(no subject)

[altarflame]

Ananda is obsessed with making Yahoo! avatars, so now everytime I check my email, I have this asian cowgirl with dangly earrings winking at me o_O

We're reading The Magician's Nephew right now, which is first in the series of The Chronicles of Narnia. About halfway through. And I have this dream that maybe we'll finish The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (#2 in the series) before it's out of theaters, and she and I could go see it together.

I was talking to Grant about how I've been experiencing some major guilt, because we're doing very little structured homeschool stuff lately. By very little I mean, basically none for weeks. New baby, going out of town, getting sick, it always seems to be something. Before that it was hurricanes and being 9 months pregnant or practically living at the hospital. I don't ever want to shortchange her. I mean, there were a couple of mornings in a row where she and I cooked breakfast together and I talked about World War 2, the war in Iraq, presidents' terms, etc, and went and consulted the globe afterwards. She remembered much and participated in the talk the second day, and she's added Germany to her geographic repertoire. But that was like a month ago. We've been going to church and talking about Advent, the past couple of weekends. Mindy read them a book about germs and antibodies and such, and then they saw it on Reading Rainbow the next day, as well, so it's really all stuck with them and now it comes up constantly since we're all getting sick. We reviewed density and did the old density experiment again, at some point...She and Aaron water and weed the garden every afternoon. But I keep getting all antsy that we aren't really finding time to DO ANYTHING REGULARLY or in a measurable way or whatever...

Then yesterday I had this breakthrough. WHO CARES? In the last few months she's learned all about the end of pregnancy, labor, hospitals, midwives, natural birth (including dozens of birth videos, accompanying me to appts, visiting us in the hospital, discussions on and stepping into the NICU), asked a million questions about newborns and gotten answers, watched and participated in the care of a new baby. She now knows what a meteorologist is, how fronts and currents effect storm tracks, what the news is, why we need shutters and supplies. She can tell you about categories of hurricanes, which ones we would leave for, what the eye is. She's been out of power and used a generator, or just candles. She's only 5, and if she's on the computer I can say, "Ananda, pull up my thing on the taskbar and refresh it for me, please" and she does. She makes yahoo avatars. She talks to Bobby and my mom on AIM - she knows the KEYSTROKES for the smilies. I mean, she asks me how to spell most everything as far as words, but she types it out herself. And she increasingly doesn't need help recognizing words for the avatar stuff - she knows what is "appearance", "apparel", "accessories", "face and eyes", "hairstyles", etc. And with not a single dang workbook or flashcard. We get a new issue of "My Big Backyard" every month and go through it all, reading and activities, one page at a time together. She has a penpal and understands how the mail works. I get so stressed out and down on myself like her education is suffering, but I'm willing to bet she learns more here on any given day than she would in a classroom. Grant gives her a dollar sometimes for helping me so much around the house, or some change, and she's learned to tell pennies from the others, and quarters, and is working on the rest. She knows there are a hundred pennies in a dollar, that the silver coins are worth more, what sort of thing you can expect to buy with a buck or less. She's already getting good at saving and accumulating rather than spending all at once. Likewise she's getting a good grasp of time (minutes within hours, how long this or that is, hours in a day) just because she wants to know when Reading Rainbow comes on, how long it is until dinner, etc - and on dates, because I cross off the day on the calendar each night and then she goes to it the next morning to see what day it is (and when Girl Scouts, Christmas, La Leche League and Church are). I don't have to tell her to put on daytime clothes when she wakes up, anymore, she's up by 9 or so everyday and dressed even if I'm still in bed. And doesn't even complain about hair brushing anymore. She knows and expects to have to help pick up and clean throughout the day.

What the heck have I been worried about? Why am I wasting my damn energy feeling like I'm not doing enough? The only thing I can possibly imagine her being lacking in, is socialization and math. But math is what she works on anytime she gets out a workbook or her leappad, and she's got a good handle on adding and subtracting numerals up to 12, with and without a number line. That's pretty on target for Kindergarden. I mean it's first grade workbooks. She does pages independantly only bringing them to me for checking. Not on a schedule - sometimes four pages a day for 3 days and then nothing for two weeks - but she never needs more than the briefest review. And as far as socializing, even if I never took her out, she has a bunch of little brothers, and Robbie comes over (he moved out! Weeks ago, and I never even told you guys) and we just got back from visiting my mother who has Todd's kids there. I mean that's all worst case scenario, she also is great with Shaun and Grant Sr and my sister, and sees all of them regularly, and with other kids in Kids' Life (childrens' church). I wish her GS meetings were more often, and need to be taking her to the Homeschool Park Days weekly, instead of only now and then.


