Yrotsih, or History Backwards

I've been plagued with the question, "Should I start homeschooling Simone at 1st grade or at 2nd grade, which is when we move to a new Coast Guard station?"  I brought up the dilemma to Michael and said that we could follow the well-trained mind curriculum if I afterschooled Simone the history part, Ancient Civilizations to Middle Ages. 

Maybe it's the philosopher in Michael that he brought up more questions to my question, but he pointed out, "I don't know if it's the best thing to teach Simone in the conventional chronological order."  I welcomed his opinion and elaborated that the beginning of known history is so far removed from what Simone knows now that it may not be interesting at all to her.  He thinks that going backwards might be best to teach history backwards.  

I'm now researching how I would go about it.  I'm not fully on board, but I'm very intrigued because I know I didn't retain very much history when I learned it the conventional, mostly chronological method.  But then again, maybe history was taught poorly to me.  But then again, maybe if it were tailored to what I was experiencing around me, maybe I would have been more interested.  Who knows, but I'm definitely going to consider teaching history from the present to the past. 

 

 

Opposition

The tides have changed with my mom's support for homeschooling.  She used to be all for it when I said I wanted to homeschool Simone at around 4th grade.  Lately, I've been thinking I want to homeschool her sooner - like 1st grade!  Since we're going to do Classical education which is taught in cycles of  4 years, I was leaning towards starting her at the beginning of a cycle in 1st grade instead of starting in the middle at 2nd grade. 

When I told my mom this yesterday, she made it known that she thought it was a bad idea.  Her main argument for keeping her in school was that Simone needs to be exposed socially so she can deal with peer pressure.   She asked why I thought homeschooling was a good idea, and I responded that it's more efficient.  Again my mom stressed that Simone needs socialization, which I think is something that she can get through gymnastic classes, swim classes, 4H, etc.  Yes peer pressure will always be around, but I don't need her to be in school 6 hours to learn about.  One hour intervals is fine enough.  

My mom further argued that Simone may not listen to me.  I had just told her how Simone wanted to do things her way when I asked her to write "I can hop."  Simone did do it her way, but she ended up writing an extra letter with "I can play." I like to think of it as Simone's way of subliminally encouraging me to let her have fun.  I answered my mom with an analogy.  "Just like with breastfeeding in which 'there is no try, only do,' I will just have to force Simone to listen to me."  My mom, I could tell was not satisfied so I told her in a light and jovial tone, "I can tell this is all going over your head and you don't agree."  She laughed too and said, "We'll just agree to disagree."

Honestly, it angers me.  But it's not worth it to try to convince her I think we're doing the right thing.  And actually, it's not the only right thing to do.  My niece and nephew who will go to conventional schooling will learn as much as our kids!  There's many ways to do things; I just wish my mom would see that alternate paths can lead to the same endpoint.

Perspective

Last night was another struggle to get Simone to just do 1/5th of her homework.  I brought down the discipline and declared she could no longer have TV before finishing homework. 

I talked to Michael about it this morning and he gave me perspective on her entire education. 

"You want to keep learning fun because the moment it's a struggle, she's not going to want to learn.  I'd rather she learn to read later on instead of hate reading it because we forced it on her now." 

I told him that reading wasn't the problem - writing is.  And really, the problem is with the school system forcing her to write in Kindergarten.  Children are prepared to read earlier than they are capable of the fine motor skills needed to write letters.  So I'm going to relax on Simone and have her do maybe 1/7th of the homework and then do other fun learning things.  

So what if she doesn't make the honor roll in Kindergarten, right?  The Asian parent in me is struggling to come out and engulf all the homeschooling philosophies I've come to agree with.  Simone just got a progress report and I thought she was doing well with her "S" for satisfactory designation on 90% of her assessments.  Well, after reading the school newsletter I found out there is an "E" mark for excellent.  This means that Simone is average with all her S's, which is so not true!

