A Hidden Habitat

I haven't written on this blog for a very long time now... almost 5 years now. In fact, I haven't written much at all in the past year. But, I miss it, so I may try keeping up with this blog again, if I can find the time.

Hannah is wrapping up her freshman year at the local high school, which Ben will also attend when he is a freshman next year. Becca is finishing 6th grade, and Kayla will actually be old enough for kindergarten next year!

I have been furthering my own education a bit as well. In the fall, I completed classes to become an Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist (OCVN), and this spring, I attended the Environmental Education Council of Ohio (EECO) annual conference. I have loved nature education since I was in college and worked at the Philadelphia Zoo. Though my certification was in Social Studies Secondary Education, I always had a longing to teach about nature and wildlife. Because of this passion, I have been volunteering a lot at our local nature center. I recently helped with a 5-week nature journaling program for 4th graders at an urban elementary school, and I will be assisting with many field trips at the nature center this spring. I love it!

I have also been incorporating even more environmental education into our homeschooling. This week, Ben had to take the state Geometry test on two separate mornings as part of his preparation for entering high school. The beautiful weather inspired me to take the rest of the school day outdoors.

We walked around our property and talked about nature - what we saw and what we wondered about. Becca kept dashing around looking under rocks and logs for red-backed salamanders, which we find all over our property. She did find a few, including this large gray one and one that measured only an inch from head to tail.

As we rounded the "hairpin," as the kids call the sharp bend in the walking path around our property, we glanced at all of the logs in various stages of decay next to the path. "Hey," I told her, "you should see if you can flip one of those really rotting logs and see what you find underneath." The log ended up being so rotten that it pulled apart instead of turning over.

 First, we noticed patches of white fungus spread across the inside of the log.

As we looked closer, we began to see even more signs of life: a tiny mushroom, a spider web and a small brown spider, myriads of tunnels with reddish brown ants scurrying through them, a salamander, a centipede, a beetle, and five or six of these beautifully colored millipedes. An entire miniature ecosystem lay hidden within an old log on the forest floor.

We decided to examine the millipedes a little more closely before returning them safely to their

rotting log. We learned that they are called Euryurus leachii, or Leach's millipede, and they primarily live in decaying hardwoods. Apparently, they even glow under a black light, though we didn't have the opportunity to test that out.

Becca, in particular, seemed to love this investigation. She and I talked about all of the things she had found, as we walked back toward the house. She wanted to find some way to demonstrate what she had learned. At first, she mentioned drawing a picture, but then we discussed other ways she could model the hidden habitat we had discovered. When we got inside, she instantly collected her craft supplies and got to work. I love her final results!

On the outside/front, she used green yarn to create a soft bed of moss with patches of bark showing through. She added a turkey tail fungus to the edge.

The front flips up to reveal the inside of the log, where she drew a millipede, ants and their tunnels, a centipede, a worm, a spider and a web, a mushroom, and streaks of white fungus.

I look forward to doing even more nature exploring with the kids in the future. I am amazed at how much we can learn when we begin to ask questions and look beneath the surface of what we see.  Just as we had to peel back the layers of the log to see the hidden world inside, we can also discover hidden realms of knowledge by just taking the time to stop and dig a little deeper into the world around us.

Chickens and Eggs

I worried that the baby might disrupt school this year, but other than a bit of fussiness and screeching when she is ready for her morning nap, she does quite well overall. She often plays happily in the pack-n-play or eats her breakfast in the high chair while I teach. Even better, once she goes to sleep in the morning, she sleeps through almost our entire school day before waking up for the afternoon and evening. I have even been able to run between 1.25 and 1.75 miles each day after lunch while the kids have their recess time, and it helps me feel refreshed and ready to finish out the school day.

No, the baby has been quite compliant this year so far. Instead, our biggest distraction has been our chickens! They like to come to our front door and peck at it to get our attention. If we are working in our school room in the basement, they actually peer in our basement window at us!

Poor Kitty

In addition, we began getting our first eggs this week. Elsa, the biggest barred rock, laid us a perfect little egg around lunch time on Monday.

Just a tiny egg - they will get bigger, though

Amazingly, Rosie, one of our black australorps, also laid her first egg on Monday afternoon. She came to the front door squawking anxiously at me, but then ran back to the woods. When I went for my run a little later, she was hanging out alone by the coop. I talked to her softly and showed her the fake eggs in the nest boxes, and she climbed in to inspect them. By the end of my run, she came running out of the coop, leaving a tiny egg in the nest box behind her.

On Tuesday, we only got one egg, but Wednesday through Friday, we got two eggs each day. Now, the kids are obsessed with checking for eggs, which would cause enough of a distraction by itself. However, the hens cause an even bigger distraction with the ruckus they make every time they lay. I had heard of the egg song, but I had no idea just how loudly those hens could sing. We can often hear them squawking in the coop, while we are working down in the basement.

Adding to the noise, Rosie and Elsa had quite the battle over the favored nest box. Elsa has staked her claim on the nest box in the darkest corner, and she will often lay in there for an hour before she gets around to depositing her egg. However, Rosie prefers this box too. On Tuesday, Rosie ended up not laying because Elsa refused to vacate the box. On Wednesday, we spent the day at Cedar Point and left the chickens in the coop all day. Both hens somehow managed to lay in the same box, so I assumed they had worked out their dispute. I was wrong.

