Baby Fawn

Things have been going kind of slow around here.  Our BFIAR manual and books came.  We've been rowing some of the books at night.

He loves the book Play With Me, a sweet and gentle story about a little girl who wants to play with the animals she finds in the meadow behind her house.  When she stops chasing the animals and sits still, she discovers that they approach her. At the very end, a baby fawn comes out of the woods and licks her cheek. 

Gabriel loves that part of the story.  He pretends that he is a baby fawn and licks Mama's cheek. :)

I'm Ready

Today, we had an anniversary dinner for my in laws.  Afterward, we went to the park in their old neighborhood, the same one that my husband and his brothers played in as children.


Something really cool happened while we were at the park.  For the first time ever,  Gabriel braved the slide all by himself.

First, he went down the little slide. After mastering that one, he attempted the medium wavy one.  And then he went down the big spiral slide.  All by himself.

Before, he would climb to the top of the slide and peer down, uncertain and apprehensive.  No amount of coaxing would encourage him. He always wanted to sit in our laps and go down the slide.  It was beginning to worry me a little because he is twenty eight months and I'd see younger children going down without a problem.

Today, with barely any prompting, he went right down.  A big beaming smile on his face.  A smile that said: "I'm ready.  I can do it all by myself."

I'm ready.  A reminder that each child is on his or her own timeline.  That each phase of development happens in its own time.  That the child is like a flower, unfolding one petal at a time.

Gabriel.  Sticking out his tongue for concentration.

BFIAR is on it's way!

I'm happy to report that I finally got around to ordering the Before Five in a Row manual and some of the books.

Rainbow Resources

When I went through Gabriel's vast book collection, I was happy to discover that we already had some of the titles like Blueberries for Sal;  The Runaway Bunny;  Goodnight Moon; The ABC Bunny;  We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and Corduroy.   All of those titles I picked up for pennies at second hand stores. 

So far, we now have eleven of the recommended twenty four titles in BFIAR...but I think eleven is a perfectly good number to start with.  I plan to order the rest by Christmas time. Unless I luck out and find some of the titles in thrift stores.  I am keeping my eye out.

One thing I've been doing is continuing to read the titles that we have on hand at bedtime.  Tonight, we read Goodnight Moon.  

Gabriel is very, very, very interested in finding the teeny tiny mouse that appears in different places on each colored page.  In fact, that seems to be the whole point of the book right now for him!

I try to point out the clocks, the socks, the bears, and the chairs.  Gabriel looks for the mouse.  Tonight after we read the book twice, Gabriel announced that he was going to read.

He took the book and opened it to the first colored page.  "Where's the mouse?" he asked.  Then he pointed to the mouse and said, "Right there."  And proceeded through most of the book that way. 

Anyhow, I cannot wait to get and read my BFIAR manual.  I'm excited to read about the ideas and suggestions. 

Another visit to the doctor, Courderoy, and the emergence of counting.

His eyes are bloodshot, his face is covered with mosquito bites.  The spray just doesn't keep the tiny army of menace away from my little one. 

Last night, on an evening walk, he was bitten in the ear by a mosquito.  This morning, his ear was swollen, puffy, red, and inflamed.  Another visit to the doctor.  She prescribed antibiotics because it could be the beginnings of an infection.

His eyes are red from allergy.  Poor Gabriel is allergic to early trees and late trees, pollen, dust, mold.  And it appears he does not fare well with mosquitoes. 

The doctor said the best thing might be just to keep him inside mostly until the mosquitoes go away.  They've been so bad in our area this summer.  Even in the daytime, they are flickering and biting about.

This summer has been particularly bad for being out of doors.  July was insanely hot.  August brought the mosquitoes thick through the neighborhood.   It doesn't help that we live just blocks from the river,  our neighborhood and yard are full of trees.  Still, I wish there could be a little more acorns than storybooks while our weather is so mild.  But, I am counting the days till fall when we can be outside without worry of bug bites and the havoc they cause my son.

Tonight, his dad is putting him to bed.  For stories tonight, we re-read Courderoy.  He listens so patiently to the story and seems to be very interested in the missing button on the bear's overalls.   We also read through the ABC Bunny but he doesn't seem as interested in that one. 

I went through his book collection recently and discovered we had some BFIAR books, about five total.  That's five less I need to purchase.  Even though I don't have the manual yet, hopefully soon!, I figure I can introduce the stories we do have to him very gently.

