. And I mean that.

As a former teacher, I came into homeschooling confident that I could do it. But I also had a whole slew of preconceptions.

Consider just a sampling of what teaching taught me:

Students do whatever you ask them to do. (And if they don’t, they’re a discipline problem that you’ll need to attend to.)
Teachers do the lesson planning.
You should plan lessons carefully ahead of time, and stick to the plan on the page, or you’ll get behind.
Students should cover most subjects most days.
Students should have written records of what they’re learning, otherwise you can’t be sure they’re learning.
Kids learn how to read in first grade, they work on spelling in second grade, learn cursive and multiplication in third grade…

I could go on. Now reread that list and consider how it might work in a homeschool environment. It might work fine if you have a very obedient child who follows your every instruction. I, however, did not. My first child has always had a very strong sense of self and a very strong voice to proclaim it. He would never do anything simply because I told him to; instead he’s questioned everything. Why do we have to read this book if I don’t like it? Why do I have to stop drawing to do science? Why should I write down my thinking on that math problem if I can just tell you how I did it?

Chris and I like to say that H’s motto should be “What’s the point of that?”

Why indeed? I had to give him answers, which made me think through his whys. Often I realized I was asking him to do things simply because it was how I’d done it in the classroom. I wanted him to be able to do what I knew school kids did. That seemed reason enough for me, but it wasn’t good enough for H. Why, why, why he argued. Oh, we had battles, I can tell you that. He argued; I was stubborn. I was a professional after all! But slowly (very slowly!) I saw that when I forced H to do something, he didn’t learn much. Except to despise whatever I was trying to teach.

Slowly I learned to listen, to consider, to shake off many of my teacher-ish beliefs. I learned to focus on helping H learn in ways that were meaningful to him.

Disobedient kids can be a blessing. (And I got three of them!) Sometimes I wonder which of us has learned more.

Of course, any parent who has spent time in a classroom may share many of my preconceptions about learning and education. But I’d argue that it’s probably harder for those of us with a background in education to shake those notions. After all, we’ve been trained to believe them.

If you don’t have that training you’ll probably have an easier time easing into homeschooling, just continuing what you’ve done with your kids since birth: pay attention to their needs and do your best to meet them.

Being a teacher did have some positive effects on my role as a homeschooling parent. More on that in my next post…

(Yes, I do still keep a teacher’s plan book. But rather than using it to plan lessons ahead of time, I record instead what the kids have done after the fact. Including all the wonderful learning they do on their own. Being able to look through the book is always encouraging when I start to worry that we’re not doing enough. Plus, record-keeping is one teacher-y part of me that I just can’t shake.)

lessons learned on a homeschool camping trip

September 29, 2008 in homeschooling, out and about | 3 comments

even cheese-grating can be fun, when you do it with friends.
a six-year-old can subsist on little more than quesadillas and marshmallows for three days.
when a camping coordinator reads the “camping guidelines” aloud during dinner, including the guideline about adults modeling responsible alcohol use, she is bound to have a bottle of beer in her hand.
if you tell a group of five to eight-year-olds that they can “fight” with kindling sticks only if they do so in slow motion, they may surprise you by following your instructions.
if you tell your twelve-year-old that she must sleep in your family tent, rather than in a tent full of other twelve and thirteen-year-olds, there will be some wrath to deal with at bedtime.
you can knit complicated lace patterns while supervising your six-year-old in the Santa Cruz surf.
older teens who have spent previous camping trips hiding out in the farthest reaches of campsites may suddenly spend stretches of time alongside the adults, seeming to enjoy themselves.
if you put out an expensive hunk of Humboldt Fog truffle-laced goat cheese for your co-chefs to enjoy, an eight-year-old with a sophisticated palate will snarf half the thing down before you notice what is happening.
on the other hand, if you leave out a bag of grated jack while making an aforementioned quesadilla, a far-less-sophisticated adult may approach, stick his dirty camping hands into your cheese and do some snarfing of his own.
homeschooling mothers outfitted with headlamps will continue knitting long past dark.
homeschooling fathers outfitted with guitars and a trumpet, plus one talented 17-year-old with a mandolin, can lead one heck of a hootenanny.
if a park ranger approaches on Thursday night to complain about the noise generated by a group of adults talking quietly around a campfire, he will be nowhere to be found on Saturday night during said hootenanny, even considering said trumpet.
despite what naysayers may say, eighteen hearts of romaine does not make too much caesar salad for sixty-one hungry campers.
you can make a pretty tasty lasagna with a cast iron dutch oven and a bag of briquettes.
despite the all the shopping and packing beforehand, and the unpacking and laundering after, the trip will be worth it. And then some.

