Day 86

Outdoor Life, Domestic Life

No Ambleside today. ... there was a lot of snow, so Kieron and Aidan went outside for a couple of hours; then we drove to the library and market; then Kieron made cookies. I did print out and bind some more books and arrange them so they look pretty (!).

Literacy

1. Paddy did a spelling game online. ... not really a game, more just like, well, spelling without having to write. I wanted to get him thinking about forming words because I thought that might be the way to get him more phonics conscious. I sat with him and coached him on sounding out things.

2. Aidan and Paddy both did word puzzle cards -- it's a game their grandma gave them.

The words that fit together are rhymes (not a very good picture but you get the idea). That gave us a chance to discuss rhyming, a concept that still eludes both of them.

3. Paddy found out how to IM on Facebook and spent the day thrilled about being able to IM his father, me, his brother, his grandma and everyone else on his very small family list on Facebook. In the process he learned to spell several more words out of necessity. I will also count that as reading practice since he can usually read what people write to him if they keep it simple; and copying/typing practice since he would ask me how to say things and then type it out for himself from my writing.

4. Aidan has found my SWR phonogram cards and has laid them out on the floor. Ignore the rest of the clutter, please.... his mattress is next to him because I bring it down at night so he can sleep there.












Reading (Religion)

I read Aidan an Arch Book -- The Man Who Carried the Cross for Jesus.

Science

Paddy and his dad took note of the status of the water in the cup which has been slowly evaporating for the past week and a half.

I read Magic School Bus in the Bee Hive to Paddy.


High School

Every couple of months Sean has to write an argumentative essay and then type it into the library computer at school and get it scored by this Holt Computer Essay scoring system. There's a blog post about it here with links to more information. This pretty much says close to what I would say about it, so I don't have to try to write it out. I like Sean's Language Arts class and what his teacher is doing with it under the weight of public school requirements; but this Holt thing seems to be part of a school-wide and probably state-wide effort to improve student writings, and well, read the links. John Holt actually probably predicted this sort of thing.

The part I'll focus on here is that this time the language arts teacher gave Sean a bunch of different sample essays from the last essay attempt two months ago, with 2, 3, and 4 scores (the goal is to get a 4 by junior year, the way the counsellor explained it to me). So Sean, using a few strategies that don't really have much to do with real writing but have a lot to do with suiting the way the computer looks at the papers, was able to get a 3 score this time, whereas last time with basically the same level of writing he got a 2. He was the only kid in his class to get as high as a 3 which is equivalent to an A in his class grade for the essay, so he was quite happy about that. And he also was happy this time not to get trashed by the computer with talk about his "poor logic" and "inadequate syntax", which burned him a bit the first time through (I looked his first paper over before he brought it to school to type in, and it had no significant syntactical errors or logical problems. That is, if you trust me more than you trust the computer scoring system -- after all, I'm only MOM, even if I do have an English degree!).

Day 85: Stepping towards Ambleside

Quick note -- our first step back into Ambleside went pretty well.

I read to Kieron from This Country Of Ours by Henriette Marshall. I started on Chapter 46, because chapter 45 was about La Salle and the exploration of the Mississippi and we already read about that in Our Country in Story. So the transition went pretty smoothly.

Then I read him the first chapter of Johny Tremain, which is one of the free reading selections. I was going to have him read the rest on his own but now I don't know if I can give up reading it myself : ).

Paddy and Aidan listened.

Then I started Paddy on 50 Famous Stories by James Baldwin.... King Alfred and the Cakes. (Kieron and Aidan listened; Kieron remembered hearing the story before, of course).

So so far, so good. Very light work today, no extras. I've been slowly gathering all the books I can find that are on the booklist.

Aidan's Journalling 2

Embarrassing to show my messy printing, but I wanted to put up the kind of thing I try to do regularly with Aidan (he asks for this activity -- "Can we do a reading lesson?"so that helps me remember.)

He journals verbally in this way and I write it down (sometimes if he seems stuck I finish a sentence for him).

Then we read it back together. He reads the words he knows and I fill in the other ones, dragging it out phonetically so that he sees the phonetic connection since he already knows the sounds the letters make.

