Unschooling and deschooling

Unschooling is HARD. Seriously hard.

The basic idea sounds very easy, lazy even. Basically, you let your kid study what they want, when they want to, as much as they want, and you don't push them. You support them in what they want to learn, but you don't make them do anything.

The hard part is trusting it to work.

Take math.

Mi'ita ran out of her last math book a while ago. We bought a new curriculum, Math U See, which came, but to save $60 I didn't buy the teacher's guide. I did for the last curriculum we used, Singapore Math, and I didn't touch the teacher's guide--didn't need to. This time, though, the curriculum comes with manipulative's, and it's not always obvious how to use them to solve the problems. So I went back and bought the teacher's guide that comes with a DVD that the kids can watch, like our Latin program. Mi'ita likes watching the Latin DVD, so I thought she might like to watch the math DVD.

I told Mi'ita that we would just wait for the teacher's guide before we started back on Math U See. Until then, we could just do games and such for math. I figured it would be a couple days. That was two weeks ago, and the teacher's guide hasn't come yet. I emailed the company to see what the hold up was. It's in the mail...should be here anytime...

In the big scheme of things, a couple weeks with no formal math instruction won't hurt her. I even thought we could use this time to see if I could pull it off without a text. There are many opportunities to use math in life. We have been playing lots of games that require some math, like Catopoly, and lots more that require logic, like Set and Clue. And of course there is always money.

I have to say there is no argument when I say it's time to play a game for math time. She is more than happy to play, unless she is neck deep in something else. Sometimes I have to pull her out of a book or something, but even then she is much happier to be pulled out to play a game then to "do math."

I even figured it may be good to deschool a bit in the math department.

Deschooling is the idea that public schooling can turn a kid completely against education. They have such a toxic experience that they "hate learning." What you do is give them a time to do nothing until their negative attitude wanes--like an extended summer vacation. The general rule I've heard is one month per year a child has been in school. For Mi'ita, that would have been four months, for a high school kid that may be a year, but it depends on the kid and is only over when the kid is ready. When they have regained their zest for life, you help them learn in way that retains the joy of learning.

This sounded a bit fuzzy to me. But when it comes to math, it makes a lot of sense. Mi'ita didn't used to hate math. I think the hate crystallized when it was time to bring home the math homework worksheets. When she was in first grade, I would volunteer in her class and watch as Mi'ita was riveted to the math lesson, pleased as punch when she knew the answer, feeling smart and doing her work happy as a clam. Then math worksheets came home.

So part of me thinks that maybe we need to take a 4 month hiatus from math and just play games and use math as it comes up in life.

And part of me is terrified of the idea! I would have a much easier time letting reading slide for four months. That wouldn't bother me a bit, actually. There is so much research and anecdotal evidence out there that shows that kids learn to read when they are ready to learn and if you push it, you are actually slowing the process down. Trying to make a struggling reader struggle more just erodes their self confidence and makes them feel dumb, incapable of learning. If you wait until they are ready to read (even if it's until they are 12!) then they will learn to read easily and catch up to their peers quickly. And they will still believe that they are smart, capable kids that are good at many things in life, and that reading will come when it comes.

So why can't I do that with math? I even read this article that said that we are trying to teach math concepts too early. If we waited until they are older, then we could teach them more quickly and with less effort. It makes sense.

Like I said, it's hard to trust that it will work. I know reading. That was my field. I don't know math. I stopped taking math and science when I was a sophomore in high school, which I have regretted for years now. I don't know how to teach it, I don't know the theories behind it, I don't know how to tease math out of every day learning opportunities. Once reading comes, it comes and the only thing left is to develop vocabulary, read a variety of genres, and continue to read at higher and higher levels. Math doesn't just "come" though. Once you have learned how to add, you are not done.

Bribes

Mi'ita wants a little plastic cat set that she saw in a catalog for Christmas. It has maybe 10 cats in it with cat houses, cat brushes, cat litter boxes, etc. She really wants it.

Mi'ita has probably 30 plastic cats that she has gotten as gifts or bought with her allowance. She loses all the cat accessories in about ten minutes, but she does indeed hang on to the cats, usually, and plays with them, sometimes, and likes them.

I already know what I want to get her for Christmas and it's not a little plastic cat set. I don't like buying her everything she ever wanted for Christmas and her birthday. I try to keep it smallish--John gets her something, I get her something or two, Santa fills up the stockings (hers and all of her pets), she gets a good haul from my mother, and I think that it plenty.

