the ELLA echo

developing my character by eating crow

i recently became painfully aware of a huge flaw in my parenting that i want to share with you.

after the election in iran and the ensuing violence, rudi, ella, and i participated in not one but two marches in nashville in support of the persian people.  we wore green, we carried signs, we even learned a couple of phrases in farsi that we could chant with the iranians as we marched. 

we marched because we wanted to stand in solidarity with those who fight (still) so bravely for their right to assemble peacefully, for the right to speak and associate freely, to petition their government for redress of their grievances.

not long after the second march, ella got upset about something--i can't even remember what it was now.  she was complaining about it, trying to persuade me to her way of thinking, and when she wasn't getting her way she started crying and saying all the things that a child says--"it's not fair, all i want is _____", and "you're not even listening to me"--that kind of thing.

this went on for about five minutes, and finally i was so tired of it that i said, "that's enough.  we're not going to talk about this anymore.  if you want to cry about it, fine, but you can't do it here, you can go in the other room.  but i don't want to hear you, and i don't want to hear any more about this."

and bless her heart, she dutifully (as always) went into the other room to find some comfort among her brothers and sisters, and then IT HIT ME:

i had just suppressed my own child's first amendment rights.

<insert sound of record scratching to a halt>

i stopped what i was doing that very moment, went to ella, and asked for a moment of her time--i have found if i do that, she is more willing to give me her attention.  and then i said, (this is a paraphrase), "ella, i was wrong to tell you that you couldn't talk about what was bothering you, and i'm sorry i did that.  you have the right to talk about anything that is bothering you, and you have the right to discuss your concerns with me.  the only requirement is that we must speak to each other with respect.  as long as we can do that, we can always work things out."

and you know what?  we talked, and worked it out, and the whole episode was over in minutes.

i am so glad i didn't stubbornly cling to my "authority".  i feel that admitting my mistake in judgement actually improved my credibility with ella in terms of the lessons i try to teach about honesty and humility.  i know that it improved our communication.  and just as importantly, the simple act of swallowing my pride worked wonders for my self-respect.

there are have been so many other fruits of that moment.  letting ella discuss and even negotiate with me gives her the chance to practice her skills in persuasion, lets her have a chance to convince me of the rightness of her argument.  it gives her the opportunity to refine her logic, to figure out new strategies and to try new tactics.  already she is becoming a better thinker, because she is now considering in advance what might appeal to my sense of justice and/or mercy, and sometimes my sense of humor.

i have no doubt that i will have to repeat this lesson again and again--oh, the context will change, but the issue will be the same--my pride is such that any enlightenment on my part tends to happen retroactively.  but i know that in the end i will advance in character and wisdom, because i have never had a teacher like ella, i have never had a classroom like motherhood, and i've never been more motivated to learn.

how we homeschool: the stuff center

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  the topic this week is school rooms, but as i mentioned before, we don't have a dedicated room, we have centers--scattered all over the house.  :D  today i'll show you the "stuff center"--the place where we keep the "stuff".

i had originally intended to start school next week--because ella still has one more week of preschool--but she was begging to start now, so we did!  that is why part of this center is still bare--i had all kinds of plans to decorate the bulletin board to make it special for the first day but all she wanted to do was get to work.

the stuff center is beside the front door.  i found a neat write/erase schedule sheet in the $1.00 section of target, so yesterday we filled it in according to the order ella thought she'd like for her day. 

as you can see, we had barely started our day when we rearranged our schedule!  that was so cool with me--that's part of the beauty of homeschool.  more about our schedule change in my next post.

the "cubby shelves" are where we keep worksheets, paper supplies, a pair of binoculars for nature walks, and now the "cubby box" that used to be in the book club.  ella even packed her backpack to bring to school--i didn't know what was in it until later--it had dora and a blanket for dora. 

  

we keep our crocs beside the door, so we can run outside when we hear the ice cream truck!

the area on top of the shelves is for charts.  we use the 100 chart (which i found in the dollar tree teacher's section) for things like skip counting, and the pitcher is where we are collecting "pon-pons".  we will drop in one pon-pon each day of school and when we have 100 we will have a party!  this pitcher is special, it belonged to rudi's grandmother, and it seems especially appropriate to put it to such important use.