Then sometimes he wants me to draw a picture, or we write a couple of words together -- I guide his hand a bit because of his motor problems.

This time I was experimenting with putting some phonetic words on top to practice. Funny, I taught him those five words last year but he has forgotten them. This is a Throwing Marshmallows type of thing. The kid has to want to catch the marshmallow and be able to catch it, otherwise it just bounces off again. Since he usually has fun doing these things, it's probably not so much of a problem if they don't all stick. I think Charlotte Mason said that kids probably only permanently acquire about 10 percent of things they are given the opportunity to learn. This is why the learning itself has to be wholesome, not dried out and overprocessed, so they can take what they are ready for and are not harmed by the part they are not ready for.

My new thought is to save the sheets of paper and have him reread them. Right now they are scattered all over the house and in my various notebooks. If I saved them they would be a journal of his speech and his thought processes, plus he could read them over as he gets better at reading.

I really am working on that printing. You can see why all my kids have trouble with their handwriting. My husband is even worse than I am! Oh well... at least it's readable.

Results of Ambleside Thoughts

I took the Ambleside plans and made a sort of weekly checklist that I am going to use for now.

I couldn't figure out how to approach it with my Year 7 son because we are in early American history and I didn't want to skip ahead. So I put him in the second part of Year 5 at Ambleside. Hopefully it won't seem too easy for him; many of the books are quite suitable for a middle schooler.

There are a couple of places that I changed things from the AO curriculum. In "history tales" there is supposed to be "Trial and Triumph", which isn't a Catholic book. Since Kieron read SO many saints bios last term I think he is all right on church history for now.

Then I added Current Events because we already do that a bit and I want to do more of it; a Year 7 child needs to know something about topical issues.

For Paddy, I'm going to be very slow with the Year 1 material. I figure it can easily take us a year and a half to go through the Year 1 material, so there will be time and space to keep up the literature trails we like to do together.


I put forms for Year 1 and Year 7 up in doc. The Year 7 pages are on the left in jpg so you can see what they look like.

You know, there really isn't all that much reading required.... I'm wondering if I assign too much reading when left on my own. Last term got sort of confusing because I was juggling so much material.... why do I do that? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this goes.

Day 83: More Aidan Pages

This weekend I'm going to go to Ambleside Online and look through trying to plan for Kieron and Paddy for the rest of the year. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'm feeling that they need a bit more substance than they are getting right at the moment.

Paddy made another word sheet for Aidan (on the left). Also, I made a calendar for Aidan (below, center). He constantly asks: "Where are we going today?" partly probably because he is bored, and partly also I think because he wants to be prepared for things, and I think also because of intellectual curiosity (he's probably at the right stage developmentally to take an interest in time). Also, because of his PDD he tends to script.

Right now he's most interested in the pictures (which I helped him choose and which in some cases he chose himself, ie the front of the van and the light in our garage). But when he asks about our plans for the week I am hoping we can use this for a reference and to have some conversations that are more concrete to him than just verbal ones.

More information about Visual Schedules here.

If he finds this helpful I may do one where he can put cards in the right place. I did that once before but he wasn't ready for it. He's always liked me to write out the days of the week on little cards though so he can put them in order.

Day 82

History through Reading

I have started reading to Kieron again from Our Country in Story (an old Catholic history reader for 5th and 6th graders, a little simple for him but not inappropriately so, given that we have done little US History in the past and the style is old-fashioned and thus more literate than the modern book written for the 5th-6th grader). Paddy usually listens in too, though I'd be surprised if he gets much out of it. But I've been surprised before.

We just made it to the mouth of the Mississippi, via Father Marquette and Robert de la Salle.

De la Salle was killed by his men as he tried to establish a colony near the Gulf, and Kieron was very indignant about treachery as the worst possible offense. Dante would agree, as he puts traitors in the inmost circle of hell.



Reading (Phonics)

On the left is a production that Aidan directed, with just a bit of advice from Paddy at the end. Aidan wanted me to write the words from his V-tech phonics board and then google for pictures. I would google and then he would tell me which picture he wanted and I would paste it on the word document.