So, I made her a deal. If she read this big science book completely, Usborne's How the Earth Works, and did two experiments out of it, I'd buy her the plastic cat set. It's maybe 200 pages long and is a comprehensive book of geology. She loves geology and agreed.

The problem is, we can't find the book. I know it's around somewhere, but it is hiding well. So, we went to the library. They didn't have that one, but they had Usborne's How the Body Works, about human anatomy. She didn't want to do that one. Sigh. She picked one up on inventions that looked pretty substantial to me. I said okay, if she read that and invented something that actually works, I would accept it. Except that she finished reading it before we even left the library and was already inventing flying skateboards in her head that had no hope of actually working, so that was out.

Back at home we took stock of all our science books and I picked out three big ones that would merit a plastic cat set. We settled on one: Creepy Crawlies and the Scientific Method: Over 100 Hands-on Science Experiments for Children. It is actually written for teachers, is over 200 pages long and explains the scientific method in detail. It gives you lots of information about little critters that you can find in your backyard, under rotten logs, and in the creeks and ponds that litter our town. She has to read the whole entire thing and do two experiments. Every time she says, I don't want to do that, I say, then don't. She just has to read the whole thing. She doesn't have to do the whole thing.

The thing is, she is a greedy little Gus. Now she wants the same deal for a fancy goldfish she has an eye on at the pet store. She always has her eye on a new pet. It would cost $30 for the fish and the filter it needs. We picked out another book, Family Science: Activities, Projects, and Games That Get Everyone Excited About Science. It is just a book of projects, so the deal was for her to do 10 activities out of the book.

She did one, decided the rest are too babyish, and wanted to make up her own experiments. Fine, I said. She has to come up with 10 experiments of her own or out of various books and perform them, using the scientific method. The first one she came up with was to cover up her beta fish tank with a towel and see if her beta fish would come out of hiding. Great. I tried to help her come up with an experiment that she could measure. She just wanted to check in on him occasionally and see if he came out. I said that to do it scientifically, she would need to either observe him for a period of time, say 15 minutes, or check in on him once every 15 minutes for ten times, say, or something that could be replicated.

Nope. She doesn't want to do it scientifically, now doesn't want to do anything science related, and wants to never do science again as long as she lives.

Cantankerous! Rebellious! Obnoxious! (What am I going to do when she turns 13?!!!! Help!)

Heroically keeping my temper, I backed off and we went back to the bookshelf. We found another book: Earthsearch: A Kids Geography Museum in a Book. It's only 100 pages long, so we agreed that she needs to do that one and one other. She finished reading it in the bathtub in less than an hour. She inhales books!

Bribes. What can I say? I was all excited about nudging her in the scientific direction (I know she loves science) and watching it take off, but every time I nudge, she shoves back. She is not nudge-able. She is too smart for reverse psychology, too. All that really works is to stay away and hope that she finds it on her own.

Games

I don't like playing games. I'm not a playful person.

When we first started homeschooling, Mi'ita hated math and everyone said, get some math games! I thought, but didn't say, no thanks.

I've changed my tune. I still don't like playing games, but it is definitely the lesser of two evils. Would you rather play Catopoly with a happy kid for an hour, or listen to her whine and complain and get as little as possible done for an hour?

I've warmed up to math games.

A kinder, gentler business world

Do you remember playing Monopoly when you were a kid?

I played with my two brothers and it was painful. Literally. It was this cut-throat game where if someone landed on your property with motels on it and went bankrupt, there was dancing on the living room carpet. I remember land minds of built up properties with only a few safe zones that you prayed for. If you landed on luxury tax, you celebrated because you got off cheap. I got stomach aches from it.

Mi'ita saw Cat-opoly in Sandcastle Toys the other day.

Sandcastle Toys is the best toy store on the planet and it's right across the street from the lizard store (herpetology.) Since we have to buy crickets for our lizard once or twice a week, we've been regulars at Sandcastle Toys. It is full of educational toys. Smart kid toys. I've been hemorrhaging from the wallet there regularly since we've started homeschooling.

Cat-opoly is Monopoly with cats, and it is math. Adding, subtracting, percentages, large numbers, small numbers, mental math, using a calculator. It has cats all over it and Mi'ita is a cat girl.

We bought it, of course. Mi'ita had $20 of her own money to spend, it was 20% off, and I made up the difference. (Having a coupon for 20% at a toy store when you have money to burn in excellent math!)