On Thursday, we heard such a disturbance that we rushed out to make sure nothing was attacking the flock. We found Elsa in the nest box with Rosie yelling at her frantically at the top of her lungs. We came back inside, only to hear the egg song a moment later. Thinking Elsa had finally finished, the kids went out to check, but Elsa was still in the nest box, working on her egg. Rosie, on the other hand, had finally given up and laid her egg in a neighboring box. Silly hens! We have six nest boxes and six hens, and yet, they fight over the same box!

With all the noise and distractions, I have to fight with the chickens to keep my kids’ attention on their school work. On a positive note, though, they are learning quite a bit about chickens and where food comes from. As I was making dinner yesterday, Ben asked me if I was going to use chicken eggs or store-bought eggs in my recipe. He realized his mistake immediately, and we both laughed. Before this year, however, eggs only came from the store. Now, through the crazy distraction of our little flock of happy hens, our kids know the joy of getting their breakfast straight from its source. And, I suppose, that is part of a good education as well.

Back to Fun

I was going to title this post “Back to Work,” but that did not seem to fit the beginning of our school year so far. Sure, we have done quite a bit of work – math pages, grammar worksheets, history memory cards – and we have had to arrange teaching times around the baby’s naps. But, we have also had a lot of fun.

On Monday, Hannah and Ben learned about the center of gravity. They began by figuring out how to balance a potato on a ruler, using only a pair of forks. Then, they used what they learned to balance a broom on the palm of their hands by first identifying the broom’s center of gravity.

We also had our first Phys. Ed. Class on Monday. A few years ago, I got a free fitness and health package from Subway, including two pedometers, a stopwatch, and a year’s worth of lesson ideas and activities. The kids have gym once a week at co-op, but I want to add a bit to their learning at home as well. The kids loved experimenting with the pedometers, counting the steps needed to walk around the house or get the mail. Becca has even decided to eat a healthy breakfast every day, so she can feed her brain and maybe get better grades on her school work.

Today, Becca experimented with reading maps. I made a map of our property and marked several “treasures” on it. Then, she used the map to find the treasures – just a few nickles and gumballs. She needed a bit of help from Hannah to find the last few, but I may mark some more treasures next week and let her try again until she gets the hang of it.

I think everyone’s favorite lesson this week came from our new geography curriculum – Mapping the World with Art. We read a brief lesson on ancient maps and then followed several steps to draw maps of Mesopotamia. The kids’ maps are surprisingly good! The curriculum is supposed to be for ages 10 and older, but even Becca could follow the steps to draw a decent map. By the end of the year, the kids should be able to draw a map of the entire world!

After we drew the maps, we used edible chocolate clay to make Babylonian-type maps, using chopsticks and drawing cuneiform markings on them. I baked them, and everyone enjoyed delicious, warm chocolate map cookies with a glass of milk as an after school snack. I intended to take photos, but they did not last long enough. Geography should be a lot of fun this year!

I am so thankful that the kids have been working more willingly this school year. Perhaps they are just older and more mature. (They are in 2^nd, 4^th, and 5^th grade now!) Or, maybe they work better with checklists of work to accomplish instead of scheduling subjects at specific times. Regardless of the reason, they have been finishing their regular work more quickly, which leaves room for a lot more fun and experimentation. This should be a wonderful year!

Our New School Room

I have not completely finished decorating it yet, and a few boxes still remain, but I wanted to share a few photos of our new school room. It is in the basement, so the lighting is not great, but I am so excited about having a room dedicated solely to school!

From the back of the room:

I plan to rotate what I hang on the large wall in the front. This month, I will have a map of the US, showing the electoral votes from each state, which we will use to discuss the presidential election.

From the front of the room:

On the other side of the stairs behind the desks, we have our family room, with our computer, so the kids can watch movies or use the computer as part of school.I can't decide what to put on all of those built-in display shelves yet...

From the pantry side:

Our laundry room is through that door, so I can work on chores while the kids work on school! We also have a small half-bathroom in there, which is convenient during school.

From the laundry room side:

I put a desk through that door, in the pantry, so the kids can take tests without distractions. Ben actually puts himself in that desk frequently during the day, because he discovered that he can concentrate more when he sits alone.

All-in-all, our school room works well for us. Now, if only I could get the rest of the house this unpacked...

City Mice, Country Mice

This school year so far has slightly resembled the fable "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse."

In August, when school began, we lived in a smallish brick home on a busy street in the city. For recess each day, the kids played outside in our small backyard, with strict instructions to never leave our property or get too close to the road. They quickly tired of playing in the small yard and yearned for more freedom - freedom I could not grant because of the neighborhood in which we lived.

At the end of September, we moved into our new home, on 5 acres of land in the middle of the country. The kids roam the property, playing in and out of the woods, leaping over the small stream, never tiring of playing and exploring.

Hannah has named her favorite trees, and she constantly shows me interesting bugs she finds. The first day, Hannah excitedly brought me a giant leopard moth caterpillar, and this weekend, we laughed together at the dancing of a colony of beech blight aphids on a tree branch. We also found a particularly odd cluster of bugs, which we finally identified as adult and nymph oak tree hoppers. And, this evening, Becca discovered a walking stick in the living room as she headed up to bed. The kids love looking up and identifying all of the interesting species of bugs.

