Monthly Archives: August 2008

Recommended curriculum for first graders?

homeschooling,

>>I wanted to know if you had any advice for me in regard to a first grade language arts program for my son.  …..Do you have any suggestions for a first grade language arts curriculum that would include reading, writing, spelling, and grammar and punctuation (Calvert includes all this as well as introducing cursive in first grade)?  Your opinion would be greatly appreciated. <<

I have to tell you the truth, as far as structured school in the box type programs, I don’t use them because I don’t think highly of them.  I think it’s the most limited and unstimulating way for kids to learn.  Schools have to rely on things like this to teach many kids at the same time, but it’s a matter of efficiency more than effectiveness.  So I try to take advantage of the freedom homeschooling allows me in finding something that will be more engaging and tailored to each child.

What I do with kids this age is: read to them lots, bake with them and play board games (many games are great for math skills), listen to them read, and use a basic handwriting workbook (I like D’nealian because the transition to cursive is very natural, instead of learning two forms of writing).  Once they know the basic letter forms, they do copywork.  And the rest of the day is spent being part of a busy household – meaning free play and chores. This has worked well for us to help the kids learn all the skills they need in a relaxed and fun way. 

I believe that good grammar and spelling come with lots of reading, and I encourage a lot of reading for my kids.  If I were using a program, I would choose something that was integrated with literature, like Learning Language Arts through Literature.  But I’m more free form in my approach and I at the most adapt materials that I see, not use them precisely as they’re written.  I have yet to find something that so exactly fits my personality, priorities of what to teach when, and my children’s needs that I want to follow it exactly.

I don’t teach reading – I wait for readiness and then help them with sounds of letters, so my first six kids have all picked it up mostly on their own.  There’s a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelmann, that I’ve heard recommended by many.  If I were going to use something systematic, it would probably be this.  I did try Phonics Pathways quite a while back but didn’t love it.  I have 100 Easy Lessons out from with library now, thinking to show it to my newly turned six year old to see if he was interested, but I haven’t yet gotten around to it.  I have this feeling I probably won’t get around to it, because my style to teaching reading just isn’t so systematic – it seems like a waste of energy to consciously teach something when it is so naturally picked up when they’re ready.

I’m not oversimplifying what I do – this is really all.  Homeschooling a child this young is simple – the hard part is trusting that it’s enough and letting go of our preconceived notions of what learning looks like.

Avivah

First trip to the farmer’s market

homemaking

Finally, I got myself to the farmer’s market today, just a short time before they closed.  I don’t know how busy it usually is, but by that time there weren’t many vendors left.  But that was okay, because what I was seeking was good deals on produce still available at the end of the day.

I was hunting deals, and the prices weren’t anything to get excited about.  I noticed two stands that had reduced produce, but even the reduced prices weren’t remarkable.  One of the stands’ reduced produce looked unappetizing and I wouldn’t have been interested unless they had been asking drastically less than they were.  I asked the man in charge of the larger stand about what was labeled ‘seconds’ – he said it was the same produce, but not number 1 quality.  It actually looked pretty nice, but the price was kind of high.  I inquired if he had larger amounts than the small containers on the table, and if the price went down if I bought a larger amount.  He did, and it did.  Remember, ask and don’t assume that if there’s a good price that it will be obvious to everyone!

I got a case of tomatoes (I think he said a bushel – or a half bushel??? – I always mix up these terms – but it was 21 pounds) for $12, about .57 lb.  They are beautiful, perfectly ripe, not mushy or rotten at all.  I also bought a case of peaches (26 pounds), also seconds, for $15.  My kids were happy to see me walk in with the peaches, but after they tasted the peaches, they were ecstatic.  Seriously.  They couldn’t stop telling me how amazingly delicious they are.  They are huge, perfectly ripe, sweet and juicy (in another couple of days they would be overripe if not refrigerated, and that’s probably why he’s selling them as seconds).  I ate one and then I saw why they were telling me about how good they were – because they really are delish! 

