Picture Books for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a little over two weeks away, and I just made a massive set of book requests from the library. We'll see soon what arrives, and which one Ladybug likes best. Here are my picks for Valentines:

Winter Books

Since Advent and my church's celebration of Winter Solstice, I've been thinking about how we make it through the winter. Unlike the other seasons, which are celebrated in their own right, winter seems to be a lot about how to make it through.

Many of the stories we read have this idea too, that the hopeful seed of spring is buried in winter. In Dear Rebecca, Winter Is Here, the grandmother writes that summer begins on December 21, as the little hands of light begin bringing back longer days. We're also reading Leo Lionni's Frederick, about a mouse who stores up the sunlight and colors of warmer seasons to sustain his family's spirit with poetry in the dark cold days ahead. What I love about Frederick is how, at the beginning of winter, the mouse family has plenty of fun and excitement to distract them. This is just how I feel in December with all the holidays. It's harder in January when a deeper cold sets in and there are no distracting festivals.

Then there are the books that celebrate winter. My current favorite is Stranger in the Woods. It's a picture book told in wildlife photographs. It's all snowy woods and lace-like tree branches loaded with even more sugary snow. There are owls, mice, and deer, but my favorite is the cardinal, who announces, "But... I am... I am... RED!" And his red feathers are splendid in the photography. The sense of winter in this book is everything I hope to show Ladybug when we visit the farm on winter days.

Another book we've been reading is Owl Moon, which reads like a prose poem told in a child's voice. We're in the snowy woods again, but now at night, well past bedtime. The setting is unflinchingly cold, still and silent. Reading it you feel that the dark winter is sacred. My favorite lines are from the last page:

When you go owling
you don't need words
or warm
or anything but hope.
That's what Pa says.
The kind of hope
that flies
on silent wings
under a shining
Owl Moon.

Out in the Cold

So that's a dramatic title, but I was pretty bummed yesterday, and we spent a lot of time literally outside in the cold. Yesterday was the first day of the farm class I signed us up for. So we woke a little earlier and got out of the house by 8:00am, walked twenty minutes to the train and commuted to the 'burbs. After eating a breakfast/snack at the cafe near the station, we walked ten minutes to the farm. It was very cold yesterday. And when we got there Ladybug absolutely refused to go into the warm little classroom. I'm not sure what spooked her (other than my guess that she's a die-hard introvert like her father), but I couldn't bring her into the room without her crying. No use gently coaxing or promising that she would see an animal or be with friends.

So, I gave up. I was thinking again of my blog description about my best-laid plans and what happens when my toddler has a different idea. I mean, she's two. Maybe the class was lame, I don't know. I know it wasn't worth a big fight. It is so disappointing to work that hard, commuting on foot all over the county for something you think your kid will really enjoy--only to have it rejected. Is this how homeschooling parents feel when their kid hates a curriculum they thought would be a hit?

So instead of attending the class, we sat together on the steps outside. I figured we had come all the way out to the farm, so we may as well observe some nature. I told Bug that if she watched carefully she could see birds flying around in the distant bushes. And that's what we did, sat out in the cold doing our own thing while the other children (warmly) had circle time inside. And I asked myself if this is what homeschooling will feel like, doing what's right for your child even if you're doing it alone, out in the cold. I think that's a bleaker picture than I mean to paint. But the answer is yes, sometimes. And I think she had a nice time. She talked a lot about those birds she could see in the bushes.

Just Like Stellaluna!

Frequently my husband will select an animal of the week (or month) and show Ladybug all sorts of YouTube videos featuring this animal. I think the first one was foxes, followed by polar bears. The refrain as soon as Bug saw Daddy's laptop was always the same: "How 'bout da polar bears?!" This past month's animal has been fruit bats. Ladybug fell in love with Stellaluna after she received the book as a birthday present. She hangs upside down just like Stellaluna. She eats her fruit just like Stellaluna. She flies around the house, flapping her wings just like Stellaluna.

Black Ecologists?

I was reading a lesson in Nebel's Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding about nature observation. I was struck by this quote: "On a purely aesthetic level, becoming able to recognize common plants and animals of your region is, to me, rather like getting to know and feel at home with neighbors versus forever being in a world of strangers."

And this got me to thinking about the lack of African-American ecologists. A Google search turned up a 2007 study confirming my suspicion. The abstract explains that "ecology in particular has among the lowest proportions of underrepresented students and professionals of any science." Then I found this blog post which sums up some of the rationalizations people try to give for why "black people don't like wilderness," and therefore don't become ecologists. I did find a cool post, Black & Green - The New Integration, profiling five urban ecologists. So there are some!
 
It's hard to talk about this without veering into the massive "Why are there so few minorities in science?" topic. Obviously they're related. But I want to know if teaching children to observe and appreciate nature is a cultural practice that some engage in while others don't. My father (a black man) is a land surveyor, but he's a rarity in his profession because he is not an outdoorsman. I learned to identify birds and flowers from my mother, who is a white woman. My personal experience is anecdotal, and I can't draw conclusions about entire groups of people based on it. But I will ask the question, do African-American families in general place a low value on nature observation with their children? If that were true, would it contribute to an explanation of why there are fewer black ecologists than most other sciences?

I think what I'm talking about is placing a value on nature. Going back to Nebel's quote, I think he has identified a kind of literacy. Nature literacy. Understanding the plants and animals in your area is one more way to engage with your world rather than be isolated from it. This is a valuable literacy for anyone to possess.