More Reading

I got several Henry and Mudge books from the library. Paddy reads them and gets me to read them, so we've gone through them several times. Not quite great literature but not as deadly as primers, either. I've never found anything that I love as much as Frog and Toad, though, for simple reading level combined with philosophical depth.

More Phonics

Aidan and Paddy both played on the Starfall site for a long time today.

Handwriting

I had Paddy write a few "P's". My goal is to get him writing his name.

Nature

It was snowing today and Aidan was outside in it for quite a while. Clare and Brendan went out hiking in it but Kieron and Paddy were homebodies.

Conversation

Superheroes again, I believe. There was another discussion but I've forgotten.

Movies

Kevin and the older kids are watching Charlie Chan movies at night.

Work Plan Year 7

What I've been noticing recently is that Kieron is no longer into learning directly from Mom, which is probably completely normal considering that he is turned 13 now. I always like to keep the "curling up on the couch" model going as long as possible, but I should probably now start exploring alternatives.

I like this Windy Creek system of keeping logs so I think I will try something similar for Kieron. I need to type it up properly but here's a draft.

Math

1. Computer
2. Lesson
3. Lesson
4. Lesson
5. Worksheet or Journal

Latin

1. Computer
2. Lesson
3. Lesson
4. Some type of written review or writing/speaking project

Writing (choose 1 from the list)

• Journal
• Story
• Comic
• Copywork
• Other

Activity (choose 2 per day)

• Go outside
• Drawing
• Science/Art project
• Cleaning
• Cooking or Baking
• Conversation
• Game with Siblings

Reading/Discussion (I have to make a list of choices still)

I can add things or revise as needed, but perhaps this will give us a start.

Work Plan Year 1 -- February

I'm going to experiment with making some loose lesson plans and see how it goes. I want the plans to be a resource but if things are going along well without them, it's fine not to use them.

Year 1

Math

Some of these are suitable for my Year 1 children and some are too advanced. ... this is just for ideas.

• How to Use the Montessori Method to Teach Addition
• Shu-Chen Jenny Yen's Math Album
• AMI -- Teaching Addition
• Counting the Pinecones -- Childrens' Addition and Subtraction Strategies
• Snowman Addition Game
• How to Teach Beginning Addition using the Montessori Golden Beads
• Banker's Game and Long Addition
• Dice Addition (worksheet)
• Real Dice
• Also, look up addition games online.

Handwriting

• Work with Handwriting without Tears
• Teach them one letter at a time "habit of perfect execution" -- include warm up time with brain gym infinity symbol.

Reading

• Paddy read Literature Primer
• Make story booklets with Aidan and also cards that he can match with real life objects.
  

Literature

• Catholic Mosaic books.... one at a time
• Nursery Rhymes (Aidan)

Strewing

• Look through art and game closet and find things they might be interested in. Set out trays. List these and particularly the ones they ask to do again. Possibilities: Watercolors, Junk Bag, Glue, Pattern Scissors.
  

Floor Time

• At least once a day, get involved in something they are doing or want to do.

Physical

• Squatting
• Leg Lifts (Aidan)
• Stretches (both)
• Practice jumping.

Habits/Presentations:

• Putting boots back properly.
• Washing hands after using the bathroom and before meals.
• Snack Center.
  

For me: Look at Faith's Montessori Trays and her Fridge Schooling ideas (adapt for younger children).

A Few Links for February

Liturgical Calendar -- February overview.

Activity Idea Place --February Themes
Teacherview Themes
ABC Teach themes for February


February Poetry, Sayings, Folklore

Character Education through Literature, for February and March (PDF) -- appears to be booklists for different levels, I haven't looked it through yet but it might be interesting.

Dawn's Notes for February

Plans for the Weekend

I'm going to read:

• Charlotte Mason's Home Education -- Reading, Narration and Writing
• Liam's thesis draft
• I also wanted to look some more at Faith's Fridge Schooling, and think about Anne Lahrson-Fisher's Fundamentals of Homeschooling.

Play

Parents who homeschool with the greatest success love to play with their children. They learn to protect children’s playtime. They appreciate how much learning results from many kinds of play. Play allows the spark of creative insight to flame – a most powerful learning tool.

Conversation

Parents who homeschool love to talk and listen to their kids. Conversation includes all communications – oral, written, and mathematical. Parents encourage and guide their children to love learning through daily conversation. Conversation builds strong families through the oral tradition of passing culture and information from one generation to the next.

Togetherness

Parents who homeschool love to hang out, go places, and do things with their children – together. This section explores several important family togetherness issues, and tips for coping with differing ages and stages. Togetherness suggests a process of staying connected with family and loved ones, building community, and learning to live with others in the wider world.

Growing Up

Parents who homeschool find ways to celebrate or otherwise note the myriad steps of growing up in a way that is consistent with a homeschooling lifestyle. Accomplishments, culminating events, rites of passage, and celebrations memorialize the path to maturity and independence.

Day 80

Science

Aidan has been fascinated with the Audobon Mammal Field Guide -- maybe because of our up-close squirrel nature study? He keeps bringing me the guide open to different pages and asking me "Which one is different?" or having me watch while he counts the mammals on a given page.

Paddy and I reread MSB Inside a Hurricane -- this time he wanted me to read some of the little sidebars of information, which was a first. He asked about the experiment of evaporating water.... "If you leave water for 3 days, it really disappears?" When I said that water really did disappear, aka evaporate, he went around telling everyone: "Clare, did you know water will disappear if you leave it in a cup for 3 days?" When he told his Dad, his dad set up the experiment for him. Paddy is confident that the process will take exactly 72 hours so we'll see what happens : )

We also read Marshmallow (another Clare Turlay Newberry book, about a bunny). The day before we read Babette. So far we've read about 3 of her books; we have about 6.

We trapped and released into the wild 2 more squirrels.

Reading

Kieron is still rereading lots of Redwalls.
Aidan read a bit from 100 Easy Lessons.

Domestic

Aidan helped me make cookies.
Kieron made chocolate candy.


You will see I am counting this as Day 80 even though the last entry was Day 77. That's because of weekend learning, and because yesterday, Thursday, was a cleaning day but I'm still counting it because the kids helped, and it led to some creative playing.

Day 77

Science and Reading

• I told Paddy we had Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body around the house and he was so excited! Today he asked me about it so I dug it out and he acted like he had gotten a new video game : ). He said (I wrote it down so I'd remember):
  

"I will read it myself first, if you have something else you have to do."

It was quite a skilful interpersonal remark for someone in my family, but I did not know if he was merely expressing a generous sentiment, or if he REALLY wanted to look it over himself before I started reading it and was just trying to say it politely. I've noticed that little ones often like to pore through a picture book and "preread" it this way before listening to it. Either way, though I didn't have anything important to do, I thought it was better to take him up on it. So I sat beside him and wrote a couple of notes in my notebook while he pored through it.

Anyway, we've read it twice. He already knew about white blood cells and attacking germs (from the book "Germs Make you Sick") and he remembered that. There is a silly T/F quiz at the end of the book and the first time, he tried to get all the answers right (only missed one) and the second time he tried to get all the answers wrong. Kieron sort of listened in and we discussed the T/F answers given in the book, so it was actually quite as comprehensive as many a science lesson, and more fun.

Literacy

• Aidan played Starfall.
• I read him Three Little Kittens.

Math

• Paddy played Math Dojo online, but wasn't much into it.
• I played a Tetris like game with addition at the same site while he watched (Kieron watched too).

History

• I read about Father Marquette and the Mississippi to Kieron -- several pages

Religion

• Creed in Slow Motion -- about "And she conceived of the Holy Spirit"

Conversation

• Kieron talked a bit about the readings but he wasn't connecting too much either to history or religion. This seems to happen to every one of my kids once they turn 13. It goes away eventually. Deo gratias. But I wish I knew the SOLUTION. The weird thing is, often they totally remember what they listened to or read during these years even though they have those blank eyes at the time. Brendan totally remembers and so does Clare.
• We also talked about Spiderman quite a bit -- the moral implications of a symbiote who tries to influence you for evil seems to fascinate him.
• Some conflict resolution between me, Aidan and Paddy.
• Paddy and I played a game with his beanie babies for a long time.
  

