One month in

Over on that sidebar in the "About Me" section, I should have mentioned that I disappear for long periods of time, occupied by other things. Blogging has never been something at which I particularly excel--I think it's the diligence thing? Who knows. But almost a month has passed since we started our Pre-K year of homeschool and...we've done stuff! Learned things!

Naturally, now that I've settled in to write an update, I don't remember what any of those things are. Fortunately I'm trying to develop a habit of record keeping in preparation for the official year of Kindergarten, when I'll be accountable to the school system.

The short version is, we spent part of August with Five in a Row and then the latter half with Wee Folk Art's Simple Seasons curriculum. I haven't decided which I like best but for now I have a week's worth of WFA books from the library so we'll do that (learning about farm things) next week and with our upcoming trip to the National Aquarium, I'll bring out Night of the Moonjellies and Five in a Row. I'd like to think the side by side comparison will give me an idea of which way to proceed but I doubt it'll be that cut and dry. I do believe Five in a Row books and studies will be more--well, we'll be able to do and understand more--in the Kindergarten year but I miss the guided literature study and linked activities. WFA's curriculum gives me a nice seasonal thread to follow (which FIAR does not) but I don't feel we're getting as much from the literature portion.

Our week basically looks like themed literature and linked nonfiction, Progressive Phonics and Get Ready/Set/Go for the Code activities (which...might be redundant but I figure better to work from the beginning and go faster, than skip ahead and possibly miss something/come up against more frustration), Handwriting Without Tears (which isn't as great as I expected, maybe because I only bought the workbook and none of the extras), Math through cuisinaire rods and Education Unboxed, a "foundations" workbook from Critical Thinking Co, and I'm trying to incorporate more "living math" fiction. That's tough to find at Pickle's age but I'll keep trying.

I think science, art, etc are falling to the wayside. They were better covered in Five in a Row than in Wee Folk Art and it's possible I'll switch things up to put WFA as weekend reading and FIAR as school-week reading...

In short, I'm still in the "I'm not sure about this" stage. We've certainly tossed the idea of a structured school day, anyway. I might try that again soon, though, by playing less loosey-goosey with bedtime and starting our day deliberately with an alarm clock.

I'm glad we have this exploratory year. I'd be a mess if we were working on Kindergarten right out of the gate.

Despite my continued tweaking I do believe we're learning and on our way! And I'm super proud of Pickle's progress with physical therapy. His scissor work is getting better, he's developing more hand strength and willingly trying letters, and--this is the best thing for me--I feel like he and I are closer. Learning is good. :)

Real-world discoveries

Pickle expressed an interest in nature walks/exploring nature. Who was I to argue? So to kick off pre-k week 2, we set out this morning and started walking. I pointed out an unusual tree and we walked up to have a look. I took a picture; we moved on. He pointed out another unusual tree; I took another picture. After I took a few more photos, he asked,

"Why do you keep taking pictures?"

To which I replied, "Because I want to be able to remember our the discoveries we make on our nature walk."

At which point, his excitement blossomed and he led me around the neighborhood pointing out things to photo. He pointed out practically everything! Haha. I can't really describe his excitement during our little walk around the block this morning so I'll just present some of our more photogenic finds.

1 Day, 2 Day, Real Bad Homeschool Day

Yesterday was our official first day of school. I had plans! They looked like this:

*Play Doh mat where we roll the dough out and shape it into the letter G, and then create leaves for a giraffe to eat. This went really well except for the part where he tossed the play doh mat aside and decided to just make a giraffe ball full of buttons and googly eyes that rolled around getting leaves stuck on its butt. I actually loved this; he's a very creative and imaginative little boy. But, I wanted to limit our school day to about an hour so I rushed him out of it. This was probably mistake #1.

 *Then, mistake #2. I asked him to trace his first name 6 times (we made it approximately 2 letters before I was getting impatient and irritated due willfully going against the directions I was giving for correct letter formation and letter-tracing game-playing. "It's wobbling! Look, I gave it hair! Is that funny?" and...yes. Yes it was funny, when I wasn't trying to keep to a schedule. Yesterday it just upset me. So 13 minutes in...frustration and upset).

