Avivah Werner

Category: Homeschooling

  • Reading out loud to kids

    I so much enjoy reading to my kids.  There’s a wonderful feeling of connection and closeness, it’s an effective way to learn things together in a natural and fun way, and it’s something you can do with kids of all ages!

    Here’s what my reading schedule for the day is like:

    In the mid morning, when my older kids are busy with their academic work, I read a couple of books that my 2.5 year old chooses with him. Then my 6 yo comes along and I read a book, or a chapter of a book, also of his choice, to him (we just finished a Thornton Burgess chapter book).  This isn’t intended to be academic; it’s just a nice way to spend some time with them. 

    A little later, my 8 and 9 year olds finish what they’re working on, and I read to them from a chapter book.  We started the Little House on the Prairie series in the summer, and are halfway through.  We generally read a couple of chapters each day, but it depends on the length of the chapters and how much time I have.  Yesterday we finished the fourth book, and we have five books to go.  Sometimes the morning gets busy and there’s not time for our reading before lunch, so we do it after lunch.  Sometimes we skip a day, but not usually.  They look forward to this so much, and my 6 year old also joins our snuggling on the couch for this.  I read this series aloud about seven years ago when my oldest three were all about this age, and I’m enjoying reading it together with my middle three.  (I do this reading when the baby is sleeping, but the toddler usually is awake, often sitting on my lap for it.)

    Then after dinner, we have our family read aloud.  This is something I’ve done for years (last year we had a break because my ds15 was in school and wasn’t home in time, so we were more sporadic to accomodate him and didn’t read as regularly as we usually have), and I’ve found it very valuable.  The hardest part of this is finding a book that will interest everyone, since the 6 yo should be able to understand it, but the 15 year old doesn’t want to listen to a little kids book.  We read The Hobbit last year, which was an excellent book, but my then 5 year old didn’t know what was happening at all (at that point I wasn’t trying to find something suitable for him – he had a nighttime read aloud right before this one geared towards him), and my oldest didn’t care for fantasy (I didn’t know that until after we were reading it, or I would have looked for something else) and had a hard time following all the details.  I’m so grateful to have found our current choice – my kids all agree it’s a real winner.  If I’m feeling tired or not in the mood to read that night, their eagerness motivates me to sit down anyway.  Then when I finish, they all beg me to read more.  I’m particularly glad to have found a book that my oldest son enjoys; his tastes are more specific than the others. 

    The book we’re reading is called Watership Down.  Apparently it’s commonly read in high school English courses, and most of the negative reviews I saw on Amazon were from high school students who were forced to read it and were bored by it.  I try to choose books that are good quality literature, with complex sentence structure, good use of grammar, and ideas to think about.  But I also want books that are fun and engaging, not something the kids are listening to but bewildered half the time as to the meaning.  This book fits all my criteria, though when I saw the book and leafed through it, there wasn’t anything to encourage me.  The cover is beyond boring looking, and the story didn’t initially grab me.  I was concerned the kids wouldn’t have the patience to wait for the story to pick up, but surprisingly, they were engaged by the first night.  My husband was also surprised, since his initial reaction was similar to mine.  But there’s a quality to the story I can’t describe that really got the kids hooked.

    I didn’t see this on any recommended lists of books, but someone on a discussion board somewhere mentioned reading it aloud to her kids (they went to school so she read to them when they got home).  Each day friends would come to play, but they told their friends they didn’t want to play because they were listening to this great story.  And the friends would join them.  By the time they finished the book, there were about twenty kids listening in!  So that seemed to me to be a pretty good recommendation, and after I researched it for the literary quality, I was ready to give it a shot.

    The only problem with this book is that it will end.  We’re about 240 pages in, and I guess we have over 150 pages left, but every night I wonder what book I’ll find next that will work so well for everyone!  I usually start researching the next book while we’re reading the current one, so that I have it checked out of the library in time to begin as soon as the last book ends.  I need to start looking for books soon, and if you have any recommendations, please share them with me!

    Another nice plus of reading before bed is that it makes the bedtime transition very smooth.  The kids naturally quiet down from the busyness of the day, and once we finish reading, the youngest three or four troop up to bed without any complaints.  I credit our family read aloud habit for our smooth and easy bedtimes over the years! 

    There are lots of other benefits, and books have been written about those benefits.  But some of the benefits, in addition to those I shared above – it’s great for vocabulary development, greatly improves listening and comprehension skills, and helps children develop their imaginations.  And it’s so fun!