we *heart* camping

digging (to) china

September 9, 2008 in homeschooling, learning | 7 comments

So Lulu and Mr. T want to learn about China. Here’s their brainstorming list:

learn to write in Chinese with ink
read about Chinese goddesses and myths
write a Chinese version of an American Fairy tale (Lon Po Po comes to my mind)
learn the history of chopsticks
research and prepare Chinese food (”Potstickers!” says Mr. T)
learn how to speak some Chinese
go to China

That last suggestion was from Mr. T. I explained that such a trip was probably not in the budget this year.

A few more ideas popped into my head:

learn about items invented in China (so many!)
raise silkworms (if I can find a mulberry tree closer to home than the one in the botanical garden from which I guiltily stole leaves when we did this years ago)
make Chinese kites
learn how rice is grown (oooh! I found a great website on growing rice as a houseplant! And my neighbor owns one of the seed supply companies mentioned!)
learn how tea is grown
learn about religion and spirituality in China

Then Lulu came up with the Best Idea Ever. She wants to write a fake blog about traveling in China.

This would be her second fake blog. Not long after starting a real blog, she and her friend thought it would be fun to write a fake one together, based on characters they play in a movie they’ve been filming for two years now. No wait, the blog is supposedly written by the fake actresses who play the characters in the movie they’ve been filming. (Are you following this?) Since the actresses are well-paid movie stars, money is no object. They have purebred dogs, which Lulu and her friend researched online, of course. I believe one of them has an emu. And a few weeks ago, the two actresses decided to take a trip around the world.

Lulu and her friend spent a lovely summer afternoon at the computer, mapping out their trip. They researched how long flights would take, and searched for “quaint little beach villages” on the western coast of Ireland. (How do two young girls use the internet to find quaint beach villages in western Ireland? I have no idea.) They looked for the ritziest hotel possible in Madrid. Lulu insisted I come to the computer to check out her suite at the beach resort where they’ll be staying in the French Riviera. She was so pleased with finding the place, you’d think she’d actually be staying there.

Then they started blogging about their trip.

Anyway, when we started talking about Asia, Lulu lit up over the idea of writing an Asia travel blog. Or a fake Asia travel blog. This blog won’t be written by a movie actress, mind you; it will be written in the voice of a more lowly, Average Jane. It’s a brilliant idea, if you think of it. In addition to lots of writing, Lulu will incorporate photos–both hers and ones found on the internet. She’ll link to interesting websites. She’ll do all sorts of research on cities and sites in Asia. She’ll be able to take advantage of all the cool features on Google maps and Google Earth.

And it will be much cheaper than Mr. T’s suggestion of actually going to China.

Got any good recommendations for a study of China? Do leave a comment!

not school

September 3, 2008 in homeschooling | 3 comments

I’m a traditionalist. I don’t believe in not going to school until after Labor Day. So yesterday that’s just what we did.

You following me?

Most mornings my kids and I work together for a few hours. I refuse to call it “school” or “schoolwork”; on the other hand, the routine of it means we can’t call it “unschooling”. I’d love to call it something creative, like “project time” or “studio”, but instead we’ve come to refer to it, rather generically, as “homeschooling time”.