The problem with all of this is, I want to can a bunch of the peaches to enjoy in the winter, and my kids are protesting.  They like them so much that they want to eat them fresh.  I told them that I didn’t buy 26 pounds for them to gobble up in two days, though they think it would be a very appropriate way to eat them. 

Since I have a busy afternoon ahead (my 9 year old and a friend are baking cookies in the kitchen right now for their new money making venture :)), I have a meal to prepare and deliver to someone with an ill mother, and a performace to take the kids to of ‘Seussical’, or something like that), and I only have 2.5 hours to finish everything I’m in the middle of and get everyone fed, I’m not going to deal with the canning until tomorrow.  But tomorrow I’m going to do something, not only with the tomatoes and peaches, but I also need to turn my attention to the 80 lb of apples we picked yesterday morning, I have another 20 lb of Seckel pears in the fridge from our pear picking that I also want to process, and one container of all the peeled peaches from my bartering venture waiting to be turned into something yummy, too.  Busy, busy, busy.  I feel like the ant who is busy preparing for the winter in the summertime.  🙂

Avivah

The cycle of life continues

miscellaneous

On Friday morning, I attended a celebration in honor of a newborn boy; on Saturday, we attended a bar mitzva; Sunday was the funeral that I wrote about, and tonight we attended two weddings.  So many significant events in just a few days, and so much emotion. 

Going to the weddings was very poignant, coming so soon after the funeral and because both of the brides were very young, just two or three years older than the boy who was killed in the accident.  At each of the weddings I met people I had seen at the funeral, and I know that they all shared the same mixed emotions that I had.  It was strong enough to sense, as we looked at each other and remembered where we last were when we saw one another just two days ago.  Some of us spoke about it together, about the very fresh feelings of sadness mixed with a strong sense that life moves on, that life is truly a cycle.  With all of it’s joys and sadnesses, it’s a cycle that keeps circling around. 

May we all share in only good things!

Avivah

A day of mourning

parenting

Yesterday afternoon I received the horrible news that the 16 year old son of a friend was terribly injured in a car accident.  It was the kind of memory I’ll never forget; it’s etched in my mind’s eye like a videotape playing in slow motion, the moment that I heard that news. 

The nurses said they couldn’t understand how someone with vital signs so low could stay alive.  He was unconscious from the time the accident occurred, but something deeper in him kept him holding on for a day and a half until his brothers and sisters could all be there to say goodbye.   He died at 1 am, right after they left the room, before they even reached the elevator.

He was my 15 year old son’s first friend when we moved here 6 years ago, and for the first three years we were here, was his closest friend.  They grew apart when we moved to a different neighborhood, but they continued to have warm feelings towards one another.

His older sister was our babysitter, very much beloved by all my kids.  His younger sister is a good friend of my 13 year old daughter (the boys introduced them).  His 8 year old brother is a good friend of my 9 year old.  And his mother is a friend of mine.  But it all started with their friendship.

We’ve celebrated the births and bar/bas mitzvas of each other’s children, hosted each other for holiday meals, and today we were there as they buried their oldest son.  There were hundreds of people who came for the eulogies – this was a shocking communal tragedy (it wasn’t a simple accident) and many people who didn’t know them came to share their pain and pay their respects.  We (me and my 15 yo son and 13 yo daughter) continued on to the cemetary after the service.  It was a very difficult funeral.  Many of the people there were teenagers who were his peer group, and it was emotional and heartrending.  His closest friends were chosen to carry the coffin; a third of them were boys in my carpool.  I can’t tell you how painful it was to watch them placing him in the ground and to see their faces.

 About an hour after we returned from the cemetary, I went to their home to be with his mother.  We sat together for over an hour as we talked.  I have so very many thoughts on many aspects of this tragedy; I’m worn out and raw with emotion. But one thing that was striking to me how much comfort there is to a parent in the small things they did for their child.   The small things that showed how much they cared about him, supported him, and loved him.  For example, they bought him an electric guitar just a few weeks before that he was very excited about.  What a gift that was, that they know they expressed their love for him in a way that he really felt it.

