Back to the books

We're easing back into the books. Jetlag is doing both of us a number, but more so for me. Come noon I feel like I've been poleaxed and need to sleep for several hours. Mia doesn't need to nap, but she's been very irregular in her sleeping schedule.

While we were gone, the only math I had Mia do was figuring out money. I figured that converting dollars to dongs, dollars to bahts, and dongs to bahts was enough math for anyone. She had an allowance to spend, figured in dollars and then converted, and she was always helping me figure out how much things cost. I had a cheat sheet that was absolutely necessary for me, but Mia could often figure things out without it.

Yesterday I had her review her Latin flashcards and do some long division. Today I had her take a math test to see how much math she had forgotten.

She knows how to do long division, our current lessons. She has forgotten how to do long multiplication, which is required to check her long division. She had 18 problems to do and it took over an hour. She has some catching up to do, for sure. Tomorrow we'll review long multiplication. I don't think it will take long for her to get back up to speed.

We need to do some writing, too. I've never really taught writing before and I feel like I've been floundering a bit. Yes, I can require her to write, get her to do a cohesive paragraph about some topic, and help her edit her work. I don't really feel like that's enough, though. This trip has been eye opening in that area. The two boys that were on the tour with us had to write journal logs, too. One was a year older and one was a year younger and both of them were vastly superior in their writing abilities. I listened to their parents working with them. They required quite a bit more from them--more volume of work, more variety of writing styles, better vocabulary usage, etc. I pumped up my expectations for Mia in response to that and got nowhere really fast. She mutinied. We ended up eliminating the journal entries in favor of daily emails to her father. That was vastly more popular, but not as easy as it sounds. Computers were not always available and we had not a few computer problems on the way.

Needless to say, we need to get back to writing. I had bought a writing curriculum way back when we first started homeschooling, but had abandoned it when we stopped the classical method in favor of freeschooling. During our musing for our mission statement, writing came back as an essential skill that needs to be a part of our curriculum. The Daddy required Mia to read two newspaper articles a week and do a summary of them. I required Mia to do journal entries on the other days. The articles and summaries are still good skills. I want to continue that. I think the journal writing isn't enough, though. I'm sticking Mia back into that writing curriculum today to see how that works.

But we'll skip Latin today. We're just easing back into the swing of things.

Mission statement in progress

We have been working together as a family on a mission statement for our School of One Pupil. It's not a simple matter, and you can't just go copy a good one out there. It needs to reflect the values you have as a family, each one of you.

We've been working on five foci: mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual (they was suggested in an article I read.) I kind of look at the spiritual askance. I don't quite know how to deal with it yet, as our family is not religious. We'll think of something though--religious tolerance, respect for religious beliefs, ability to make up your own mind, knowledge of the world's major religions... Something.

We've already made some ideological adjustments. It's definitely nice to have a guideline. Husband's biggest concerns were around the social focus. Why anybody thinks that being in school will help your social skills is beyond me, but he's thinking along those lines. I think I will be able to meet his concerns around social skills without sending her to school, but we'll see.

The mental focus was an interesting one. We are still working on that one, but the two areas that we have decided upon as being of utmost importance were math and writing. Math for him. He has decided that he wants Mi'ita to finish Calculus by the time she finishes high school. I didn't meet that goal myself and it has left a whole series of brick walls in my life, so I stand behind it. It is a good goal to strive or, even if she doesn't eventually meet it. Not everyone is up for Calculus, but Mi'ita has a good mind and is good at math, so it I think it's good to put it out there.

Writing was my emphasis. Her reading is plenty adequate basically forever. That doesn't mean that you can put anything in front of her and she will understand it. It does mean that she is not learning to read anymore; she's reading to learn. It is a tool she has mastered.

Not so for writing. She is writing plenty adequately for a fourth grader. That is not adequate for life, though. I have not been focusing a lot on the writing skills and that has bothered me as it is important. In light of this new mission statement in progress, though, I've added a little to the plate. She has to keep a daily journal. Husband added an interesting element. He wants her to read an article out of the New York Times World Section, twice a week, and write a summary of it. Mi'ita's quite good at geography and world history, but her modern political history is as bad as most kids'. It's as bad as mine, I'm ashamed say. We'll both be learning.