Of course, the one type of bug none of them like is spiders, particularly the wolf spiders which keep coming into our home. Yesterday, Hannah picked up her sneaker and a large one fell out, and today, one kept creeping out from under the wall in the school room as we worked. Josh finally caught that one this evening and relocated it to the barn, hoping that might keep it from returning to the house.

We also all enjoy seeing wildlife we rarely or never saw in the city - dozens of deer, chipmunks, squirrels, blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, nuthatches, chickadees, Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, downy woodpeckers, and red-bellied woodpeckers. Two mornings, we even had a great blue heron land in the yard! And, this is only autumn. I cannot imagine all of the birds and animals that will be here in the summer! Hannah has been begging to work on her bird project again, creating her own bird guide for all of the different birds she sees. I love that all of this nature and beauty surrounding us inspires them to want to learn.

(See the deer in that photo? I am amazed at how well they blend in, especially in the evening.)

We have definitely had to adjust quite a bit to living in the country, but we love it. My kids (and I) may be "city mice," but unlike the mouse in Aesop's fable, we feel perfectly at home in the country and have no desire to go back. This city mouse would rather be a country mouse any day!

Two Kids and a Baby

OK, she is not a baby anymore, but she is my baby, and I cannot believe she is old enough for kindergarten this year!

This is my first year formally schooling all three kids. Becca is in kindergarten, Ben is in second grade, and Hannah is in third grade. When I first began this homeschooling adventure two years ago, my oldest was in first grade. Now, somehow, my baby is old enough for school. How does the time pass so quickly? Some days seem so long and frustrating. Then, I blink, and the kids are older, and I wonder how the baby I cradled in my arms could be the lovely child standing in front of me.

I found the photo I took of the kids on our very first "not back to school" day, and I am amazed at how much they have grown in just two short years:

School has been interesting so far this year. Hannah has matured quite a bit since last year. She works independently, does beautiful work, and complains very little. She especially loves our language arts curriculum, and her work shows her love for writing. For example, she had to fill in a blank to make a fragment a complete sentence: "________ is funny." My answer key suggested "He" as a possible answer. Hannah wrote, "The clown dance at the circus." I actually have fun reading the sentences she creates!

Ben still wiggles and sings and fools around, but he is doing better than last year. He finishes all of his work, in spite of the fooling around and complaining. I am hoping that he will continue maturing, like Hannah, and eventually have a bit more focus. I think his biggest struggle is not wanting to work hard at anything, but he is learning the benefits of hard work in soccer this year, and I think that may carry over into his school work as well.

Becca has been a bit of a challenge so far. She loves the idea of school, but she does not like me choosing the activities. I know she loves cutting and gluing and reading and workbooks, but she complains about every activity. I think once she settles into a routine with the other two, she will enjoy school a bit more. And I am sure I will find what methods work for her personality, just as I discovered for Hannah and Ben. Becca's biggest challenge, however, is her desire to use the chairs and desks as her own personal jungle gym instead of simply sitting in them. I struggle teaching a little monkey who swings and leaps all around the school room. Again, I think with discipline and practice, she will adjust to this as well.

I am excited about this school year! I have a lot of fun ideas and I cannot wait to learn and explore new things with the kids. Truthfully, even though I love summer vacation and appreciate the rest, and in spite of all of the challenges, school time is my favorite part of the year.

Chore Cards

In the past year or so, we have started giving the kids an allowance, which we tied to their chores. They have "morning chores" and "day chores." Every morning, all three kids must make their beds, clean their rooms, and put away any of their own folded laundry. During the day, Hannah feeds one of the bearded dragons, Ben feeds the cat, and Becca sets the table and organizes the shoes on the shelves by the back door. Hannah and Ben also alternate washing the dishes from breakfast and lunch and sweeping and mopping the kitchen floor. I keep a weekly calendar listing their chores on a white board, which hangs on the door leading to our basement. At the end of each week, the kids receive their allowance. For each day that they complete all of their chores, they earn $0.25, and they get an extra $0.25 bonus if they do their chores every day that week.

This system has worked well, with just one drawback - I did not have an adequate method for keeping track of which days they did their chores. At first, I tried making them put a check mark next to each chore on the white board, but they often forgot and then argued about each quarter they thought they should have earned. I also tried giving them their allowance each evening, but I prefer to distribute it weekly. Finally, one night, I had a sudden inspiration.

Using Photoshop, I created punch cards, modeled after time cards a person might use at work. The middle of each card has the child's name, a place for me to write the date, and the terms for redeeming the card for their allowance. Then, along each side of the card, I put black dots the size of a hole punch, with the days of the week listed next to them - one side for morning chores and one side for day chores.

Each day, the kids use a hole punch to punch out the dots for that day when they complete their chores. At the end of the week, the kids turn in their chore cards in exchange for their allowance. So far this system works quite well. The kids have fun punching the holes, so they are not as likely to forget, and they have a visible reminder of what they must do each day. Plus, I have no more haggling over how much money they should receive. I love ideas that make our daily duties easier (and more fun)!

Project Fridays

This school year has been so busy that I have not taken the time to write blog posts as often as I have wanted. We have been busily working through spelling lists, learning multiple digit addition and multiplication, memorizing parts of speech, practicing the piano, learning to swim, dancing, tumbling, and so on. Most Fridays, however, we take a break from our day-to-day assignments and work on a project together.