Through years of vacillating in the midlands that lie between unschooling and school-at-home, one practice of ours has remained consistent: having this routine of working together each day. Sometimes I’ve questioned it: is it too forced, too routine to inspire creative learning? But I’ve learned enough about the practice of artists–and my own practice as a writer–to understand how routine can actually support creativity. The act of showing up, of getting your butt in the writing chair, or your hand around the paintbrush day after day conditions you to find your creative mind fairly quickly. And it seems to work with my kids.

Plus, our time together isn’t all about me expecting them to get something done. It’s also about the kids knowing I’m there for them: to read, to play math games, to take story dictation, to brainstorm a new piece of writing. I do my best not to respond to emails, to talk on the phone, to do laundry, or any other assorted mom-sucking responsibilities.

I’ve missed our time together this summer. Our summer schedule scatters us. All day long I’m interrupted to drive someone to some camp, some swim lesson. And while I try to fit in reading aloud, writing down stories, there never seems to be the luxury of a few open endless hours to, well, work together.

So yesterday we got back to it.

We made plans. Lulu and Mr. T want to learn about Asia. All year. They want to start with China, then move to India, Japan, then all the others. I love this idea. Last year, homeschooling with H became a mad dash to prepare him for high school, since that’s what he wanted to do. We had to abandon the progressive math program which he liked in favor of a traditional geometry textbook. We ended up having to fill in other subjects with textbook learning to satisfy the high school. textbooks=boredom=mom nagging=unhappy kid. Not homeschooling at its finest.

So I’m thrilled not to have a high school or a high school transcript hovering over our shoulders this year. Thrilled to go along with what the kids want to do–with a dash of guidance from me.

What they wanted to do yesterday: Plan our Asia studies. Lulu came up with a a brilliant idea for an Asia project and got started on it. (I’ll write more about those plans in my next post. I do tend to go on…) Mr. T wanted to read about Ms. Frizzle’s adventures in Imperial China. Lulu wanted to discuss her options with math; Mr. T wanted to dictate yet another story. Lulu and I brainstormed activities for our mother-daughter group meeting, which we’re hosting this weekend.

And Mr. T and I finally got around to photographing plants for the 100-Species Challenge.

We took photos of several plants, and researched one today. I’ll update our list soon.

It was a routine day; it was a wonderful day. Sometimes nothing satisfies like getting back into old routines.

school

August 26, 2008 in homeschooling, learning | 5 comments

For the first time, one of my kids has started school. Granted, he’s sixteen and more than ready for this. Still, it feels like a big step.

Growing up, H was always happy with his status as a homeschooler. He’s a very stubborn willful independent-minded kid, and he liked how homeschooling gave him the freedom to make his own choices. He abhorred the idea of a teacher telling him what to do all day. So when he came to me one morning last November and said he wanted to go to high school, I felt I’d had the wind knocked out of me. I just didn’t see it coming.

But H had a lot of reasons that made sense. He didn’t want to go straight to college from homeschooling. He didn’t want to take community college courses, as many of his homeschooling friends have; he wanted to take classes with kids his own age. He wanted to be part of a community of kids, a big community of kids. Our homeschooling support group and his filmmaking workshop weren’t enough for him anymore.

Just weeks before, I’d read these two posts about what teenagers need on Brave Writer’s blog. When I read them, I had no idea how much they’d help me later. I went through a short time of mourning, in a way, for the time I thought we had left together. Then I turned my focus to H’s needs and we got busy.

We set about considering schools, visiting schools, making a transcript, applying. A huge process. In the end, there was only one school that H wanted to attend, a Catholic high school. It’s a bit less rough than the local public schools; less hardcore-academic than other local private schools. In April he was accepted as a junior transfer.