Life Skills

• Aidan unloaded the dryer, loaded the dryer from the washer, and turned on the dryer ALL BY HIMSELF. He was so proud. Just now he emptied the dryer and brought the basket to the bottom of the stairs like I do.
  
• He also made a "shopping list". Right now he scribbles boldly across the page, probably what he thinks I'm doing with my horrible cursive, but there's definitely a start there.
  

Day 76

Geography

Aidan spent most of the day working on a United States map floor puzzle. It is a bit too hard for him -- once I helped him and twice Kieron helped him. And now Brendan is helping him. So I guess that is both their geography for today (K and A, I mean, because B has always been the local map authority).

Science and Reading

To Paddy I read: MSB in a Bee Hive, and a book called Barkis by Clare Turlay Newberry. We have read this one twice and the MSB about 10 times. As do all children I suppose, Paddy makes his own Five in a Rows out of the books he really likes. The first couple of times he just listens but then he starts questioning and commenting, as he assimilates it better I suppose. It seems that the familiarity is sort of a springboard to questions about Why? What? How? etc.

We also read some more Tintins....yawn. You know you've read too many when almost everything in real life reminds you of a Tintin situation.

Math

Both the little boys can tell time digitally and Paddy is starting to get a bit familiar with the analog clock face.
Aidan typed and had me print out some more numbers -- up to about 30.

Nature and Local Life

Aidan went out in the snow for a while.
We caught and released another squirrel.
We went to the library and the market.

Aidan has been looking at a mammal field guide.

Movie

Toy Story II.

Occupational

Aidan found some pipe cleaners and I dug up some beads for him. He and Paddy strung beads on the pipe cleaners. Paddy was done after one session but Aidan has revisited several times since.

Aidan was also picking up things with tongs which is actually the sort of thing his OT has him do so it was nice to see him extend it voluntarily into real life. He also chased Kieron and Paddy with the tongs.

Art and Language

Kieron made another bionicle comic (computer art). This is #50 he has made.

Conversation

The older kids were planning a comedy/radio play/musical. Having lots of fun; now Paddy want to make a musical : )

Paddy has been asking me lots of "themed" questions. Once he asked me about babies -- how they grow, etc.

Weekend Learning -- A Few Little Things

Kieron tells me he read Outlaws of Ravenhurst. We had lost it for a long time, and I suddenly saw it when I was playing music with Clare. He went off to his room with it and apparently read it through so quickly I never saw him. Also, I forgot to mention earlier that his grandma bought him a book of Brain Games and he has been doing them (and noticed and showed me fatal glitches in a couple of the puzzles btw). I need to find him some more books to read beyond rereads of Redwall and Hardy Boys.

Clare and I discussed the lifting of the SSPX excommunications for some time.

Kevin and the older kids watched The Blob. It was the first movie that Steve McQueen acted in.

I read MSB inside a Bee Hive to Paddy. He looked at the back cover where the other books in the series were listed and said "Here's one we don't have.... Magic School Bus inside the Human Body." I don't know where he learned "Human" and "Body". He is sounding out slightly more accurately than he used to, but mostly he is still relying on memorization.

Aidan read "fox" and "play".... two words I didn't realize he knew. He read FOX over here, at Outer Edge of Normal. Looking at Miranda's kindergarten activities for her young daughter, he got so thrilled that I think next week I am going to have to reproduce my own version. His favorite was the muffin pans with the alphabet, because that combines two of his favorite things. He read PLAY, um, at the opening screen of our VCR as it loaded in a Pokemon video.

Over on the left is a list of all the words I know that Aidan can read. Yes, in alphabetical order. I am THAT much of a dork : D. Most of them he can spell, too. Many of them are from his V-Tech phonics board, which I have mentioned before. I am not a big fan of electronic toys; I only started buying them because Aidan was SO weak for so long and for so long while he was in medical care, his inner emotional needs were on a complete different track from his input (which was based on his clinical needs, not his personal or developmental needs).... so he didn't have the slightest idea how to do something to get a response. He needed toys that would give him a big output for a tiny bit of input. Most kids get tired of electronic learning devices in very short order, but Aidan does not and has actually learned quite a bit from them. ... .they are self-correcting and endlessly patient and cheerful.