In January, after we finished reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George, I gave Hannah and Ben each a box, set out the craft supplies, and told them to make a shadowbox based on the book. Both kids ended up making a model of Sam Gribley's woods and his home in the tree trunk, so I took advantage of that to teach them a little about habitats. On each side of the box, they glued a piece of card stock and labeled them with the title of the book, "Sam Gribley's Habitat," and the different aspects of his habitat: food, water, and shelter. Then, under those headings, they listed ways that Sam was able to obtain those things in the woods. For example, he drank water from a fresh spring, he hunted for animals with his falcon and ate edible plants, and he created a home in a hollow tree. The finished projects are lovely!

On the Friday before the Super Bowl, we dedicated the entire day to football-related activities. I found an amazing free resource on the website for the Pro Football Hall of Fame and combined with with another packet I got as a freebie from Currclick. I printed out a ton of pages, punched holes in them, and put them in folders for each kid. We began the day by bundling up and heading out to a nearby sports field, where we had a punt, pass, and kick contest, raced through various football drills, and performed an experiment to figure out why a football has its shape, instead of being perfectly round. Back at home, they learned about Roman Numerals (since that is how they label Super Bowls), did some football-themed math, read and wrote poems about football, learned about the first African American inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, discovered how to read nutrition labels to eat a healthy diet (like a good athlete should!), and even designed their own football team mascots, pennants, and jerseys!

Also, in February, we had the opportunity for an amazing project on the planets. Now, as a family, we enjoy listening to classical music, and one of our favorites is The Planets by Holst. Josh discovered that the Springfield Symphony would be putting on a show called "Out of This World," featuring a live performance of The Planets, lovely NASA images from space, and dramatic presentations by an astronomy professor and an acting troupe. In preparation, we listened to the music several times and talked about the names of each planet and how the origins of those names inspired the songs. I also found a free space lapbook at www.homeschoolshare.com, and I used portions of that and our Children's Atlas of the Universe to put together a wonderful project on the planets. Additionally, I used the student guide provided by the symphony and resources from our Galloping the Globe study of Italy (which includes a section on space because Galileo was from Italy). I was out of town with the youth group on the evening of the show, but despite the two-hour drive each way, Josh and his mom took the kids to the performance, and they loved it! In fact, Becca announced on the way home that it was "better than Chuck E. Cheese's!"

We have had so much fun with our "Project Fridays" so far this school year. I believe that the kids have learned more from them than anything they have learned out of a text book. Even though I have to work a little harder to fit all of their other school work into only four days each week, I am certain that we will continue with Project Fridays for a long time!

Another Asian Adventure

We just completed our study of Japan, as we work our way through Asia in Galloping the Globe. The kids learned the meaning of the word "archipelago" and added it to their geography notebooks. They learned that Japan consists of 6,852 islands and contains 108 active volcanoes. The red dot on the flag symbolizes the sun.

In addition, I found a wonderful site called Kids Web Japan, which has illustrations, articles, and games about Japanese culture, all geared towards kids. We read a few Japanese folk tales and learned about Japanese houses and meals, sumo wrestling, origami, bonsai, kimonos, and bento boxes.

Last week, we made an Americanized version of a Japanese meal for dinner. I made a large pot of Ramen noodles in beef broth and served them with matchstick carrots, shredded napa cabbage, and sugar snap peas to mix into the soup. At the beginning of the meal, the kids said, "Itadakimasu (I receive this food)," and at the end, they exclaimed, "Gochito sama deshita (It was quite a feast)!"

Today, as we wrap up our study of Japan and move on to India, I surprised the kids with homemade bento lunches. They loved them and ate every bite, even Becca who normally doesn't eat raw peppers or cabbage!

Contents: Egg yolk and cheddar cheese sun, egg white clouds, bread land, grape and cheddar cheese flower, shredded mozzarella dandelion, green pepper leaf and stems, and napa cabbage grass.

We enjoyed learning more about Japan, and we look forward to "galloping" the rest of the way around the world as well. What a fun way to learn about geography!

A "Taste" of History

One Saturday in September, a sudden rainstorm hit the farmer's market while I shopped. I quickly ducked from tent to tent, purchasing my normal fruits and vegetables. The last booth just had sweets, which I normally never purchase. However, because of the weather, I set down my bags and talked for a while with the vendor. As we spoke, I noticed some beautiful, molded cookies for sale and asked about them.

The baker told me that the cookies were called springerle cookies and that they originated in Switzerland and southern Germany as far back as the 14th century. He explained that each family would have handcrafted wooden molds and would make these cookies on special occasions, such as weddings, engagements and holidays. In fact, people would often give springerle cookies in the same way we give out Christmas cards. Traditionally, bakers flavor the cookies with anise, but many also use flavors like orange or lemon. After the wonderful history lesson, I decided to purchase three lovely, orange-flavored cookies to teach the kids a little about German history.

A few days later, I made each child a cup of hot tea. Now, I know that Germany is not known for its tea, but I decided that I would rather not give my kids any coffee! I set the table with nice teacups and allowed each child to choose a cookie. Then, I told them about the history while we enjoyed our tasty snack. 