Hug your children, and make sure they always know how much you love them – even if they get older and go through things that make them harder to love.   

Avivah

The fruit of today’s labor

food preservation

A couple of days ago I saw a notice on a community bulletin board, that someone had a surplus of organic peaches that they were interested in bartering for something else.  Usually something like that wouldn’t draw any attention from me, but the day before we had picked all of those pears I told you about.  So, I mused to myself, maybe I could trade some free pears for some free peaches, and have more of a variety of fruits.

I called the number, and today went over to make the trade.  She had posted about two weeks ago, when she had loads of peaches, and was now at the very end of the peaches.  Though one other person called her, I was the only one who ended up actually showing up.  Because there were so few left, we only got 7 pounds, and traded for an equal amount of pears.  Even though it wasn’t a large amount of fruit, it was still worth it – it turned out she lived just a few minutes away from me, by foot, so I walked over with my 7 and 9 year olds, and it was a pleasant outing with them. 

The kids picked while I chatted with her, and asked her about what else she was growing.  She showed me her herbs, gave me some tarragon to take home today, and offered to give me some tarragon for replanting and strawberry plants for my garden if I wanted to come back in September; she told me she could give me some black eyed Susans as well, but I told her I’m sticking to investing my time and limited gardening space on things that are edible.

Since she’s a financial planner, we chatted a little about the economy and I asked her if she saw people making noticeable changes in how they’re managing their money.  She told me that she sees a lot of people living above their means with significant credit card debt, and that there seems to be a big disconnect between how people want to live and what they can actually afford.  She thinks that with food costs going up, that next year there will be more interest in the kind of bartering the two of us did. 

A few minutes from there, on the way home, we passed the home of someone who had given us permission to pick their apples last week.  I hadn’t planned to pick them today, but since my husband said he picked one this morning on the way home and they seemed ready, I figured maybe I could get some since we were already right there.  We picked 26 pounds of apples, and will go back in a couple of weeks for more, plus there are still the two apple trees of the second person for us to pick from.  I’m planning to make lots of applesauce.  I think next week we’ll also go back for more pears.

Avivah

Canning to the rescue!

canning, food preservation

I’ve shared with you how I buy several vegetables, like potatoes, yams, and carrots in bulk once a month.  And for many months, I’ve been happy with my storage system.  Last month was the first time that I found some foods started to get soft spots before we could eat them, and required a lot of last minute effort to quickly use everything up before they spoiled from the heat.

I was anticipating the need to be careful about that this month, because of the heat.  But I didn’t think I’d have to worry about it so soon!  It’s been only two weeks since I bought the yams and sweet potatoes, and ten days since buying carrots.  Well, the carrots were a disaster – I think all you need is one carrot in the middle to start to rot and it gets the snowball rolling.

I probably still had 30 of the original 50 pounds left, and had to throw away several, and peel every single one that was left.  The yams weren’t quite as bad, but I saw that I was going to need to take action faster than I expected to prevent losing a lot more.

So today ended up a canning day, after pear picking.  I’m so glad that I’ve learned how to can this summer, and have the equipment to do it.  It saved the day – otherwise I would end up throwing a way a lot of produce in the next few days because it’s much more than I can use for our family’s immediate needs.

I canned two quarts of yams (I could have canned a lot more but didn’t know how much I needed to fill all the jars, and didn’t prepare enough), then didn’t have enough left to fill a quart so I stuck in some carrots to fill it up.  My canner can accomodate 7 quarts at a time, and it doesn’t take more or less time to run a large or small load, so I wanted to fill up another 4 quarts with something.  I had all of those freshly peeled carrots around, so that’s what I decided to use.

After filling one quart, though, I thought I should do something more interesting than plain carrots.  So the next quart had carrots and onions, then the next two were carrots, onions, and some chicken thrown in (I had a package that was accidentally defrosted and since I’m not planning to use it this week, this was the perfect use for it). It will make a good base for a stew or soup one busy day.