The school seems like a good fit for H. He was able to get into some advanced courses in the areas he’s especially interested in: English and history. And last week, when I met the Vice Principal of Academics at a parent transfer dinner, she asked about H’s interests. When I described what he’s been doing with filmmaking, she immediately started considering how to adapt his schedule. She made an arrangement with the Computer Arts teacher for H to be instructed independently, so he can work at a more advanced level. I’m impressed to see an administrator take that level of interest in a student, right from the start. (I guess all that tuition we’re paying is good for something…)

Most of my homeschooling friends have been supportive of H’s decision. But a few have (unintentionally, I’m sure) conveyed a slight whiff of disapproval, a subtle sense that we have somehow failed, that if we did things differently, H would still want to homeschool.

I don’t think so. One of my main reasons for homeschooling was that I wanted my kids’ learning to be meaningful to them; I wanted them to decide how they wanted to learn. And H has always had strong opinions on these matters, that’s for sure. His decision to go to school is just one more refinement of his understanding of how he learns best. He’s chosen a path different from those of his friends. That’s taken courage and confidence. I’m glad homeschooling gave those qualities to him.

If you’d asked me last November, after H made his announcement to me, I would have been sure this first week of school would be a sad one for me. But you know what? I’m not sad. Instead, I’m excited. Excited to see H excited. Excited to see him when he comes home from school, eager to share what he’s learning. (I always hear that school kids don’t want to talk to their parents about school, but so far H does.) And I’m excited to see that he’s happy, which he wasn’t so much last year.

Plus, I know the truth: H will always be a homeschooler at heart.

(I took a photo of him walking to the bus with a backpack that made him look like he was off for a five-day trip in the mountains. He didn’t want me to share it here though. It’s a special one, just for me.)

what I love about my local homeschool conference*

August 22, 2008 in homeschooling, learning | 2 comments

1. Watching all the colorful teens gleefully bounding about the hotel like oversized 4-year-olds, not a sullen face among them.

2. Inspiration! Inspiration from new ideas** and new twists on old ideas***.

3. Seeing people of all ages crafting everywhere, with workshops on mosaics, amigurami (small Japanese crocheted animals), artist trading cards and matchbox shrines, to name just a few. Then there was the amazing Swap-o-rama-rama where kids got to take donated clothes, cut them apart, and stitch them into something new. Pure bliss for Lulu. She made H a trench coat out of old jeans and duct tape.

4. Eating pizza, drinking sangria and laughing with my homeschool homies–otherwise known as my fellow homeschooling parent friends–on a balmy Sacramento night, beneath a full moon.

5. Lots of knitting time during larger keynote sessions.

6. Watching Lulu and her equally absurdly-competent friend somehow manage at least 20 kids at a time during their popular Rag Doll-Making workshop.

7. The vendor hall and Recycled Resource Room. I’m not so tempted by curriculum stuff, but I have to restrain myself with all the great books and games. Found a cool computer program on art technique and history that Mr. T adores already, and a brilliant hands-on set for exploring the Pythagorean Mr. Trem.

8. Offering my own workshop for the first time.

I gave a workshop on facilitating writer’s workshops, and it was such a thrill. I’ve been facilitating writer’s workshops for homeschoolers for years now, basically gathering kids together and giving them a chance to to share their writing with one another. I’ve also participated in workshops myself, through adult ed courses and with my beloved writing group. Let me tell you: there’s nothing like a workshop to inspire writing! I could talk all day on the topic! What a joy it was to share this with a roomful of eager folks who seemed truly interested.

(Incidentally, If any of those workshop attendees find your way to this blog, please let me know if you start up a workshop–my email address is on the handout, or leave a comment here! And to anyone who may have bought a CD recording of the workshop, leave a comment here as well, and I will gladly email the handout which I referred to half a zillion times as I spoke. (You must include your email address when you leave a comment, but I’m the only one who will see it. You can even leave a pseudonym like, say, Homeskool Harriet or John Holt, Jr.)