The kids' beautiful cookies:

The kids really enjoyed the tea party, and they learned quite a bit as well. As a lover of history (as well as a descendent of German immigrants), I love giving the kids a "taste" of history and culture that they will remember long after they forget the facts they read about in books.

And the First Month Flies By...

As I write this blog post, I cannot believe that we have already completed more than a month and a half of school! The year has been both fun and frustrating at times, filled with lessons from life and not just lessons from books.

We have traveled quite a bit - to the zoo, the children's museum, Cedar Point, and COSI. Josh took Hannah and Ben to see a football game at Virginia Tech, and I took Becca on an autumn excursion to my parents' cabin. We even drove to Grove City College for a friend's wedding and spent some time with a wonderful family near Pittsburgh. Somehow, I still managed to squeeze in a few photo shoots as well!

During this crazy month, we lost our sweet kitty, Barky, to an illness called FIP. He was young, and his sickness and death were sudden and unexpected. We took some time off of school to love him for a couple of days and then grieve our loss. The kids made memory boxes and have learned a lot about death and loss and sadness - life lessons I never expected to teach them this year.

Through all of this, we are actually making progress with school work, too. Hannah is flying through her math again, and Ben has finally mastered his addition and subtraction facts and is moving on to more difficult problems. He spent the first few weeks making and practicing flashcards from + and - 0 through + and - 9. Now, he is doing much better with his math because he has the facts memorized and no longer needs to calculate each problem in his head. Both kids like Spelling Power, although I have to keep reassuring Ben that he is supposed to get words on the pretests wrong - otherwise, he would never learn anything new!

Social Studies and Science remain the kids' favorite subjects (I will share more of those lessons in later posts), and they love doing Spanish a couple days a week, too.

For reading and language arts, we are working our way through First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. Ben just began Level One, and Hannah just completed that book. They love the simplicity and repetition and are learning quite a bit. They especially love memorizing the poems in the book. We have been reading longer chapter books together, too. We just finished reading The Secret Garden and then listened to the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version and watched the movie. I ordered James and the Giant Peach yesterday and hope to begin it in a week or so. I think it will appeal a little more to my adventurous Ben, though he also appreciated the lovely story in The Secret Garden.

I love our Bible curriculum this year. We are using a book called Our 24 Family Ways. Each "family way" is a kind of rule for the family follow, though really, they are more like ways of living. Each "way" has five daily lessons, a coloring page, a brief story intro, a character quality, and a Bible verse to memorize. The lessons are short enough to hold the kids' interest, but deep enough to make them think. Even my littlest has memorized the verses, and the verses are often fairly long - 2 or 3 verses at a time. Still, with repetition, they have learned the verses and the family ways very well. I also posted the family ways on our wall where everyone can read them, and when a child needs a "break" (like a time out), he or she sits and reads through the ways and then tells me which ones were not followed. I love that they are specific and thorough and well-grounded in Scripture. We begin each day with the Bible lesson and prayer, focusing on God right from the start.

Finally, with a few exceptions, I have designated Fridays as "Project Fridays." Each Friday, we put aside our regular school work and tackle a project, either together or separately. All three kids created beautiful lapbooks on the animals of their choosing, and we have begun working on making our own movie together. Our next project will likely be a "Space" lapbook, inspired by the content of the story they wrote for our movie script. These Fridays have been the most fun and educational school days, and I hope we can continue them all year!

So, as the first months of the school year fly by, hopefully I will more faithfully update this blog and share what we are studying and experiencing. As the blog's title proclaims, "learning is life" - and we are certainly spending most of our time living and learning together!

Learning Through Play

Recently, a few moms decided that our community could use a nice children's museum. They acquired some space for it downtown, and with the help of donations and many hardworking volunteers, the partially completed museum is now opened four days a week, as they raise funds to finish the remaining exhibits.

On Thursday, while Becca attended her princess ballet camp, I took Hannah and Ben across the street to the museum. We decided to become charter members, partially because we would love to have Hannah's birthday party there in the fall, but mostly because I want to support such a worthwhile effort to improve our community for families.

The kids had a blast! After walking through the museum first, to see all the exhibits, both kids started out in the gardening section. Two large raised boxes, filled with shredded rubber "dirt," plastic gardening tools, flower pots, and plastic flowers provided a fun place to dig and play without the mess of real dirt. Hannah loved this section the most and spent quite a bit of time there.

Ben's favorite section was, of course, the musical pipes. Once he figured out how to make music by hitting the ends of the pipes with the foam paddles, he enthusiastically composed his own music, hitting higher on the pipes for rhythm and hitting the ends for musical notes. He jumped back and forth from end to end, moving to the beat of the music in his head.

Both kids enjoyed grocery shopping in the little market. I smiled as they loaded their carts with fruits and veggies and other healthy choices, with only an occasional treat. Maybe they are learning something from our food choices?

The laughed together as Ben scanned Hannah's carrot as he pretended to ring up her purchases.

Both kids also enjoyed the baby doctor section, though Hannah got into it more than Ben did.

Ben preferred turning all of the dials to playing with the dolls.

Finally, the kids finished out their time in the vet exhibit. Ben played with the real stethoscopes, while Hannah doctored the various animals. She posed happily with the snake, which she has learned to love since we began reading Harry Potter this year. I think she wishes she could speak "parseltongue."

We had a wonderful time at the museum, and I had to drag them away when the time came to pick up Becca. I am sure we will return many times throughout the year, especially on those dreary days when we cannot be outside. I love that it is located less than ten minutes from our house, and we can visit it any time we want, without needing to plan ahead. I am thrilled to have such a fun place in our community!

Newspaper Column: Is Homeschooling Overprotective?

I recently wrote a column for my local newspaper about my homeschooling experience. It generated quite a bit of interest and email, so I have decided to repost it here to keep it available for further discussion, since the newspaper will archive it in the next few weeks. I'd love to hear people's responses in the comments section of the blog.

Is It Overprotective to Homeschool Children?

"Recently, I watched Disney's "Tangled" with my family. Mother Gothel, the movie's villain, keeps Rapunzel locked in a tower, supposedly to protect her from people who would steal her precious gift -- her hair. In one song, Mother Gothel assures Rapunzel that danger lurks outside the tower and that she must stay in the tower forever to avoid the hurt and drama of a world too frightening for her to handle. As I watched the movie, I jokingly said, "Isn't this why we homeschool?"

Although my husband chuckled at my comment, I did consider whether my reasons for homeschooling bore any resemblance to the self-serving motives of the movie's villain. Many people stereotype homeschooling parents as overprotective and controlling, and indeed, in some cases, this accusation may be true. However, as I discovered when I first researched homeschooling as an option for our family, people who homeschool vary as greatly as people who send their children to private or public schools. As one of the diverse group of parents who chooses to homeschool, how do my motives measure up? Am I doing what is best for my children, or am I tiptoeing closer to the Mother Gothel method of child-rearing?

On one hand, all healthy parents protect their children. To some extent, I do desire to shelter my kids from anything that might harm their developing identities and faith, such as bullies, inappropriate conversations and labels. I want to influence them at their most moldable age, cultivating a strong faith and value system that will enable them to withstand peer pressure and make right choices when they grow older.

However, my children are still quite young. They still need to hold my hand when they cross the street. If they reach adulthood without me ever allowing them the freedom to test their beliefs or permitting them to move beyond my arm's reach, then the healthy shelter of our home would become no better than Rapunzel's imprisoning tower. I do want to build a strong faith in my kids, but I want them to test that faith and make it their own long before they leave home. For this reason, even though I homeschool partly out of a desire to minimize negative influences, my protection will decrease, and their freedom will increase, as my children grow up.

In fact, as I consider my motives, I realize that my main reasons for homeschooling come from freedom and not overprotection.

First, I want to free my children from labels. In order to accommodate a variety of kids, schools dispense many labels. Fidgety little boys become known as troublemakers. Intelligent students are "gifted," which seems positive, but as a former "gifted" student, I felt pressured to only pursue academics and not the art degree I desired, even though I now do more art than academics. As an "advanced" student, I believed that art should remain a hobby, while my intellect should become my identity. Moreover, peers label each other, often in harmful ways: geek, klutz, clown, different, unpopular. I want my children to cultivate their own interests and abilities, without having to fit into a predetermined mold created by the school or their classmates.

Similarly, I appreciate that homeschooling allows my children to work at an individual pace, regardless of age or grade. My daughter completed two full math books this year, because she grasped the concepts quickly and enjoyed her work. My son barely finished one. He understood addition well, but I realized, halfway through, that he was counting the numbers in his head instead of memorizing the facts. I stopped working through the book to practice the facts until he could solve them quickly, without counting. With individual instruction, the kids can work quickly or pursue in-depth projects in their strengths and spend extra time mastering their weaknesses.

Additionally, my children have the freedom to learn outside of a school building. This year, we studied at a cabin in the woods, Malabar Farm, the zoo, the theater, museums and more. The kids attended a homeschool co-op, took ballet classes, and used math to double a recipe from China, which we cooked as part of a geography unit on Asia. Homeschooling gives us the freedom to learn creatively, outside of the classroom.

After much thought, I concluded that, unlike Mother Gothel, I desire to help my children leave their protective tower. Through creative instruction and exploration, I hope to help them become wise adults, capable of taking on a sometimes scary world, of thinking critically and making their own choices. I do not homeschool in order to hoard these precious gifts for myself. Instead, I desire to nurture them and release them, so they can use their gifts to make a difference in the world."

Taming the Dragons

We unexpectedly bought a new bearded dragon last week. Actually, we purchased a new, larger cage with a nice stand, and the young bearded dragon came with it. He is a pretty little beardie, with touches of orange around his ears and down his back. At first, I wanted to name the new little guy "Eustace" after the boy who becomes a dragon in C.S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. However, this little beardie has proved to be a not-very-tame dragon! After much debate and discussion, we finally agreed to name him "Norbert" after the baby dragon Hagrid hatches in the Harry Potter series. As Hagrid oohs and ahs over the baby dragon in the movie, the little dragon sneezes and sets Hagrid's beard on fire. We all decided that this name fit his character much better!

Since then, Josh has been valiantly attempting to tame the little dragon, while he is still an adolescent. He picks Norbert up and holds him almost every day, and we feed him Phoenix Worms and collard greens by hand. We try not to frighten him, but he is still adapting to his new home. When Josh holds him, he puffs out his beard and turns very dark, and he gapes at Josh, trying to prove that he is boss. If Josh is not careful, Norbert gets a nice, hard nip in there, too. Through all of this, he was never so fierce as when he noticed Trogdor, our old, mellow bearded dragon meandering past his cage one afternoon.