As I was reading to him tonight, he grabbed my hand and started counting my fingers one by one.  "One finger, two finger, three finger, three.  One, two, three, four, five."  He may not have the exact sequence down yet, but I was amazed to see the beginnings of understanding of the purpose of counting in my twenty eight month old. 

A Visit to the Doctor

Today, Gabriel went to see the doctor.  He had a bad reaction to a mosquito bite by his eye.  It swelled up underneath.  On the way to the office, I briefly went over the routine.  The doctor would listen to his heart, look at his ears, and check his eyes and throat.

"Stickers?"  he asked.  He knows he gets stickers at the doctors!  But he didn't say much else.

At the doctor's, I watched as Gabriel willingly climbed on the scale to be weighed.  He sat patiently on the chair while the nurse took his temperature.  He's never done that before!  Usually, he fights the whole intake process. 

Then he asked for stickers.  He got two with cars on them.  He correctly identified one as brown, the other as red.

When the doctor came in, Gabriel asked, "Doctor?"  She went down to his level and they had a little conversation. 

"Listen heart?"

"Yes, I'm going to listen to your heart."

"Look ears?"

"Yes, I'll check your ears."

He sat very quietly while the doctor examined him.  Then he made her check his ears again.  "Still look perfect!" the doctor said.

The only part that was a little difficult was when she had to check his throat and use the tongue depressor.  He was a bit reluctant and squirmy so I had to hold him still. 

The doctor prescribed an antihistamine and some hydrocortisone cream.  

I was amazed by how well he did.  He's not typically naughty at the doctors.  He's just really active, bouncing around, squirmy, and ready to be done soon after we start.  Today, he was patient, cooperative, and could carry on a conversation, and yes, an understanding about what was happening.

Lately, we've been reading a lot of Maisy books.  One that he's read is called "Doctor Maisy."  Maisy pretends to be a doctor.  Gabriel likes to read the part where she takes her Panda's temperature and "hears" his heartbeat. 

I think the simple act of reading this story several times in a row has helped him to be prepared for the doctor.  That and just going over what was going to happen beforehand.

I loved his little conversation with the doctor.  I loved that she gently met him at his level and talked over the exam without me.  It is a sign of his growing independence, his moving out of babyhood and towards, ever so slowly, childhood. 

But he still is a toddler, still in much need of Mommy and Daddy. In need of lots of snuggles, kissed boo boos, a sippy cup of milk at night.   In time, though, these days of him being still so very little in so many ways will fade. He's going to start growing up.  Soon, before I know it, he'll be three. Then four, five, six...

But like the doctor, I need to meet him where he is at in the moment.  And gently prepare him for what is to come.

It's Painting Time, Mama.

Today, Gabriel asked for the painting.  More specifically...he asked, " It's Painting Time, Mama?"

Credit: Simon Howden/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To be honest I was a little bit reluctant to get them out. Because I knew it would mean a mess that I didn't feel like cleaning up.  But then I thought about it for a minute.

Of course, it will be messy.  But that's part of childhood. Making messes and exploring textures.

So I told Gabriel, yes.  Yes, we could have painting time.

I got out the pan and squirted out the fingerpaints.  They're the washable kind so any mess is really minimal.  I got out the shape sponges and the paintbrushes.  He rarely fingerpaints with his fingers for some reason. 
I think he takes after me and is a bit averse to slimy textures on his fingers.  Even though I try to model painting with my fingers for him, he doesn't seem to take to it.

Gabriel spent the next half hour making a mess with paint and paper and water.  He painted three pictures and then he was more interested in putting paint on the brushes and wiping them off on his clothes.

I am not sure whether I should allow him to do this or keep him guided on the activity at hand.  If he's no longer interested in painting on the paper, part of me feels like the activity should end and clean up time should begin.  The other part of me feels like I should just let him cover himself in paint. Because it's washable and you're only two once.

It's an internal struggle I face often as a parent.  When is intervening and keeping kids focused on the activity  okay?  When does it become a mite too controlling?

When do we lead and when do we let go?  

I'm spending my birthday money on homeschooling materials.

This weekend,  I got a break from parenting from a little bit.  Gabriel went to spend the weekend with the grandparents where he got to eat fudgsicles and cookies to his heart's content, play in the pool, and ride around in his new awesome car that Grandma and Grandpa bought him.

Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy got some much needed downtime, and a date for my birthday which is on Monday.  We went out to dinner and saw the new movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.   Dinner was great, the movie was more Daddy's speed, but entertaining nonetheless for Mommy.  Then we came home and watched another movie we'd recorded,  The Young Victoria. Mommy loved it!   I fell asleep sometime during the rerun of SNL, and woke up at the heavenly hour of 11:30 a.m.   We went to brunch and then drove to the in laws to hang out, eat KFC, and have some birthday cake.

So, for my birthday I got some money from a generous relative.  And what was the first thing I thought?

"Money for homeschooling stuff!"

So, even though I don't want to force learning or rush Gabriel into anything before he is ready, I want to get started on purchasing the BFIAR curriculum.  Because I want to have it on hand for when he is ready.

Tonight, he asked me again to read How Big is a Pig three times in a row.  He sat there quiet and still while I read the book over and over.  He always laughs hysterically when we get to the last page.  "Some pigs are big and some pigs are small, but this pig is my mom and she's the biggest of all!"

There's a great picture of a Mama Pig nursing all her little piglets.  According to Gabriel, I'm the Mama Pig and he's the Baby Pig.  He thinks this is very funny.  Mommy is not so sure about being compared to a giant sow,  but if it makes her little guy smile, she can laugh along at the joke.

Observing him, I see him getting more and more ready to sit and read a book multiple times.  The Five in a Row people call it Rowing a book.  I suppose you could say that we're rowing How Big is a Pig.

I'm hoping that he will enjoy the BFIAR book selections.  A few we have on hand already... Goodnight Moon,  ABC Bunny, The Runaway Bunny.  I'll use my birthday money to purchase the Parents Guide and some of the other texts like Blueberries for Sal, The Snowy Day, and Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?  The rest I'll pick up as needed.

Like I said, I don't want to pressure him.  I just want to have the materials on hand for when he is ready.  It's also why I hope our printer is soon hooked up...so I can do some of the printables off sites like Tot School....expose him to letters and sounds without pressure.
 
Gabriel got out his shape sorter tonight just before storytime. He hasn't shown any interest in it in a month or two.  It's a wooden one that his uncle Kevin bought him in Austria.  The last time he used it, he had trouble getting the triangular piece to fit.  Tonight, he did it on the first try and announced to himself, "Good Job! Triangle!"

I am really hoping that we have our computer issue fixed soon so I can start uploading photos.  I like putting pictures to words...this blog feels pretty Amish without images.

I guess you could say we're unschooling at this point. At least for today.

Today:

I brought out the sidewalk chalk.  Gabriel covered the porch and little path with vertical lines. Not scribbles, but actual vertical lines.  A nice developmental milestone, reached in the summer sunshine.

He looked at his Richard Scarry book.  Well, mostly he looked at the page with the trains.  He likes to read about trains quite a bit.  I did catch him looking at the back page where you count little things in a row.  He was pointing at each picture.  I am not sure if he was counting, though. 


He brought me an old favorite, a board book about colors with pictures by modern artists like Warhol and Jasper Johns.  We read that 3 or 4 times in a row.


We had lunch with my mother at this fantastic restaurant.  Gabriel lined up all his crayons to make a train.  When I tried to get him to color the kid's menu.....Corn is yellow, Can you color yellow?...He said, NO!  and proceeded to throw his crayons on the floor.

I spent a little time working on his balance.  He's a little behind in his gross motor development.  He has yet to stand on one foot without holding onto the wall and he's still not jumping up and down with both feet.  So we practiced balancing on one foot.

He made lots of messes today.  He pulled the clean folded towels out of the linen closet.  He pulled the clean folded laundry out of the basket and "dressed" the cat.  The cat is very patient with Gabriel.

 

Barefoot Books

Something new:  He's asking for books to be read "again, again" as soon as we finish.  Tonight, we read "How Big is a Pig?" three or four times in a row.  By the third time, he was able to fill in the blank at the end of some of the phrases.

Another new thing is that he understands and uses the word "too" correctly.  At nap time, he asked if "Mommy lay down, too? Please?"   He's also using the word another/other.  "Where other truck?  I get it."

Meeting Them Where They're At

Photo Credit

Even though we are so early into this homeschooling journey I am learning what works and what doesn't work.  Or more to the point, what my two year old can and can't do.  Even more to the point:  what he wants to do, and what he doesn't want to do.