*Trace name of the month we're in, find the day and trace the number. That went...okay-ish. Okay, no it didn't. But not as bad as the next thing, which was...

*Trace name of day, color in circle with number of day, write number. Now. My homeschool room is somewhat makeshift. We have an ottoman-type thing for a chair and our table is on stilts in order to elevate it to proper writing height (important to me because of fine motor skills). Pickle was getting frustrated, didn't want to do it anymore, knew I was getting frustrated, couldn't sit still, and he knocked the chair off its legs and rolled his seat backward. I'm not proud of myself but I sent him to sit in a corner.

Let me repeat that--I am not proud of myself. That incident wrecked my entire day and turned me into Bad Mommy (and Depressed Mommy...I actually called our local public school to ask whether he'd gotten into the pre-k program--honestly I didn't want him in, wasn't really confident he would be because our public school system is Title I and pre-k is only open to people who have needs on a priority tier, which we don't fall on). But no, I found out, he wasn't eligible for pre-k. There were only 4 people on the waitlist so it's possible within the next month that will change, but honestly, I don't want him in. That's why I'm homeschooling in the first place (part of the reason). I didn't want him sitting in a classroom for 3 hours doing worksheets and learning things he already knew, with only 20 minutes of recess, and...

Wait a minute. Hold the phone.

I didn't want him sitting in a classroom doing worksheets.

But what had I tried to do with our morning?

The rest of my day cycled between depression and despair. What was I going to do? Could I sell all my materials? Even our Five in a Row book didn't go well because by that time we both wanted to be away from each other.

What was I going to do?

I vented to a friend. I angrily made a routines and chores chart (we actually need this badly and I don't regret making it but I do regret the mindset in which I did it) and I came this close to ditching everything to buy a play-based curriculum we can't afford. I stayed up way too late staring at all the homeschool sites until I finally went to bed with a headache that still hung around this morning.

And then I woke up, and started (with no small amount of bitterness, I admit it) with our new morning routine. It's not a hard one--bathroom, breakfast AT THE TABLE (no computer or game or tv) (we read a bit of a kid's cook book and that went well so I'm going to incorporate breakfast reading over coffee), I asked him to play with toys while I did about 45 minutes of computer work--and that's where something changed.

He walked into the room and asked, "Was yesterday Monday August first?"

And, I just...I had hope again.

So we brushed our teeth (new morning thing), fed our dog, went upstairs to dress, make the bed, feed the fish, and then we headed into our school room.

I pointed out the month, day and date on our wall calendar VERBALLY, and then I pulled out a laminated set of A-Z exercise cards. We took turns pulling cards, saying the letter and letter sound (who knew he actually knows most of the sounds?! apparently play is how to get him to cooperate) and doing silly exercises. It took us about 30 mins to get through the alphabet and that was FINE. We could both use 30 mins of silly energy burning.

After our A-Z's, I gave him the option of "doing math" on his bed or at the school room table. He chose his bed so we headed in with our Mathematical Reasonings Beginning 2 book and he happily worked through 6 pages, including 2 pages of tracing numbers 1-6.

After a long, late night of work, DH got out of bed and I turned Pickle loose to go play with daddy.

And it was good. It was GOOD. Later this afternoon when the heat sets in and we wind down for our usual mid-day TV binge (ugh) I'll pull out our Five in a Row book and we'll read together, talk about it, and settle in for a nice dinner, playtime and our new evening routine. I wish I'd had time for a craft but I didn't prepare anything in advance. I'll be ready tomorrow. I think a craft or art mid-afternoon might be better anyway so it doesn't distract from math and phonics, which are the big things I want to make happen during "school time". Five in a Row reading, talking, more relaxed things that don't have to be on a daily basis for consistency--those can just be worked in when they're worked in.

So that was day 2, which was just--so much better and more like I'd envisioned, more like the pre-k I wanted him to have (vs public pre-k).

And now I look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Imperfect Mom Ruminations

It's been a busy ten days since my last post! Unfortunately, it's been busy due to a mom-work deadline instead of playing and learning with my little guy. Well, that's not entirely accurate.

There has been some playing and learning, and we almost have our school room set up. I'm not sure it will feel complete to me until we start putting up some artwork but in the meantime, Nicholas loves the room. Yesterday we spread out blocks on the floor and built a town "where boats have to drive through the streets like in Papa Piccolo". The town included Mike Mulligan's house, water bridges, restaurants, police, fire stations, and the best thing is we enjoyed ourselves.

I think he's ready. I, on the other hand, am feeling really overwhelmed by a work deadline that's messing with my head. The deadline is stressful. I'm not starting my mornings off in a positive family way because those few hours are the only ones I have free to work (before DH heads out) and that tone just isn't good for me. I'm stress eating, I'm stress Facebooking, I'm stress parenting (which means I'm letting Netflix parent). In short, I feel like a mess!

My deadline is Monday morning and the project will be out of my hands. That afternoon, we also have Nicholas's physical therapy appointment, and I'd sincerely love to go to the gym in the evening because I've been sitting and eating for almost a week.

But it's Monday, it's August 1, and I feel like we should just get going...but I also don't want to start off on the wrong foot, for the wrong reasons. Plus, I'll have to spend Monday morning finishing up deadline work to turn it in and won't be able to begin our new school morning routine.

I'm just torn, a ball of indecision and second guesses. I'm no longer confident Five in a Row is what I want to do and I've been thinking of A Year of Playing Skillfully (probably because I'm a terrible parent this week; in a more rational moment, I would realize that A Year of Playing Skillfully would completely suck me dry). I looked at Wee Folk Art (very sweet, love the crafts, activities and art study) and that temporarily shook up my confidence in Five in a Row, but then when I started looking more closely at the themes/materials in WFA I realized those books are more like play or enrichment books, so I think I'll take story, the extra activities and the art and make them our art curriculum. But I need to find the Five in a Row love again. I'm also undecided over the co-op I recently joined and right now I feel like I should remain with it so the co-op group can off-set my failings. That's probably not a great reason, is it?

What do they say? Don't make important decisions on your best day or your worst day?

At least I know what we're doing for calendar time and math! Maybe we'll just start with those two things and an easy craft early Monday a.m.

Or maybe I'll put it off til Tuesday! I think procrastination is one of those things I'm going to have to overcome during this school journey...

The Three R's

First time homeschool mom confession: Curriculum choices both fascinate and confuse me. But I think I'm getting closer...I hope I'm getting closer!

Since Nicholas spent a year in preschool--a year I wasn't as involved in as I'd wanted to be due to health circumstances--I'm not sure where he is on the foundation continuum. I've been hunting high and low for evaluations and foundation builders so I can find out what page he's on and get on that page with him.

For math, I've decided to go with Mathematical Reasoning Beginnings 2. I had all these grand plans to start official school with a fun "Official School" day but I was so excited to start on the Mathematical Reasoning book that I...kind of just started. We did our calendar page and I asked if he wanted to do math, and he eagerly grabbed a pencil. I'm not sure yet what kind of pages-per-day schedule we'll go with, or if we'll even devise a quota/goal per day at all, so I decided to just let him run with it. He whipped through 18 pages! 18. I could tell he was starting to get frustrated/tired around page 14 or 15, though, so I think I'll use approximately 10-12 pages/session as a loose goal and limit. I don't want to stress him out and I do want to keep him hungry for more.

And then, phonics/reading. Oh, phonics/reading.

I had no plans to start on reading yet. I figured I'd go with a casual approach, and start a formal reading program next year. He's been asking me things like "What's that?" (question mark) and "How do you spell X" for a while, though, so I think he's ready and it would be a disservice to him to not at least present the option of reading.

Unfortunately, I again find myself lacking knowledge of exactly where he is in conjunction with a phonics program. I've ordered a few books from the library and looked at some very expensive reading/handwriting programs (VERY expensive) but I think for now I'm going to keep studying and thinking and decide on something formal (if we go formal at all) at a later date. To that end, I went into my Confessions of a Homeschooler K4 packet and printed out some Beginning Sounds worksheets so I can evaluate where he stands on letter/sound recognition and, again, go from there.

As frustrating and time consuming as the Great Curriculum Hunt is, I'm glad I didn't go with my initial desire for a packaged/boxed curriculum kit. I was lusting over the expensive Timberdoodle but I'm not sure it would have met our between-stages needs. I'm going to be cobbling phonics and math a bit, but that's okay, because I'm discovering that preschool meant I don't know my baby as much as I thought I did, and this exploration period is bringing us closer.

For now, if anybody needs me I'll be pouring over The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and Teach Your Child to Read with Children's Books (which I think might be a winner).

And FIAR, of course, although I'm scaling back a bit on that to make it more discussion-based and less Pinterest-focused. I need to play with my kiddo, not spend playtime on Pinterest.

Jenny's Surprise Summer (Before Five in a Row)

Our "row" of Jenny's Surprise Summer by Eugenie began and ended! I started this post a week ago intending to journal as we went but time flew and here I am, another "row" concluded.

We kicked things off by reading Thy Friend, Obadiah by Brinton Turkle, which is a story about a Quaker boy who becomes the subject of a seagull's affection. Immediately after Nicholas wanted to read Jenny, and who am I to turn down a request for a book?

Jenny's Surprise Summer is a story about a young girl who visits her grandmother for a summer on the beach. She discovers two kittens in a cave and bonds with them during the lazy days of beach and water play (which really fill me with longing for that sort of childhood for Nicholas, but we live in a different world now than we did when Jenny was published in 1981). However, Jenny lives in an apartment in the city and her parents believe their apartment will only accommodate one kitten, which leaves Jenny with the dilemma: Which kitten to keep?

In preparation for this book, I reserved several books at the library.

Naturally I didn't write down the titles of any of those books before I returned them, but they included two Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That titles (beach, cats), a collection of stories about children adopting animals (The Little Bunny, The Little Puppy, The Little Lamb, etc), a world "dictionary" about cats around the world, a Clifford book about a storm and a couple other kitten/cat stories. I also reserved a children's Oceans encyclopedia but by the time it arrived at the library, we'd moved on from our row. I'm going to make a note of it for when we revisit the sea with Night of the Moonjellies in September.

In a nutshell, we looked at beach life and cats around the world, watched a PBS documentary about Hurricane Sandy, which swept through during his first Halloween, we did a salt water vs tap wter experiment (which freezes faster?) and I created my first sensory bin with white rice, seashells, plastic pearls and an assortment of little toys from our Octonauts collection. We enjoyed the study but it went quickly, much quicker than I anticipated and I didn't have an opportunity to set up a seashell painting craft.

I thought Nicholas would be interested in pursuing different avenues but I think he might have gotten the beach/ocean fascination out of his system during his 2s and 3s. Thus far, I'm finding that, in general, a week is about the extent of our interest in a FIAR book. I believe some linger for up to two weeks, following different interests, and I think we might eventually hit upon one of those books but this wasn't the one.

Next up...I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest. I noticed we're not reading as many of our favorite pre-FIAR, purely-for-enjoyment stories when we're in the middle of a FIAR study so I think we'll take a week off to enjoy the books and toys we have for play and entertainment.

I won't be completely un-busy, though. I've just received a copy of The Well-Trained Mind from the library and I'll be reading that on my own. I'm still trying to get a solid handle on what our homeschool year will look like and I feel like I'm coming a bit down to the wire for math, reading and handwriting.

Confession: Part of me is tempted to ditch it all and buy a copy of A Year of Playing Skillfully.

I'm afraid I'm going to be one of those homeschooling parents who is always looking.

Cream of Sungold Tomato Soup

I'm discovering and learning right alongside Nicholas, which makes my soup recipe appropriate for this blog. In case you were wondering. ;)

So--I've attempted a vegetable garden three times now. The first was just before I got pregnant (March 2011), the second was last year when we moved into our ill-fated house on the water (May 2015) and the third--the one that's been successful--is this year's garden. We're not really church people but a local church dedicated a significant expanse of its property to a community garden and built fifty raised beds, which the church "rents" to community members. As soon as I heard about it, I knew the community garden was the place for me.

Except for one incident (The Sad Case of the Vandalized Sugar Snap Peas), I've really enjoyed the experience and learned quite a bit. Nicholas helped me plant and goes with me to weed, water and harvest, and while he becomes bored pretty quickly, I think he's learning too. He begged me to plant corn but there was no room in the garden beds, so we have a planter with four corn seedlings on the porch.