    Avivah

  • Developing belief in yourself

    I often speak to/correspond with parents who are considering homeschooling, and I’ve found that the main thing that they express are their worries about doing something so different from the mainstream.  There are worries about short term academic achievement, social skill development, emotional development.  Practical worries, like how to get their kids to listen to them, how to juggle all the demands of homeschooling and running a home, which curriculum to buy and at what point.  And then there are the long term worries, about how they’ll transition to school at a later date, get married, function in society, or have long term scars as a result of the choice their parents made to homeschool.  (There are lots more specifics, but you get the idea!)

    It’s interesting that very few parents agonize over these questions before sending their child to school, or even consider them at all.  By virtue of everyone else doing it, there’s a certain comfort and assurance that it’s going to all work out just fine.  But these are questions inherent to the process of raising your children, regardless of what venue you choose. Every parent needs to think about their child’s emotional, social, and academic needs, and assess if they are best served in the environment they’re choosing to place them in.  Educating your child in whatever manner should involve thought and consideration.

    I was thinking tonight that it would be nice if there was a magic pill to give these parents, to help them put their concerns into perspective – I often feel that they’re hoping talking to me will be the magic pill.  I’ve regularly been asked how I had the confidence to homeschool my kids, how I dealt with that nagging doubt that is constantly at the back of a parent’s mind whenever they make a choice that differs from the mainstream.  When I think of my own experience, it reminds me once again that there is no magic pill, and that a magic pill would only keep us from developing confidence in ourselves.  Confidence is built on a foundation of grappling with our fears and doubts and resolving them. 

    As for me, I really believed in the principles of educating one’s children as individuals, according to their needs and internal timelines.  Whenever I would worry that someone wasn’t progressing fast enough, or I wasn’t doing enough, I’d go back to my core principles and think about them.  This meant a lot of thinking over the years!  But it was through this process of thinking and thinking and thinking (and talking to my husband about it), constantly evaluating my experience along with the feedback of others, that my belief in what I was doing for my family was constantly strengthened.

    And I think that’s what every parent benefits from – not just talking to someone who seems to have it all together, who’s worked out their issues in this area and is happy with their results. That can be helpful, but true strength isn’t borrowed from others.  That inner confidence can only come from deep inside you.  And as I told someone tonight, sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.  You have to believe in your principles even before you get the results, but increasingly with time, your results will begin to show up for you.  Once you start to see those positive results, that will continue to give support to all that you’re doing.  The longer you stick with your principles, the better your results will be and the more you have to reassure yourself with. 

    It’s like gardening – you plant the seed in good soil, water and fertilize it regularly, and you have to trust that something is happening and it will bloom when it’s meant to.  You can’t be constantly digging up the seed to see what’s happening to it.  Just because you don’t see growth doesn’t mean it’s not happening.  Growth in our children (as well as ourselves) is organic, and takes time.  We have to learn to trust the process, and trust is something that we’re lacking nowadays.  We grow up trusting the authorities, the professionals, those with letters after their names, but to believe in ourselves?  It’s something we need to learn to do.  And it takes time.  But it’s so worthwhile!

    Avivah

  • Early rising, time for learning

    Several years ago, I made some adaptations to my parenting style.  Mainly, I raised the my expectations for my kids’ behavior, and developed a strategy to follow up on those expectations.  One of the most important things I did was to bring my kids closer to me and consciously spent more time with them when they did something displeasing (rather than the very popular ‘push kids away’/time out approach that it touted, which I think I’ve shared my feelings about a while back).   A very few times at the beginning, this meant that I told whatever child involved that they would need to sleep in my room if I felt that they had showed they wouldn’t behave appropriately in their own rooms at night without supervision.  I didn’t do it punitively, but I had them make up a pallet on the floor next to my bed.  This wasn’t something I had to do very often at all, but I very soon saw that the kids actually really liked it – one child asked me the next night if he could sleep in my room again!   I then saw clearly how a disciplinary measure could be loving and perceived as such by both parent and child, while simultaneously improving the behavior and building the parent-child relationship.  Our kids really want to be close to us.

    Anyway, on to the present.  Last nights I spontaneously offered to let my 9 year old son sleep in my room, since my husband wasn’t home, something I do every once in a while for my middle three (6,8, 9).  Not because he needed more of my presence or for me to keep an eye on him, but because I thought he’d want to.  I was right – he jumped up and said, “Really?!  Thanks, Mommy!”  And rushed to get ready for bed. 