Then I pulled some meaty lamb bones out of the freezer to make a stock with.  This ended up being a good thing to do, since a short while later my husband came home with a bunch of turkey bones, and there was room in the freezer for them!  Since the potatoes are starting to sprout from the heat, I decided to can potatoes and carrots in the lamb broth, adding the pieces of lamb that came off the bones to each jar – I did 7 quarts of that.

Tomorrow’s activity will be canning all of the turkey meat from the turkey bones, and then canning it with more potatoes and the remaining carrots in the turkey stock.  It’s not exciting but it will be tasty and filling when we want to use it, and shelf stable until then.

My 7 year old daughter was hoping to help me tonight with the lamb stock, but it was too late and she had to go to bed, so she was happy to know that she could do it tomorrow.  And my 15 year old asked if he could can a batch, too.  I can only do two batches of meat or vegetables a day (fruits/pickles/jams go much faster because they require significantly less processing time), so they will be the helpers for tomorrow.  (Helpers is really understating what they do – I’ll mostly supervise and they’ll do the bulk of the work.)

For my next shopping trip, I’m not going to buy vegetables in such large amounts unless I have a plan to can or dehydrate them right away.  Especially for the carrots, I ended up not paying any less than I would have paid for a smaller amount, once I factor in those that had to be thrown away.  One thing that I look forward to about the winter is the ease of keeping vegetables fresh outside of the fridge – but there are so many wonderful things about the summer that I’m not wishing for it to be over!

Avivah

Pear paradise :)

food preservation

Today I started my day by sending a couple of kids to pick several sample pears from the trees we were given permission to pick from.  The owner told us that he didn’t think they would be good to eat, that years ago they had tried and found them stringy.  So I wanted to assess for myself what it was actually like. 

Turns out that they were good – they’re tiny pears, each big enough to fit into the palm of your hand.  They’re not yet ripe so it’s the perfect time to pick them.  Three of my shorter kids (6, 7, and 9) wanted to pick more pears after breakfast, so I agreed.  They came back after a while with a nice amount, though not as much as I expected. Because of their height, they had a hard time reaching them, but enjoyed the picking and still managed to pick 15 pounds or so (which is a lot of pears, when you consider that each pear is only 2 – 3 ounces!).

A little after they came back, I needed to go out, so I told a couple of my kids to walk with me in the direction I needed to go, and left early enough to have some time to pick pears together with them.  My 15 year old son and 7 year old daughter came with me.  We had so much fun!  First of all, my son and I could easily reach a lot more pears.  And then my son devised what turned out to be a very fun game for both him and my daughter – after picking all the pears that we could reach, he vigorously shook the branch, so that pears from higher up came falling down, and her job was to watch where they fell and gather them as fast as she could.  It was very cute.  And it was very effective.

Within probably 20 – 30 minutes of relaxed picking, we gathered 43 pounds of pears.  So I have about 60 pounds of free pears that are now ripening in my home (well, it’s less now, since all day long little hands have been reaching into the bushel basket that’s holding them all and taking them out to snack on).  I’ll let them ripen for a week or so before I do anything with them except use them for snacking. They’re tasty, but very, very hard. 

Have you ever noticed how after you come up with an idea, others will happily follow in your footsteps?   Someone saw my younger kids picking, and asked for several of the pears, so they could see if they would ripen in their home.  They said that if the pears ripened nicely, they would ask the people we got them from if they could also pick them.  And someone else I spoke to last night suggested we give her some of the fruit we pick.  Hmm.  Though all the people we spoke to were very receptive to us, can you imagine how receptive they would be if bunches of people were knocking on their door and asking? 

I definitely would like to go back in a few days and get more.  My mother in law has a food mill that she uses for applesauce, and I think it would be useful for pear sauce, too, and she agreed to let us borrow it.  Our family goes through huge amounts of food, so I can’t imagine that we could pick more than we could use.  Cooking and canning the pears will be next week’s project, assuming they’re ripe enough then.

