A Comfortable Home

Banana Bread working on a collage this week

Since I started running family daycare last September I have been working to find ways to make life more efficient.  I LOVE working from home, but because we are here so much it gets messy. Really quickly.  In the past, I can remember leaving for my day job, dropping the kids at school and returning to an untouched, tidy home at the end of the day... happy sigh...




To give an honest assessment of how the house looks right now:

• George is starting paper mache for his Science poster presentation at the kitchen table. Muffin Mouse if there too working on math.
• Banana Bread is playing (messing things up) quietly in her room.
• The lunch stuff is on the kitchen counters still.
• A half-folded bin of laundry is on the couch in the livingroom.

Science project underway

Over the past year I have found some strategies that work toward my goal of achieving a comfortable home. For me a 'comfortable home' is one that is reasonably clean, tidy (only current projects are out), and well organized.

Oh, and I should mention that I did not replace my housecleaner who came a couple of times per month when she moved. I'm using that money to pay for my horse riding lessons instead... so things are more "comfortable" and less clean than they have been!

• The daycare kids and I tidy the toys and play space three times a day (before outside time, before nap, and before stories at the end of the day.)  This advice came from a long-time family daycare provider and it is so important. It creates an atomsphere of order, but allows for freedom in play (I'm not tempted to tidy as they play.)

• My bi-weekly toy rotation is a big help. I re-create the play space every two weeks (move livingroom furniture, set-up a new dramatic play theme etc.) This routine prompts me to clean under the couches, find lost toys, and dust areas that otherwise go unnoticed in the day-to-day living.

• I pretty much do all the laundry one day a week. If I don't prioritize it on one day it becomes a nasty, drawn-out process for the week (forgetting stuff is in there and rewashing etc.)

• I know I've mentioned it before, but I always come back to it - Flylady is the basic structure I return to when things feel out of hand around the house. Hot darn, it just works.

I've also become a huge believer in home delivery!! 

• Our dog is groomed in a mobile pet grooming van every 2 months for the same price I paid to drop him somewhere in town. This saves me from spending one of my days-off running the dog around town.

•  I have my groceries delivered to my door.  There has been some trial and error with this system, but I now have it fine-tuned.  I have an organic food bin delivered every two weeks from Share Organics. I also have other groceries delivered every two weeks from Thrifty's.  This frees me to spend my time menu planning, and eliminates the couple of hours spent shopping on the weekends.  I do still make a couple of trips to Costco in a month, but I find that more fun than work!

OK. I've got to go put the lunch dishes away before the little ones wake up from nap!

Joyfully comfortable,
Caz.

Beautiful Math Moment Reflections

I was re-reading an old post of my sister's on a beautiful math moment and it got me thinking...

It highlights for me the needed balance between exploratory learning and direct instruction.  Without exposing our children to the beauty and rules that govern mathematics they can't apply the principles in their play and feel the excitement and joy that math is!

When I think back on my memorable math moments they combined these two elements. One example that stands out was the summer our family built a barn. I can remember enjoying the process of applying geometry in a meaningful way.  It wasn't simple math - it required considerable thought and written work, plus a sense of urgency that we solve the problem correctly.  But geometry came alive for me that summer.

A great read on learning to liberate your math instruction is Paul Lockhart's A Mathematician's Lament: How School Cheats us of our Most Fascinating and Imaginative Art Form. I read the first couple of chapters to George and Muffin Mouse last year and it made an impression. Lockhark starts by declaring that students think math class is boring and stupid - and they're right!  I'm sure the kids don't think that about my math classes, right!?

Joyfully mathematical,
Caz.

Raising Writers

Yay!  It's one of my favourite times of the year... curriculum planning:) 

I think there is something powerful about having an overarching goal each year - it makes the progress focused and measurable.

We really focused on reading last year and it paid off.  By the end of George's Grade 5 year he assessed at a Grade 7.2 reading level, and Muffin Mouse assessed at Grade 8.8 at the end of her Grade 6 year.  

So my focused goal this year is writing skills - in particular non-fiction writing.

My summer reading on this topic was William Zinsser's On Writing Well.  It is outstanding.  Zinsser is a writer, editor, and teacher - He taught writing at Yale and Columbia universities.  Based on Zinsser's recommendations, my writing curriculum will have the following principles:

• You learn to write by writing. It's a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it's true.  The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis. (Zinsser, 2006, p.49)

With this principle in mind we'll write daily.  I don't think it will be hard to get going as we have established daily reading in our routine and seen the benefits - this should be an easy sell.

• Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can't believe it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't. (p.83)

 I've chosen a writing curriculum that has a strong foundation in writing conventions and grammar.  These skills will help with the editing process.

• Clutter is the disease of American writing. The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. (p.6-7) Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into the or style and how it obstructs what they are trying to say. If you give me an eight page article and I tell you to cut it to four pages, you'll howl and say it can't be done. Then you'll go home and do it, and it will be much better. After that comes the hard part: cutting it to three. (p.17)

 Each week we'll include an exercise in editing a piece of writing. We'll also edit each others writing.

• You will never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. (p.32)

This will be interesting - finding a balance between everyday language (such as texting language) and developing a love of the English language. I think we'll focus on reading good work and not allow too much everyday language to creep into our writing - at least to start.

• You are writing for yourself.  Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person.  You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. (p.24)

The writing curriculum I chose builds through-out the week. We finish the week with a writing assignment. I think we'll do this assignment in our journals to help reinforce the sense that we are writing for ourselves. 


I'll post later this week with details on each child's curriculum so you can get a sense of how this will look in our day.  I'm also completing the curriculum this year with the kids and will blog my writing assignments - sure to thrill!

Joyfully writing,
Caz.

Changing Educational Paradigms

I was reminded of a wonderful 11 minute talk by Sir Ken Robinson on Educational Paradigms today - thought I'd share it with you:)

Joyfully divergent,
Caz.

Right Ideas and a Shiny New Bike

Muffin Mouse is the proud owner of a new bike today!  The way the purchase came together was a nice reminder that a right idea has the resources necessary to make it happen.


Muffin Mouse and I have been sharing a bike with her Dad (three bikes for two people) for the past year.  For most practical purposes this works well - there is generally a bike available when you want to ride one. But this sharing did limit our opportunities for family bike rides (and although, perhaps romantic, I am not so inclined to double-up on one bike!)

The inaugural bike ride today.

Our family has been actively working to limit our material wants and have resisted the temptation to run out and buy a new bike on a whim. We set a modest budget last year, but did not find a suitable bike.


We received an email a couple of days ago from family asking if we would be interested in a beautiful bike - it exceeds our specifications and was the price we were planning to spend:)  We are all so delighted with it, and grateful that we will have the opportunity to ride our bikes as a family all summer this year.

Oh, and it included the helmet she needs too!

The statuesque shot so you can see the bike clearly!

Joyfully active,
Caz.