Bribes, revisited

Remember when Mi'ita decided that she wanted to earn her fish by reading a book? And I tried to get her to read a science book because I felt like we weren't doing enough science? She agreed to read one science book, Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method: Over 100 Hands-on Science Experiments for Children, for her plastic cat set that I won't buy her, but she got exceedingly cranky when I suggested another science book for the pet fish she wanted.

Losing my patience with her, I finally pulled out two of the biggest, nastiest looking history books we have and told her she could pick one of those. She picked out the World History Encyclopedia and proceeded to read it in a day and a half. Hmmm. I hadn't actually seen all this reading, so I sat down with the book and made her "prove it to me", page by page, by asking her, so what happened with the African Empires, the Khmer, Napoleon, Charlemagne, Byzantium, etc., etc. Page by page we figured out that while she read the thing, she didn't understand it at all. Terms like abdicate and reunification and import taxes threw her. And it's political. She didn't know what communism is, or a republic, or a senate, or a siege.

So I said that she had to read it again and I would explain things that she didn't understand, or we could read it together. She chose to read it together, so we've sat down every night for about an hour and worked on a few pages of this book.

Great discussions! These discussions coupled with M&M geography, and she already knows way more than many high school students that I have taught in the social science category. I am thrilled!

(Don't tell her.)

Finally, finally, finally some science!

I have been waiting impatiently for Mi'ita to turn to science. We have been saturated in history since August! I like history, don't get me wrong. I would be sad if she were so interested in science that she ignored history. But I've been worried.

This morning I gave up my hands off approach to science. Freeschooling is supposed to force feed only the basics of math, reading, and writing. All else is interest driven. I've been suggesting this and that scientific activity all along, but so far her interests led her to history.

Today I pulled out Usborne's How Nature Works and said that we really need to do a little science. She was finally nonresistant and we sat down and "looked for good experiments." Of course the experiment that she was interested in was getting a pet turtle. We headed over to the Wee Beasties reptiles pet store and talked to Brenda the herpetologist for a good hour about turtles and tortoises. We finally decided it wouldn't be a good pet for us, but we learned a ton and a half. Did you know that Darwin got a tortoise in the Galapagos Islands named Harriet that just recently died, over 200 years old? Apparently they don't really get old, like we do. They die of other things, but not old age.

After the herpetologist, we had some down time and I found her nose deep in How Nature Works again, learning about skeletons. I pulled out a pamphlet about fossils on Oregon beaches and we headed down to the beach to look for fossils. We looked at a lot of rocks, I read the pamphlet out loud while she built a sand castle, and we found a rock that some tube worms had burrowed in, but no fossils. Found some bivalve and gastropod shells, though, and talked about that.

Bedtime story tonight I gave her the choice of a science book and a history book. She chose a different science book about snakes. Now she has her hopes set on a pet corn snake.

I am so relieved that science has made a comeback.

Shifting gears again

Mi'ita's thoroughly sick of ancient history.

We were going to study Africa because we're going, then the Persians, then the Romans, then the Mongols, then China, etc, heading forward and around through history. But she has no interest in ancient history anymore.

I forgot a simple fact of children. They need variety. Sustained interest in a subject is rare. We've been studying ancient history since August and it's almost November.

I thought for a change we could head into science. I've been feeling terribly guilty at how piecemeal our science study has been. She is interested in Nazi Germany and the middle ages, though. I wanted to get out of the Euro-centric history, too. Oh well. One of the tenants of freeschooling is following their lead. I'm not really ready to teach Nazi Germany to a 9 year old, but we can do it.

Scope and Sequence

Scope and sequence is an educational term that teachers use to describe what and when things will be taught. This ensures that certain subjects won't be over covered and others under. In science, for example, elementary school teachers are famous for spending lots and lots of time on zoology and almost no time on physics, chemistry, magnetism, etc. When you have a different teacher every year, having a scope and sequence makes sense.

I have no scope and sequence for science so far. This is part of freeschooling, the homeschooling model where she is obligated to learn the absolute basics (reading, writing, math) and is allowed free exploration of all the other topics. Mi'ita attends every science workshop we find out about, but hasn't really been interested in pursuing it at home.