    He gets up earlier than I do to go to shul with my 15 year old, so he brought his own alarm to my room because I’m still sleeping when they leave.  I happened to wake up before his alarm went off, but I thought it was 6 am when he woke up.  It was still dark.  I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I picked up a book from the pile next to my bed (I never told you how many books I’m usually in the middle of, did I?  Let’s just say I usually have a nice pile next to my bed.:)).  About a half hour later, I looked at my watch, and saw that it was only 6 am, and was still dark.  Meaning that he had woken up at 5:30.

    Later today, my older son told me he was really tired, and I told him I had been really surprised to see that they woke up so early, because I thought they went to a later minyan. He said B. (the 9 year old) wanted to go to the earliest minyan possible, so he agreed to take him to the 6:20 minyan.  I couldn’t think of any reason why B. would prefer one minyan over another, so I asked E. (15 year old) why they chose that one.  He said that B. wanted to daven as early as possible, because then they’d have more time between the time they finished davening and the time I told them they have to be home for breakfast (we recently changed breakfast to 9 am so that they wouldn’t have to rush home, but I’m adamant that they must be home by then). 

    Then I was wondering why did he want more time between davening and breakfast? The answer: so he could learn more mishnayos!  He really loves learning with his big brother – their daily learning time is in the morning before coming home (though they often like to do more later on in the day or evening), and this morning he came home from shul and told me with a lot of excitement that they did 11 mishnayos this morning, a new record!  He’s definitely intrinsically motivated.  🙂  You should see how fast they’re going through mishnayos – whew!

    I love seeing my kids taking the intiative to further their own learning goals, something I was told years ago that kids needed to be in school to learn, that a child on his own wouldn’t want to learn.  One more example for me of how trusting the process of learning and your child really works.

    Avivah

  • The Nutcracker

    Tonight I took my three daughters (8, 12, 14) out to see a performance of the Nutcracker.  I’ve taken them three times in the past, but it’s been almost three years since I took them.  In the past, I took them to the same performance, year after year, so when this opportunity came up, I decided it would be nice to go to something similar but different.  We had to rush out after Shabbos, but managed to get there basically in time to meet the group we were going with (we got a school rate for the tickets by joining together with other homeschoolers, so each ticket was $5 instead of $15.)

    We’ve been to this theater a couple of other times for other dance productions, and this time decided to see what it was like sitting in the balcony.  I think the seats are good wherever in the theater you sit, but this was a different vantage point that we enjoyed.  Tonight’s ballet was performed by a different dance company than the one we watched in the past, and I was really surprised by what a huge difference it makes in how the scenes are organized.  I kind of assumed that the story and music are basically the same, so how much different could it be?  I was sooo wrong.  Because I’ve seen the other dance company perform it three times, I kept expecting certain scenes at certain times, and it wasn’t happening!  It was fascinating to see how differently the music was interpreted and what very different scenes were conceived based on the same basic story outline.  Coming home, we were listening to an instrumental piece on the radio, and I suggested my girls imagine making up a story and then a dance to go with that music, matching the movements and actions to the music, and then think how much more was involved in such a large scale production.  It made them even more appreciative of the talent and hard work that went into it.

    I couldn’t help comparing the two productions, and though this was supposedly on a higher level, and definitely had a tremendous amount of talent, we all agreed that we preferred the performances we’ve seen in the past.  I don’t know if that’s fair to this dance company, because that one is familiar and is the standard that everything else is held up to, but even though we all know it may be unfair to say we like that one better, we do.  🙂  It was a nice girls night out for us all.

    Have you ever heard the music for The Nutcracker, by Tchaikovsky?  I enjoy classical music, even though I’m not very knowledgeable about it, and I especially enjoy when a piece I recognize comes on (there aren’t many of those!).  When the Nutcracker comes on the classical radio station, it’s a special treat.  My kids also recognize it right away, and will describe what scene the music goes to.  Six years ago, before I first took the kids to see it performed, we borrowed the music recording from the library and listened to it repeatedly, and we also checked out books on the plot.  That was very helpful in preparing all of us to appreciate the performance.