 

the job chart is for ella's personal and household responsibilities--one responsibility for each year of her age--in a few weeks she'll GET to add another!  she gets a sticker each time she completes a job.  if she fills in her whole chart, she gets a reward.  each week we write in what the reward will be, and she signs and dates the chart.  the reward she chose for this week is to ride the kiddie train at oprymills mall.

on the window is our weather report.  these are some clingies i found at the dollar tree.  we will also keep a weather chart but i haven't made that yet--that's what happens when school starts before you expect it to!

and last but not least, on the bulletin board are a calendar to keep up with things like field trips and special events, a little cartoon that i laminated--it reminds me of one of the many reasons i've chosen to homeschool--and we pinned up some of her first day's work (the rest of the paperwork is in a spiral notebook).  the dollar is for when the ice cream truck comes!

 

things i still plan to add to this center over the course of this week are:  a weather chart--a day of the week tracker ("today is--yesterday was--tomorrow will be")--and some decorations related to the theme for the week which is, of course, APPLES!

we have other centers which i'll share with you over the next few days, but in the meantime i'd love to hear your ideas about how i can make the stuff center nicer.  i have visions of decorating this area for changes of season, for holidays, and of course to reflect our unit themes, but this whole decorating thing is not my strong suit. 

and if you're looking for ideas of your own, do check out the links on the school room post at life with my 3 boybarians!  as of this writing there are already over four dozen great links and there will be more to come over the course of the week. 

 

how we homeschool: curriculum--stuff we're not doing

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  so far this week i have shared our mission and our learning plan for the 3 R's, our learning plan for the "extra curriculars", and everything else that adds up to a full plate of education.  (notice how i managed to continue the kitchen sink motif in that last link).  hard as it might be to believe, there are a few things we will not be doing.

there are all kinds of neat things a family can buy or do these days that are designed to help make homeschooling easier or more organized.  naturally, i rejected them.  :D  mostly because i decided they would not work for us.  the two biggest of these are:

workboxes:  i just became aware of sue patrick's workbox system a few months ago.  it seems like EVERYBODY is using it!.   i decided against it because it does something that i avoid:  dictating the work to be done.  instead, we are more fluid here--if today we want to do nothing but read, that's what we do.  so setting up the workboxes would just set us up to feel like slackers, and i won't do that on purpose. 

a classroom:  this goes back to my belief that learning is not and should not be separated from daily living.  our classroom is wherever we happen to be, or wherever there is room for what we want to do.  thus, our "super fab science lab" is usually the kitchen table, but sometimes it is the front porch or yard.  we do have an art room but it is not dedicated to homeschooling--we've had that since long before ella was even born.

however--we do have "centers", i showed you one of them this past spring, and starting tomorrow i will show you more of them, when "class room week" begins at life with my 3 boybarians.

thank you for your endurance this week.  :D   please take a moment to visit the other homeschool curriculum links at the not-back-to-school blog hop, there are literally hundreds of great ideas there, something to suit every homeschooling style and personality.  and when you leave a comment for the sites you visit (please do that--those bloggers take a lot of time to offer their advice and ideas freely), please let them know i sent you! 

how we homeschool: curriculum part 3--the kitchen sink

 

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  earlier this week i shared our mission and our learning plan for the 3 R's, then our learning plan for the "extra curriculars".  it might seem like i have a very heavy learning plan but in fact it is not so--it is just wordy.  :D    today i am going to share with you the subjects that were my principle reasons for wanting to homeschool. 

character development:  we will continue to discover what this means in terms of "education", but for now what it means to our family is that we aim to behave the way we wish to be.  it means that rudi and i sometimes must apologize to our child for something rash we've said or done to her--because we are human and we make mistakes--and we wish to set the example of how to make amends when you've wronged someone.  it means that we sometimes inconvenience ourselves on purpose, in order to be of service to someone else.  it means that we sometimes change course, because we realize we are going the wrong way, and we involve ella in the process.  but the goal, always, is to discern and then do the right thing, with a cheerful heart if possible.  ella is pretty good at the cheerful heart part.

resources:  LIFE, out in the world.

bible studies:  actually the word "studies" is a little grand for what we do.  we read the bible.  we listen to "god stories"--i found a set of six CDs of stories from the bible for kids at the dollar tree--each CD has a different theme, such as heroes of the bible, or god's promises, etc.  we memorize bible verses--her favorite for three years now has been "be ye kind, one to another."  (ephesians 4:32).  and we sing "god songs" all day long, adding new ones when we read a passage that has a song i know.