What I am discovering is that learning is a natural process for him.  One that can't be rushed, pushed, or prodded.  Learning happens in the moments that I don't expect, the moments that aren't planned for. 

I bought some matching games for him.  Simple card games.  One where you put two cards together to make a whole picture.  The other where you match identical cards. 

I demonstrated how to match the cards.  He successfully matched two pictures...and then he found a better game:  Tossing the cards around.   Cards are littering the living room floor as we speak.

I brought out playdough one morning, along with some cookie cutters.  He was content to have me cut images of horses and chickens, moons and stars out of the colored dough.  But his great fun was not in actively playing with the playdough.  It was with taking the lids of the jars on and off.

I showed him a little workbook that I got at the dollar store. All about shapes and colors.   He correctly identified the colors and the shapes.   But he's been doing that for months now and learned it without the aid of a workbook.  He just learned it from us talking to him, from his natural environment, from daily life with two literate parents who play with him. 


When I was done showing him the little preschool workbook, he promptly scribbled all over it with crayon.

I think he is telling me something.  I think he is telling me that he is only two years old.  That he has plenty of time to learn to match, to cut shapes out of playdough, to do workbooks, to handle lapbooks.  That for him homeschooling means play. Play is how is learns. 

We've been thinking about the curriculum called Before Five in a Row.  I am still pretty much convinced that I want to use it.  I'm also pretty sure that I want to do lapbooking to supplement the material. 

But observing my son, the little boy who likes to tear things apart, who is very insistent on what books he wants to read and when, I am starting to see that what he needs is not curriculum, but access.  Access to opportunities to learn through play....and to be able to direct the play according to his developmental needs.

We may not have BFIAR just yet.  We may wait until he is closer to 3.  A little more able to sit still for a good length of time, a little less likely to tear apart a lapbook.

What we do have:  lots of books scattered through out the house, the latest favorites being Maisy and Owl Babies.  We have playdough, do a dot art, sidewalk chalk, markers, fingerpaints, a backyard, bubbles, puzzles, and a big basket full of legos.  We have trains.  We have toy cars.  We have blocks.

We have all the elements of early learning through play.  Without any effort or curriculum, he managed to learn his shapes and colors.   Awhile ago, I bought a thing of bathtub letters.  

We play games with the letters by acting them out as characters.  "Hello A, I'm Letter B.  Let's dance."

It's all very informal.  Just like reading books with the ABCs.   Just like the legos which are built into train tunnels most days.  It just happens.

More Thoughts on Homeschooling

I mentioned in my last post that I first learned about homeschooling in the nineties from a family that I was close to.  This family's method could best be described as either relaxed homeschooling, or even unschooling.  The majority of their eight kids were either in high school or college when I met them.

What really impressed me about this family was how sure of themselves their kids were.  They weren't worried about things like popularity and cliques but in forming real friendships with people.  They had relationships with people of all ages, young and old.  They were inquisitive and opinionated.  They were strong in their faith and it was with this family's help that I first began to consider that Christianity wasn't something that made you dull. It was something that made you alive.

Going over to their house in the middle of the weekday was always an adventure.  People came and went, talked, debated, argued, and often someone would burst into song while washing the dishes.  The family prayed daily and I saw how faith and learning could be integrated into everyday life.

Everytime I hear someone make the socialization argument against homeschooling I laugh thinking of this family.  You'd be hard pressed to find more socialized kids than the ones in this family.  They had church friends, friends from the community college classes they took, work friends, camp friends, choir friends, friends from the neighborhood.  It was not uncommon for this family of ten to have fifteen or sixteen people at dinner, typically friends of the kids.

My next exposure to what homeschooling could mean was when I met a girl in my creative writing class at the local community college.   She was a high schooler who'd taken a year off from formal school to read and study literature.

The idea that you could take a year and read a bunch of books was amazing to me.  It made perfect sense, too.  Why not?  Why not encourage kids to delve into a subject that fascinates them?  Whether it be poetry or biology, it seems to me that I'd much rather have my kid loving what they are learning rather than fading out in the middle of algebra class. As I was wont to do.

My third introduction to what homeschooling might look like in a family of younger kids came when I worked as a mother's helper for a family with five young children one summer.

These children were homeschooled in the traditional method using curriculum like A Beka and Rod and Staff, as well as unit studies.  They had a beginning time and an ending time for lessons.  Some of the children had dyslexia and one had CP.  Their mother used to be a Special Ed teacher and was able to give her kids the individual attention they needed.