    Two weeks ago, three of my older kids were asked to be ushers for a classical concert that was a local fundraiser, and were able to stay for the entire performance for free because they volunteered.  They enjoyed it, but they found it hard to sit for so long and listen to music being played without hearing any lyrics, even while appreciating the amazing talent of the pianist.  A couple of those kids at the end of November went to a dress rehearsal of our city’s symphony orchestra (a special opportunity for school groups), so this rounds out some of the high level music appreciation opportunities they’ve had recently and is simultaneously expanding their familiarity with classical music.

    Avivah

  • My daughter is home, empowered and tired

    It’s funny how the first question everyone asks regarding homeschooling is, “What about socialization?”  The obvious assumption behind that is that homeschoolers are kept isolated from the rest of humanity, sitting around their dining room table for hours each day, while they pine for the healthy and robust social interactions that other children have. 

    This question has alternately amused and annoyed me, mostly amused me, because it’s so far off the mark.   Most homeschoolers interact with a much wider variety of people of ages and backgrounds than those in school do, in socially healthy situations (ie, not a peer dominated pecking order).  Anyway, I’m not going to write a thesis on this topic even though it’s a big topic that deserves a big answer, but I was inwardly smiling this last week at example in our family of how socially backwards homeschoolers aren’t.

    Within an hour of hearing that her grandparents would be travelling to NY and were willing to take her (with less than five days to make arrangements), my almost 14 year old daughter got onto the computer and started researching buses and routes, to figure out how to see as many friends as possible in the three days she would be there.  Once she figured out some general possibilities, she spent hours last week on the phone, making arrangements to visit various friends in different neighborhoods and cities. 

    After all of her calls – and it took hours of back and forth conversations between a number of people for her to put her trip itinerary together (anyone who tried to call me last week knows that the line was always busy!) – she had an intricate plan put together.  She left here on Thursday morning, and spent the night with an aunt.  The next morning, she met a counselor from camp and spent a while with her;  then she travelled alone to another city an hour and a half away to spend Shabbos (Sabbath) with another camp friend.  We live in an area where public transportation isn’t a common option, so she’s never done anything like this before, let alone by herself.  And fortunately I was taking a nap when the friend who was supposed to pick her up from the bus called to say they couldn’t find her, and what bus stop was she supposed to be at again??  There were 26 in that city and we didn’t know the specifics, and my dd didn’t have a cell phone.  I found out about it when my 2.5 year old told me when I woke up that “T.’s friend found her”, so I didn’t have to worry for even a minute. 🙂 )

    Then she spent Saturday night with another friend from camp in that same city, and traveled the next morning by bus to Brooklyn.  There she spent the day with a friend, and a couple of hours later they went to a mini camp reunion of her bunkmates (though they didn’t call it a bunk reunion – they called it, “Come see T.”)  All of her immediate bunk mates came, which was impressive especially considering the short notice involved for everyone (the idea and organizing for the get together was undertaken by her).  I think they later went bowling and to pizza.  Then she spent the night with another friend, and the next morning left right after breakfast to come back home.  

    Giving a child room to have new experiences, to trust them to stretch themselves and handle themselves without us being right there to take care of everything, can be a scary thing for parents.  But it is so important for our children’s emotional growth – it builds confidence and self esteem to successfully navigate new situations.  It is empowering for a child to see new strengths and abilities in themselves, and to actualize a vision that they’ve created.  (I wrote an article for Home Education Magazine in November 2002 on this topic, when my kids were much younger – this is a principle has always been one that I’ve felt strongly about – here’s the link if you’re interested: http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/196/ndtrust.html.)

    I’m so glad she went, I’m glad she had a great time, and I’m really glad she’s back home!

    Avivah

  • Made mozzarella today!

    This morning my 13 year old daughter made cheese for science.  :))  Gotta love the fun and flexibility of homeschooling!

    She actually tried to make it yesterday afternoon, but I didn’t yet  have citric acid, and I told her to use lemon juice instead.  Generally the principle I follow is to make something the first time the way the recipe is written and only adapt after that.  I should have stuck to that yesterday, because the cheese never curdled.  LOL – it was a good way to learn that there’s a reason for each ingredient in cheese making.

