Preschool Days

Although largely unplanned, a preschool curriculum has unfolded this year for Banana Bread. She has an opportunity to enjoy the sensory activities designed for the toddlers, and the exposure to a larger world with the homeschoolers.  As her daycare friends mature into their preschool years next year I think our daycare days will be more structured too.

Schooling in the car outside music lessons

I did make a conscious effort in the New Year to introduce a preschool literacy curriculum as she was showing an interest in print and learning to read (she would find "her letter" everywhere, and told stories as she 'read' them aloud in her play.)  Twice a week while we are waiting for the big kids to finish their activities we take a portable homeschool kit on the road with us.  We work on a preschool curriculum book (picked-up from Costco) until it exhausts her interest, she reads me some beginning readers, and then I read her a couple of stories.  We usually school this way for about 30 minutes at a time, but it is more structured than her other play - it is important to follow the directions, and complete the work neatly :)

Schooling outside dance class.

Here is a little glimpse into Banana Bread's life.....

Beach Day Fridays

Feeding the neighbourhood ducks

Play outdoors.

Play indoors.

A favourite - water in the sandbox.

Discovering a snail.

Art - dinosaur stamps.

Joyfully parenting,
Caz.

Discussions: Honouring Silence

I'm participating in a great Reading Circle right now on Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms by Stephen D. Brookfield & Stephen Preskill (Josey-Bass, 2nd ed. 2005) 

My discussion group humored me today and allowed me to test-run an activity with them that would invite the students to remain silent for 5 minutes before the discussion got started.  I found it a bit of a challenge to stay engaged for this length of silence in a facilitation role.  Generally I feel I am doing well if I silently count to 10 to allow enough silence to encourage others to speak. But there is something about this length of silence which held me more accountable. I couldn't just count in my head; I had to be mentally present for the activity. The five minutes gave me time to consider the question posed, allowed for some time to get distracted, and then re-think the question.

Brookfield and Preskill have some great points about silence in discussion which I think I'll try more actively to practice:

"Don't mistake students' silence for mental inertia or disengagement... Silence is the condition the media dread above all else - they even call it "dead air" - but real-life discussion is not a talk show! Effective discussion leaders take steps to ensure that periods of reflective silence became accepted as a normal and necessary element of people's deliberations." (p.65)

How can I include more reflective silence in my homeschooling?

• Pausing at meaningful times when reading aloud to silently reflect on the story and thereby invite the kids to do the same.
• Allow the kids to have some silent reflection after reading an article before we get started on projects.
• Try and pose analytical questions and then structure 5 minutes of silence in our work together. Perhaps when they are writing their weekly learning story I can get used to the idea that not typing is still attending to their work...
• Model reflective thinking when the kids ask me questions; "Interesting question. Let me think a moment..."
• Look for examples of silence in stories and movies that are powerful.

"Another mode of responding [to student comments] is through silence. The tendency to answer students without hesitation is a hard one to unlearn... We believe that even more time, up to a full minute, can occasionally be used to model unhurried deliberation and to emphasize the importance of reflection. Structuring silence can give participants a chance to take the time needed to think through a new idea, make sense of it, and fit it into an existing mental schema." (p.98)

Joyfully silent,
Caz.

Reminiscing about summer... Muffin Mouse

Raising Readers

I've been thinking about raising children who love to read lately. In many ways teaching reading is a bit of a mystery. Most of my language arts training was a 'whole language' vs. 'phonics' debate. Our discussions were mainly in the theoretical and I'm afraid to admit that I graduated from my teacher training with no idea how kids learned to read!

Hey, I'm homeschooling my kids in the middle school years, it doesn't really matter now right? - they know how to read!  Yeah, but what if they don't want to? 

It's simple questions like this that become imperative to a homeschooling mum. The buck stops here.  Can't say I've got a total handle on this yet, but I have spent the past 4 months giving it considerable thought. Here's what I've come up with:

1) Reading Aloud -All the research I've read on reluctant readers attest to the need to continue to read aloud to your kids way into their teen years... Really!? How come no one tells you this?   The research says that kids need to fall in love with great stories and these stories may be considerably over their reading ability.  Kind of like the idea that your kids understand a lot of what you're saying before they learn to talk themselves.

2) U.S.S.R. - You remember these acronyms from elementary school? Uninterrupted, Sustained, Silent, Reading.  Essentially it means everyone (parents included) stop and read, without interruption, for at least 30 minutes per day.  I've always liked the idealized notion of the family sitting around reading, but the research says that practice is essential in learning to read. Practice, practice, practice....  One upside of implementing USSR in our home is that I am also reading fiction for fun again. I mean, I LOVE to read, but when I looked at what I was reading (textbooks, research articles, religious books etc.) I wasn't actually modeling the love of the Classics or the foundational fiction which I wanted for my kids.

3) Charlotte Mason - I love the Charlotte Mason approach to education. I'm sure I'll prattle on about her ideas many times on this blog, but a foundation in her approach is oral narration. This encourages the parent to read aloud to kids and have the children narrate (speak) back what they understand at the end of the reading aloud. This never ceases to amaze me - my kids are great at recalling names, places and events which I long forgot.  It holds the kids accountable for giving their undivided attention to the reading, and is also a great quick assessment for the parent to see what the kids have grasped. For some quick overviews on this approach visit www.simplycharlottemason.com

Here's the exciting thing... IT WORKS. I was inspired to write about this today because at the end of our USSR both kids asked to continue reading their novels!!! They read for over an hour (although, I'm embarrassed to admit that after 30 minutes of Heidi I dozed off!)  Just another example in my constant need to maintain humility and give my kids a break if they're too tired to read some days :)

This happy home schooling mum confesses that there is no saving face in home schooling, but I am tickled that my kids read while I snored quietly next to them on the couch!

Joyfully yours,

Caz.

Introducing my kids and their blog pseudonyms... Trust me, I asked their input and this is what we came up with. George's first choice was Jack A.S.S. how funny is that mum???

George

Banana Bread

Muffin Mouse