Avivah

Free fruit!

food preservation, frugal strategies

We got our van back (with a $2600 repair bill) and enjoyed having it around for a couple of days before my husband had to take it back today (it’s making a squealing sound that it didn’t have before, the mechanic said it’s the leftover grease when they put the engine back together, but it’s really horrible sounding).  Anyway, something I enjoyed about not having a vehicle for a week and a half was walking more.

When you walk, you see things that you don’t see when you’re driving.  And something I noticed were several fruit trees in yards within a ten minute walk.  I decided to ask the owners if I could pick the fruit, thinking that if they didn’t use the fruit (I expected that most of them wouldn’t), they would otherwise have lots of rotten fruit on their yards, and it would be a win win situation for all of us.  Friday afternoon I was passing one home and spontaneously asked the first person, and his response was so positive and immediate that it took away any hesitation I was feeling about asking.  Today I asked the other two, they also readily agreed.  Yay!!

One has three pear trees, one has two apple trees, and one has three apple trees.  None of them are fruit like the store has, so I’ll have to see what the quality is like.  But free fruit is free fruit – the worse that can happen is the effort won’t be worth doing it again.  The apples aren’t ripe yet, but the pears look like they are, because some of them are dropping off the tree and pears are supposed to be picked before they’re ripe enough to fall on their own.  Tomorrow the kids and I will go pick the pears, and see what we can do with them.  I’m not sure how we’ll reach the high branches, but my 9 year old son thought of bringing our fishing net (looks like a butterfly net but the netting is wider).  I thought that was a fantastic idea.  🙂

My plan is to preserve them, not eat them raw.  I don’t think I’ll make much jam, if any, since we don’t use a lot of jam (because of the sugar content).  Maybe tonight I’ll cruise the web and see what kind of recipes for canned pears I can find – I just want to do something simple like compote or pear sauce, that has no sugar in it.  If whatever I end up making is tasty, then I’ll send a jar or two over to each of the people whose trees we pick. 

It’s amazing that food is literally available free for the taking, and everyone else is going by the same trees without even thinking about it.  I wouldn’t have thought about it, either, before learning to can.  After all, how much would I have been able to use before it spoiled if I picked it?  But now I can take advantage of the sudden abundance and enjoy it in the winter when it’s cold and the fruits are no longer in season.  Canning is a wonderful tool!

Avivah

Our daily schedule

homemaking, homeschooling,

I completed planning our daily schedule for the coming year last week, and we’ll start to ease into it now, with the plan being that within a month, our days will be running along the timeline that I’ve scheduled. I’ve found that a gradual transition from the summer schedule of late mornings, late nights, and days that are wide open smooths the way, instead of making abrupt changes from one week to the next at the end of August. The hardest transition is going to be for me, not the kids, because the success of the schedule depends on me getting up early enough, which depends on me getting to sleep at a decent hour, something I continue to struggle with.

Here’s the basic schedule for Monday through Thursday (Sunday and Fridays have a number of differences, and those are addressed on the academic schedule, that I still have to finish):

7:30 am – wake up, get dressed, clean room

8 am – morning prayers

8:30 am – breakast

9 am – chores (according to what’s listed on chore chart on fridge)

9:30 – 1:30 – academics

1:30 pm – lunch

2 – 3 – independent reading

3 – 5:30 pm – free play

5:30 – clean up of main living area

6 pm – dinner

7 pm – readaloud

8 pm – bedtime – baby, toddler, 6, 7, 9 year olds

9 pm – bedtime – 12 and 13 year olds

9:30 pm – bedtime  15 year old (he gets us earlier than the rest of us)

10:30 – bedtime for me (I had to write this in for myself to make me feel more committed!)

When I look at this schedule, it looks so sterile to me! I know how many things go on every single day, with each of the kids being busy with their own activities, but it looks cut and dried and dull as it’s written, doesn’t it?