    But no harm done, because she used the same milk this morning for another try at mozzarella, and this time was immediately successful!  All of the other kids were crowding around to watch her (it’s good the baby and toddler were napping or she’d never have been able to move), and I told the other kids that anyone else who wants to make cheese can have their own turn to make a batch, too.  She even braided it – it looked really nice.  We had fresh cheese for lunch immediately when she finished – there was no way kids were going to wait after watching and salivating over it.  🙂 

    Then she used the whey to make mysost, a Scandinavian whey cheese.  This turned out well in all regards but one – it was much too salty.  That was because she had added extra salt to the whey when she was dipping the mozzarella cheese in it, because she wanted it to have it be more flavorful than it was initially.  And when the salted whey was boiled down to make the mysost, the saltiness became too intense. 

    But as I always tell my kids, making mistakes is part of learning, so now we’ve learned not to add more salt to the whey if we want to use it for something else afterwards.  Even if we hadn’t wanted to make whey cheese, we would have kept it to use as an acidic medium for soaking oats (to break down the phytic acid), so I still wouldn’t want it to be salty.

    By the way, the recipes we’re using are from a book called Home Cheese Making, by Ricki Carroll – there are 75 recipes of all sorts and we’re planning to just follow the recipes.  We were able to borrow it from the library, so I suggest you check there before rushing to buy any books if you’re interested in learning about cheese making. 

    Avivah

  • Frontier House – dvd review

    We finally finished watching Frontier House, a PBS six hour presentation that we got at the library.  It was about three modern day families (2001) who ‘went back in time’ to 1883, to live in a way that would have been authentic for that time period.  They had a two week period of training to learn how to take care of animals, use period appropriate tools, etc, and then as closely as possible, they duplicated the homesteading experience of that time. 

    Our family enjoyed this so much!  It was definitely entertaining, but was also very thought provoking, and has already led to a number of family discussions.  (Warning – there are about ten minutes in the first session that discuss menstruation and birth control at the time – I keep the remote in my hand constantly whenever I watch anything with my kids, just in case, and this was something I fast forwarded. There are a couple of other references to intimacy later on, but after the first thing came up, I previewed everything else before watching it with my kids to se where the issues would be.  Very easy to preempt everything by doing this.)  Seeing how difficult life was at that time makes you think how you would have fared, if you could make it.  And it makes me think about all the things we’ve gotten used to having, that we consider necessitites, that are really luxuries.

    When I got rid of my window air conditioning units, most people were appalled that I could give that up.  Around here, a/c is considered an absolute necessity.  But surprise! – it really wasn’t a big deal.  Yes, sometimes we were hot, but our bodies adapted, and we were able to be comfortable at temperatures that others would consider way too hot. 

    So we got to talking about how many things there are like this in our daily lives – washing machines, mixers, electric lights, grain grinders, even running water – believe me, I’m glad to live at a time when we have all of these modern conveniences that make our lives so much easier.  But I don’t want to become so dependent on them that I can’t imagine living otherwise, or would feel totally incapacitated by their loss.  So we’ve started brainstorming how a family could manage without these things.

    It’s been an interesting mental exercise, and I’m interested in exploring more of those options some to see if any of our ideas can be integrated smoothly into our life.  When I started talking to my kids about it and discussing some of the ideas (and there are SO many!), they were really excited about it.  I had hardly mentioned at dinner that thinking about our energy usage is an important first step, before one child had turned off all the lights and lit tea lights to eat dinner by.  🙂  Right now I’m looking at a wringer washing machine; I have to do some more research and talk to dh about it.  He doesn’t get too excited about all my ideas, though he’s a good sport about going along with them.  🙂

    Avivah

  • Day of living history

    Yesterday I took all of the kids to a living history museum, where they were having a special all day program of hands-on activities, demonstrations, and crafts.  I told a friend who I first met a year and a half ago when shopping in PA that we’d be going, and invited her to join us with her family.  She was able to come, and it was really nice for all of us!  It definitely added to the fun for my kids to be able to spend the time with her children – we haven’t gotten together since December.

    I often have a sense that our homeschooling ‘subjects’ come together with very little effort on my part.  I’m currently in the middle of reading Farmer Boy (from the Little House series) to my younger set of kids, ages 9 and down, which is set in the late 1800s.  Yesterday at the living history museum, we enjoyed a number of activities, one of which was a ride in a horse drawn wagon.  I asked the driver what kind of horses they were, and she told me they were Belgians, which we had just read about the day before in Farmer Boy!  It really makes history come alive to read about and then experience things that occur in the same time period (like the tour of the one room schoolhouse, the general store, carding and spinning their own wool).   Suddenly, it’s not just far away stories but it makes it all more up close and personal, and that’s what the study of history should be about.

