Library Day

I've been rethinking Library Day.

We go on Monday afternoons. I've volunteered to shelve books on Monday afternoons, so the commitment keeps us honest. We walk the dog there. It's a little less than a mile and I get lots of complaints about child abuse making her walk that far in all kinds of weather, but I figure it's PE. PE teachers get a lot of flack, too, and I have gained a new sympathy towards them.

I've required her to check out a certain collection of books every week: one fairytale/folktale/legend, one science book, one art book, one poetry book, one biography, one history book, and one novel that has won an award or that has been recommended. Then, in order to get her ice cream on Mondays, she has to read them all. Not in entirety if she doesn't want to--a chapter, one poem, one legend out of a collection, but an entire picture book if that is what she chose... She is so motivated by her ice cream, she has not missed Ice Cream Monday since we started. (She's usually working desperately on Monday morning to finish her requirements, though!)

In addition to the reading is the fact that she has to locate all those books--library skills.

I thought this was a good idea. I still think it's a good idea. It has limitations, though.

Mi'ita is a fiction girl. If I didn't require her to check out nonfiction, she wouldn't. She reads nonfiction if it sits around the house long enough, but she doesn't pick it up so much. She'd check out a stack of a series a mile high, and not touch nonfiction.

We have the blessing of a rich grandmother who is 100% supportive of the homeschooling experiment. She buys us so many books that Mi'ita drowns in them. If I didn't require her to read her library books, she probably would read those more. She's a prolific reader. The books my mother picks out for her a spot on to what she should be learning, and eventually I see her read some of them.

I think the biggest drawback is her focus. Since she has to check out my requirements, she doesn't browse the nonfiction section. She doesn't check out three books on a subject that might interest her. She doesn't look at books that don't fall into those categories, except fiction.

Last week I thought I'd lift the requirements, just that once, to see what would happen. I told her that she had to check out five nonfiction books (plus the one recommended novel) and read them, but they don't have to any certain kind. She checked out five books on different planets.

Okay, I thought. I know she likes astronomy. It's science. She probably walked to the shelf, saw the first thing that interested her, and grabbed five of them, lazy thing. But they are good books and I know she's interested in the subject.

Here it is Sunday and they have sat in the backpack all week. She finished her fiction books in a couple days. She's reading Oh Yikes: History's Grossest, Wackiest Moments right now. It's a nice fat history book full of strange facts. She just told me one: "Paying through the nose" is an expression that comes from the Vikings. If you didn't pay your taxes, you were sliced on the nose.

So, should I keep making her do my requirements? Should I let go of a couple of them? Should I let her get whatever she wants? I'm vacillating. Right now I'm leaning towards going back to her requirements.

Joyfully Educating Mi'ita

My friend reminded me that learning is supposed to be joyful. Anything learned by cramming down the throat is not worth the pain, nor is it well retained. That is much easier to do when you have more patience than that of a gnat.

We had a good day today. Mi'ita woke up under the weather, so I was going easy on her. I think we got more done today than we usually do, so perhaps going easy on her is the ticket. I forget that as smart as she is and as well as she reads and understand concepts, she's still a kid. We need to include the arts and crafts. Our first lesson of the day was art, and we sketched her bearded dragon. The last thing we did was build jello models of both an animal cell and a plant cell. Then ate one. Yum, yum.

I also let her watch two Magic Schoolbus videos. The books are good kid science. The videos are crap, in my humble opinion. There are good things to learn via television, but you certainly have to pick and choose. We watched half of a show on human genetics today, and that was definitely worth the modified brain waves.

We went to the library today, too. Every week I make her pick out 1 poetry book, 1 biography, 1 science book, 1 history book (ancient history right now), 1 novel, 1 nonfiction video, 1 art book, 1 folktale/legend/myth, plus whatever else she wants. Since she reads at the adult level, I was picking out for her simple adult books with lots of pictures. Mistake. She likes the format of children's nonfiction and the bite-sized information. She is getting quite good at finding her own materials now, using the catalog and call numbers. I didn't have to help her at all this time, and it was only our second trip. She made good choices, too. I really can't get her to read anything that I suggest, unless I am totally nonchalant about it and really and truly don't care if she reads it or not. She is such a contrary child.

Since we were going at a relaxed pace and had included lots of breaks in the way of free reading time and Magic Schoolbus videos, we went all day until dinner time. We still didn't get Latin in, nor did we walk the dog. She did write a fabulous story about her lizard, though, and spent a good hour on it. We'll see how much I can get her to revise it tomorrow. She wants to build a blog of her own writings, so we'll publish it on the web. http://storyperson1234.blogspot.com/

All in all, a good day.

Are the Tears Necessary?

This is what I don't understand. My lovely daughter complains bitterly about every assignment I put in front of her. She does them grudgingly and acts like she hates all of it.

My mother called the other day while I was in the shower and asked Mi'ita how school was going. Does she tell my mother that she hates it? No. She tells my mother that everything is good, with enough sincerity to convince her.

On top of that, she has woken me up every day this week and wanted to start school immediately. This morning, with her friend spending the night (with the understanding that school will continue as usual and her friend had to join us--it's still officially summer vacation for the rest of the world and we need to take advantage of that), they woke up at 5 AM wanting to start! I had to send them back to bed until they woke up again at 7:30. Again, they had to start immediately, and immediately started the complaints.

I have to think that Mi'ita's complaining is just part of her personality and she really doesn't hate it. This actually frees me up a bit. I don't enjoy her complaining at all, but now I know that I can blithely ignore it and not take it as a criticism of my teaching, the curriculum, or the texts. I can insist that she do my assignments until she can come up with a better plan herself.

The beauty of homeschooling is that you can tailor your child's education to her interests, skills, and abilities. I've been trying to do that this week, responding to her complaints. Now I know that won't work--she's just a complainer. I can still tailor her curriculum, but I have to be less sensitive and more forceful. Of course she could come up with her own plan that meets my minimum requirements. I do hope that she takes control of her education at some point.

We seem to have developed a schedule that is working, though. First thing in the morning we start (around 7ish), take a breakfast break and then a "recess" break, then done by lunchtime. Whatever we get done by noon seems to be all we're going to get done for the day. PE dog walk is in the afternoon.

In case you're wondering, dog walks won't be her only PE time. She is also going to be starting ballet in a couple weeks, and the local homeschool group has a swim time at the pool that we'll horn in on as soon as it starts up. She'll start up guitar lessons in a couple weeks, too, for music. I'm still figuring out how to add in art. Library is Monday afternoons.

Now how do I get her to stop complaining short of flinging her off the nearest cliff? (That would be bad, I know, and her daddy would be frightfully angry with me.) Other people's homeschooled children are perfectly behaved, I think, and the rest of the world sends their kids to school to torment their teachers.