I was nervous when we brought it home. I was hoping that we could figure out a way to play it so that I wouldn't get stomach aches. Mi'ita, either. She hadn't ever played Monopoly so this was new.

It was weird. Seriously weird. Perhaps not having siblings has its good points. I don't know.

Mi'ita was sweet. "Oh, mommy, you landed on my property! You owe me $14, but you can just pay me $10." "Oh, mommy, you landed in Water (jail) and you don't have much money. I'll pay to get you out." "Oh, mommy, I have fishbones (a hotel) on that property and it's $1160, but you don't have it. Don't pay it this time, and when I land on your fishbone, you can let me off."

Um. Is this a good thing? I certainly didn't get a stomach ache. There was a lot of kisses and hugs involved. How did she get this way? Not having siblings to get competitive with? Seeing me with money being generous with people?

It is certainly how I'd rather live my life, but is it good business?

Mi'ita's Day Off

Yesterday was Veteran's Day and we had a friend spend the day with us. Basically it was Friday Field Day on Wednesday. Boy did they work me! Horseback riding lessons in the morning, mucking out stalls after, home for showers, off to pizza for lunch, the aquarium to visit the new buzzards, the pet store to see the puppies and fish, off to the Bayfront to shop, walk the dog to the rope swing, dinner, and then play practice. They were on the ball from 9:30-8.

Today was supposed to be a regular day. After 10 minutes of her 5 math problems (to prove to me she doesn't need more) we were going to do a math game, Swahili, and latin. She had her nose in her book, though, so I let her finish it first. After 15 minutes of uncooperative Swahili, I asked her if she just needed the day off. Yesterday was so much. Relieved, she agreed.

Her day off? She spent the whole morning reading. She finished an entire collection of Norse myths and a book about The Medieval World. Then we went off to school to learn more about rocks and start a project on the Clatsop Indians. Then ballet.

That's her day off.

Whew! I read somewhere that the only way to teach TAG (Talented and Gifted) kids is to unschool them. I am not ready to say I am unschooling yet, but her freeschooling is getting looser and looser.

A couple of years down the road

Husband and I have a different idea of the future of our child.

We both agreed that the schools right now are in bad shape with class sizes in the mid to upper 30's. That's why Husband agreed to homeschool, which surprised me. When I found out that Mi'ita's grade level, 4th, by some strange blip in the demographics has class sizes in the mid to upper 20's, I didn't tell him right away. It was already a couple weeks into school when I found out and more than a month before I told him. If we had known that, we probably would have enrolled her but we were committed, had bought the materials, everything was going well, etc. We decided without even discussing it to stay the course.

The more I find out about homeschooling and the more I do it, the more I am convinced that it is a better education both academically and socially for children. Teaching and going through the school system myself has left me with at best luke-warm feelings about k-12 schools.

The HSLDA report also said that homeschoolers that continue their whole career through high school have the highest academic scores of all.

I am ready to do it.

My own middle school and high school experience were what I consider the low point of my life. I was a stringy haired, chubby, bottle thick glasses, nose in a book, honors classes, socially awkward but friendly type of kid that was skewered by the social elite of school. My hair was pulled, I was taunted, things were thrown at me not daily but often enough that school has no allure to me. I found my education mostly in the library and in history discussions with my father.

Husband had a different experience. He was in band, on the football team, and in all the honors classes, so though he was not in the social elite he was a part of three clicks. Asides from being paralyzed by the thought of girls, most of his school days were all right. He did do a brief stint in an inner city LA high school, lasting less than a month, had a gang after him, and refused to go back. He moved back in with his stepfather to the little rural school he was used to.

Husband understands a bad high school and would be willing to homeschool if we had one. But we don't. The local high school, right around the corner, is a good one. Not the best one on the planet, but good. We even have a charter magnet school for science as an option for middle school. It has an excellent reputation as does the International Baccalaureate tract at the high school.

According to HSLDA, though, homeschooling does better. Even with the parents not knowing everything.

Husband is not looking at just academics, though. He remembers band and football and wants Mi'ita to have the same fun opportunities that he had. I remember spit wads thrown at me during class in front of teachers who were too busy grading papers to stop my tormentors.