    I ordered a dvd from the library called Frontier House and my dh brought it home just the day before our outing to the museum.  I started watching it with the kids last night, and it is fascinating!  Wouldn’t you know, it’s about about the late 1800s and what life was like then?  The focus is on 3 modern day families who were chosen to ‘travel’ back in time and live as 1883 homesteaders.  Again, it all ties is so beautifully, with the book, the dvd, the museum, and the activities all highlighting and reinforcing one another. 

    Avivah

  • My favorite homeschooling books

    There are loads of homeschooling books out there, and different ones will speak to different people.  I’ve probably read most books on homeschooling that have been written, and they all have something of value.  Some I’ve found more thought provoking than others, some I didn’t care much for, some I thought were more inspiring.  It can be intimidating to look at all of those books, all of those approaches, so much information!  So I’ll share with you which books I’ve found most valuable in case you’d like to use it as a starting point, and note what areas that might be a concern. 

    The Successful Family Homeschool Handbook – Raymond and Dorothy Moore – this is probably my favorite book.  It’s filled with loads of wisdom, but in an unassuming and condensed way and you could easily read it the first time and think it was nothing remarkable.  Written by the ‘grandparents’ of the homeschooling movement, the writing style is a little more formal than younger writers.  But they understand parents, they understand children, and they understand homeschooling.  One of the very few homeschooling books I’ve seen fit to purchase, and read and reread several times.  His points on social maturity are excellent.

    Homeschooling the Early Years: Your complete guide to successfully homeschooling the 3 – 8 year old child, by Linda Dobson.  I recommend this to everyone with young kids, as a way to see how easy and natural it is to integrate learning activities for the young child into the day.  She’s written a number of other homeschooling books, and I’ve liked all of them. 

    The Relaxed Home School, by Mary Hood, and there was a sequel which was also good.  I haven’t read this for five years, but enjoyed it very much when I read it.  I can’t remember the details of what I liked, but she was very down to earth and real, it made homeschooling seem very doable.  She classified herself as an ‘eclectic’ homeschooler, and that helped me realize that I didn’t have to define myself by one approach to homeschooling, which I was struggling to do.  I could continue to pick and choose and adapt for my needs and put it all together in the way that fit for us.  Since then I’ve referred to myself as an eclectic homeschooler, too.  🙂  Mental note to self: borrow this from friend again to reread.   

    The Three Rs, a series by Ruth Beechick – A Strong Start In Language, An Easy Start In Arithmetic, A Home Start In Reading.  These are more like booklets than books.  There are three in the series, one for math, one for language, one for writing, geared towards parents of the k – 3rd grader..  They’re excellent – brief, succint, with clear explanations of the developmental stages of children in the beginning and then practical suggestions for teaching various skills for the basics.  I was thrilled to aquilled to aquire these at a homeschooling curriculum sale for $1 each last year, since I’d seen Dr. Beechick’s work approach referred to in many books that I liked (but couldn’t find it at the library) and thought it would be a good fit for me.  It was. 🙂  

    The Charlotte Mason Companion, by Karen Andreola – a good explanation of the Charlotte Mason approach.  The author has a different approach and focus than I do, and her examples of her own kids tend to intimidate me because I put almost no effort into some areas that are important to her, but that’s a challenge in reading any homeschooling book.  You have to remember that everyone shines in something and no one shines in everything.  I think highly of the Charlotte Mason approach and particularly like the emphasis on quality literature, dictation, and copywork (though I don’t use dictation much), which is why I think reading about her approach is worthwhile, even though I didn’t unabashedly love this book.  A book for the Charlotte Mason approach that I enjoyed much more was The Whole Hearted Child, by Sally and Clay Clarkson.  However, this was written for Christian parents, which may be a plus or minus for some of you.  If you’re uncomfortable with that, then don’t read it.  I’m comfortable reading selectively; I just skip what I’m not interested in and stick with what applies to me. 

    I’ve read a lot of books about the unschooling approach but can’t think of one that particularly stands out in my mind.  Many recommend John Holt’s books, but they didn’t thrill me.  The Teenage Liberation Handbook is  good for teenagers and parents of teenagers, to see what the possibilities are and realize that your kids aren’t limited to you being their teacher, and that they can direct their own education successfully.  I just met someone on Monday who told me his son requested to homeschool this year after reading the book.  It can be inspiring and an eye opener for people.  It has a liberal approach in general, which for some might be uncomfortable.

