Packing Up Summer, Easing into Fall

Most of the books I ordered for fall have arrived. There was only one I was really disappointed with (Sounds the Letters Make), but I'm glad to have the rest around. As all this curriculum was delivered to our house, I pondered how I can place such a high value on child-led learning and still crave curriculum. The answer seems to be that the books are mostly for me. I like to read through them and cull ideas, which are then filed away and help to inform my observations of what Ladybug wants to do.

Of the books I ordered, one of my favorites is Count on Math. The first couple of chapters are full of sensory-play ideas--actually appropriate for a very young child. This book is perfect for me. The planning side of me is satisfied with having a mathy book with lesson ideas laid out in a row. And the side of me that's concerned with free play is thrilled that the activities are just that: set up an environment for the child to explore as she will. It reaffirms for me that when we are playing at the beach, stacking toys, or digging in the dirt, that Ladybug is doing and learning exactly what she needs to.

Homeschoolers really enjoy the freedom to create their own family schedules rather than follow the ones required by school. I'm starting to feel that freedom this year. As the days get a little cooler, I think to myself, "Is this it? Are we starting? Should I 'ramp up' or do anything 'official' now?" And I answer myself no, just relax. Keep doing what you're doing and ease into it. Last week we spent a lot of time out of the house, so this week we're doing a lot more just hanging out. Going at a comfy pace.

Most of the "school" books are set aside in the basement for me to check out in the evenings. Ladybug did ask me to read "Math Play," so I read the first activity to her and we wound up singing and clapping and stomping "1 2 3!"  Our current Winnie-the-Pooh is Eeyore Has a Birthday, because several friends have birthdays around now. That fits in nicely. And we've continued reading our poems for each month in Treasury for All Seasons. With my reluctance to let go of summer, I was a particular fan of the final poem for August, "What Shall I Pack in the Box Marked 'Summer'?" The image of carefully storing the fun summer memories is a sweet transition to the new season.

Okay, Some Fall Planning

Just days after writing my post, "August," about how I'm not going to think about Fall yet, I have placed a large order of books in anticipation of this homeschool year. I'm thinking of it as our first year of preschool. I just love learning things! The other homeschool moms got me all excited posting their curricula, lol.

So here's what I'm thinking. Unit studies based on children's literature. Books selected based on seasonal appropriateness and from lists of recommended books.  Move forward with pre-reading at a very gentle pace -- whatever works for her. I'll try to borrow most picture books from the library, but I did purchase a lot of curricula today.

Math
Count on Math: Activities for Small Hands and Lively Minds

Math Play! (Williamson Little Hands Series)

Twelve Hats for Lena : A Book of Months

Pre-reading - I went a little nuts here. I have no intention of sitting Ladybug down in front of the "Learn to Read" curriculum and doing a phonics force-march. Many of these are for me to read so the ideas are in my brain to be adapted when the moment is right.

Letter Sounds (Rock 'n Learn)

Hape Happy Puzzle Alphabet Puzzle Wood Toy (and the lowercase one too)

Sounds the Letters Make or A Phonic Alphabet

The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons

The Monster Book of ABC Sounds (Picture Puffins)

Teach a Child to Read With Children's Books: Combining Story Reading, Phonics, and Writing to Promote Reading Success

Art - I loved First Art for Toddlers and Twos, so I bought the author's preschool program (ages 3-6).
Preschool Art: It's the Process, Not the Product!

Science
Project Garden: A Month-by-Month Guide to Planting, Growing, and Enjoying ALL Your Backyard Has to Offer

Autumn Board Book

Poetry
Julie Andrews' Treasury for All Seasons: Poems and Songs to Celebrate the Year   

Literature - I'm focusing on Winnie-the-Pooh in Easy Reader format. I blogged about this here. I ordered four more Pooh readers today. Maybe early next year we'll do read-alouds from unabridged Pooh.