Every state has different rules about how much homeschoolers can ask of the local schools. Ours is very generous and Mi'ita can be a part of high school sports, music, and whatnot. I don't want her to miss out on the opportunities of high school if she wants them. I envision her cherry picking her classes--having music before lunch and chemistry after it, having lunch with her friends, then homeschooling the rest, or some such. She would have the social scene at school, have friends to go to the football games with, proms and boys and whatever else floats her boat, but getting her real education at home.

I have no idea what will happen. I have a feeling that in two years, Mi'ita will be enrolled in the magnet middle school and we'll give it a whirl. If she has an experience like Husband's, she'll stay. If she has an experience like mine, we'll homeschool.

Or maybe not. Maybe in two years Mi'ita will like homeschooling so much that she won't have any desire to go to regular school and it will be two against one. She does like it.

Footing the bill

By far the most expensive part of homeschooling is a stay-at-home parent.

Almost 98% of homeschoolers come from a two parent household, most are taught by their moms, most moms either don't work at all or have a part time job.

Homeschooling is a full time job that doesn't pay diddly squat. I can't imagine doing it as a single parent.

I don't work. Asides from the two years I took off when Mi'ita was born, this is the first time in my adult life where I didn't have a job or wasn't in school myself. It's a transition for me. I quit my job not to homeschool but because I hated the school district I worked for and the regulations around ESL teaching. Then the schools around here went belly up from budget cuts caused by the economy. Class sizes were heading over the mid to upper 30's, and I just decided to pull her. I'd been thinking of homeschooling for a while now as I have heard homeschoolers doing amazing things. I thought now was a good time. The perfect storm, to use an overworked cliche.

I've been trying to figure out how to work a tiny bit, though. My husband makes enough, thank the good Lord, that I don't have to work at all. I'd like to pay for two things, though: 1) her homeschooling materials and trips and 2) the $200 I've been putting aside for her college since she was born. I've been paying for those things out of my savings so far. As a certified teacher, I could sub, which pays well ($200 per day before taxes) and is very flexible. I'd only have to sub 2-3 days per month to take care of those expenses.

The only part I can't figure out is where to stash Mi'ita. At nine years old, she is too young to stay at home by herself those days. In a couple years I could see doing that and I think she'd do fine. But not now. She is too old to go to daycare.

I've been trying to jobshare with other homeschoolers. I've approached two other moms. Both agreed to try. One flaked. The other is going to try it out with me. She has a son 6 months older than Mi'ita. Tomorrow he is going to spend the day with us. If it works out, I'd like him to come once a week and I can then stash Mi'ita with his mom to homeschool for the day when I get jobs.

Wish me luck!

Friday Field Day

Our Fridays were supposed to be field trips to see museums, zoos, field studies in forests and swimming holes. I know we live in a tiny town 3 hours from the major metropolis of less than a million people in a biggish but sparsely populated state. But still! Even our little burg has a few museums...that we've seen ten times already and go to every time we get visitors.

What have we done on Fridays? Well, we went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium last week to watch the daddy scuba dive in a Halloween costume for their festivities. That was cool. We started a hideous papermache Cerberus the week before that. My aunt and uncle were visiting from Thailand before that and we showed them around town (remember those museums?) She got some cool paper money from Thailand, Oman, Qatar, and Egypt for her coin/money collection.

There's this wildlife safari down near Roseburg that biologist friends have said is worth going to, but it's three hours away each way and my rear is not up for the drive yet. I wanted to get to Mt. St. Helens before the snows hit, but that didn't happen. We probably could still get to historic Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood built in the 30's as a depression era work project. It's a ski resort so the roads are well plowed, but I'm a wimp and I know that plowed roads can still be dangerous. We'll probably wait until the snow leaves.

We always do something.

Today? We're headed over to my friend's house. She's a marine biologist who's going to show me how to pick chanterelles. I have had a burning interest in mycology for years, but never took the time to get going on it. Then we're headed over to Facets, a gem store to look at rocks. Mi'ita just did a rock report for the 4th grade class we visit Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She did a good speech on obsidian--well planned, well researched, well organized, well delivered. I'm proud. I'm hoping we get a video watched today about Alexander the Great, too.

I am not interested in rocks, but will go to Facets if she goes mushroom picking with me. She's not interested in mycology, but will go if I take her to Facets afterwards.

It's a done deal, bear!

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.

A slap in the face to teachers

I have to tell you right off the bat that I admire teachers hugely. I was a teacher for 13 years and know the system from the inside. Almost all teachers that I have known over the years are well educated, care about their students tremendously, spend money from their own pockets for materials for their students, work long hours, and are just really nice people. They are working from the heart and doing the best job they know how to do. I can count the number of teachers I have met over the years who don't fit that stereotype on one hand with fingers left over. Seriously.

That said, I've been reading some information from HSLDA, Home School Legal Defense Association. They have done research studies on the academic achievement of homeschoolers over the years. The latest one, Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics, had some really interesting statistics. Mostly it says that homeschoolers out-perform public and private school educated students by leaps and bounds. The average performance of public school students in the major academic areas is 50% (duh) and for homeschoolers it's in the mid 80's. That's pretty significant.

The study goes on to break down the achievement by race, educational level of parents, how much money is spent on homeschooling, etc. Most of those statistics are pretty consistent across the board. For example, people who spend over $600 per year are only 3 points higher than people who spend less (89th% to 86th%.) Interestingly, homeschooled minorities score very similarly to whitebread folks, but they languish horribly in public schools.

The most interesting statistic for me was whether one of the parents was a certified teacher or not. Being a certified teacher, so many people say that it should be easier for me because "I know what I'm doing." Makes sense. I've done it before. 24% of homeschoolers are educated by a certified parent. I guess we feel more confident that we can do it. What is fascinating, though, is that students of parents who are NOT certified teachers outperform those whose parent are certified teachers!

Whoa.

It's not by much. Certified parents hit 87% and non certified parents are 88%. I don't even know if that is statistically significant (statisticians reading this, please comment!)

That is why I said that this is a slap in the face for teachers. Oh my.

My thoughts? I think it has to do more with the way teachers are educated themselves. In college, we learn educational theory, human development, and more than you'd ever want to know about racism and minority students (minority students languish horribly in public schools, remember?) We learn very little about how actually to teach. School librarians (as I was) get a little more practical in that we are taught how to run a library and teach library skills. I actually think my school librarian courses were better preparation than my regular ed classes.

And I think that teaching is an art. It takes talent. You can certainly learn and get better at it, but it is not really something that you can study, so much. That's why non-certified parents are just as good at it as teachers.

I am grasping here. I don't really know. At least I can say we are on par.

My husband is a better parent than I am. I thought I would be because I had read so much about childhood development and parenting, and I have been in the field so long. Before I was a teacher I was a nanny and preschool teacher. But he is better--more patient, more logical, more consistent, gets better cooperation. He's good. And he's an engineer that works with computers and boats all day.

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.

A schoolroom of one's own

When I told my friend, a Title I teacher, that Mi'ita and I were going to homeschool this year, she gave me some advice. "Have a schedule and a specific spot, not the kitchen table, to do your work."

She then went into detail about a fourth grade girl she had taught who had been homeschooled up until that point and then enrolled in school because she still didn't know how to read. She blamed it on the mother not actually teaching anything ... because she didn't have a schedule and a spot.

I then dutifully went home and transformed a section of my thankfully large living room into The Schoolroom with a whiteboard, bookshelves, two desks, and a lizard cage. The Schoolroom is now the Keeper of Materials.

Where do we actually work? We do latin in front of the TV and on the coffee table, because it's a DVD program. We do German, Swahili, and Carmen Sandiego Math Detective on the computer. We do history and writing in bed. We do science in workshops, on walks, at the pet store, and at school. We do math at the kitchen table with breakfast. We do art on the dining room table because it is big. We are actually papermacheing Cerberus in The Schoolroom because he is a long term project that needs his own spot.

What is our schedule? We get up and get breakfast and math done. Then we do latin. Then we do whatever it is that we want to do for the rest of the day. We are not often idle, but we definitely meander throughout many things--library, math games, writing, art, history. I let the day play out and only impose an activity if we find ourselves at loose ends, or if a Halloween party is looming and we need to get some stuff done for it!

What have I discovered? You definitely do not need The Schoolroom, but you do need a Keeper of Materials space.

Next language: Swahili

It's always handy to have a rich grandmother in the wings.

Homeschooling is not cheap. Books, field trips, , stay-at-home mom, private lessons, manipulatives, computer programs, travel... Other people have figured out how to do it on the cheap and I could do it in a pinch. But there are sooooooo many cool things out there to buy!

My mother loves to travel and has said that as soon as Mi'ita is old enough she'd like to take her on Safari to Africa. Oma was in the peace corps in Swaziland in the 70's and has been back to Africa at least once since. She mentioned again that as soon as Mi'ita was old enough... and I said that now might not be a bad time. She is old enough to remember the trip and to endure some uncomfortable things, and young enough not to be an obnoxious teenager.

So we're off to Africa this spring! My mother is springing because I have no where near the $5000 plus each ticket price. Wow!

On the curricular table now is: Swahili, Tanzania, African history from ancient to modern, ecology, wildlife biology, biomes, global warming, poverty, AIDs, and I don't know what else yet but I know that's not it.

M&M Geography

I've talked a lot about M&M geography, so I thought I'd put you out of your misery and explain it. It's my mother's idea, again, and very simple.

Break out a map, globe, atlas, or whatever you have handy.

Have her find a geographic region, feature, state, nation, body of water, etc. I always quiz Mi'ita on whichever area we are currently working on. We've been covering Egypt, Greece, and the Middle East, so I have had her find Macedonia, Troy, Suez Canal, Nile River, etc. etc. etc.

Give her a minute piece of candy for each correct answer. It's called M&M geography, but I let her choose whatever treat she likes. One candy bar survives several bouts of M&M geography, usually more than a week. Any time she wants some bad for her item, I make her work for it during M&M geography. She is on the chubby side, so I make her work very hard for her sugar.

Whenever we pick up her friend after school and have an hour to kill before we need to go to ballet, we've been doing M&M geography. They get really good very quickly.

Math advice heeded and appreciated

Improvement in math attitude!

I synthesized everyone's input on my math dilemma and came up with a strategy.

We are sticking with Singapore Math, but if she can do the first five problems with good explanation of what she is doing and accuracy she doesn't have to do the rest. This morning she did five word problems and successfully identified how to approach them and completing them correctly, so she didn't have to do the last two. She has a strong grasp on how to approach a problem and solve it. She is still weak in her basic arithmetic (multiplication tables.)

I have ordered some math games. One is called Wrap Ups and works on basic multiplication, division, and fractions. The other is Carmen Sandiego Math Detective, for 1 cent on Amazon (plus $4 shipping.)

We did a math mystery for bedtime last night. She requested more and solved them all.

She was enthusiastic about doing her math this morning!

Y'all are brilliant. Thanks for your help.

Need some math advice here.

Okay. I researched math programs up down and sideways. I can tell you what the experts think about A Beka, Singapore, Saxon, Math Mammoth, and Math-U-See. I can tell you how Oregon's public school's math program rates nationwide (we got a D), who did well (California and Massachusettes were the only ones that got A's), how the US ranks internationally (24th), and who is the first (Singapore).

I was torn, and still am torn, between Singapore Math (ranked first world-wide) and Math-U-See (well reviewed and hands on).

Mi'ita's public school teacher foisted upon us the math curriculum she had. It is languishing on the shelf. Oregon got a D, you know.

We bought Singapore Math. It looks good. Mi'ita can do it fine.

But she hates it. She hated the school curriculum when she went to public school, too. She tested well, rated "exceptional" in their standardized tests last year. She is good at math but doesn't like it.

I bought a Math Mysteries book to spice up the math. Here is the dilemma. She requests to do Math Mysteries instead of Singapore Math.

Do I let her? Basically they are long word problems that star a couple of kids that have to solve mysteries using math.

Example: The other day we did one that involved figuring out the radius of a circle. Could a dog tethered to the center of a yard eat the tulips in the neighbor's yard? We ended up talking about the Greeks, Euclid in particular, who figured out PI in order to construct their amazing buildings. She extrapolated into talking about that Greek guy, what's his face, who figured out the circumference of the Earth. Then John had her do a couple problems figuring out the radius of the Earth. She learned how to use a formula, why they are handy, and how you would solve this problem without the formula.

I am torn. I think it is of the utmost importance for her to change her attitude about math. If she hates one but likes the other, it seems like a no brainer to do the one she likes. The problem, though, is these math mysteries are teasers. They do not teach math, they are games to use in addition to a math curriculum. The math curriculums teach math sequentially and theoretically completely. I would have no problem changing to a different curriculum, but should I use no curriculum at all?

Do I toss a math program out the window to do math games?

Talented and Gifted

Mi'ita was identified as TAG, talented and gifted, last year in 3rd grade. I always thought she was precocious, learned everything quickly, talked very young and constantly, etc. I was in a hurry to get her identified, feather in my cap to have a smart kid and all that.

Isn't it amazing how parents get all wrapped up in their children's achievements? I mean, having a TAG kid doesn't mean that I'm smart.