resources:  ella has three children's bibles, the first is aimed at preschoolers and has one story on each two-page spread.  the next has many of the same stories, but longer with more details.  the third is the one i remember from my own childhood, it has narrative retellings of the bible (i can't find this one online--it is "the children's bible in story", from ideals childrens books, nashville, TN).  after reading a section from one of these bibles, we read the same section from my own bible.  in this way she learns the stories, and also hears the bible words the stories come from.  we listen to the god stories nearly every day and we read those stories in one of the bibles.  i can't find the CD's online, they are by the clever factory in nashville, TN.  six different CD's, all found at the dollar tree, if i ever find them again i'll post.

following the muse:  this is my catch-all for saying "if we discover an interest in something, we will pursue it".   it is the happy accident, or the new obsession--it formalizes the observation, "wow, i LOVE xyz," and turns that into a course of study.  it is how i acquired 90% of all my own knowledge.  it is my favorite subject.  :)

resources:  who knows?  right now, the damn disney princesses are still pretty popular, but luckily ella has discovered disney's pocahontas, who she was thrilled to learn was A REAL PERSON!   in fact, we've already done a couple of activities surrounding pocahontas and the indians so i'm hoping we'll continue in that direction, as the movie is RICH (if not historically accurate).

and that's IT for the things we WILL do.  YAY!  there were some things i considered but decided against, i'll tell you more about that in my next post.  if you have suggestions or just thoughts for anything you've read in my learning plan, please leave a comment! 

meet me in st. louis

it is very last minute but we are going to st. louis today!  rudi has a meeting, ella and will go to the gateway arch.  she is going to cross the mississippi river for the first time!

rudi and i have only been in st. louis twice, once on the way to denver and once on the way back.  we only had time to stop for a bite to eat and a chance to stand under the arch (that's where the picture above came from).  i'm super excited!  ella thinks she wants to go up the arch, but we'll see how that goes once she sees how tall it really is.

so there won't be a curriculum post today--i'll double up for you tomorrow.

hoping for a safe and happy day for my own family and for yours!

 

how we homeschool: curriculum, part 2--the extras

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  yesterday i described our mission statement and how we address the 3 R's.  today i will tell you about all the "extras".

while composing this post i strongly fought my natural tendency to spout off.  :D  i don't consider these things"extras", but for most children in regular school they are extra--they are the first thing to be taken away when punishment is handed out, and they are the first thing to disappear from the curriculum when funds run short.  and that is a shame.  in our home these are part of daily life, and i wish that for all children (for all people, really).

music:  ella loves music so this one never gets overlooked.  we will continue to learn and sing songs, improvise our own songs, attend music events, listen to recordings.  she also loves to make or invent musical instruments.  we are super blessed that ella loves to sing, as we are graced with the sound of her sweet singing voice every single day.

resources:  instruments we have in the home;  home music library;  public resources;  our multiple friends in the music industry

arts:  we will continue to explore art materials and processes, both for fun and as part of the learning process in other subject areas;  we have a fantastic art museum in nashville, as well as dozens of smaller galleries and other types of museums (the botanical museum here is really nice).  we'll attend performances of dance, theater, and our favorite, puppetry!  i am also fortunate to be friends with artists in several disciplines who are eager to share their knowledge and ideas with others.  other work as needed or desired.

resources:   our home art/crafts studio;  local museums;  artists' studios;  performances, etc.

foreign language:  spanish and chinese

resources:  for spanish i am the primary resource since i am around and can speak spanish to her anytime.  :)  we also host a spanish language group at our house once a week--thank you, dos amigas teach and all our amiguitos (and their mamis) for graciously putting up with the chaos of the aldridge home!  rudi has a book from college about the chinese language and we sometimes try our hands at making chinese characters. and don't ever discount the power of dora, diego, or kai-lan. 

community service:  volunteer activities at church and in the community.  ella also sponsors a little girl in the philippines via save the children, for which she has "fundraising" events each month to help cover the cost.  (if you are in the nashville area and ever need lemonade, a foot massage, or have other pampering needs, ella is your go-to girl.  for a modest fee, of course).  other activities as needed or desired.

resources:  local animal shelter;  church;  community;  and the wonderful save the children.

one thing i haven't mentioned is materials or supplies.  i just don't see a need to pay for things dedicated to the purpose of "schooling".  when we want to count something, we count what we have--when we want to work on reading, we read the books that interest us, not the ones that tell us how to read.  for us, the entire world is one big collection of manipulatives.  in this way, we learn to read and we learn about things of interest at the same time, or sometimes (mostly) because we want to be entertained, amused, enlightened.  we learn to count, add, subtract, do fractions, by cooking, sorting our clothes, making sure we have a full deck of cards--we make a list or a chart or an "inventory", and we understand our own environment a little better, we have a record of something that means something to us. 