When I write the schedule, I allow more time than I think necessary for everything, because it’s better to have extra time left over than to not have enough time and then be feeling like I’m running behind the entire day.  I know, though, that almost all of the kids will finish everything they have to do academically, including their mandatory daily reading, by lunchtime.  My daughter who is entering 9th grade is the one most likely to need some of the extra time after lunch to complete her reading, which is why I officially scheduled reading time, so she doesn’t feel like she has to keep working and working when everyone officially has free time.  I think I’ll probably encourage the others to do free reading then or to listen to an audio presentation, something the 7 and 9 year olds love. (Somehow the six year old doesn’t enjoy them…maybe I need to look for more simple presentations for him, as his listening skills aren’t as advanced as theirs and he gets bored by their selections.) Those who are finished all of their work have the option to use any of the time left before lunch however they want, which usually means playing outside. 

My 9, 12, 13, and 15 year olds all have daily mandatory reading.  I have a shelf of books that they can choose books from, each on their level.  These books usually correspond to the historical period that I want to cover, but not always.  I’m still wavering about how long to have them each read for on a daily basis.  Last year they all had to read for an hour (that didn’t include their own reading that they chose to do later on), and I’ve been thinking about if there’s any benefit to increasing it two hours for the older ones, which I told them a while back was what they should expect this year.  But now I don’t think the benefits justify making the change, so I’ve written this schedule for only an hour of daily reading. 

During the morning academic hours, I’m available to help the older kids with their work when they have questions, but this past year have shifted the emphasis to be more actively involved with the younger kids (ages 7 and down).  Part of this time we have a read aloud that is different from our evening read aloud, and it’s geared towards the 6, 7, and 9 year olds.  Right now we’re reading the Little House on the Prairie series, again.  I read it with my oldest three, and now it’s time for the next three children to enjoy it!  The two year old often snuggles up with us, and the baby is either taking a nap, playing on the floor, or in my lap. (I love Little House on the Prarie, and my kids are relating to it differently this year than their siblings did when we read it in the past, since they relate to things that we do which are similar to what we’re reading about, things we either didn’t do in the past, or didn’t talk about so the kids weren’t conscious of it.)   

So that’s the basic schedule of our days!  I find that as basic as it is, it gives a feeling of structure to even the most relaxed of days, and that is reassuring to everyone. I already know that there are a number of things that may shift throughout the year, but the general outline will remain the same.

Avivah

Husband and wife who disagree on homeschooling

homeschooling,

“What do you do when the husband and wife disagree on the importance of homeschooling, or how the homeschooling should be done?” 

I’m a strong proponent of clear and honest communication between spouses when it comes to homeschooling (and everything else, actually!). I think that in the vast majority of cases, one parent feels more passionately than the other about it, but it really helps when both are on the same page.  Trying to homeschool without at least the passive support of the less enthusiastic spouse is a recipe for disaster.  So I don’t support a family homeschooling if one parent is antagonistic.  Homeschooling isn’t just about an academic option to school; it’s about an entirely different way of life that is family centered.  And the family needs to positively centered on the same things!

I recently read something in which the writer stated that in their family, they had areas that each spouse was responsible for, and when there was a conflict in that area after open and honest discussion, the spouse whose jurisdiction it wasn’t deferred to the one whose it was (eg, the husband made the choices regarding the family business and the wife made the decisions regarding the raising of the kids). This comes to mind because the parent who is responsible for the homeschooling should be the one who is trusted with the final say about it, in my opinion.

This might seem obvious, but I speak to mothers who are trying to balance what they want to do and how their husbands want them to do it, and there’s an impossible conflict.  A homeschooling parent isn’t a hired worker to the other parent, implementing the bosses ideas regardless of their feelings or thoughts on the matter.  And you can’t have two bosses. Of course you should create a vision for your children together, but it’s not fair for one spouse to expect the other to do it the way they want it done and not give them the trust and latitude necessary to find their own style. So I think that once the decision is made to homeschool, the parents need to agree to defer in the case of disagreement to the one who is doing the homeschooling.

Avivah

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