I haven't studied TAG kids much. I know they have a set of social problems that are pretty standard for them. They gravitate towards older kids and have low tolerance for kid who take a while to get things. You would think they would make good tutors for lower academic kids, but the opposite tends to be true.

That sure is evident at the homeschool group. The group has a bigger number of younger kids and they have divided the kids into two groups for instruction: 4th grade and lower are the younger and 6th grade on up are the olders. There are no 5th graders.

Mi'ita does fine with the other 4th graders and there is a bunch of girls her age that she likes well enough. She has no patience for the younger kids. Since homeschooling includes the whole family, there are a number of toddlers, preschoolers, and babies that are included, too, and those just about drive her nuts. (I like them.)

An example. The first day of homeschool they divided up the two groups to play dodge ball. Mi'ita was in the younger group that included tiny tots so the teen aged teachers had the youngers roll the ball to play so the little ones wouldn't get hurt. Mi'ita just about blew a gasket.

Another example. Mi'ita's cousin came to visit and we were playing M&M geography. Mi'ita was getting things like Macedonia and Tunisia. If she didn't know where these things were, I was giving her clues like, "It's in North Africa on the Mediteranean Sea." It would take her two seconds and she would slap her hand down on the country. Her cousin, granted in 2nd grade, was getting things like the United States and Mexico. She would find the United States on her previous turn. Then she would get Mexico and I would say, "It's right next to the United States, down lower." And she would look and look, off in a completely different part of the map. Mi'ita had no patience for this.

Perhaps I should be more focused on getting her to be more tolerant of younger kids. I admit, though, that I'm not particularly worried about it. Just being in the homeschool group is giving her way more exposure to working with multi-age kids than being in a class with kids all one age. She wants the kids to be split three ways and get those tiny kids into another group. That's not going to happen. I've suggested that she choose to work with the older kids. She does have the option and I'm sure she will try it, but I doubt it will help. She doesn't particularly want to be with the older kids, she just wants to be away from the kindergartners on down.

I hate school!

That is so weird for me to say.

I was a teacher for 13 years. I loved school all the way up to 5th grade and then again in college. I volunteered in Mi'ita's classes every year. When I was asked once what I liked best about my job, I said I loved all the hugs I got from my students. I only decided to homeschool because the local public school options tanked and there are no private school options here.

Mi'ita and I were roped into joining what would have been her 4th grade class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Mrs. M is a great teacher. They are doing the fun things when we come--science and social studies. It's just that it's a scheduled activity that interrupts what we're doing. Today we were papermache-ing our 3 headed Cerberus for our fabulous Halloween party. I wanted to get some poster sized drawings of the different gods of the dead going and some captions to explain all this stuff. But no, we had no time because we had to go to school.

Mi'ita was ready to quit this morning, too. "Do we have to go?" I should have jumped on it and said, "NO! Let's just quit." But no, she had her TAG class (talented and gifted) that she loves and that I want her to continue, and then I said that we would go to Mrs. M's class one last time and tell her that we were quitting. Of course they were starting a new unit on rocks, which Mi'ita adores, strange child, so now she wants to continue again. And really, I know nothing about rocks (no interest, I confess) and I'd really like her to get more systematic and scientific about her interest in rocks--identifying them, classifying them, organizing them. Mrs. M is a big science teacher and so this is all good.

It's just that it interrupts everything!

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.

Friends

Last year Mi'ita had a lot of trouble with friends. There was a group of girls she played with and sometimes they would all play nicely together and other days they would exclude one or another of them. The saga took many forms and I had many a tearful updates. There was one particular girl that held friendship over everyone else's heads. She had "meetings" that only some kids were allowed to attend. It went on and on until I finally told her she couldn't play with that girl any more. Boy was that popular, but it did ease the situation.

I wasn't sure what this year would bring. I was hoping that she would discover a homeschool girl her age and they would become fast friends and that would be the end of her friendship worries.

That hasn't happened. What has, though, has been interesting. She invites all the girls that she used to play with over, one at a time and not the one that she had so many problems with. Since there is no pressure to look cool in front of others, no one excludes her. Everyone has joyfully excepted her invitations. One girl comes over several times a week.

Outside school these little power struggles are rare. I suppose there are still triangles and clicks in the adult world but I have never come across them myself. I avoid drama like the plague and if I find myself in a situation like that I just find new friends.

When you aren't trapped in school, you don't find yourself trapped in situations like this.