of course this method will not work with every child, and would not suit every family's needs or style.  but for us, it is the most efficient and most stress-free process.  ella and i are able to enjoy each other's company and still accomplish something that others would recognize as "productive".  :D

tomorrow i will tell you about our bible studies, our character development efforts, and how we follow the muse.  until then, be sure to check out all (or as many as you can) the curriculum idea links that other readers have posted at the not-back-to-school blog hop!  i've found so many great ideas that i had to start a file to keep track of them. 

and please leave me a comment if you have the time, i always appreciate hearing if i've made any sense.  :)

eating in a pattern

me: 

"honey, is that another cookie?"

 

ella:

"yes, mama."

 

me:

"did you eat all your fruit?"

 

ella:

"i'm eating in a pattern."

 

me:

"a pattern? what's the pattern?"

 

ella:

"cookie, fruit

"cookie, fruit

"cookie, cookie, cookie, fruit"

how we homeschool: curriculum, part 1--mission, the 3R's

 

image by justmakit on flickr

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  yesterday i described the basics of our homeschool "curriculum", and today i will go into more detail about some of the subjects we will cover.

one thing i learned from filling out the enrollment form for the farm school satellite campuses program last year is that it is really helpful to have formed a vision for our homeschool.  this vision helps steer me when i get off course or confused.  it helps me focus on what is important to our family, our child.  from this vision i formed a mission statement to guide me along the way:

THE HOWARD AVENUE HOMESCHOOL MISSION STATEMENT

MY PURPOSE:  is to provide for my child an individualized, first-rate education that respects her dignity, her natural curiosity, and the gifts with which god has blessed her.

MY BELIEF:  is that learning is not something that is or should be separated from daily living.  i trust my child's intrinsic impulse to learn and believe that we, her parents, are best able and most willing to appreciate, respond to, and serve her learning needs.

MY GOAL:  is for my child to become an independent thinker, to be able to reason, to be secure in her abilities, to pursue her interests with confidence.

MY PLAN:  is to love and encourage her, to seek god's wisdom, to ask for help when needed, to protect her from the negative outlook of a cynical world;  to support her interests;  and to surround her with models of love, courage, and imagination.

MY HOPE:  is that my child will realize her special talents, be concerned for the needs of others, become a responsible and active citizen, become morally and spirtually wise, be skillful and knowledgeable in every area that will be useful to her in her future life.

our learning plan begins with the subject areas that most people would consider part of a normal course of academic study.

language arts:  ella started writing and illustrating a book last year (that's right, she started writing a book in kindergarten), we will continue working on this book until ella determines it is complete.  at that point we hope to publish it!  we will continue reading aloud, and i will introduce silent reading time as well.  we will continue to write letters, make signs, label items, etc.  storytelling will continue, with a focus on elaborating on descriptive details in the setting and characters.  we will do other work as needed or desirable.

resources:  home library, public library, internet

math:  continuing with what we did last year, we will measure time/space/weight/distance, and continue learning and exploring methods of collecting, organizing, and studying mathematical data (charts, graphs, formulas, fractions, decimals, etc).   ella has become more interested in counting money and i will introduce the basics of a banking system.   we are keeping a 100 chart and plan to have a special celebration on our 100th day of homeschool this year.  we will do other work as needed or desirable.

resources:  household measuring tools:  measuring tapes, cups, scales;  shopping and doing errands;  daily activities such as cooking, building, shopping, etc.

science:  life cycles of living things;  weather, atmospheres, the solar system;  states of matter;  physical properties.  basically all the stuff that causes the questions that start with "why, how, when, where".  we will do other work as needed or desirable.

resources: the natural and man-made worlds, esp. our gardens and our pets

physical education:  daily free play, outdoors when weather (and allergies) permit;  ella has started learning to play golf so she spends a lot of time on that right now.  other activities as needed or desired.  i am strongly against starting any formal physical skills training as her age, so i am resisting the call of things like dance classes, gymnastics classes, karate classes, etc.  the one exception i'm leaning toward is swimming classes, but in my mind those are part of health and safety.