Anyway, our garden features two zucchini plants, one cucumber plant, three green bean plants, two sun gold cherry tomato plants, two "regular" tomato plants, two spaghetti squash (which I believe are actually a hybrid called stripetti because they're, well, striped) and two butternut squash plants.

The zucchini and cucumbers have been producing to the point that I've started a freezer stock of shredded zukes and pickled cukes. The sun golds recently started ripening. In an effort not to let any go bad, I've been exploring options for preservation.

As it turns out, there aren't many options for preserving cherry tomatoes. I found one that looked promising but I messed up because I decided to wing it (the usual reason for something going awry) and I had to improvise. The result?

Cream of Sun Gold Tomato Soup, which is a perfect freezer food, all ready to go--just pull, thaw and eat.

The recipe is simple. Reeeeeeally simple.

Ingredients for about 2 cups of soup:

Approx 1 pint of sun gold tomatoes (other cherry tomatoes would work too, it just wouldn't be cream of sun gold anymore)

A clove of garlic

A generous splash of olive oil

Salt, pepper, oregano, basil, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

Approx 1.5 cups milk (I used 2%, you could certainly use lower fat or even whole milk or cream)

Instructions:

Combine everything except milk in a baking dish. Roast at 350 for an hour and a half or so, until the skins start to carmelize and the tomato liquid is more like syrup than water. Remove tomatoes from oven. Cool. Combine roasted tomato goop and milk in a blender or food processor (the smoothie cup for my Ninja was perfect) and blend until smooth. Pour into quart freezer bag, label with a permanent marker, and stash in the freezer for a mid-winter pick-me-up.

It's okay if you snack on the roasted sun golds while they're cooling. ;)

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Today was the last day of the Tuckahoe Steam & Gas Association annual show. As soon as I got my hands on Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, I knew I wanted to "row" that book to coincide with the Tuckahoe event. This has been a really rough week so by the time the weekend arrived, I wasn't sure we'd actually make it to the show, but for once, procrastination paid off. We lucked out with a nice, low-humidity summer day, and Chris had enough of a break in his grueling work schedule that he was able to join us for a few hours, so it was an interesting and fun family time.

But, before we get to the Big Finish (tm), the first part of the week:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is a story about a steam shovel operator and his shovel, Mary Ann. Mike and Mary Ann were involved in some of the most important projects of the 1900s, from digging canals to putting down air fields to digging out cellars for the sky scrapers...you know, all those things that ushered society out of the age of steam and into the age of diesel, gasoline and electricity. All the labor Mike and Mary Ann put into their work...well, that effort put them (and the other steam equipment) out of a job.

While other steam shovels met an unfortunate end at the bottom of a dump, Mike continued to take care of Mary Ann and he continued to look for work to give him and his steam shovel purpose. When he spotted an opportunity in the tiny town of Popperville, he left the cities behind and headed out to the country. Things didn't quite go as planned, but in the end with the bright ideas of a little boy, Mike found a different, but equally satisfying, place in the world for himself and Mary Ann.

So the premise of Five in a Row is simple. You and your child read a book five times in a row (five days) and from that reading, you pursue discussions, topics of interest, interesting related science experiments and so forth.

In any event, Nicholas isn't quite ready for many of the discussions surrounding Mike Mulligan. In another year or two we'll go back and revisit nuances like the irony/tragedy of Mike's situation, replaced by the very technology he helped bring into the world; some more in-depth history; and deeper discussions about literary devices like elements of a story and personification.

He is proving himself very astute, though. The first time he stopped me was when we were reading about the steam shovels being put out to pasture (well, put out to rust). He asked about some other construction equipment (diesel, electric and gas) pictured on a different page, mostly questions about whether they were bad guys and whether the defunct steam shovels had died (death is a theme right now).

Later on, when Mike Mulligan and Mary Ann (literally) dug themselves into a hole, Nicholas stopped me to ask how they were going to get out of the hole. Of course that question came up in the story text on the next page but I found it really remarkable that he picked up on that problem purely from the pictures. One thing I love about Five in a Row is there's a focus on pausing to look at what the art says as well as reading what the text says.

And speaking of the art! We saw canals being dug, mountains being cut through, roads being leveled--all kinds of stuff. Nicholas and I looked at an image of North and South America and I showed him the route ships had to take prior to the building of a canal and we compared that route to the shorter journey allowed by the Panama Canal. We also counted the trees on the mountains (Nicholas starts to trip up at 13 and jumps to 16, 19.... counting to 30 is one of my primary math goals for the coming year) and we circled groups of four trees. We set up a little "dig" in our living room and pretended we were driving a steam shovel (a cardboard box) that ran out of steam and had to be refilled with coal. We also drew some items we found in the hole.

We talked about stewardship. According to him, we should take care of our cars, our toys, our dog and our bodies (he's not wrong!) and we talked about why Mary Ann and Mike were okay with being stuck in the hole they'd dug. We even studied parts of a steam shovel, courtesy of a diagram in the beginning of the book.

I had wanted to put together a pinwheel and use steam to spin it but things being what they are we didn't get to do some of my pre-planned activities. I think that's okay. He's still little and I don't mind winging it.

On the last day of our steam adventure, we packed up the car and headed to Tuckahoe, where we saw...

Yep, you guessed it.

A steam shovel.

He wanted to touch the teeth. :)

I've put Mike Mulligan on my calendar for next summer. I can't wait to see a comparison photo of how much he's grown between the July 2016 steam shovel photo opp and the summer 2017 snapshot.

Next up in our "rowing" adventure: we're heading to the beach with Jenny's Surprise Summer by Eugenie.

We're on our way

I meant to start recording our homeschool shenanigans way back in May when I created this blog, but good intentions and all that. We did start, though. For the foreseeable future, we'll be exploring and discovering with the Five in a Row curriculum, which specifically aims to foster a love of books and an even greater love of learning.

I've looked at several other curriculum sites this summer and even purchased the Confessions of a Homeschooler curriculum for K4 (an extremely thorough and affordable curriculum! just not the one for us because I think I need to take a more sneaky approach and tiptoe around Nicholas's general aversion to worksheets and "seat work"). I spent a few weeks drooling over the Timberdoodle pre-k boxed curriculum (I still might pick up their pre-k science kit) and checked out some free stuff but from the moment I read about Five in a Row, my gut yelled, "this is it!" - and yes, this is it!

Five in a Row is founded in the philosophy that an early love of  books and learning will lead to lifelong learning. That's what I want for Nicholas. Even before he was born, I wanted him to know the richness of worlds and people that could be found in literature (and I don't just mean *literature* literature). I've filled his bedroom with books, and now we're going to continue as we began.

I regret that I created this blog and then abandoned it until now because we went ahead and started our Quest for Knowledge back in May with The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and we've already come a long way through Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina, Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack, The ABC Bunny by Wanda Gag, and, just wrapping up this weekend, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton.

We've enjoyed some books more than others (I think Angus Lost was a favorite - when I found a Scottie dog Beanie Baby at a flea market, Nicholas squeed with joy) but we've learned something from every one.

Best of all: Nicholas now tells everybody he meets that he's homeschooled, and "my mommy is the best teacher" (without any prompting at all)!

I have plenty of fears. I'm worried I won't give him enough or I'll push him too hard or I'll rob him of social experiences found in a classroom...but I hope in time my fears will shrink in the shadow of his success (don't look at me like that; I'm a writer, exaggerated language is what I do).

But I'm learning that right over there beside my fears are opportunities. We've found a co-op that meets once a week and I'm tentatively hopeful those families will become our tribe. I'm finding that the more I learn with Nicholas every day, the closer we become and the more confident he becomes. I never thought of him as a little boy who has a shell, but suddenly a switch has been flipped and he wants to draw and color and listen to music (deafening volumes, hah!).

With the world in the state it is right now, I'm not sure what kind of future we face as humans, but whatever comes, I want his present to be warm, memorable and joyful.

So, here we go! (Or here we continue!)

Watch for some pictures and thoughts on our Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel "row" soon! I've started planning our next adventure but I want to put Mike Mulligan down on e-paper while it's still fresh in my mind.