Again Michael calmed me down with his great perspective ....

"Those report cards don't matter.  I almost failed according to those report cards and we all know I'm a genius!" 

It sounds arrogant, but he really is incredibly intelligent.  Simone's S's and N's are not going to let me get Tiger Mom on her.  I've got to keep learning fun!

Simone's First Story

I found Simone's first self-composed story!  It was written on September 1, 2012.

Queen Simone and Princess Gigi went into a rocket ship and flew out of Earth.  They went to a hotel out of Earth on an asteroid.  They found a hotel room.  Then they lived in it.

The End

It's time to head to Lakeshore Learning Store and buy some handwriting paper and journals.  :)

Short-Lived Homework High

I thought it was a miracle that Simone loved homework so much. I was right. It was a miracle, a temporary one.

Her homework this week no longer involved coloring and Simone did not want to do it. Monday consisted of reading short 3- or 4- letter words. Can I; I can; we can; I like; to go; I can see; etc. We were instructed to repeat it 3 times. Within the first try, Simone had lost TV privileges because she didn't want to stop goofing off and concentrate. I gave her a break, but she was still in the mood to goof off and lost more TV that she now could not watch any TV the next day. After another break, she finally finished her third time.

Now here's the funny thing. After the struggle was over, we went about our business for the evening and had dinner and played. While I was cleaning up before bedtime, I saw her pick up the list of words and then repeat them effortlessly!!!! She does know how to read. She just doesn't want to be told to do it! Hmmm .... sounds like me.

Last night was another struggle because we now had to write those words she was reading. The gobbledygook she's been drawing are poor representations of letters so I set out to teach her how to write in a fun way. I made these foamcore sticks and arcs to show her how letters are made! I pulled out the kit, of which I was quite proud I had accomplished, and how did Simone receive it? She was excited BUT ... but but but .... she wanted to do it her way. She thought she was going to show me how one draws an "h." Well, shouting ensued. I told her to take a break. I calmed down and resolved that we would be lucky if we wrote 1/5th of the homework.

I started writing the letters myself to see if I might glean some wisdom in having to do the homework myself. I happened to write the letters in a new notebook I had bought a while back. When I started ignoring Simone, she was very interested!! She now wanted to write letters. I told her to pick a letter from the top line and to practice that.

To make the long story short, we achieved the 1/5th goal, but we had to take about 10 breaks. I didn't have her write the letters in the proper sentence because it felt too advanced for her to focus on writing a capital "I" and then jump to a "c" and then to an "a." Sounds easy to us adults, right? Well it was maddening to Simone to jump so much. She wanted to perfect her letter and got frustrated when it wasn't coming out write. At one point, she threw her pencil down and said, "I never do anything right!" I felt really bad for her and tried to assure her that everyone goes through this. I then praised her highly when she did do write correctly.

Another key to having her do homework was MY doing homework. She got really into writing her letters when I let her give me homework. We were suffering together. But I must say my homework was easy. She told me to draw different amounts of toys in different boxes based on her instructions.


Our homework journey has just begun. What a looooooooooooooong road we have ahead of us.

Any advice is welcome and greatly appreciated.

Simone's Second Story

I really need to get those books that have a space for a drawing, and lines for whatever you want to write.  Simone likes to make up stories.  Here is the second one she created.

"There was a princess named Gigi and a queen named Simone.  They went to the moom and saw aliens.  They played together and they became best friends.    The End"

Handwriting Without Tears

When I went to a Great Homeschool Convention in Los Angeles, CA, I was so impressed when I saw the Handwriting Without Tears books.  I liked that their space for writing was smaller than what I've seen before.  I also liked that they have manipulatives! 

One thing I didn't like, however, was how their "B" looks.  I saw a video on their website demonstrating how they teach kids what the Upper Case B looks like.  I'll be blunt. It looks like someone squashed it with a rolling pin.  I wouldn't want Simone to write her B like that. 