I remember making a list like this of all Aidan's spoken words -- he was just short of three and had about 20 words total. It impressed the people at his transition IEP from Early Intervention to school services, that I had written it all out.. I guess they like dorky moms.

Soon after that his vocabulary exploded so quickly that there was no need to keep track.

Interesting how there's two times I feel a need to keep track. When not much seems to be happening and I want to reassure myself that something is happening. And when there is SO MUCH happening that I know I will totally lose sight of it all if I don't try to keep some kind of record. Just a random thought....

Day 75

The Loneliness One dare not sound
by Emily Dickinson

The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --

The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --

I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --

Stations of the Cross and homeschool meeting cancelled today -- Kieron was very disappointed. This is his chance to meet up with his friends.

Lots of good things about living up here, and winter is cozy, but certainly makes it harder for us to connect with others outside the home. I got to chat for a while with the mom who called to say it was cancelled, about K12 (she is involved through the California charter) and special needs (she has a child similar in age to Aidan though less delayed) and about the school financial crunch. But Kieron didn't get to connect at all, and it's hard at his age. The other kids didn't really care.

At home, we continued our unschooly dinosaur unit study -- well, not exactly a unit, more like Five in a Row because we just read Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs and then talked. Kieron again got involved in narrating background knowledge and discussing past books he had read, and Paddy asked lots of questions.... so more like Five in a Row with the kids directing the flow : ). And Aidan keeps working on the dinosaur puzzle.

To console himself, Kieron made cookies. He has been growing quickly -- an inch a month for the past two months.

This weekend I am going to focus on at least preparing some resources and being more present to the kids... that is a problem with our more unschooly seasons, that I just drift off into my own life. I'm looking at AO Year 1 and at the Sonlight/WTM booklist.

Still pouring rain, which makes Sean happy.

Whale Weathervane in Oregon

Day 75

The Fitful Alternations Of The Rain
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere

Today it was pouring rain when we woke up. It is Sean's birthday, and he said he had requested it particularly. I drove him to the bus stop along with Aidan as passenger; Aidan is completely recovered today.

I'm drawing a blank on what happened next. I made bacon and eggs for a late breakfast, and Kevin and I drove to the post office and then to the store to get some supplies for Sean's birthday cake. Aidan came with us.

At home, I told Brendan and Clare about a movie I had watched with Kevin called Bye Bye Birdie. It was very silly. Kevin was appearing and disappearing to tell us about Steve McQueen's final days; he had recently watched The Hunter, McQueen's last movie, with the kids and he was telling them about Steve McQueen's life and how he became a Christian in his last couple of years of life. Apparently even though he was sort of a wild guy (ADD, seems to me) he was warmhearted and gave things to charities like a reformatory without letting the public know. Also, he lived for a while right near where my oldest is going to college so he showed us pictures of that.

Then we got into a discussion of the phenomenon of the 60's and Clare started making up ideas for a musical with Bertie Wooster going to Haight-Ashbury. Somehow from there we started looking at last year's Senior yearbook for TAC and reading quotes.

I took a nap.

Aidan keeps working on his puzzle, and also read some of his words today. He has a growing list of favorite words.

Sean came home with news that the high school, facing budget cuts and declining enrollment, might have to fire the football coach. Ugh. It's weird to be involved with school finances on a bigger scale now -- in former years we only had to worry about how WE could afford resources and so on. It's nice to feel involved with the larger community but a bit wrenching to feel it's out of our control. We're used to managing most important things ourselves..... Kevin freelances work, I homeschool, we do home improvements and car things ourselves or outsource them on a contract basis. The comparison that comes to mind is Aidan's medical condition where we CAN'T write our own prescriptions or perform surgery.

Now the kids are going to watch a Jeeves and Wooster episode. Sean was talking about how the kids in his geometry class discuss global warming and abortion and gun control, which started another discussion. I guess this has been a conversation-oriented day.

About Downloadables.

On my sidebar I noticed that Simply Charlotte Mason has a free download called Masterly Inactivity. I don't know if the offer is just for today, but I thought I would mention it!