Pooh Invents a New Game: (Dutton Easy Reader)

Eeyore Has a Birthday (Easy-to-Read, Puffin)

Christopher Robin Leads an Expedition (Dutton Easy Reader)

Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees (Dutton Easy Reader)

...And because I'm a sucker for anything matched up to seasons: Five in a Row Holiday : Through the Seasons. I might put the word out on the homeschool lists that I'm looking for the rest of the Five in a Row books as well. 

The one thing missing from this order is a bookshelf! There's no way I'm springing all these books at once. Some will need to be stored for later. That shelf will also give me a good place to put all the out of season holiday books. I will have to carve out another corner of basement for this!

First Art

Today we started doing art. Not that I haven't given Ladybug fingerpaints, playdough, crayons, and markers before today. But today I finally got my hands on an art curriculum for toddlers that I have wanted to check out. After reading and implementing it, I'm very happy with it and thinking of buying my own copy. This is First Art for Toddlers and Twos, by MaryAnn F. Kohl.

There are certain classes or parenting philosophies that make me feel relaxed, and help me to observe my daughter while she learns in her own way. Following the lessons in this book brings on that kind of relaxation. All the emphasis is on process, not product, and the lessons are about creating an environment for the child to explore. There's instruction about how to provide the child with a comfortable space. After reading, I actually got online ASAP and ordered a $30 play table and chairs from Ikea. I realized that in our home we didn't have a low table where she could comfortably sit or stand to do her art. I've been putting her at the dining room table, where battles ensue over standing up on the bench. Also, I just put up beige curtains in the dining room. Tempera paint splatter is not the "look" I'm going for!

I am grateful for one simple piece of advice that I've been able to implement immediately. When setting up an art project for a toddler, provide them with a small bucket of soapy water and some cloths for their hands. I am so used to doing hand washing and cleaning up after the project, so I never thought of this. But my kid is exactly the type who needs it. I tried to introduce finger paints when she was about a year old, and she stuck the tip of one finger in the paint, then looked at me like, "Why would anyone do that to their hands?" Now that she's a little older, she wants to squish paint between her fingers for the sensory experience. But then she looks at what she's done to her hands and flips out. Being able to immediately clean her hands is going to make such a difference in her ability to enjoy playing with art. Tonight I set her up with some q-tips, cotton balls, and glue. She played with the glue a little bit, and told me she really liked it. But she spent the majority of her time exploring the tub of warm soapy water. Fine by me! The sooner she learns that it will always be part of her art time, the better.

The book is divided into five sections:
1) Primarily Paint
2) Hands on Dough
3) Making Marks (drawing)
4) Sticky Business (glue, contact paper)
5) Great Impressions (printmaking)

I like the idea of rotating through the chapters, so that we're playing with a variety of media on a regular basis. The author reminds the reader to be sure to repeat projects, because children thrive on repetition. We'll see how it shakes out for us, but I'm committed to setting up a regular art environment for her.

The best part of this evening's art time? Me, sitting back and relaxing, observing her play. Unasked, she repeatedly said to me, "Ladybug really likes it!"

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.

Before Five in a Row on Goodnight Moon

I suppose my homeschooling style is not turning out to be "unschooler," since I keep buying curricula and my daughter is only eighteen months old. I just adore books, and anything that gives me more ideas for how to introduce and discuss good books is too hard for me to pass up.

My latest curriculum purchase is Before Five in a Row, which suggests activities to accompany twenty-four different children's books. It is geared towards ages two through four, or "two thru four" as the cover reads. I will shrug off the insipid cover art and street sign spelling and move on to the content. The book-related activities comprise the first half of Before Five in a Row. The second half of the book is devoted to more general ideas for educational play.

Goodnight Moon is not the first book listed, but I'm planning to begin there since it is the one we are probably most familiar with. I really am surprised by the ideas I am taking from Before Five in a Row. Why didn't I think of that? Because I am reading this story for the thousandth time from memory while planning a blog post and praying today will be the day Ladybug takes a nap? Yeah, that's why. So a book to help me out a little is welcome.