I know people who don’t like this conference, or feel that they’ve attended so long that there’s nothing new to learn. I also know a woman who homeschooled three kids, and has sent two off to college. This year her youngest will attend high school, so her homeschooling life is theoretically ending. Nevertheless, I found her beside me in more than one of the Charlotte Mason workshops. I asked why she was there, since she would no longer be homeschooling. She’ll be tutoring a young boy this year, she explained, and she thought the workshop might be helpful. But mostly, she said that she loves history, and was enjoying hearing about this woman, Charlotte Mason, who had so many innovative ideas, so long ago. My friend attended the workshop, I think, because she’s a curious person who likes to learn. Interestingly, her youngest daughter–who attended my writer’s workshop–is one of the most enthusiastic, eager-to-learn teenagers I know. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

* My local conference is put on by HSC, the HomeSchool Association of California. It takes place in Sacramento the third weekend in August every year. Hard to believe, but last weekend I went for my twelfth year.

** Scott Noelle had some interesting ideas about enjoying parenting, as opposed to being motivated by guilt and a puritanical work ethic. Sheesh, I hadn’t realized what a puritan I am.

*** I’ve read about Charlotte Mason in the past, but it was fun to revisit her ideas via Catherine Levinson. I’m newly intrigued with Charlotte’s ideas about narration as a precursor to developing a writer’s voice; the use of nature journals; and the idea of very short lessons in subjects such as math. (Not that I offer lessons to my kids on anything. But they seem to be teaching me lessons constantly…)

what’s a wonder farm?

July 18, 2008 in homeschooling, wondering | 1 comment

Mr. T helps with the Wonder Farm banner

Last year, as I filled out our Private School Affidavit for the California’s Department of Education-the form that allows California homeschoolers to function as small, private schools–I came across a line in the document and realized that our “school” would need a name. I asked the kids what they thought we should call it.

I don’t remember the first names tossed around the kitchen, but I do remember the moment H came up with this one:

“Genius Farm!” he called out, with the enthusiasm of a contestant on Name That Tune. “Genius Farm! That’s it! It’s awesome!”

Well…it was funny, I admitted. I liked the image of a farm where geniuses are grown like stalks of Brussels sprouts. I liked the irreverent sass of it. “But this website says homeschoolers should avoid names that are “cutesy”. And I’m not sure we want to have Genius Farm at the top of your transcript when you apply to college.”

By this point, all three kids were chanting aloud, “Genius Farm! Genius Farm!” overpowering, as usual, my objections.

Okay, okay. I assured them that we could refer to our home as the Genius Farm all we wanted, but I needed to come up with something else for the form.

The kids’ minds were made up; I finished the form myself. I filled the “school name” cell with The Workshop instead. I hoped the title might be respectable, but still a little quirky, conveying a place where projects are being undertaken, where things–and ideas–are being created. Still, I don’t like the name nearly as much as Genius Farm.

Not that my kids are geniuses. Well, they are geniuses, in their own idiosyncratic ways, as I think every child is. But they haven’t been raised on flashcards and IQ tests and advanced classes for the gifted. We aren’t really trying to raise geniuses around here.

I like the farm part of the name, though, the idea of a metaphorical place where a family can grow something abstract, intangible. I mused: if I could cultivate anything in our home, in our life as homeschoolers, what would it be? Creativity? Curiosity?

Wonder.

I love the word wonder. It’s a noun as well as a verb. It can mean a miracle, a phenomenon or a state of amazement. It can be the act of marveling or questioning. A wonder is a journey of the mind, lasting maybe a minute, maybe a lifetime.

I hope I help cultivate wonder in my kids. I’d like them look at the world around them and be both awed and confounded, and utterly compelled to know more. And if nothing else, just watching my kids learn and grow prompts a lot of wonder in me.

So while I didn’t put Wonder Farm on that Private School Affidavit, I am putting it at the top of this blog. It isn’t quite a Genius Farm, but I think it will do.

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