Imagination is more important than knowledge!

A few weeks back we hit the Discovery Museums in Acton again. It was a beautiful day and they had giant bubbles going outside. The kids loved it.

Then we headed inside to the Children's Discovery Museum. This is designed for toddlers to age six. Last time we were there in the winter, I felt that C. was just on the edge of being too old for it. Well, now she definitely is. After about 15 minutes, she declared she was bored. I couldn't believe it. She had outgrown this adorable little place we had been coming to since she was a toddler. And when I looked at her, I saw the transformation was complete. It was slightly jarring, to say the least. I told her she had to deal with it for a bit longer, as much of it is perfect for G. He loves the Ball-Track room and Rainbow room, and was content to spend quite a bit of time there. But, as I watched him play, I saw we were getting "the look" from quite a few other moms, and after awhile, I realized it was because they thought G. was too old to be there! Now, the rooms are quite small and can feel quite stuffy and claustrophobic when it is crowded. And as I looked around, I realized he was so much bigger than the other kids. But he's only four!!! (The girls behind G. in the bubble picture are both 6 years old!) In fact, when we ate our picnic lunch outside at the tables, some moms were stunned to realize C. and G. are only 6 and 4 - they thought they were 7 or 8 year-old twins! Anyway, after lunch we headed over to the Science Discovery Museum, and that's where the action was.

This museum is so much fun for the kids. Lots of hands-on activities about the weather, sound, water movement, magnetism, and much more. I really have to resist the temptation to make them stop and *learn* about what they are touching and seeing. Sometimes it seems like they just run around in a haze, grabbing and banging on whatever they see without stopping to think about what they are doing. But then I saw a wonderful poster on the wall. It was a picture of Albert Einstein and quoted him - "Imagination is more important than knowledge." I stopped and realized I was caught up in the idea that they should be showing me that they were learning something, just so that I could feel better about myself - it had stopped being about them and had become about me. As soon as I backed off, they were perfectly fine and had so much to talk about after we left.



It was a wonderful day and we can't wait to go back. It's obvious to me that my kids do have incredible imaginations and that this will lead to knowledge. Sometimes it is hard for us grown-ups to back off and let kids just be - we're so caught up in facts and figures and fears about their futures. I really want C. and G. to learn, obviously, but I also don't want to go to museums with clipboards and worksheets to fill out. Hopefully, homeschooling will give them more breathing room to explore with complete freedom. At least, as much as their uptight mother will allow!

It's that time of year again...

Time to let the superintendent know that I will be homeschooling C. Anyone that knows me knows that I have a major philosophical issue with having to report to the local school district. After all, I feel it is my right as a parent to educate my children. The superintendent knows absolutely nothing about my children and what their educational needs are, and I feel very strongly that they have no business being involved in our lives. One reason I homeschool is so that my children will not be subject to the government-run public education system, with its one-size-fits-all standards and fill-in-the-circle testing. (No offense to anyone involved in the public education system - there are many dedicated professionals who do wonderful things, my Dad being one of the best examples.) Anyway, I am at least glad that Massachusetts is minimally involved with us so far, as the superintendent in our school district seems pretty mellow so far.

At any rate, for those of you who might be interested in homeschooling and don't know where to start, this is the perfect website to help you write your Letter of Intent to Homeschool. It explains what you have to provide and what you should not. For example, you should not provide a written explanation of the details of curriculum, including daily schedules, nor should you fill out any forms the school district may send you. You should include sentences such as "I am of competent ability and sound morals" and "we will equal in thoroughness and efficiency the school year of the public schools. Its length will be between 180 and 365 days and we will meet or exceed the required 900 hours of instruction."

If you district gives you any trouble, definitely quote the Charles decision and get in touch with MHLA if you need to.

Good luck to all new homeschoolers this year, now I am off to put my LOI in the mail.

Cert-ic-afit Time!

I just love the way G. says this! He was so excited to get his cert-ic-afit from preschool, so I decided to make one for C. too. She was very pleased. But technically I don't feel we actually finished. I want to finish the spelling/phonics workbook over the summer so that we can start on the next level in the fall, and she also needs to continue with math because there are some concepts she is still struggling with. But she felt special receiving her certificate, and that is all that matters.

















Anyway, G. loved his graduation ceremony. He gave a friendly wave as he came out in his graduation "gown" and sang all the songs with his superstar glasses.
He gave a handshake upon receiving the certificate and sat nicely with his sister for a picture.






























Now why, you might ask, did G. go to preschool instead of homeschooling? Because he is four - enough said.

