the ELLA echo

how we homeschool: the disney princesses are my cheetos

when our babies were brand new, my friend brenda told me that her child would not eat any junk food because she and her husband never ate any (and that is true, i have never seen brenda or mikael eat anything that wasn't admirable). but i warned her--having seen it first hand with my nephews--that she could enforce that at home and still one day, without her knowing it, someone she trusts would hand her child a potato chip and the horse would be out of the barn or however that saying goes.


i was wrong--it wasn't a potato chip, it was cheetos.  (and no, it wasn't me).


in my arrogance, i thought rudi and i were immune. oh, i didn't worry about the occasional (ok, near daily) ingestion of a "processed food product", but i had carefully created a dome of silence in our home regarding all things disney. there were to be no languishing princesses here, no charming princes to save the day, no playing that the only skills worth cultivating were sweeping and singing.


and i was so proud of myself. safely ensconced in a non-disney bubble, ella had no idea about being rescued--no, her heroes were explorers and adventurers, doers and makers, problem solvers and rescuers--she loved dora, and diego, little bear and franklin, the "backargins" and the wonder pets and maggie and sportacus and all the other wonderful inhabitants of the lands of noggin and nick jr.


and then she met "m". m. was obsessed with the entire disney royal retinue, esp. snow white.  she didn't play anything unless she pretended to be snow white, assigning supporting roles from the movies to all her friends. and thus was ella introduced to the beings that to me will forever be known as the damn disney princesses (DDP). the next thing i knew, ella had made herself a "majesty chair", where she sat. and sat. and sat. while she waited for a prince to rescue her.


and with that, my dream of insulating her from all that inertia was dashed forever.  so i did the only reasonable thing i could do:  i turned disadvantage into advantage.  the DDP are now my little workers, providing me a free curriculum that covers a wide range of subjects including history, personal character, psychology and symbolism, religion, metaphysics, literature, fine arts, architecture, music--even such "mundane" things as vocabulary and spelling. 

 

the next several homeschooling posts will be devoted to demonstrating how we've used sleeping beauty in a kind of modified unit study.  i hope it proves useful to families everywhere who are currently housing their own royalty.  majesty chair not required.

wordless wednesday: practicing for the circus

 

 

 

it's not a speech impediment if her speech is not impeded

a mom i know recently asked me--in that passive-aggressive, "you probably don't know to look for this" kind of way--if i was worried about ella's "speech impediment".  which of course completely confused me because i and everyone else can understand ella perfectly well.  the mom went on to explain that she was deeply concerned about ella's TH's--she heard ella say the word "father"--ella says it as "fodder"--and the mom immediately went into diagnostic mode.

the problem with the mom's diagnosis is that it doesn't hold--ella doesn't universally say "D" instead of "TH"--sometimes she says "S"--as in "sank you, mama"--and sometimes she says "F"--as in, "one, two, free, four....".  in one instance, she says "V"--as in, "i'd like a fruit smoovie, please".  sometimes she does in fact say "TH"--"mama, TH makes the "th" sound".  

see, she can say it.  she just can't put it all together, YET.  and YET is the key to just about everything with ella--patient confidence that she will get "it", whatever "it" is, in her own time.

for now, i'm savoring the words "fodder" and "mudder", and "sank you", and "one, two, free, four...."--because it wasn't that long ago that she was saying, "mamamamamamamamama", in that sweet sing-song voice that only a two-year-old has, and i simply won't rush off the sweet sing-song voice that my five-year-old has.  soon enough, she'll say "faTHer", and that will be one  more layer of childhood gone forever.  i can wait.

ps--that mom told me she insisted her child's school provide therapy for his "speech impediment".  she said it took a full year of three-times-a-week sessions for his speech to finally get straightened out.  i guess it didn't occur to her that he might have grown out of it by himself in that year. 

ella's friday photos: nashville zoo

what a gorgeous day it is here today!  ella took these shots on our walk thru the nashville zoo after homeschool class. 

 the photographer in action (i took this one, of course):

 

and the photo she got:

 

don't worry, we were behind glass when she got this photo:

 

there were plenty of interesting feet to see:

and just enough silliness to make us both laugh:

 

wordless wednesday: hair like the wind

tree town

this is actually from january but i'm just now compiling our lessons into a format that i can share.  i hope our experiences in homeschooling will be useful to others, whether it offers ideas for lines of inquiry, or inspiration for the journey.

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ella built a town using her train set.  i say "built a town" but in actual fact she created an entire world:

there is a farm, where a family raises animals and plants:

  

in the house down the road from the farm there is a lady who is always asleep.

there is a large airport near the farm, and three other airports at one end of town.