Also, I wanted to mention that I know some people come to this site for downloads, I think from the Montessori Mom, site. I'm going to try to rearrange this page a bit to make it easier to find the forms.... hopefully soon! There are a lot of excellent free Montessori downloads over at the link there. Probably most of you know about them already, but just in case!

Day 74 -- Separate, Unsteady Ways

The city is caught in the grip of ice--
Trees, walls, snow, are as under glass.
Over crystals, I and the patterned sleighs
Go our separate, unsteady ways.

--"Voronezh" by Anna Akhmatova

This morning, Aidan woke up early, looked pale, threw up and then asked to go back to bed. Kevin and I are still in our past of hasty, scary trips to the ER when Aidan is sick, so this immediately put a sort of vigilant cast to the day. We both took turns slipping into the bedroom to watch him breathe and reassure ourselves; I drove Sean to the bus stop and got my morning things done.

When Aidan woke, he was a little groggy but proceeded to be fine all day. We found that we had caught another squirrel in our live trap... another Douglas. They are cute creatures --John Muir describes them as "by far the most interesting and influential of the California sciuridæ" -- but destructive. They get in our roof and chew like crazy. For the past couple of days Kevin has been setting the live trap and our tally is now four total. We drop them off at a lookout point a couple of miles from our house. You should see them scurry off to climb a tree.

So that was what we did after breakfast (which was homemade waffles). Then we stopped by the library to drop off books and pick up more, but there was a Census Bureau test going on and so we had to hang around for a little while waiting for it to open. At home, Kieron and Paddy were playing with the new Spiderman game for the XBox which Kieron just acquired with his birthday money.

When we got back, it was so warm that I spent some time outside shovelling the layer of ice off the driveway. It was mildly rainy today -- nice to have the precipitation without the snow. Aidan stayed out there with me and talked.

The rest of the day was quiet. Aidan has managed to figure out the Frank Shaeffar dinosaur floor puzzle. I did a lot of things on the computer -- too much, probably, and nothing that was really work.

Clare and Kevin read downstairs by the fire and I came down and sat with Aidan and played with him. I haven't been sleeping too much recently so I had a longish nap on the couch.

Sean came home from high school and started right in on his homework, which is a good habit he has acquired.

We found we had caught another squirrel, and so as dinner was cooking (two kinds of pasta, and garlic bread) we went and dropped it off.

We had dinner, and I gave the kitchen a good clean and got Sean's lunch ready for tomorrow. The Catholic Unschooling yahoogroup has been doing a Flylady Challenge, and sharing what we've accomplished around the house. This seems to help motivate me to get a bit extra done.

Kieron has been rereading Redwall books. Paddy has been listening to me read Magic Schoolbus in the Time of the Dinosaurs, Dr De Soto (by William Steig), and a few others I can't remember right now.

Day 73 -- Catching Up

A few things going on -- I realize that the heart of learning seems to be the connections between one thing and another, so that's what I am emphasizing here. I know there are things I missed here, but this is a partial list. I'm not sure what "day" we are on but am going to pick it up as Day 73 because I'm figuring we've done 18 weeks of about 4 days each.

Aidan's been very busy these days -- two of his favorite activities here. The physics of spinning, and typing numbers in large font and then cutting them out.



Bleak House (movie) -- older kids and me -- Brendan read a bit of Bleak House to me and Clare and we compared Mr Guppy's marriage proposal in the book to the version in the movie.

The Worm Ouroboros -- Clare is reading this. Originally I requested it from the library for Liam because CS LEwis had mentioned it approvingly. But then I went ahead and bought it for Liam for a late Christmas present. She has been reading bits aloud to me and Brendan.

HMS Mauritius by Patrick O'Brian. Clare has been reading bits of this aloud to me too -- the sloth, and Jack Aubrey's twin babies.

Superhero video games -- Kieron researched which one to get with his Christmas and birthday money, and decided to get Spiderman Friend or Foe. He also read a lot in Wikipedia about the Spiderman cycle. The game arrived today and Kieron and Paddy have been playing (I can hear Paddy getting a bit cranky).

Aidan -- solar system. He found the booklet that went with his felts and pored over it spelling the planet names. Then he asked for the felts themselves and has been playing with those.