But seriously, I was finding being with G. all the time to be so intense. I think we are just so much alike that we are in a constant struggle for control. I try not to be so controlling with G., but for a *controlling* person like myself it is difficult. And I will admit, he pushes my buttons and I am constantly trying to regroup and find better ways of communicating with him. But it is exhausting. And for our first year of homeschooling, I wanted to have some "one-on-one" time with C. because I was nervous about making it work. I am not one who thinks preschool is a must and I certainly don't give a hoot about "kindergarten readiness." I was very lucky to find a lovely place with caring people who believe that children should *play* - G. really thrived there and had a wonderful year.

I am very proud of both of them for a wonderful year. And I'm actually proud of myself. It was a year of growth for me, too, finding the confidence within myself to live the dream I have always had to homeschool my children. I always remember, though, that it is what is best for *them* that matters. And it's not just homeschooling, really - it is a total lifestyle. For now, I know C. is very happy being at home with her family and so am I. I can't wait for all the fun things we will do over the summer!

The mummy!

You may recall that we did some studying of Ancient Egypt. We used the Story of The World as our guide. Carmella loved it - we read a lot of books, she especially enjoyed reading about the lives of women and children. Luckily our library had a wonderful kit put together that had books and videos we could take out for three weeks.

Some of the projects we did:

Clay cuneiform tablets - writing our names


Flooding the Nile! First line the riverbed with foil and add rocks. Put potting soil and grass seed on the sides. Then "flood" the riverbed and watch the crops grow.


I wasn't sure it would work, but the grass grew beautifully. I wish my lawn looked as good!


Then, or course, was the chicken mummy. It takes six weeks of constantly "resalting" the chicken to mummify it. We then rubbed it with oil and spices, and using a mixture of glue and water, put strips of linen all over it. Carmella wasn't too sure about touching it, so I ended up doing it myself. It definitely had a bit of an odor to it, not rotten, but not particularly fresh either.

wrapping the chicken


The mummy!


I'm not touching that thing!


These were a few websites we liked:

The Met
PBS - Nova
Some fun games

There were a few others but for some reason I can't get them to link.

Next up: The Wampanoag. But between C.'s dance recital and our trips to Hershey Park and Cape Cod, we probably won't get into it until July. But I know what C. will really want to do - dress up and act it out!

Springtime in Nature

We had a lovely field trip at the Capen Hill Nature Sanctuary in Charlton, MA. It was organized by a mom in a group we don't belong to, so it was nice of her to open it up to everyone who wanted to go. It is a small nature sanctuary, staffed by wonderful, kind, informative folks who really made us feel welcome. We learned about all sorts of pondlife, little creatures I never would have known were there - even a little bug that looked like a stick, I think it was a damselfly.

C. and G. listened intently as the field guides explained what we would see and do on the trails.


C. did great with her binoculars. She pointed out to everyone some frogs, polliwogs and a newt!


What did we find in the pond? C. was disappointed there were only a few bugs and no salamanders or frogs. Oh well.


G. being G. of course finds a place to relax.


It is so nice to finally be outdoors after such a long winter. Why does the summer have to be so short? One of these days I'm moving somewhere warmer. Someday...

Math!

We started a new math curriculum last winter called Right Start. I chose it because I liked the fact that there a lot of manipulatives and I liked the philosophy, which you can read about here.

It has worked very well for us, but there are definitely concepts that seem very difficult for C. I don't know why this is, but when we run into trouble I try to find a new way to approach it. For example, she could not figure out the difference between nickes and dimes and how much they are worth, and the concept of adding them together was complete gibberish to her. So I decided to make it a little fun for her and I gathered together empty food boxes and made a little store for her!C. was very excited about it, she loved having the shopping bag and making her selections at the "store."
Adding up her purchases on the abacus.
Counting out the correct amount with dimes, nickels, and pennies!
Her turn to be the cashier! Of course, she prettied it up with some plants and candles.


Success! I think this really helped her to understand how to add the different coins. I love having the freedom to leave things when they don't work and come back to it a different way on a different day.

Can you help us?

We are in the midst of a postcard-collecting project. We are trying to get a postcard from someone in each state in the U.S. and Canada and Mexico. We subscribe to a Yahoo group dedicated to postcard exchange, but it is slow going. Sometimes people never get back to you when they say they want to exchange. So if you would like to exchange a postcard with us, leave a comment and I promise to get back to you! (At the bottom are some of the tissue-paper butterflies we made with Grammy the other day.)

Time for Family

One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is the amazing freedom it gives us. I love the lack of time restrictions and our lives not being held captive by a school calendar. So when my mom called and told me she wanted to come up for a "school day" visit the kids were very excited! We thought of some things we wanted to do with her and had a wonderful time. C. was excited to show her all of the projects we have been working on for our ancient Egypt theme, and G. wanted to show her all of his Planet Hero toys. But first up was reading to Grammy.








We did some lovely watercolor painting in the classroom. We were all very creative and Grammy painted a beautiful picture of the view of the woods from the classroom.

We also made tissue-paper butterflies to hang up in the classroom.

The best part of Grammy's visit is always her wonderful support and love she gives to us all. I am so lucky to have so much support from my family as we start our homeschooling life. This year has had some ups and a few downs, but I have never had to justify our decision to homeschool to anybody. Or maybe I just refuse to:)

I always pictured myself living across the street from my mom, having dinner together, just dropping by to say hello and have a cup of tea. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened and we find ourselves a few hours away from each other. Maybe someday we'll be able to be closer, but for now it is just nice to get together when we can. Not every homeschooling mom is lucky enough to get the support I have. My mom is the most non-judgmental, supportive, loving mother anyone could ask for. Mom - you rock!

Mummies and such

For those of you who thought I was kidding when I said we were mummifying a chicken, guess again!

Mixing the salt concoction.

Drying the chicken. It is now in the mummification process. We'll let you know how it turns out. I'll give you the rundown of our entire Ancient Egypt theme soon. But for now, I have to go resalt a dead chicken in my kitchen.

Another great field trip!

We had a wonderful free field trip to Lowe's home improvement store recently. The employees were very nice and took the children on a short tour around the store, making sure to hit all the highlights. The kids were fascinated by the paint mixing demonstration.

The kids looked so cute in their Lowe's aprons. The moms loved the garden center.

George being George found a nice place to relax.

And now time for a hammer and nails -woohoo! The kids loved the free woodworking project where they all got to put together wooden racecars.

A job well-done! And did I mention it was free?

books, books, books...

I have been trying to think of where we can put our books. We have bins and bins of books all over the house, which is fine except that we never seem to have a place for library books and "theme" books.

Luckily, some very smart homeschooling moms on MDC told me about the clever idea of using rain gutters! Off to Home Depot we went, and Handy Ronnie got to work, cutting the gutters and hanging them in the closet area of our classroom which is now a somewhat cozy reading area! We just need some fluffy pillows and maybe beanbags to make it more comfortable. Right now we are using big stuffed horses but they aren't quite as cozy as we would like.

I'm so happy to have a place specifically for library books, C.'s reading books, and theme books! We also put some up in their bedroom, because it always seems to be overrun with books.

C. seems to be enjoying it too. She especially has enjoyed reading the books about ancient nomads. More on that in my next post. Happy reading!

Science Monday

We had fun learning about properties of water and oil today. C. decided to take things into her own hands and come up with her own experiments, as she is quite sure she will be a scientist when she grows up.
We started out using some experiments from the Pop Science kit she received for Christmas. It's very cute, you use the bottle it comes with to do all sorts of simple experiments with basic household items.

This morning G. had preschool so we got back in the swing of things with some reading and writing, math, and Faith & Life. C. was feeling quite tired and uninspired for some reason, so every 10 - 15 minutes we had to go around the house with a different exercise/stretching activity. First we did the silliest walk we had ever seen, then we jumped like frogs, and the next one (C.'s favorite) was sideways crabwalking. I'm glad the curtains were drawn for that one, I'm not sure my neighbors are ready to see me struggling across the living room with my head back and belly up - and I am quite certain I may have permanently damaged my hamstrings when I got back up. But the important thing is that the math lesson was complete!

Nobody can ever truly appreciate the sacrifices I make to homeschool - walking like a crab, waddling like a duck, slithering like a snake - I don't remember ever having to do that as a public school teacher. But, at least I can have coffee whenever I want and take snack breaks, although I'm not sure that is such a good thing...

Super heroes to the rescue!

Thank goodness for Superheroes! Who better than to help us pass a day of freezing rain and subzero temperatures! Without them, I don't know how we would have made it through the day!

Of course, they can fly at the speed of sound and rescue lost, kidnapped, and otherwise needy stuffed animals.

WonderWoman saved the day with her amazing abilities of flying, deflecting, supersonic-ing, invisibility, and let's not forget the ability to speak to animals!

Should I jump??? Can I really fly?

Sometimes a superhero has to be serious.