History for some reason has become our focus and we've developed a sort of loose scope and sequence for it. Schools tend to radiate from the child outwards. Kindergarten is all about me and my family, first grade about towns and local history, fourth grade is state history, fifth grade is US history, etc.

The classic method of homeschooling turns this on its head and goes chronologically from ancient history forward, simultaneously studying ancient civilizations around the world. Since we started with classic homeschooling, we started with this chronology.

I like the idea of chronological history. US history, I think, makes a lot more sense if you have already studied democracy in Greece, tyrants, monarchies, religious persecution, and so on. What our country is came from this history of Europe.

Where this breaks down, though, is in studying all the civilizations of a time period simultaneously. You get a bite of Egypt in 2000 BCE, jog over to China in 2000 BCE, trot over to the Mayans in 2000 BCE, swing over to the Greeks, etc. Then you do all those folks again in 1500 BCE. Then again in 1000 BCE. Etc. This leaves you with a great sense of what was happening in the world at a certain time, but it fractures the history of one civilization.

I developed a method that I thought would work well. We started with hominids and stone age people. Then we went into the Egyptians, the first civilization in the world. Instead of skipping around to all the first civilizations of each region, we stuck with Egypt until it was conquered by the Romans. This means we learned a little about their Persian and Greek conquests, too. Then we moved into the Greeks, which were the first civilization that conquered Egypt thoroughly (the last eight Pharaohs were Greek.) Then I was going to stick with Greece until they were conquered by Rome, taking a foray into Persia along the way, since the Greeks and Persians very much influenced each other's history. Then I was going to stick with Rome until they were conquered by the Mongols. Then I was going to skip over to the Mongols and China, sticking with Asian history for a while until that came to a natural conclusion. Then I was going to come over to the Americas and learn about their ancient people. After I covered all the ancient people, I was going to work on the middle ages, using the same format.

I liked the idea of sticking with a civilization throughout their reign until they fell to a foreign power. The foreign power then becomes the next focus, starting at their 'beginning', relating that to what we already know about what the previous civilization was doing at that time.

We took a break for Halloween. Halloween's focus for us was historical, too. What are the Greek's beliefs in death? The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Celts? And, to top it all off, how did we come to celebrate Halloween in it's current form here in the US? The people who come to our party will be learning! We're also going to be making jello red blood cells. :-)

After our Halloween party on Saturday, we were going to finish up the Greeks and take our foray off to Persia before heading into Rome.

Then we find out we're going to Tanzania in the spring on Safari. We're switching gears again. We'll finish up Greece, quickly, and then study sub-Saharan African civilizations. There is a ton of info out there on South Africa and apartheid, but not a whole lot about Tanzania. But we'll get there, and maybe now we can work in more science.

Zoology, of course.

Where's my schedule?!

I find myself panicking regularly about the lack of organization of our homeschooling.

I had such a lovely plan laid out in the beginning. I had the white board easel all set up with math, Latin, spelling, handwriting, dictation, science, history... It was beautiful. Granted I felt a bit uneasy teaching such rote work like grammar and spelling. Those things are hard to learn and there is tons of evidence out there saying that memorizing lists of spelling words helps no one. I figured those details could work themselves out, though, as we progressed.

My little Mi'ita blew the little white board easel out of the water after two days. It took a week before it was abandoned completely, but abandoned it is.

What is our schedule now? Well, we do math and Latin first thing in the morning. We read history at night in bed. On Mondays we spend the afternoon in the library. Other than that, we do this and that, depending on our moods. I have my list of "weekly requireds" for ice cream on Mondays. She needs to have 4 math lessons completed that week, 4 Latin, one science, one history, all her library books read, and a new writing posted to her blog with art (photography accepted.) German and guitar are on the list, too, but her guitar teacher has yet to start lessons for the year and the German program just arrived and we haven't installed it yet. She always earns her ice cream, my greedy Gus, but she is usually finishing her story Sunday night.

Our days are full, for sure. Today we did math and Latin, then spent the morning setting up our El Dia de los Muertos ofrenda. She did some writing for it, and we discussed a lot about Mayan culture, and about the Greek display we're planning. In the afternoon we went to the library, played in the park for an hour, worked on a papermache three headed dog Cerberus, then went off to play practice for the play she is in. Since she is only an extra, I am teaching her how to knit between scenes.

We have a Halloween party coming up and we've planned an ancient cultures' view of the dead theme. Mayan, Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, and Japanese displays will be set up with their views of the afterlife, their various gods of the dead, their ceremonies and food. We've tossed all "regular" schoolwork out the window until November 1st. Except math and Latin, of course, and writing.

My friend told me that I would "have a blast" homeschooling my kid. I didn't to begin with, but it sure has been fun lately. But I worry and I fret. History has become our overreaching theme that everything else fits in. I love history, of course, and so does Mi'ita. But what about science? We are learning science as it relates to history. Early hominids, Neanderthals, Euclidean geometry, and how that Greek guy measured the earth, radiocarbon dating. All that is tangential to learning the history. And what about writing? Can writing once a week really be enough? I can't think so, but I can't get motivated to push it more.

I'm reading her My family and other animals, a book about an English boy growing up in Greece in the 40's or so and being very lackadaisically homeschooled or taught by tutors or left to run amok. His running amok is quite educational as he was a budding zoologist and spent all his time studying the fauna of the island. I read it and think that his math lessons are really distracting him from the real lessons of learning zoology.

I am also reading The Dan Riley School for a Girl, a book about a father who homeschooled his daughter for a year because she was lazily and unconcernedly floundering in middle school. He had a schedule, with times on it no less! Which his headstrong and rebellious daughter followed! I am jealous.

And I am torn. My daughter is learning. She is playing to her strengths--reading and history and curiosity about the world. She is busy with ballet and a play she is in. She goes to once a month all day science workshops taught by experts. She is learning Latin, for gosh sakes!

But we don't have a schedule. And I gave up trying to get her to memorize spelling. I worry and I fret.

State Report: California

Remember all those state reports you had to do in school? State flag, state bird, state flower, state capital, most populous city, major industry, year it became a state.

How much did you really learn about that state? What would I know about South Dakota, where I have never been, if I could list for you all those details? Anything important?

Mi'ita drove the whole length of California, down I5 starting with an agricultural inspection and explanation on why California does agricultural inspections and other states don't. Past Mt. Shasta and little Shasta, and the little volcano to

the south of them, through their deciduous forests. Swiftly we hit the scrublands, overnight near Chico, past the state capital of Sacramento, explanations of what Sacramento means, why it's in Spanish, and why California has so many Spanish names and especially cities named after saints: San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, San Diego...

Spent the weekend in the Los Angeles metropolis, in two completely different neighborhoods: Burbank and Seal Beach. Swam in the Pacific Ocean, southern California style (very different than Oregon style.) We stayed with friends and family, seeing how middle class Americans live in one of the most expensive places in the country. Did Knott's Berry Farms on a Tuesday in October and almost never had to wait in a line. We got to go twice in a row on the log ride, which Mi'ita deems not as good as our own Enchanted Forest. Skipped Disneyland.

Her auntie gave her a tour of her work, a metal spring company where they fabricate springs using electricity to cut the metal. She explained why electricity is better than laser or water, which they used to use. Fascinating.

Headed north along the coast now, to Salinas. Had a good conversation about Cesar Chavez, migrant farm workers, unions, United Farm Workers, hunger strikes, sanitation services available to workers and how that effects food consumers, and immigration. Saw the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, signed an electronic post card to protect the sea horses, got a good lecture from her father about how to balance marine reserves and fishing rights. Headed over to see a protected forest for migrating monarch butterflies. Saw sea otters in a kelp forest in the bay. Discussed why California has sea otters and Oregon used to but no longer has. Our friend gave us a tour of her work as a plant pathologist for the USDA. We are still growing bacteria skimmed off Mi'ita's fingers in a petrie dish that we are going to look at under a microscope soon.

Saw the King Tut display at the de Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park. Saw the Golden Gate Bridge. Didn't stay as long as I wanted. Talked about Chinatown and Chinese immigration, but didn't get to see Chinatown, much to my disappointment.

Headed north along Highway 1, right on the Pacific Ocean, all the way to the Redwood Forests. Beautiful. Camped. Saw the Trees of Mystery, drove through a tree 2100 years old. Spawned a discussion of the crusades.

Spent the night in Crescent City, shaped like a crescent bowl ready to scoop up tsunamis started by earthquakes in Alaska. Talked about the tsunami that hit Native Americans 300 years ago.

Now that's a state report.

On the road

We're off to California tomorrow morning, bright and early.

As much as it pains me to say it, no math is coming with us.

We started homeschooling a month before regular school started with the excuse that we were going to take this two week trip in October. I would like to homeschool year round, taking time off for trips as they come up rather than taking the whole summer off. Really, all our vacations are educational since we all love to learn. This summer Mi'ita went to fossil camp for a week, chemistry camp for a week, and theater camp for two weeks. She loved them all. This trip is no less educational, even if it is unofficial. We will be seeing friends and relatives to be sure, but we are also going to the King Tut exhibit in Golden Gate Park, the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, and camping in the redwoods. I hope to squeeze in a Shakespeare play in Ashland, a trip through Chinatown and Alcatraz in SF, and maybe the Steinbeck house in Salinas. My friends are going to show us around old Hollywood, too.

In the spring I want to visit my brother in Nebraska. He lives right across the river from the start of the Oregon Trail. On the way back home, I'd like to travel the Oregon Trail, walking some of it even. Mi'ita's teacher tried to foist a geography book on us the last time we went to school. Mi'ita said, "no, thanks." Mrs. M. voiced her concern that we needed to cover the Oregon Trail as it is 4th grade stuff. I think we'll be fine, thanks.

We'll see how this trip goes.

Homeschool cooking

Let me first just say that I don't like cooking. It's just so daily. And involved. You have to plan a menu, go shopping, cook, and clean it all up. Every day.

That said, I do it, because my family needs to eat. If it were just me, I'd probably have a bowl of popcorn for dinner every night.

As we are studying, though, part of my subtle schooling is cooking. We are studying ancient Greece now. So I've been cooking Greek food. Not much. We had meatballs and stuffed tomatoes and some kind of vegetable bean soup and Greek salad. Today I'm cooking scrambled eggs with fried tomatoes. Sometimes Mi'ita helps me, sometimes not. I try to get her to, but I pick my battles.

With the food, though, comes other lessons. This scrambled egg dish is cooked commonly during their Lent days, so we'll be discussing the evolution of Greek religion from the Greek gods to Christianity and what Lent is. The bean soup was a dish that they cooked back in ancient Greece, and was simple and cheap enough that the common folk probably ate a bunch of it. Olive oil and olives are a big part of their diet, and with that comes some knowledge of the climate in Greece and what grows well there. Sometimes I can remember the Greek names of these dishes and tease a little Greek out of it.

These are things that they couldn't do in school--cooking and talking religion.

Lovely Morning

We had the most wonderful morning.

After we did some math, we decided to go the beach with the dog. It was such a beautiful day, and that is not common out here. On the way we studied our Latin flashcards. She is better than I am! When we got there we saw a part of a squid, which Mi'ita was able to identify because of her squid dissection last week. I thought it was an octopus. Then, we built a sand castle.

It was lovely. My baby asked me to lecture her, because she likes to hear me drone on about my favorite subject, history. We built a fortified wall and around a small rock outcrop and talked about how castles were built on hills. And why. We talked about the difference between castles and forts and mansions. We talked about the ancient walled cities. We wondered together why Egyptians didn't fortify their palaces, but didn't know.