resources:  our yard, public parks, community centers.  and on days when the outside is just not a choice, we'll play hours and hours of wii sports and wii fit.  i didn't mention that to the farm, i'm sure they wouldn't care but who wants to list a gaming system as part of their learning plan?  :D

wellness:  healthy living choices;  good nutrition; injury and illness prevention;  environmental and community health;  other work as needed or desirable.

resources:  our medical practitioners and other community experts as we identify them.

and that's just the boring stuff!

do you notice anything special?  there is one phrase i included for every subject:  "other work as needed or desirable".  i did that because, much as i'd like to, i cannot possibly anticipate what we might want or need to study three months from now--for that matter, i don't always know what we're going to do tomorrow.  i don't want to close any doors, nor do i want to underestimate the potential of the future. 

i really try to remain as open in life as that one simple phrase suggests--i admit that i do not always live up to it, but it helps to remember that is the path i wish to take.

tomorrow i will introduce you to the part of the plan that covers our plans for music, art, foreign languages, community service.  and then i'll have questions for YOU!

 

how we homeschool: it's not-back-to-school time!

it is not-back-to-school blog hop time at life with my 3 boybarians!  each week during the month of august there will be a new topic, which gives me a chance to actually think about my homeschooling in an organized fashion. this week the topic is curriculums, and since i just finished putting our learning plan to paper, i figured i would join the fun.

notice i said learning PLAN.  i did not buy a curriculum.  for one thing, they are expensive.  and for another, our homeschool umbrella (it's a tennessee thing) allows the parent to instruct as desired, only requiring an outline of how each subject will be addressed.

but mainly i am forced to admit that i am not a fan of following someone else's formula.  it's my "issue" with authority.  who do i trust to decide that my first grader MUST learn this at this time, and is not ready for THAT?  i trust me, and rudi.  we know her better than anybody else does.  if we wanted someone else to decide what and when and how she learns, we'd just send her to school.  :)

besides,  ella is in first grade.  i went to first grade! and i passed, so i'm pretty confident i can handle this.

what we have instead of a curriculum is a learning plan.  for each subject area i identified the principle goals for that subject and listed the resources i intend to use.  this is only our second year of homeschooling, and i am by no means an expert on how to make it work.  but hopefully my example will encourage other families who want to homeschool the early grades but are worried about the cost of a curriculum, or can't find one that meets their needs/expectations.

we chose (ok, i'll admit it, i did the choosing, but rudi was and has been very supportive of all my efforts and i could NOT do this without his trust and encouragement) to enroll with the farm school satellite campuses program.   the law is convoluted but in tennessee it means that technically we are not homeschoolers--we are private schoolers, the classroom is our home (a satellite campus) and rudi and i are the designated faculty.

among the reasons i chose the farm, in no specific order, are: agreement regarding role of parents in education; freedom to choose curriculum/learning plan; no requirement to sign statement of faith; local office; large email list community; access to the farm's main campus for enrichment classes and activities; general hippydom/rabble rousing.  :)

to organize my records i'm using homeschool tracker basic, the free version of a program that allows me to record such things as resources, materials, subjects, lesson plans, assignments, field trips, etc.--basically everything i need to keep track of our homeschool.   i didn't make good use of this program for kindergarten but i've been playing around with it this summer and have found even more useful features than the ones i was trying to use.  so i think i'm now in a position to make this program be a real tool and not just a toy.  :)

the subject areas that the farm requires us to describe in the learning plan are:  language arts, math, science, social studies, physical education, wellness, music, arts, foreign language, and community service.  to the plan i added "following the muse" which basically means we'll do anything else we feel like it.  :D  almost the entire second semester of kindergarten, our muses were the disney princesses--if not for them, we'd never have covered the 14th century.  so i think the muse subject area is fair game.

we will also include bible studies and character development but for some reason i didn't include that on the learning plan.  i have no idea why not.  i didn't list it last year either but it was a prominent part of our day.

each day this week i will cover a portion of our learning plan.  the plan is not complicated, but it is wordy--because i wrote it.  :D   tomorrow i'll give you my homeschool mission philosophy and go over the learning plan for the three R's. 

if you'd like to join the blog hop, just click over to life with my 3 boybarians and add your link to the list!  and please leave a comment here with any ideas you have for making our homeschool year the best it can be.

a trail of breadcrumbs wouldn't have helped

ella:  "mama, i lost my chopstick, can you help me find it?"

me: "sure, honey, let's retrace your steps."

ella:  "ok:  when i woke up this morning i was still in bed...."