She also introduced me to the idea that there is no specific relationship between grade, age, and ability.  Her eight year old son might be at fourth grade in science, first grade in handwriting, third grade in reading, and sixth grade in math.  The kids were able to work at their own pace, in their own time.  They weren't forced to work on something above or below their ability just because they were eight and supposed to be in third grade.

Another thing I learned from this dynamic woman was about the concept of multiple intelligences and different ways of learning.  Her dyslexic kids might struggle with reading a lesson, but they would thrive and learn from videotapes and books on tape.  The kids would do hands on activities, too.  So, I learned about auditory, verbal, visual, and hands on learners.

What I took from these encounters is that there is no one right way to homeschool. There is only the right way for your family, the right way for your child.

And so we begin with some hopes and a few acorns...

This is the first post in my new homeschooling blog. Even though I've been interested in homeschooling since the nineties when I first learned about it from a family I was close with, I'm a novice starting out in the adventure for the first time. I'm eager to learn all I can to be a good homeschooling mama.


After struggling to come up with a blog title, with my husband's help, I chose the name Acorns and Storybooks because of the acorns that cover our yard and the books at the heart of the curriculum we will be using. We'll be starting out with Before Five in A Row, a collection of storybooks and activities designed for little ones ages 2 to 4.

Grandma's Graphics

We've decided to homeschool our little one, Gabriel, for preschool to start with. Ideally, I would like to keep going but we are going to take it one level at a time.

So why are we doing it?

We want to give Gabriel a sense of learning as a way of life. A daily thing that you just do without thinking, like breathing.

 More and more, it seems,  traditional schools compartmentalize learning as a means to an end. And that end is becoming, more and more,  to mean test scores.

Instead of learning to read so that you can discover more about the world, children are being taught to read so that the test scores are high enough to get state funding.

As children grow up in the school system they are increasingly asking one question about learning.

  "Is this going to be on the test?"

The joy of learning, of discovery, is being taken away from them.  And for what?  Educational policies decided by people for various political reasons?   I want something more meaningful.

 
Another problem I see happening, especially in the preschools, is the increasing academic pressures being put on two, three, and four year olds.

   This is the time when learning should be centered around play and discovery, story times and crafts.  Yet more and more preschools are advertising and putting the emphasis on academics at earlier and earlier ages, taking time away from play and discovery.

   Parents are being a sold a bill of goods that unless their kids are at a certain level by age 5, they aren't going to be able to "compete in the global workforce."

Do we really want to raise a cog in the wheel?  A little worker bee?  Do we really want our child to view his peers as "competition?" 

Is it any wonder that little elementary school kids burn out so early?  That they want to zone out on video games and cartoons at age 8? 

There is also the underlying cultural assumptions that kids who enjoy learning are "nerds" and thus are "uncool." Social cliques form around the concept of cool and uncool very early in schools.

While little kids who show a love of learning are praised and adored by teachers, their more jaded peers can turn a passion for discovery into a reason to ridicule and tease.

I don't want my child to stifle his sense of self because a bunch of popular kids decide he's not cool if he likes science or math or reading. I want my son to be his authentic self. And to like that. Not to be ashamed that he knows who all the presidents are or can identify a certain type of cloud.

Between the academic pressures to succeed and the social pressures to be "cool" and not show your love of learning, education in schools is becoming less about learning and more about making sure you can pass a test. And then sadly, forgetting that knowledge.

I saw what happens when people get to college and think learning is just about test scores. They miss the real lessons of life, of understanding, of growth. They miss the discovery about themselves and their fellow man.

In a poetry class once, the professor was reading a poem about the musician John Coltrane by LeRoi Jones. The class started talking about jazz, blues, rhythm, poetry...and music in general.

It was an amazing conversation about how poetry and music intersect, how Jones was capturing the essence of Coltrane in the lines of the poem. Connections were being made, people were coming alive in the class.  It was what you hope a humanties based class in college would be.

Until.

Until one girl raised her hand and asked, "Dr. Smith, is this jazz stuff going to be on the test?"

"Well, it depends on your essay."

"Well, if it is not going to be on the test then why are we discussing it? I just think we should study what's on the test. I don't see the point of learning about jazz when we're supposed to be discussing poetry".

The sad and scary thing was that she was studying to become an English teacher.

I hope that when my son grows up he sees the poetry in jazz.  I hope he never asks the question,

"Is this going to be on the test?"