 

at the other end of the town is a temple to worship god.  the people who live on the farm walk to the temple with their animals.  the wild bear comes out of the woods to protect the farm animals.

the town is called tree town.  ella is the president of tree town, and i am the mayor.

the motto of tree town is "the best land that we know".

ella drew the map and dictated the details for me to record:

 

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subjects covered in this one activity, which lasted about an hour:

science:  orienting the train cars so the magnets on each end attract rather than repel.  ella calls the property of repelling "the bubble" that keeps them apart.  explaining the current season and what this meant to the activities of the townspeople, the airport, the animals.

civic planning:  planning where the residential areas should be and why--deciding how close the airports can be to the residential areas--deciding whether or not, and how close, a farm can be situated next to a home--deciding the schedule for the train, the temple services, and the airplanes, and explaining why these decisions made sense--deciding whether the airplanes could fly over the homes, farm, and/or temple--planning future expansion of tree town

storytelling:  describing the people who live in tree town--explaining what they do, how they got here, their relationship to each other--inventing a means for the animals to participate in the lives of the people--inventing a relationship between the wild animals and the farm animals other than predator/prey--explaining why the people attend services at a temple (rather than a church which is where we worship)--describing the kinds of services that take place at the temple

cartography:  mapping tree town--deciding the directions of the compass--making notations on the map that others can understand.

geography:  inventing the lay of the land and deciding why one section is better for a given purpose than another--describing the world beyond tree town and how the town relates to/with that world--assigning value to the land based on its use

civics/history:  developing an authority to oversee tree town--describing how tree town was founded and how it got its name--creating a motto to bind the townspeople together with a shared interest

math/geometry:  shaping the train track in such a way that all the parts were used with none left over--planning the schedule for the train, the airplanes, and the temple services--figuring out how many animals can ride on the train at one time, and then how many trips it will take to get them all to the airport or temple.

let's see--what's missing?  oh, only this:  tree town is a tremendously fun place to play, to work, to worship, and to live.  and as the town motto tells us, it is "the best land that we know".

new feature: how we homeschool

even though ella still attends a daycare three mornings a week (a remnant of when i worked outside the home), we decided to start homeschooling this year as this is the year she'd have gone to kindergarten.  i've been documenting her progress in various ways and i thought i would start sharing some of our activities in the hopes that it will be of use to other parents.

some of the posts will be quite long, as i attempt to describe a process that often takes us down unexpected paths.  i hope that our example will encourage others who wish to homeschool their children, as well as providing inspiration for curriculum, lines of inquiry, methods and techniques, etc.

i am by no means an expert in homeschooling.  but i am an expert on my child, and i have been pleased to learn that my faith in my child's natural learning impulse is entirely justified.  the truth is that she teaches me, every day, so the burden of learning is shared equally.  but i'm the one with the blog.  :)

the first learning activity i will share is "tree town".  i'll try to share a new activity each week, and i'll try to be concise but i make no promises.  ;D

playing with, and praying for, elizabeth

every few years i get to see my friend elizabeth (that button in the sidebar--the one with socks--will lead you to her blog).  elizabeth is fighting stage 3C invasive lobular carcinoma--breast cancer with a side of lymph nodes.  so it was especially dear to me that i got to see her a few weeks ago when she came to nashville to see her children compete in the 2009 super national chess championships at the opryland hotel (which, for those who have never been there, can best be described as a combination of las vegas and an arboretum--with an indoor river).

the last time we saw elizabeth she was on her way with her then-youngest, danny, to mayo clinic, AND was pregnant with the now-youngest, george.  on that visit we got a wonderful surprise, we got to meet curious george, in "person"!

then (ella dressed as a princess, as is often the case) :

 

now (playing princess and superhero):

ella took this picture:

and she was over the moon about george but i guess we all are:

please, if you have some time, visit elizabeth at her blog, she is truly an amazing woman with an amazing family, and she could use all the encouragement you can offer.

display problems

bear with me, the display is messed up because i was trying to do something double tricky.  :D  it should be worked out before the end of the weekend.  sorry if your eyes cross.

all fixed! 

hope the weekend doesn't go by as quickly.  :D

ella's friday photos

inspired by my friend over at the fourman four, who blogs the pictures her child takes every monday, i'm going to start posting ella's photos on fridays.  today we took a walk around our neighborhood, ella with my old camera, and me with my new one.   because i got to tag along (ok, we were on our way to walgreens to pick up easter chocolate at 75% off) i got great pictures of her taking great pictures.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

there are lots more, but i couldn't end this post without this one magnificent shot of what ella said is a seed wing: