The School Post

All right, all right -- finally another post! For the record, this post has been a work in progress for the last 2 weeks.

Anyway, so this school year Miriam is in 1st grade. For the great Commonwealth of Virginia, this means that next summer she'll have to take a standardized test to prove sufficient advancement in learning or some other b.s. She's already met the SOL requirements for Math, so I'm not worried. :)

So what are we doing for first grade?

First of all, first grade is not like kindergarten. Kindergarten is all about coloring and counting and cooperation. In first grade they have to actually LEARN stuff, like reading and arithmetic and linear regression.

Fortunately Miriam's reading breakthrough occurred late last winter, so now I'm just trying to keep up with her, phonics-wise! She learned to read with the help of Bob books and Starfall. I had planned to get The Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading, but now I think that by the time I finally ordered it, she would already know it all. (Why yes, my daughter IS a genius.) I'll keep that one on a back burner for Katie, though -- and backup for Miriam in case we do miss a digraph here or there.

For Religion we're using the Faith & Life books. I purchased the text and activity book, only to learn shortly afterwards that our parish CCD program (in which I enrolled Miriam this year) also provides these texts! So now we have two copies. Anyone want our extras? I really like the series -- the chapters are short, sweet, and to the point -- they pack a lot of doctrine into two pages of easy-reading text. And they're big on learning your catechism. Remembering the answers to the catechism questions is actually part of Miriam's homework grade for CCD, which is great. This IS the age to memorize stuff.

Funny thing about her CCD "grade" -- her homework after her first class was to read through the first chapter and memorize the 3 or 4 questions. To help the students learn the questions, the parents are supposed to write them down on index cards, which are to be brought to class every week. Well, I'd had a pressure-cooker week and hadn't been able to get to Staples to get the cards in time, but we drilled and reviewed until she had those questions down pat. After I picked her up, I was told by the teacher that she didn't get any credit for her homework because she didn't have her dumb index cards! At first I was incensed -- didn't they even bother to ask her the catechism questions?? Didn't they realize how hard it is for a homeschooling mom to pick up and run random errands at the beginning of school??? She was being graded for BUSY WORK!! If she doesn't pass First Grade CCD I'm going to have a talk to the pastor about this!! And then by the time I got to the parking lot and had gained a little perspective, I laughed at my knee-jerk reaction. Why do I care what her grade was? She sure didn't! I knew she knew those answers. I also gained some understanding of parents who push their kids to get good grades at school -- it's easy to feel that their performance is a measure of your parenting ability. So I laughed off my reaction, realizing that one missed homework assignment does not a CCD dropout make. Just recently she got a 94% on their first test, so I think she'll be allowed to pass into 2nd grade. :)

More importantly, Miriam loves CCD, she loves her teacher, she loves being with the other kids, and I think she might be learning a little something on the side too. The teacher and I have different educational ideas, but Miriam is thriving so this is a good lesson for me to back off. Gosh, we pushy homeschooling moms! :)

Moving along...

For History, Math, and Katie's preschool, I've been drawing heavily from Elizabeth Foss's awesome website. What a generous woman -- to share so much of her family life with the rest of us! I'm so grateful for her book lists and lesson suggestions.

For Math we've been reading about Gnomes and Gnumbers. Miriam has learned Roman Numerals up to 20, Odd and Even numbers, and Place Value up to millions, with very clever hands-on activities to teach each idea. And the gnomes were fun to make too. :)

Wooden bodies waiting to be decorated

Miriam embroidered their robes. Time for her first sampler, I think!

Here they are: green is Plus, blue is Minus, yellow is Multiply, and red is Divide. (I know, I should have used different embroidery floss for the math signs to they would stand out better.) The yellow and blue gnomes are being held by our version of Old Dismas the ent (a doll stand in a former life). There is also a King Equals which I haven't photographed yet. Katie especially LOVES playing with them.

For History we're learning about early American History. We're basically just going through the book recommendations for Colonial and Revolutionary periods -- mostly picture biographies of the founding fathers, as well as a couple books of science experiments and craft projects, and some American Girl thrown in for fun. :) After we finish a biography, I have Miriam talk about the person featured and transcribe her words into a little report, which she will finish off with an illustration. It's funny seeing the things that stand out for her -- weddings and number of children are very important facts. She also likes to know birthdates and death dates. So far we've read about Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and now George Washington. The Felicity series has been fun, b/c it gives her a good feel for what life was like living in Colonial Days. Colonial Williamsburg isn't too far away from us, so we're going to try to make a field trip down there some time.

Katie has been quite the surprise for me this year. She's much more advanced than I gave her credit for! She already knows most of her letters by sight, and can write half of them. She is also learning their sounds on her own, even though I wasn't planning on working on that until next year for pre-K! She is a really good listener, and has picked up an amazing amount just by listening to Miriam and me. When Miriam is reciting a poem, or reading a book, if she can't remember a word or gets something wrong, Katie will correct her. It is really hilarious to see.

So anyway for Katie's school we're taking a trip down the Alphabet Path which has been oodles of fun. For each letter there is a little story, a song about a flower fairy, a flower, and a whole list of books (like Blueberries for Sal for 'B'), as well as snack and activity ideas. It's just a goldmine of suggestions! A friend and I are getting together once a month to review the letters with our preschoolers, have a letter-themed snack, and do some activities. Our kids just love each other, so it's more like a glorified play-date with some learning thrown in accidentally. :)

Miriam has also started... drumroll... brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrum bum bum.... PIANO LESSONS! How could she be a descendent of my family and NOT, I ask you? We went out and bought Alfred's first book (and the theory book! very important!) to go through together, but after we got home and I started looking through it, I had some serious misgivings. I was afraid it would go too fast for her, and she would get frustrated and be turned off from music for life, and her future career as a concert pianist would be jeopardized just because her mother was too pushy! However, she cracked open that book, and I have to say she took off like a shot. Oh, how my pianist-mother's heart swells with pride! She's SKIPPING AHEAD IN THE BOOK because we're going too slow for her tastes. At this rate she'll be teaching herself to read music, and next thing you know she'll be playing Chopin Etudes. Seriously, I'm happy she's getting so much enjoyment out of it.

The two things I've found the hardest to plan are art and science, since neither are my strong points. For the latter, I plan to focus on natural science, rather than doing lots of experiments. I don't think Miriam would find experimentation and the scientific method interesting for a couple more years yet, whereas she loves animals and pictures of the stars. Somewhere I found a link to this great science handbook on Amazon. I copied down the table of contents to bring to the non-fiction section each time we go to the library. We've found some real gems. An added bonus is that many of them are easy-readers, so Miriam can work on her reading AND learn about frogs at the same time.

For art I finally got two books to give me ideas: an art project book from Usborne and a craft book from Seton that follows the liturgical year. The Seton book I love -- it's exactly what I was hoping for; but I'm thinking the Usborne book might be a little advanced for her right now. I know that there are SO many ideas and resources on line to choose from -- my problem is lack of time. I just don't have the hours to dedicate to researching artsy craftsy things that tie in with our curriculum. Having a book on hand from which I can pick a project will insure that Miriam actually has a chance to do art, something I think is an important part of learning. She does lots of coloring for other subjects -- I encourage her to make her school papers colorful -- but I'd like her to be able to experiment with different media. Any one have another good suggestion for an art project book?

For my part, homeschooling this year has been more of a challenge than I was quite prepared for. I love all the planning part: I revel in visiting websites, researching ideas, following rabbit trails, jotting down notes, making lesson plans -- I think I've been playing school since I was about 7. :) But when it comes to actually implementing all these well-laid plans, that's when we hit the snag, because the girls and I are human beings. Particularly, fallen human beings. Sometimes I feel like I'm wrestling with them to keep their concentration on their work. Some days Miriam and I can't stand each other after 45 mins. of school. It's been a struggle to find a daily rhythm that works. I'm finding that I need to be utterly scrupulous about the use of my time. And we ALL know that this is one of my strong points, right? (Ha!) This whole homeschooling thing is taking even more self-discipline than I expected!

Earlier this month one of the mothers in our homeschooling group hosted a tea at which the discussion revolved around the frustrations and disappointments we encounter. It was SOOOO good knowing I wasn't the only one who felt that way at times! I just never want learning to be a battle -- that would take away all the fun of doing this at home. (Mind you, I'm not doing this for the fun of it!) It's just difficult because Miriam and I are both oldest daughters, and therefore strong-willed. :) Some prayers for wisdom and peace would be appreciated.

Even with all the frustrations and occasional battles, I can't imagine doing it any other way. I like to keep my babies close to me, to nurture and train them until the time when I know they're ready to do battle with the world at large. More and more we're seeing that our society is in indeed a battle field; it's become especially apparent during this election year. I want our children to grow to understand that they have a particular calling, to be salt and light in the world, to bring others to Christ and fight the forces of death. I believe that I can give them this kind of training the best, because no one else loves them or knows them as well as their parents, and therefore no one else can equip them as well as we can.


And that's why I will continue to homeschool as long as we are able.

(art credit: "Bedtime Story" by Alan Sakhav, courtesy of art.com)