Paddy -- his rabbit trail on Magic School Bus continues (mixed idiom there!). We have covered: Bee Hives, The Weather, Dinosaurs and Water Works in this manner over the past couple of weeks. Today as we were reading about the dinosaurs, Kieron came over and expanded on his own past research on dinosaurs.... filling out what the book said, etc. I mentioned how impressed I was by the immensities of time, say between Triassic and Jurassic, or even early and late Cretaceous. Millions of years! This led to a discussion about the Bible creation story and about how scientistis know what they know.

Aidan -- still typing out, cutting out, and reordering numbers up to 100. I think that this has taught him how to identify higher numbers and how to count in sequence past twenty. These were skills listed on his IEP but he has found his own entry point into them, and the work has been his.

A calendar of the dumbest things said in 2008. Sean got this for his Christmas present at the extended-family game of "dirty bingo" (it's a form of White Elephant). He and the whole family have loved it and I realize that humor is really a thing that requires quite a lot of cultural sophistication. You have to know why the things that are said are dumb, which means a broad general knowledge of correct syntax, etc. He read the ones he liked best to me, then went and read them to Clare and then I heard them making up their own spin-offs.

The squirrels.... a bit of impromptu nature study.

Starting Up Again

I think I probably will start blogging daily learning logs again, even though they will be unschooly during this more relaxed time of year. I think I'll use Leonie's unschooly logs at St Anthony Academy's as a model. ... unless I decide to go with a narrative, which sometimes works better when we aren't doing many formal things.

To start off with where we seem to be right now. First, Aidan and reading.

Aidan seems to be at a "sensitive period" for words. Every day he asks me to write down all the words he knows -- he lists them for me: zipper, zebra, quiet, queen, dog, hippo, giant, sun, bus, top, tent, etc. Then he reads them to himself. Then he says, "Can I take them to bed with me?"

He spells every word he sees in his environment. Recently he has gotten interested in 100 Easy Lessons and will spell out words "MAD" and ask me what they mean. This reminds me of what I read in The Montessori Method not too long ago:

One of our most interesting discoveries was made in the effort to devise a game through which the children might, without effort, learn to read words. We spread out upon one of the large tables a great variety of toys. Each one of them had a corresponding card upon which the name of the toy was written. We folded these little cards and mixed them up in a basket, and the children who knew how to read were allowed to take turns in drawing these cards from the basket. Each child had to carry his card back to his desk, unfold it quietly, and read it mentally, not showing it to those about him. He then had to fold it up again, so that the secret which it contained should remain unknown. Taking the folded card in his hand, he went to the table. He had then to pronounce clearly the name of a toy and present the card to the directress in order that she might verify the word he had spoken. The little card thus became current coin with which he might acquire the toy he had named. For, if he pronounced the word clearly and indicated the correct object, the directress allowed him to take the toy, and to play with it as long as he wished.

When each child had had a turn, the directress called the first child and let him draw a card from another basket. This card he read as soon as he had drawn it. It contained the name of one of his companions who did not yet know how to read, and for that reason could not have a toy. The child who had read the name then offered to his little friend the toy with which he had been playing. We taught the children to present these toys in a gracious and polite way, accompanying the act with a bow. In this way we did away with every idea of class distinction, and inspired the sentiment of kindness toward those who did not possess the same blessings as ourselves. [Page 300] This reading game proceeded in a marvellous way. The contentment of these poor children in possessing even for a little while such beautiful toys can be easily imagined.

But what was my amazement, when the children, having learned to understand the written cards, refused to take the toys! They explained that they did not wish to waste time in playing, and, with a species of insatiable desire, preferred to draw out and read the cards one after another!

I watched them, seeking to understand the secret of these souls, of whose greatness I had been so ignorant! As I stood in meditation among the eager children, the discovery that it was knowledge they loved, and not the silly game, filled me with wonder and made me think of the greatness of the human soul!

Now, where I need to catch up in my understanding of the Montessori method is in the idea that writing ought to come before reading. Certainly Aidan is "writing" in the sense that he will take his wooden or magnetic letters and form words he has memorized. Perhaps this is enough to expect of a child with motor difficulties. However, I would like to see both him and Paddy writing, and delighting in writing.