A Little Rebellion Every Now & Then

I’m not an artist. I can take decent photographs, and I even know how to develop them, but there’s a reason my fine arts credits in high school were photography, drama, technical theatre, and the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

So I admit to being rather neglectful when it comes to art opportunities for Gillian. I don’t particularly enjoy art, it tends to be a pain in the arse to get everything out, and then after all that, there’s still cleaning to do.

I had decided, at least tenatively, to use Drawing With Children next year for art. I figured that I could rely on my dad from time to time, as well.

However, I’ve read several reviews from people saying that they wished they’d waited until their child was older before doing Drawing With Children, and I have the book PreschoolArt, with which we’ve never done a thing. So, looking at both what I have available to me and what is listed in WTM, I’ve come up with a possible revised schedule:

First Grade: PreschoolArt.
Second Grade: Drawing With Children.
Third Grade: Combination of Art Smart series (How To Draw…) and Doing Art Together.
Fourth Grade: Combination of Art Smart series and A Book of Artrageous Projects.

Looking at it now, I can see what I wish I had done with Gillian, and what I can still do with Jacob:

Preschool & Kindergarten: PreschoolArt
First Grade: Art Smart series and Drawing Is Basic, Grade One.
Second Grade: Drawing with Children and Drawing Is Basic, Grade Two.
Third Grade: Drawing is Basic, Grade Three and Doing Art Together.
Fourth Grade: Drawing is Basic, Grade Four and A Book of Artrageous Projects.

That’s still a lot more ‘projects’ than I currently do, but I have high hopes for myself.

The thing I’ve reluctantly concluded is that you’re just not ’supposed’ to do classical education if you’re not a fundamentalist Christian who wants Christ at the center of absolutely everything. All right, maybe it’s not that bad, but as someone who wants to start Latin early - first grade - it’s a bit difficult to find an appropriate program. So I bought Prima Latina on sale, and I’m working on modifying it.

First things first, I’ve started nosing around for things to memorize that would replace the prayers. I haven’t come to any decisions, but I have a few resources, at least.

Tonight, I went through the vocabulary list in the back of the book and fixed it. I added macrons where appropriate, and added in definitions where I thought they’d been too narrow - i.e. caelum as ‘heaven’ rather than ’sky’ or ‘the heavens.’ I’ve printed that out, as well as their alterna-pronunciation guide with the instructions for classical. I’ll tape that over the in-book guide in each book.

Tomorrow - or later - I will use the ‘corrected’ vocabulary list and go through the text as well as the teachers’ manual, adding macrons and definitions where appropriate. I also will be going through the flashcards, sorting out the appropriate ones for Prima Latina and adding macrons to them. A bonus, if you will, from getting the flashcards is that I have a ready-made preview of the vocabulary in Latina Christiana, and I can work steadily on them throughout next year. Finally, I’ll come up with something cute for the first couple of lessons (which cover pronouncing Latin), and print it out to cut out and tape over the in-book stuff. Whew!

About a week and a half ago, I read Birth As An American Rite of Passage. This book is fascinating in its analysis of birth from the perspective of what society ‘gains’ under the current predominant system of birth; namely, that birth as currently practiced by the majority of the culture underlines the idea that the institution is of paramount importance. Nothing - not the family, not the child, not the mother, not the individual - is to trump it.

Then, today, I read this father’s account of visiting a hospital after a planned unassisted birth. The family went in because the mother had not yet birthed the placenta after some hours, and they were concerned. Yet, the hospital - the institution - felt the need to somehow take over with their daughter. It’s a fascinating and deeply troubling story.

This reminded me of something I was considering just a few days ago - that next year, I would have to submit paperwork with regards to homeschooling.

Let me write it another way. I have to fill out a form and send it in to the local school system in order to let my child stay at home with me. I have to get permission, in effect, to not send her to an institution for the majority of her waking hours.

I’m sure I’m reinventing the wheel here, but I think that it’s the lack of reliance on institutions by homebirthers and homeschoolers that is what truly drives the resistance to both practices. Yes, doctors don’t want to lose the money from the births of those women, but when homebirth represents one to two percent of births nationally, is money really enough to explain the hostile, virulent reactions of some medical professionals? More than that, what about the reactions of those who have no monetary investment in the place and method of birth?

Similarly, financial gain is given as a reason that the education bureaucracy fights homeschoolers. Every head is, after all, a source of income for the school system. Again, however, that doesn’t explain the reactions of those who have no monetary investment in the place and method of education.

Psychological studies have shown that same-age peer interaction is not a preferred method of socialization for optimal psychological health. People will generally admit that at least some portion of their school years were hell, due in part or wholy to the efforts of their peers. The same people, however, are insistent that we continue doing things the same way that we ‘always’ have - the institution. Why?

Because to challenge the institution is to challenge most of society’s assumptions. To challenge the institution, whether through place of birth or place of learning, is to challenge some of the dominant values of our culture. It is, in a way, to challenge the very foundation around which our culture is organised. For many people, challenging the dominant culture and dominant values in such a blatant way is not tolerable. Psychologically, they cannot understand it, and do not want to deal with it. That psychological reaction to the challenge is the source, I believe, of the negative and extreme reactions to homebirthing and homeschooling.

We’ll start downstairs:

This is the closet in the sunroom, also known as Daisy’s room (Daisy is the cat). Games are stored here (1), as well as…

(2) La Clase Divertida.

Moving opposite it, we come to:

the former location of a lot of stuff. Three was the location for all our current stuff (not to mention my API crap); four still has some books ‘n’ things.