Ideas from Before Five in A Row that I will be using for Goodnight Moon:

• Point out the colors red, blue, yellow, and green in the illustrations. Ladybug is excited by all things color these days. I don't think I could offer her a piece of candy without a discussion of its color.
• Point out that a painting from The Runaway Bunny can be seen in Goodnight Moon. We have both books; it will be fun if she can see the connection. We can talk about how the same person drew the pictures for both books. Correction, I can talk about that. Maybe she'll understand it.
• Point out all the different animals in the book: Rabbits, kittens, bears, etc.
• Talk about the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle" and the illustration of the cow jumping over the moon. Bug has heard this rhyme. Here's a good chance for me to recite it a few times and connect it to a different book. 
• Point out that the three bears sitting on chairs are the same three bears she knows from the Goldilocks story. 
• Talk about all the different shapes in the illustrations. See if she will point out circles, squares, or triangles. 

Okay, that's a pretty good haul of ideas from three pages of a book I wasn't sure I should buy. However, here are some things Bug is too young for or that I have my doubts about:

• The Bible activities. We are not practicing Christians, and while I want Ladybug to learn biblical stories for cultural literacy, I don't need to connect them to every storybook.
• The discussion of the room appearing darker relative to the sky outside. We can talk about light and dark, but this is a little subtle for her age. Not a fault of the book, we're just not there yet.
•  A memory game where you try to remember the items in the great green room. Again, good activity; Bug is too young.
• Have the child tell a story using the pattern of  Goodnight Moon. For example, say "Hello" to everything in her room.
• Vocabulary lesson explaining the use of the word "great" to mean big. At eighteen months, every spoken word is a vocabulary lesson. Does she need me to explain a specific word? Maybe I need more education on this point.

Based on the Goodnight Moon recommendations, I'm happy I bought Before Five in a Row. There's enough here to keep us busy for a while.

Using Slow and Steady: Get Me Ready

I really hesitated about buying this book, but I am glad that I did. It's a curriculum with an activity suggestion for every week of life from birth through age five. Am I that parent? I asked myself. That parent who so longs for a high achieving child that she follows a curriculum guide for her fifteen month old? I really value child directed learning. I began my own homeschooling back in middle school after reading The Teenage Liberation Handbook, which is about as unschooling and child directed a homeschool book as you will find.

So why on Earth would I want a curriculum, especially when my daughter is at an age where she learns the most through free exploration? I'm not worried about missing any crucial building blocks, or that she might become delayed. But I have found that in the long hours of unstructured time it preserves my adult sanity if have some activities up my sleeve. Ladybug has fun, and I always move to something else when she's losing interest. That happens within ten minutes or less, which is to be expected.

I like to page around the weeks near her current age and pick something that feels good. Or, I will select an activity that I would not do naturally. I figure that broadens our horizons a little bit more. Then as I read the page for that activity, I try to internalize it so I'm not referencing a book all week. That way I can make the activity my own and change it to suit our needs.

The first activity I chose was "The Face and Head Game," listed under Age 1 - Week 1. It's about learning the parts of the face by drawing a face as well as touching the child's face and naming eyes, ears, nose, etc. I drew the face on a sheet of paper once, but my drawing is seriously sub-par, so I abandoned the creepy face. Ladybug was very engaged simply by the touching and naming. I also bought Where Is Baby's Belly Button? and read it to her frequently. It was a fun book to integrate into our playtime. The whole game extended well past one week, and now Ladybug knows the parts of her face.

I will let weeks pass without having a Slow and Steady activity in mind, no big deal. I skip the rhythm activities because Ladybug is enrolled in Music Together, so we do tons of that already. I often repurpose a toy we already own instead of fashioning the props exactly as the book suggests. I'm enjoying all the ideas I get from having the book to use, while balancing it with a flexibility that fits us.