It's good to have mission statement, even one that's in progress.

Surreptitious Christmas

Nothing educational for Christmas, Mia insisted. Only fun stuff.

Absolutely, I assured her.

A rock polisher, a collection of labeled rocks, a rock pick, and a book of trails in Oregon where you can find rocks, plus a guide on how to recognize them. Fun, for sure, and not a bit educational. Friday Field Days are going to be fun, especially the trails that you can only get to in summer with a canoe, and places that are best hunted by inner tube down rivers.

Anytime you can take a dog with you, it's not educational.

Rumis is a cool strategy game, but not a bit educational.

We set up a new fish tank with a water testing kit that tests PH, hardness, nitrates and nitrites. All fun.

Daddy got a math calendar from her, heh heh heh. He has a math problem that he has to do EVERY DAY, and he has to show her his work. Heh, heh, heh.

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.

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?

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?

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.

Lizard Math

Ah, math.

Math started off heinous. Mi'ita argued, moaned, complained, and fought doing her math.

Then I thrusted it upon my husband. He laid down the rules. I was going to make him do all the math, but he doesn't come home until the evening, and none of us are our best in the evenings.

I started giving Mi'ita her math assignments first thing in the morning and telling her that if she were nice to me, I'd help. If she argues, moans, complains, or fights, I leave. If she wants to negotiate, I tell her to call the Daddy. If she is nice to me and cooperates, I'll sit down and help her.

Mostly we've been sitting down and doing math in the morning over breakfast and a cup of tea, or while I unload the dishwasher. Once in a while I've had to walk away halfway through. Usually I make her do the last couple of problems completely on her own, just so that I know that she can do it without help.

Brujito, the lizard of 1000 names, needs his breakfast in the morning, too. I chop up his lizard salad and give Mi'ita her lizard and the salad to hand feed. Then we do lizard math.

I write. The lizard dictates.

"How many 7's go into 36?" I ask. The lizard answers, "One paw."

"How much is 7 times 5?" I ask. "Three tails and one paw," he answers.

"What is 36 minus 35?" I ask. "One tail," he answers.

"What do I do next?" I ask. The lizard swishes his tail and tells me to bring down the next number.

"What is the remainder?" I ask. "Wings," he replies. How many wings do lizards have?

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.

Nifty Little Point System

Would you go to work every day if you didn't get paid?

Some people would, of course, because they love their job, but I think even those people would modify a few things. They'd quit doing the obnoxious parts, shift their schedule, work fewer hours. And a lot of us wouldn't darken the doorway again.

We tell children that school is their job, but they don't get paid.

Now we get into the muddy water of instrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. If children are paid for learning with money or points or good grades, they stop loving to learn and they work for the money, points, or grades. Lots of studies show that extrinsic motivation is detrimental to learning. Lots of other studies show that it is effective at behavior modification.

Even though I know the limitations of extrinsic motivation, I'm doing it. I give Mi'ita points for doing her schoolwork. The behavior part of it is much more important to me than the work part. I give her double points for doing things with a good attitude. To try to reduce the complaints, I give her an extra point every time she says, "Okay, Mom."

I'm not looking for complete compliance; I want cheerful learning.

Mi'ita gets a dime for each point. She has earned as little as 7 points in a day and as much as 25. At the end of the week we tally it all and I pay up.

She doesn't get to keep it all, though. She pays $1 to the local pet shop for crickets for her lizard. The rest is divided three ways. A third is cash she gets to blow. A third is put into savings that she gets to spend once she has earned $20. The last third goes into her college fund.

It's money management. It teaches her to save up for something that she wants. It teaches her that pets are expensive and that she needs to think before she adopts. There's some real life math involved. It helps me focus on one behavior that I want to change at a time.

It works.

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.