So, I'm going to make my own manipulatives.  If I can do it under $32, which is what Handwriting Without Tears charges for just their uppercase letters, then I'll have come out ahead!  I'm going to get some foamcore at Michael's with the 40% coupon I received in the mail.  Then I'm headed to Home Depot for some 80 or 120 grit sandpaper.  I read in Talkers, Watchers, & Doers: Unlocking Your Child's Unique Learning Style that kids who are kinesthetic learners do better when the objects they're playing with have more texture. 

Wish me luck!

Homework

Guess who loves homework!  Here's a hint:

Yes!  Simone loves it.  Last Friday night, she was so alarmed that she didn't have to do it.  To calm her down, I told her I would make some for her.  She was satisfied and actually quite eager.  She wanted to look at the worksheet before it was ready!

It may be that she loves all the coloring she's doing with her homework.  Her class is learning how to read the words for colors.  Either way, I'm going to foster her enthusiasm!  I'm quite enthused myself in that I get to work with Photoshop to put these exercises together.  I couldn't find free worksheets online that seemed worth the printing of our paper.  Well, they were worthwhile, but they just weren't what I had in mind. 

Ok, I just wanted to do something creative and deemed all other sheets unworthy. 

Where Have We Been?!

I just realized that the last time I wrote on this blog was 1 year ago!!!!!!  Quel horror!

In the last year, we've left our home in California for our new station in Tampa, Florida.  It wasn't a simple move in that we bought a 1970s 35'-long bus that we are converting into our RV / homeschool-on-wheels, stayed in Minnesota for 1 month (doing the initial bus conversion), took a road trip from MN to FL, and found a new home 4 days after we arrived. 

We've always known that Simone should do some conventional schooling before we start homeschooling, but for a moment I thought we might have to begin earlier than expected.  Our new home is in a somewhat impoverished area.  The statistics for success are not high with WestShore Elementary, but things like that don't really matter to me when we're talking about Kindergarten.   What solidified our decision to send Simone to public school was what we experienced during her physical. 

The local military base offered free physicals, something Simone would have to complete to get into the Florida school system.  She hadn't had time to do her 5-year well check so we thought this was an excellent opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone.  The first part of the exam is to check Simone's visual health.  She had to do an eye exam with pictures and symbols instead of the regular one with letters because she was entering Kindergarten.  Simone     would      not      do      it.  She just outright refused to even tell me what symbols she saw.  I knew very well she could recognize her letters, but she didn't even want to do that.  I knew that she had inherited her father's introversion, but even her father responded when spoken to when he was little. 

My thoughts when Simone refused to do the eye exam, "Oh no.  I'm not prepared to homeschool her so soon!!!"  I only thought for a moment that she should definitely go to public school to learn communication and socialization.  For sure I thought Michael would want to shelter Simone, his mini-me, and homeschool her right away.  But I was surprised by his reaction - he agreed with me that she should go to school to correct this extreme aversion to strangers. 

She was quite nervous her first day, but that quickly dissipated over the next couple of days.  She in fact told me one afternoon, "I wish I could stay in school!"  She seems to be the quiet and reserved one in class, but she is so happy to see other kids and to play with both boys and girls.  She also loves to recite the rules that her teacher creates for the kids.  Sometimes she comes home and wants to play "teacher," in which she instructs Max and me on how to learn different activities.  Part of "teacher" is disciplining us!  I can feel the surge of power is exciting Simone. 

We are stationed in Tampa for the next 2 years and we were thinking that Simone should do public school for 2 years.  But with my conviction to do Classical Homeschooling, I'm thinking I might want to just do one year.  The 4 year rotation of this pedagogy begins at 1st grade and it would be a logical place to start.  But then again, I could just afterschool with things she doesn't get at public school.  Things like the history that begins with the Ancient Civilizations. 

Our schooling journey is ever indefinite!