Winnie-the-Pooh for A Very Young Listener

Several weeks ago I checked out Winnie-the-Pooh for Ladybug and began to read it to her in very short bits. She really enjoys it, but we hit a wall when we reached a page with no pictures. It's just too much text for a toddler to listen to without any pictures to hang onto. We've been reading and rereading the first couple of chapters. Ladybug particularly likes "Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place." That's the one where Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit's door. I think the simple physical comedy is appealing for a little kid.

When I stop reading, Bug squeals, "More Pooh!" but she can't focus on the longer text. There are very short adaptations of Pooh stories but they are, well, very short. They're also not written by A. A. Milne and lack some of the whimsy that makes the originals so wonderful. So I spent some of naptime searching and found just what I was looking for! I had to search not using the term "Winnie the Pooh," but by the specific chapter titles in the book. They seem to all be out of print, but I was able to find the chapters of Pooh published in individual volumes, with more pictures per page, and slightly abridged text. But they do use the original A. A. Milne writing! Several of these are aimed at kids first learning to read, but they work well as a picture book for toddlers too. I requested six of them from the library, and it was all I could do to not borrow ten. I'm very excited, and I know Ladybug will be too!

Science as a Skill

When I wrote the post How to Talk About What I Don't Like, I really wanted to get around to saying, "Here's what I want to do differently." I am creating a label for posts called To Do Differently. The "What I Don't Like" post is full of me understanding that schools aren't all bad, and teachers are mostly good. I guess I feel the need to put that out there before I launch a series of posts about wanting to be different from school. But, I can't shy away from the fact that I'm not planning on homeschooling for the sake of recreating a school environment at home. Wish we could call it "Whole World Learning" instead of homeschooling. So, here's my first thought about a subject to approach in a non-traditional way.

I hear people talking about the "skills" subjects, and they mean language arts and math. These build cumulatively and give you the skills you need to study other subjects. Then they talk about the "content" subjects, like history and science. The idea is that these content subjects are full of ideas to learn and explore, but you won't get too far in them if you can't read and compute.

I am taken with the idea of studying science as a set of skills that leads to understanding content. Real science, I think, is not memorizing Newton's laws, but asking why. Why do the rock and the feather fall the way that they do? What can we infer from our observations? What would prove our hypothesis wrong? This type of analysis and critical thinking is certainly a skill that grows with practice. I think it's very challenging to commit to teach this way. We can pay lip service to it, and ultimately just lead students through a rather scripted discussion that concludes where the grownups have decided it needs to. And that's not half bad, but wouldn't it be better to give the student the time and space to really find out for themselves? It seems that homeschooling is ideal for providing this luxury of intellectual freedom.

I have found a science curriculum developed with these principles called Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding. The author's introduction helped me to formulate my ideas about teaching science. I look at a lot of curricula, but there are few that I buy years before I'll be needing them. In fact, this is the only elementary age curriculum I've purchased. It was just so affordable and intriguing. It consists of four strands (parentheticals are mine):
A. Nature of Matter (Chemistry)
B. Life Science (Biology)
C. Physical Science (Physics)
D. Earth and Space Science (Geology, Astronomy)

Wow. An elementary science curriculum that not only goes beyond nature study, but leads to comprehending the foundational principles of the major scientific fields. This is achieved using the scientific method, not fill-in-the-blanks and multiple choice worksheets. That's something I'd like to do differently.

Winter Planning

Christmas and the other winter holidays do a good job of getting us through the first part of the cold, dark winter. This year they kept me so busy that I'm just now getting around to planning and thinking about the season. It's almost as if December is its own holiday season, and ordinary winter begins in January with the new year.
I spent way too much time last night perusing class offerings. I have already decided not to do Music Together again for this Winter. We have enjoyed music class, but our nearest location just moved further away. I used to be able to walk there in 20 minutes, but now there would be a bus and a longish walk as well. We'll reconsider in the spring. I did find a toddler gymnastics class a fifteen minute walk from here. But that class doesn't begin until mid-March. What I'm looking for is activities now, to help us through cold, short days. I think I've found something just right.
I mentioned in this post that there is a farm-based preschool I'm interested in, but Ladybug wouldn't be enrolled there until at least Fall 2014. Who knows if I'll still be as excited by the place in a year and a half. I've decided to take advantage of as much other programming as they offer this year. Maybe we can reap the benefits of learning at the farm sanctuary without enrolling in their preschool. It's a relatively affordable preschool, but still costs a few thousand dollars per year.
So I've signed us up to go feed and brush the pony tomorrow. I'm also planning on enrolling in a six week class where children can feed the sheep, collect eggs, make bird treats, and assorted other fun farm activities. There are several other courses for older children based on winter books, and I'm picking through those for winter story book ideas.
Speaking of books, we had a nice trip to the library yesterday. Ladybug is really getting into it. On Monday we took a shortcut through the library without stopping, and she was furious with me. Oops. So we went back Tuesday and came home with several winter books, and one more dinosaur book. I think Bug's interest in dinosaurs deserves its own post. There are so many dinosaur books and toys she's enjoyed.
The winter books we picked up yesterday include Winter Song, which is an excerpt from Shakespeare. It's not too much complicated text, but Ladybug wasn't so into it. I think it will be better for elementary age, when a child can understand who Shakespeare was, and benefit from learning a couple archaic turns of phrase. But the favorite book from this library trip is Cat and Mouse in the Snow. It's simple and a little boring to me, but Ladybug is charmed.

So I think I finally have a rough sketch of how we'll spend the rest of the winter:
Mondays: Farm
Tuesdays: Library
Wednesdays: Regular play date
Thursdays: Indoor playground
Fridays: Open/floating