    I hope that this provides a good starting point.  Please share in the comments section below if there’s a book you found especially helpful.

    Avivah

  • Six year old resistant to writing

    >>I really hesitate to ask you this, but I was just about to ask you how much handwriting practice you have your 6-year-old do. Now I’ve just read this, and it sounds like you require a similar amount to what I’m doing, but I’m questioning it. We aren’t doing English handwriting as a separate subject. My 6-year-old does 2 lines in her Hebrew ksiva book (the number of letters depends on the line, usually between 6-10 letters per line). Then she has one workbook that requires answers in English (not full sentences, a couple words or a phrase to answer). She usually does a page of that. In any case, she FIGHTS it. Sometimes I will sit right next to her and “coach” her through it, but even then it is a struggle. She knows she has to do it in order to do other “fun” things (also educational, but things she likes more) or play. Still, it can get stretched out for hours. I am starting to feel like I am torturing her. I want to have fun and relaxed times, like you write about. I really feel she could get it all done in less that 30-45 minutes if she was actually doing it. I am interested to hear what you think of this. Please be gentle, it took guts for me to ask you this question. Thanks!<<

    What kind of things my kids do at this age has shifted over the years.  That’s not because my beliefs have changed very much, but because the dynamics of my kids has changed.  Practically speaking, what that means for me is that the younger kids now do much more than the older kids did at their age, because they see their older siblings doing academic work and request to do it, too.  It’s become to them the ‘right’ way to do it, because they look up to their siblings.  (My two year old was crying yesterday because he didn’t have a math book, lol!)  But I do strongly support a ‘better late than early’ philosophy, as well as a child led approach to a large degree in the younger years. 

    I didn’t formally institute any writing for my older kids until 8, but I think what matters more than the age of the child in any particular area is their readiness and receptiveness.  A child who isn’t ready isn’t going to learn, or to borrow a phrase, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”  

    But then it’s the hard mental balance, of feeling like there are things we want them to learn now, because we feel it’s important, and respecting where our child is coming from, and the challenge is that often those two things conflict.  I try to stay away from the school mindset that says certain skills have to be learned at certain grades, and focus more on my long term goal.  That’s a hard thing for most of us to let go of, because we were educated like that and still have that internalized view of learning as being on a time frame.  My long term view is by the time they are 18, I want them to be able to read, write, compute, on a reasonably high level.

    When I think of it like this, it takes the urgency away to insist on something right now and helps me take a step back and look at what will help me reach the long term goal of academic accomplishment, along with the short term goal of raising a child who enjoys learning, and having a relaxed home environment. 

    So that’s my general position for our family.  For you specifically, I would ask a few questions.  Why is it important to you that she do this at this point?  Why does she dislike it so much – is the workbook boring, is writing physically difficult for her, etc?  I don’t think what you’re asking of her is unreasonable, but 30 – 45 minutes of writing for a six year old can seem like a lot to them, and I’d shift to about ten minutes or less each, for English and Hebrew (that’s the about the time spent by my 6 year old).  Do you think she’d still feel frustrated by that amount?  Follow her cue, and see what she enjoys. 

    There are lots of ways to incorporate writing into a daily schedule except for a formal workbook, and in another year, she’ll be maturationally much more able to write.  Remember that writing is a physical skill, not a mental skill, and the ability to do it well depends very much on small motor coordination.  When my kids balk in this way, I usually take it as a sign that I should back off, focus on doing more fun stuff with them, and reassess. 

    This time of year is filled with holiday preparations, and getting her actively involved with that can be a good natural way to back away from the writing without making an announcement to her about it.  ‘Oh, we have so much to do for the holidays, let’s put our time into that right now’.  Go bake something, do a craft project – things you probably are already doing, just shift your focus to make that the main thing.

    Another thought comes to mind – is she your oldest? Because if so, a trait common to oldest children is perfectionism.  They put a lot of pressure on themselves internally, and often balk at doing anything when they feel they can’t be successful in the way they want.  If that might be a factor for her, it would be helpful to give her a clear message that whatever they are doing is enough, that you love her just as she is.  Because perfectionists have this idea that they aren’t lovable unless they perform to a certain standard, and as loving as a parent may already be, perfectionists need to hear this a lot more to counter their own mental thoughts that are running through their minds all the time.

    Please ask for clarification if there’s something I didn’t address.

    Avivah