Six Things I Learned This Summer

We start our third year of homeschooling in a few days.  While we did some educational activities during the summer months to keep our minds fresh (reading words in the latest LEGO catalog counts, right?), we mostly took this summer off.  


At the end of the "school year", I felt that something wasn't working.  Something felt wrong with how I was teaching and how my kids were learning.  To look at it, everything looked great.  Alexander was thriving and Anna was enthusiastically learning anything she could from Alexander's lessons.

The kids were doing great.

But still, I had this unsettled feeling that something needed to change.

It wasn't until after a few weeks of relaxation and leisurely afternoons in the garden ,and a step away from doing any school-like work, I realized that the pacing of our lives, our daily rhythm, was off. 

In all honesty, we didn't really have one.

We were very busy this year, with group trips, group classes, gymnastics, play dates, park dates, you name it, we did it.  At the beginning of each season, I would swear up and down we weren't going to do as much, but then so many opportunities came up that our calendar got just as full as the last. 

On the education front, I had the same feeling.  I had so many resources and book marked web pages bogging down my brain, a million projects on the go, a zillion things I wanted to do, and even though Alexander was doing really well, I really felt like walking in to another year of it was going to wear me down.  

So I thought. And sat.  And drew charts and check lists and wrote and sat and thought, and by the beginning of August I had a plan. 

I needed to scale down the school year, make things more simple, and really focus on what I wanted to accomplish.

In the process I learned these six things:

1. I'm picky, and I'm okay with that. 

There will never be any educational resource,  curriculum, or theory that will ever be perfect for me and my family.  To this point, I've been putting together a hodge podge of resource books and self created curriculum, and while it has worked really well for Alexander, I know I can't keep doing it like this forever.   Well, I can. I just don't want to.
 So after belly-aching for weeks about the fact that I wish I had the time to create the perfect curriculum, I did it. Yep, crazy old me sat down and created my own curriculum.  I don't care how long it takes us to do it. I didn't create a schedule, just a general plan and method. But the relief I feel going in to the next year shows me that it needed to be done.   A picky person like myself will never be happy with anything other than what works for my family. Period. 

2. I don't fit in to a box, and I'm okay with that. 

 Along the lines of lesson number one, I have perused and flipped through countless complete curriculum kits.  Everything from classical to Montessori, Waldorf to Earth School.  Because REALLY, why reinvent the wheel when someone out there has already done it for me???  

Well, apparently not. 

My problem with curriculum sets is this: they are either too heavily based in a particular faith or spirituality, or are way too ridged and school like (or with the case of classical, way more work than typical school and who the heck wants to sign up for that). I really only ever fall in love with 1/16th of it and the rest I can do without, thank you very much. 

And, as I've said before on this blog, I love the idea of unschooling/child led learning/learning from life experiences learning.  But I'm way too anal for that amount of freedom.  And quite frankly, so is Alexander, ha ha. 

3. I don't like to be told what to do, and I'm okay with that.  

This was possibly the most life changing (well, homeschool changing) realization ever.  

Shocking, I know.  

Anyone who knows me is currently laughing at the obvious. After all, you don't become a homeschooling family by doing what other people tell you to do.  I've never really been one to go with the grain just because that is how it's done, so I don't know why this came as such a surprise to me. 

But, apparently, when you tell me the who, what, when, where, why and how of teaching my kids, I'm all, "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!".  

In summary, I love the concepts behind all different theories of education, just not the actual content and method of delivery.

4. I CAN do it, it doesn't have to be perfect, and two steps backwards isn't going to hurt anyone.  

What I eventually ended up doing is taking all the bits of everything I love about different educational theories and pedagogies, and creating something that works for our family.  It is a work in progress, but isn't everything?  

What I created is full of nature, singing, stories, books, drawing, painting and a whole host of other things the kids love to do. It will grow with us, it will change, it will become what it has to become to be effective for us as a family. 

But most importantly, no more trees will die because of my photocopying. 

5. I need to say NO to activities more often than yes, and that includes planning activities for groups.

I'm already having difficulties with this one, seeing as I'm in the midst of planning a few things already.  This one is going to be harder for me than anything else.  

6. I need to create a rhythm and stick to it.  

I knew this already, but ignored the fact. 

My main goal for this year is to become more in tune with each other as a family. We seem to have drifted apart this summer, our unit is not as tight at it was before. My kids thrive on routine and while we have had a great summer, I can see that all the freedom and constant change in schedule has really worn on them. We haven't been spending enough time just BEING with each other. 

I know it sounds crazy, but my kids are actually asking to do school work and settle in to a routine again, and I know it is because they miss the closeness of my attention during those times in the day.  That tells me that I haven't been giving enough of myself to my kids, and their unrest and attitude towards me shows it. 


I'm actually looking forward to starting the school year now.  That feeling of dread and oppression has lifted and been replaced with excitement and anticipation. 

The kids are getting excited too because they see things changing already.  They see I'm much more engaged, much more here, than I was before. 

And really, that was the biggest lesson I learned of all ( I guess I need to change the title of the blog to seven...). 

7. The more I give my kids, the more they give back. 

When I'm engaged with my children for periods of time during the day, they spend the other times of the day engaged in their own tasks, and I don't always feel like I'm drowning in their constant need for attention.  It isn't about quantity, it is all about quality.

They got my attention, their needs are fulfilled, and now they are allowing me to attend to my needs. 

Sounds like a plan to me. 

Cheers!
Marina

Funny how things evolve...

I was looking at my blog today and started to think about it's name and how the blog has gone through such an amazing evolution but still the name stands strong in its meaning.

I initially AGONIZED over the title of my blog.  Literally.  It took me DAYS and DAYS to find just the right title.  I was stressed out because I was stressing out.  As a person who used to need everything "just so" before she would embark on any journey, the title was a huge sticking point for me. 

After weeks of painstakingly obsessing over this one detail, the title Twelve Months of June was created in reference to June Cleaver.  The ultimate matriarch of the ultimate family.  I was embarking on a year long journey/challenge of finding my inner housewife, perfecting the art of keeping home, and in the process organizing the house room by room, one month at a time.

As the months passed, the blog became a sounding board for my thoughts beyond the dish rag.  A place to talk about my family, my life , my interests and invariably, things that just out right baffled me. And I started to see the title of my blog as more a title of the life I was enjoying.  You see, I see June as the ultimate month of the year.  Not too hot, not too cold, everything is in bloom, the grass is still green and soft (instead of grey and crunchy from the seemingly endless heatwaves of July and August) and there is still that freshness in the air before the city gets bogged down in smog. During this time in my life, everything was going really well, I was laughing on a daily basis and it really felt like I was enjoying a year of June freshness.

Now, as I blog, my focus is still on home life, but more so on homeschooling, and the title STILL works (my awesomeness amazes even me sometimes).  Through the homeschooling lens I see June as a month where in the school system, teachers begin to relax.  More field trips are planned, more hands on / fun activities are created for the children explore, more outdoor time is added to the schedule to escape the oven of the school interior, classes that are normally taught inside are brought to the school yard and children sit with books on the grass, delighted in the change of scenery.

School in June is exactly what our homeschooling looks like year round (yes, I'm a slave driver and we learn all year round). Lots of variety, lots of outdoor time, lots of books in the grass.

I sometimes wonder if my soul or spirit knew ahead of time the twists and turns of my life would take and how this title would be appropriate for the long run.

Good thing too, because me needing things "just so" has evolved in to "meh, it'll do" and if I had named the blog Rags and Dishcloths, I can guarantee it would still be called that today. Just the thought of transferring posts from one blog to the next, or creating a whole new blog with a new fancy name makes me want to shut down the computer.

I'm far too busy (lazy) for that.

Cheers!
Marina

What do you do all day long? - Math and Numbers

On this episode: Math.

We rarely have a day where we get everything done all at once.  Typically we have a day that focuses on either reading or math as our main table work.  Today was a numbers sort of day.

Little Lady, up first (always).

We do lots of sorting and counting right now.  Here I just grabbed a scrap paper and made circles for her to sort the bears in.  I don't have any type of plan for her, we just kind of go with the flow.



Cutting was up next, another favourite activity.


And cutting wouldn't be any fun if you couldn't paste it to something!


While she was doing that, I made a tally chart for her.  I grabbed a random handful of bears from the tin and gave them to her to sort.


She placed them on the chart...


And then we looked at them to see which one colour had more, and then we counted them. She really enjoyed this activity.


Then ballet called and she felt the need to go dance, so I set her up in a different room with a cd player a wand and she was off.

Little Man is next!  We did our site word flash cards of the week and our reading first, as always. Then I started him with the same tally chart, only he got a bigger handful of bears and had to count the bears and stamp the chart based on how many bears of each colour.






While he did that, I made this.  He picked "one representative from each colour" (his words, not mine) and put them on the appropriate circle. In this picture he is actually telling me to stop taking pictures and give him the paper already so he could get started.



He didn't like that there wasn't one "winner" colour that had all eight, so he added some to his pile and did the whole thing over again, but using the worksheet the way his sister had.



And then he said enough with the pictures already.

While he was re-doing his activity, I threw together some addition questions.  He floored me today because he didn't use counters, he just added everything up in his mind.  The number line across the top is so he can check up on his numbers if he is unsure as to which way they point.



Some other things we do for math type work is building.  It is really more of a problem solving skill, but I like to call it math, ha ha. Our Lincoln Log, blocks and Tinker Toys are three toys, besides lego, that get the most play in our house.



Here Little Man drew a picture of a castle and then used the blocks to re-create it. It is kind of hard to see on the picture because it is in pencil, but the drawing even has the block shapes on it.



Building a bridge.  We had actually built two other ones before this one that were too weak and didn't stand up, and then the kids figured out how to make it stronger by adding more sticks.  But I couldn't take pictures of the first two because my battery was charging.  This is the final product.





So that in a nutshell is what a "Math" day looks like.

Now we are going to play in the snow (for the third time)!

Enjoy the wintry weather!!

Cheers,
Marina