 

What a display of dominance he put on! His beard was jet black as he puffed it out and glared at Trogdor, who does not care one bit about the tiny, ferocious new dragon.

At the same time, we have been attempting to tame our three little dragon-children, as well. Now, obviously, our kids are much sweeter than Norbert, and we love them quite a bit more, too! But, recently, their dispositions have been somewhat dragonish, especially when they do not get their own way. Ultimately, we try to address the heart issues behind their misbehavior and bad attitudes so that they will eventually desire what is right. However, in the meantime, we have had to adopt our own dragon-taming techniques to deal with day-to-day problems.

First, as a method of positive reinforcement, we began using a system of "Daddy Dollars." I recently learned about Daddy Dollars from a friend, so I googled it and found some wonderful information, including a link to a site where I could print my own dollars with my husband's face on them!

The kids earn up to three Daddy Dollars each day by behaving well during school time and at Bible time in the evenings. They can also earn Daddy Dollars by doing extra jobs to help me out. When they save up enough Daddy Dollars, they can use them in the Mommy Mart, purchasing items such as 15 minutes of video games on the cell phone, balloon animals (made by me!), and back scratches. So far, the system works fairly well, though we are still smoothing out some of the details.

In addition to this, we have implemented a more formal chore schedule for the kids. Every day, they must make their beds, clean their rooms, and pick up the toys at the end of the day. Also, each child has an individual job to accomplish each day. Hannah washes breakfast and lunch dishes, Ben feeds the cats and sweeps the kitchen, and Becca sets the table for dinner. They mark off their chores on our calendar, and on Saturday, we pay them one quarter for each day they accomplished all of their chores, plus a bonus quarter if they did their chores every day. So, they can earn up to $2.00 each week. For now at least, the kids enjoy having chores and earning an allowance, and I appreciate having some help with daily jobs while also teaching them responsibility.

However, with this allowance, we have also instituted fines for talking back. Perhaps because of their age or because we have not been consistent enough with discipline, our kids have developed the bad habit of talking back every time they do not get their way. Their behavior reminds me of little Norbert nipping at our fingers whenever we approach him. Anyway, now, whenever the kids talk back or use inappropriate words, they have to deposit a quarter in my "I'm-a-rude-piggy bank." I have accumulated quite a collection of quarters - enough to fund allowances for a long time - and the kids are gradually learning to rein in their tongues.

Finally, I adopted something I once read on an ADHD website to address poor table manners. At each meal, we light a candle. That candle remains lit until someone uses poor table manners, and then we have to blow it out. Once the candle melts completely, we take a family trip to Chuck E Cheeses as a reward. Obviously, the candle burns down more quickly the longer it burns, so the kids have incentive to watch their table manners very carefully and even nicely remind each other without me having to nag and punish. This has been very successful so far, especially when we remember to light it and blow it out consistently...

Hopefully, consistent, firm, loving discipline will tame all of the dragons in our lives, from the fierce little bearded dragon, to the dragonish attitudes and behaviors of the kids. In the long run, however, we hope that the dragon will learn to enjoy interaction and not merely tolerate us, and that our kids will internalize good choices and responsibility without needing constant rewards and punishments. Overall, though, I appreciate having a plan, a consistent approach to deal with the everyday difficulties and to make our home a more pleasant place to live - for both people and pets!

Language Learning

Today, after Sunday School, Hannah told me that Ben's teacher said that Ben had been writing in Spanish on the chalkboard. I asked him what he had written. "'La mujer,' 'Las mujeres,' and 'Él come,'" he told me.

"Did you put the accent over the 'e'?" I asked him.

"Yes!" he replied. "If I didn't, it would have been 'the eats' instead of 'He eats,' and that wouldn't have made any sense." I smiled, pleased to hear that he understood at least a part of our recent language lessons.

At the school Hannah attended last year, a native Spanish speaker taught all of the elementary students Spanish several days a week. Kindergarten kids learned fun songs, colors, numbers, and other simple words and phrases. Hannah loved learning a new language and picked it up fairly easily. Because of this, Josh and I had been discussing buying Rosetta Stone software to continue the language learning from an early age.

In college, Josh took several Spanish classes, but he has not spoken the language in many years and has forgotten quite a bit. I have taken many Spanish classes as well, and I lived in Bolivia with a Spanish-speaking family for eight weeks in college, but I, too, am very rusty. Additionally, I do not always pronounce the words perfectly, especially because I cannot roll my r's correctly. I could teach the kids a good amount on my own, but I would prefer them to learn proper pronunciation and inflection from the very beginning, instead of needing to correct bad habits later on. So, we finally decided to look into the software.

Josh called Rosetta Stone's customer service before completing his purchase, because he wanted to ask about the differences between the homeschool version and the personal version. Ultimately, we chose the homeschool version, but calling the company gave us another benefit. Rosetta Stone happened to be having a special, where we could buy all five levels for about $100 cheaper than the best price we found online, and we could spread the payments out over five months without paying any interest. Of course, we jumped at the chance, and the software arrived only a few days later.

I set up the kids' profiles and allowed them to attempt the first lesson. At first, they struggled with the format a bit, but they quickly got the hang of it. I ended up printing off some of the worksheets after the first lesson and teaching them some of the concepts myself, in order to give them a foundation for learning the grammar and vocabulary. Then, they restarted the first lesson and did much better the second time through. Once they had completed all of the follow-up portions of that lesson, they understood very well. In fact, Ben's chalkboard exercise in Sunday School assures me that he has learned quite a bit. Happily, the kids beg for Spanish lessons each day, so I know they enjoy it, too!

In addition to this, in Hannah's language arts curriculum (First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind), she has just progressed from learning nouns to learning pronouns. This fits perfectly with our Spanish lessons! A few days ago, as I read the dialogue from the book, explaining how pronouns take the place of a noun, I took advantage of the opportunity to tie in some of the Spanish learning. Once we completed the practice sentences in English, I added, "Instead of saying, 'La mujer come,' you could say, 'Ella come.' Instead of saying, 'Los hombres comen,' you could say, 'Ellos comen.'" I continued with examples for all of the pronouns she had learned up to that point. Her recent Spanish lessons served to reinforce her English grammar, and her English lessons helped her comprehend her Spanish more completely. In many ways, a second language is improving her understanding of her first language as well!

Overall, I am glad that we decided to move forward with our purchase of Rosetta Stone and add a second language to our homeschool curriculum. I already have begun contemplating ways to use the language in more practical ways. I know I have an open invitation to bring my family to Bolivia to visit my Bolivian family in Cochabamba. Also, our church leads mission trips each year to a small village I once visited in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps, we can take such a trip when the kids are old enough? Until then, I am simply happy to pass on an ability that I love, a language that I once hoped to speak every day but never had the opportunity to use regularly. And, who knows - maybe the opportunities will come for our whole family, once we all speak the language well. At the very least, the kids will have a very useful skill, as they grow up in a world where more people speak Spanish than English, and in a country where Spanish could easily be the second language. I am excited to see where their love of language may take them...

A Passion for Piano

This summer, we sadly learned that our piano teacher had gotten a job with a local school district and would not offer lessons any longer. Though the kids enjoyed piano, I had to fight with them nearly every day to get them to practice, and I decided to wait a while before pursuing it again. I worried that I might kill their love for music by forcing practice before they were ready. On the other hand, I also wanted them to learn the discipline of music, a skill they would eventually appreciate, especially if they decide to pursue music as a vocation some day.

Throughout the fall, the kids continued to practice their old songs and pick out new songs, so this winter, I decided to attempt lessons for both kids again. This time, a friend of ours agreed to provide lessons in our home for a reasonable price, which worked out much better for us with nap schedules and schoolwork and my broken leg.

Initially, the kids still resisted practicing, but I built regular practice time into our school schedule, and they enjoyed taking a break from normal school work to practice for a while. Plus, the piano teacher allowed the kids to choose prizes from her prize box whenever they practiced consistently that week, which provided some extra motivation. Ultimately, however, making lovely music on the piano became their motivation.

First, the piano teacher introduced a new curriculum, one that focuses on recognizing intervals and training the ear, rather than simply learning the notes. Ben definitely excels in this area. He can sing, "This is middle C," and actually hit the correct note from memory most of the time. Like Ben, Hannah can also pick many songs out by ear, but cannot yet find middle C without playing the note on the piano first. Of course, even I cannot do that well...

I think their greatest motivation, however, came when I began taking piano lessons, too. Both kids enjoy picking out songs from my piano book, because many of them are "real" songs and not just made-up songs for kids. Hannah especially likes my piano book, because her hands are big enough to play the full chords correctly. She practices and practices, playing each hand separately and then putting them together, and she can now play nearly all of the songs that I can play. In fact, she is probably only a lesson or two behind me. At this point, I would guess that she plays the piano for an hour or two each day, instead of the 15-20 minutes required by her teacher. My biggest challenge is getting her to stop playing and allow anyone else to have a turn!

As I have written previously, I love having a house filled with music. We often have music playing in the background while we do school work, and the kids love listening to music in the car. Some days, Josh pulls out his guitar, and we all sing praise songs, while the kids dance around the room. I have often considered Ben my musical child, but, more accurately, we are a musical family. Ben may have an amazing voice, but Hannah excels at piano, and Becca lives to dance. At the very least, all of our lives would be much less wonderful without music providing a lovely soundtrack to our days.

Toucans and Animal Art

My parents subscribe to Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard for the kids, and we always look forward to the new magazines each month. Last month, one of the issues included a section about toucans. We read through the article together, learning all about their beaks and how they work. To Hannah's delight, the issue included a page about drawing toucans. Since Ben struggles a bit with drawing and Hannah sometimes struggles with following directions, I went through the page step by step, pointing out how to look at small portion of the image and draw what they see, and not just what they expect to see. Hannah's toucan ended up looking quite nice:

I expressed to Hannah how much I loved her drawing, and she told me that she had learned how to draw a toucan in her "How to Draw Animals" book. She proceeded to draw another picture.

In fact, drawing animals has become one of her new pastimes, and she is becoming better and better with all of her practice. I will share a few of her animal drawings.

An armadillo:

A wombat:

A komodo dragon:

I love watching her artistic ability develop and improve, and I look forward to seeing what she does with it someday - whether it becomes a vocation or simply a hobby she enjoys. Either way, I will always remain her biggest fan!