On the way home she wanted a lecture about Halloween. I was happy to oblige, of course starting from the ancient Celts on the mainland of Europe, how they were conquered by the Romans even though their commander, Vercingetorix, was able to unite the Celts to defend themselves. Long before then, the Celts in Spain were able to gain boat making skills from the Phoenicians, who were the sea kings of the day, to break off and settle Ireland. The Romans never made it that far, so when the Roman Empire collapsed, the Irish were not devastated. When all of Europe were awash in the Dark Ages, Ireland was flourishing with their Druids, their Christian Monks, and their universities. That all was background, of course, to Samhain, the Celtic Halloween, and other festivals honoring the dead such as the Mayan El Dia de los Muertos and the Japanese Bon.

I told you I could drone on, and she rather likes to listen. She wouldn't let me stop, even when we got home and started lunch.

Then we went to school to study dinosaurs with Mrs. M. I got to tell kids to pay attention, stop messing around, move over there so that you can concentrate on your work.

It was so nice to have no off-topic interruptions while I taught.

Relaxing

We've slowed WAY down.

Today we got a little history and math done in the morning. We did PE at 11, and walked the dog to the skate park and then to the beach and built a sand volcano. We picked up a friend on the way home and got in at 1. Then we did art for a couple of hours, and tried to write something afterward. She had writer's block, so we didn't get more than a paragraph done. That's it. Two hours of PE, two hours of art, half and hour of math, 20 minutes of history and writing.

This week has been a walk in the other direction. We started with the classical education model, which bombed spectacularly after one day but took a week to die. I've been reading about the other homeschool models, letting her have more say in what we study, and trying to loosen up some.

The reason I wanted to home school is that Mi'ita is so bright. I really felt that school was not challenging her. I've heard of many homeschooling families whose children learn at very high levels and I want that for her. I thought the classical model could deliver it. I learned different. We could fight for a year and have her hate learning, or we could pick a different model.

I decided that there are two subjects I will teach, come hell or high water: math and writing. The 3 R's, minus reading because her reading is high school level already.

I bought a book of Math Mysteries and for the first time I heard her ask to do math. She also has started her own blog of her own writing and is very excited about it. Check it out: storyperson1234.blogspot.com

Science and history she loves and as long as I don't force feed it, she is game for anything. I read her history books as bedtime stories. I find science experiments that are interesting, I suggest them and she wants to do them, no fight involved. I also have signed up her up for every science camp we come across--fossils, astronomy, chemistry, marine survival, squid dissection. We live on the coast with an aquarium and research center that have programs for children. I figure as long as I sign her up for everything and teach a bit on the side, she's good in science. She just plain loves history, as do I, so we're good there, too. The classical model suggested that we start at the beginning, ancient history, and work forward. We've started at the VERY beginning and there's so much science involved--Neanderthals, early hominids, ice ages, radiocarbon dating. Really, science and history are the same right now.

I'm okay with this. It's certainly not what I expected, but the surprises are sometimes delightful. She loves to learn, really, and all I need to do is get the right things in her hands and help her along the way and we're good.

Adjustments

I was hoping today would be a better day, and it was. A bit.

I've turned math over to Mi'ita's dad. His degree was in math, but that's not the reason. I can teach 4th grade math just fine. She hates math and is evil at math time, and her father has more patience than I do. I happily plunked that little turd in his lap, and he got the tears and arguments today and forevermore. He got a lot more work out of her, too, and more valuable work. I am pleased, and I think the tears and arguments will diminish when she sees that they have no effect. I don't know what all the drama is about. She is perfectly capable of it, the work is not too hard or easy, math comes easily to her even if it's not fun.

Whatever.

There are a lot of math games out there in the world, as my mother has pointed out. I need to get in touch with them.

Science and history have taken some adjustments, too. Thankfully, she likes both those subjects, but she didn't like the way I was teaching them. The classical model suggested that we read, then summarize what we read with illustrations. She likes reading, likes the texts we are using (Kingfisher's Illustrated History of the World, and Usborn's How Nature Works), but she hated the summarizing. Taking a page out of the Magic Schoolbus series, I suggested that she draw a picture, then write captions and a paragraph that went along with it. Basically, a summary with pictures, but now the pictures take the front seat. It worked.

And we're slowing down. We got 2 1/2 hours done today, not including the PE dog walk.