I suppose it's necessary to constantly re-examine this sort of thing and strive to do better, lest she REALLY fall behind. But tonight, I'm just happy to think that despite all my worrying...there's nothing to worry about. *



*if you feel the need to tell me there's plenty to worry about and I'm on a quick route to disaster, feel free.

Comments

[brightsoul.livejournal.com]

i don't know too many other homeschooling mothers, but if it makes you feel any better...math is the only one thing that i still get a bit paranoid about.

i follow more of un-schooling philosophy (there are extremes of course like 'let you kids play video games or watch TV all day' of which i am adamantly opposed to) and have faith that everything my son will need to know, he'll know in time.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I try to remind myself that K-5 math is mostly counting, adding/subtracting numbers 5 and under, money, and time. Also concepts like more and less, greater than/less than, vocabulary like "sum", "numeral", etc. And we're covering all of those things easily. She's also fascinated by counting by twos and fives and tens and giggles when we do it for fun. The math gnomes come out and we play games with the acorns every couple of weeks. So hey.

That faith is important to your peace of mind as a homeschooler. I had it with plenty to spare, when she was 2 and 3 and turning 4. But now that she's school aged, and accountable to the state, and everywhere we go people ask if she's in school yet, I suppose I'm more self-conscious. As long as I don't let her pick up that uneasy, anxious vibe and start thinking learning is some chore with deadlines and rules.

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

Hey, and math follows a lot of logic and things like sorting/organizing/categorizing, too... little things that Isaac probably does with toys. Stuff we don't even think about. She seems, from your entries that I've read, like a kid who's got all that down. :)

[sami-i-am.livejournal.com]

You're basically like the exact opposite of my dad, who was anally structured about our schoolwork. Very rigid and inflexible. If we "got behind" on the scheduled tasks, we knew we were in for it :| I think your way of doing things and my dad's way, while entirely different, both have their strong points and their weak points. And I don't think you're looking for trouble by not having an anal schedule. At all =)

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

Isn't that what homeschooling is about? Not worrying about strict curriculums and dealing with what life deems necessary for your kids to learn? ;D

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

It's like I was telling brightsoul, a couple comments above this - I was all about that when she was PREschool. Now that she's school aged, I feel like I need to be on my toes or something. As if she hasn't been learning steadily since birth, as if she doesn't still have 13 more years til she's a legal adult, as if we don't keep up "school" on weekends and holidays, into the night, and yearround...It makes you self-conscious when everywhere you go people ask your kid, "Are you in school yet?" and then seem to be sizing them up, when they say "I go to homeschool".

[julierocket.livejournal.com]

The only qualms I ever have about homeschool are like when I was watching "Wife Swap" last night (don't ask...) and there was a homeschooling family on the show. Basically, the dad decided that his dream was to live on a bus touring the country, so he tossed his wife and two middle-school-aged daughters on this crappy, cramped bus and drove them around the country for a year. Yeah, they stopped at museums and such, but it looks like he rushed them through. The girls, by their own report, said they felt like they were never learning anything, and they really wanted to try going to a regular middle/high school if they weren't going to be learning at homeschool. Dad's idea of "teaching them" was having them watch him describe how he repaired the bus engine. ... yeah. Mom didn't seem to be much of a "stand up for yourself" type.

At one point, the "new wife" that came in when they swapped put the girls in regular schools and they seemed to love it (granted, I think long-term they'd have been eaten alive, socially, the poor things) but it was really sad when one girl said "I realized when I got to school that I was way behind on my learning... there were so many things that I was supposed to know that I didn't." And I was all UGH. THAT MAN HAS NO BUSINESS HAVING CHILDREN.

But. Hopefully that is far more of an exception. His reason for homeschooling was really so he could live his dream of living on a bus and not have kids tying him down anywhere... and he claimed "there's too much drugs and sex in schools" and that was all there was to say about that, end of story, and he never bothered to explain to his daughters how to HANDLE the real world.

WOW. end rant. haha.

[corin13.livejournal.com]

Good job, momma.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

:)