Five is my homeschooling/education books shelf. There are a couple missing at present (Revised WTM; Climbing Parnassus).

Now we go upstairs!

06 - My mom’s sewing machine (which I haven’t yet used; we’ve had it for two years), with the rest of my crafty stuff. Mostly yarn and knitting needles. The school area is one corner of my ‘office;’ the upstairs is a finished attic. The stairs come out into an open room (office), then there is a side room (Sam’s office) and a big side room (playroom).
07 - Gillian, doing math in her pajamas.
08 - The very cool $6 light from IKEA.
09 - The very cool $30 desk from IKEA.
10 - Storage area. See more detail below.

11 - Small shelf intended to sit on the floor; now it holds our current read-alouds and current chapter book.
12 - The very cool $30 drawer storage unit from IKEA. (I love IKEA, can you tell?) The top drawer is pencils, pens, colored pencils, beeswax crayons, modeling beeswax, a few flashcards, blank index cards, cuisenaire rods, and a rod track. The middle drawer is workbooks: spelling, mathematics, and handwriting, plus handwriting paper. The bottom drawer holds our phonics book, First Language Lessons, and an accordion file that I use for storing any loose papers, as well as our weekly assignments chart.
13 - My pile o’ crap, otherwise known as ’stuff I need for LLL and ALACE.’
14 - Gillian’s favourite stuffed animal, the rabbit known as “Jill.”

15 - Jacob, or one who makes it difficult to get work done at times.

The all homeschool (sort of), all the time bookcase.
16 - Current year resources. Teachers’ manuals, science reference books, schedules, cassette tapes, slate from HWT.
17 - Stuff for next year and a few more planning-type things.
18 - Girl Scout stuff. My old stuff, mainly, but some stuff for my troop too.
19 - More references. Homeschooling ‘how-tos,’ good buys on future history and science reference, and my old dictionary and writing manuals.
20 - Pile of books from my grandmother. Includes several books from turn-of-the-century schools. Er. Turn of the last century.
21 - Books either from Powells or McKay’s. I love used bookstores. Why, yes, that is a Saxon Algebra 1/2, 2nd edition. It was $5. I could resell it for more than that.

Now, onto the storage shelves in Sam’s office.

22 - Science and history books for future use, most of which were acculumated for $2-6 each at McKay’s, or I already owned them from my childhood. Arranged by four-year cycle, history and science alternating. I have more for next year, obviously.
23 - Collections of myths and legends, for the most part - fables, fairy tales, my old Golden’s Children’s Bible, a book on Greek and Roman mythology, plus some other random books. Also the manipulatives for Building Thinking Skills Primary.
24 - Random resources I accumulated for Gillian’s preschool years that we didn’t use. I’m keeping them until Jacob’s five, just in case I need things to keep him occupied.

An overview of the work area, complete now with both Globe and Cat.

Gillian’s been having, for lack of a better term, behaviour issues the past few weeks. It started about two weeks before Kelly arrived for her visit. We were definitely busy during that time and had several activities, including two different weekend events for Girl Scouts. I tried to make sure she was well-fed and well-rested, and was determined to wait it out.

Of course, between Kelly being here (deviation from routine #1), Jacob’s birthday (deviation #2), and Jacob’s party (deviation #3), things didn’t really get back to normal like I’d hoped. Now that Jacob is walking even more and getting into everything in sight, it seems like we’re not going to be getting back to normal, at least not how Gillian conceives of normal.

She told my mother this weekend that sometimes she gets lonely, and sometimes she gets bored. I could see where both of these could happen easily. I’m not the most social person in the world, and I don’t like driving for miles just to go to a park where some people may or may not show up to play. As far as boredom, while we ‘do school’ in a fairly structured way, it doesn’t take up a large part of our day. If we start by nine, we’re done by eleven; if we start by eight or eight-thirty, we’re often done in even less time - between nine-fifteen and nine-forty-five. Sometimes we’re quite busy during the day, but in practice, we have one La Leche League meeting a month (down from two; the one that stopped was the ‘better’ one, and had older kids for her to play with while there), one API meeting a month (it remains to be seen what age range will be present there), and one park day per week. We also have Girl Scouts every other week.

I’ve come up with a few thoughts that could help alleviate both both boredom and loneliness. The first is the easiest to implement. Gillian is very interested in learning Spanish, and we already have several resources for learning it. I think we’ll start (again) with La Clase Divertida, use the Teach Me… tapes and other CDs, and try to find other interesting resources through the library. It will definitely be an extended unit-study type thing, only without labeling it ’school.’

Tomorrow we’re going to a park date with some other MDC mamas. Ideally, I’d like to expand it and make it a weekly event (maybe even post it as an event on the CHE-NGA list and the SecularHomeschoolersinGA list). That would give her a reliable opportunity for interaction with other kids, and hopefully she could build some friendships.

I want to discuss with Judi the idea of having a playdate with Eva-Marie on the ‘off weeks’ from Girl Scouts. Gillian & Eva-Marie could easily play from the time Eva-Marie gets out of school until five o’clock (when Girl Scouts would end), which would be around two hours, allowing for transportation. That would be another regular contact.

I think I also need to re-read some information on eclectic homeschooling and unschooling. Part of homeschooling is having the time after ’schoolwork’ is done to explore those other areas, and I need to make sure that I’m helping her to do that as best as I can.

Other ideas?

Language Arts
     Phonics: Completed Lessons 161 through 167 in The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.
     Spelling:Completed pages 113 through 120 in Spelling Workout A.
     Grammar: Completed Lessons 27, 28, and 29 in First Language Lessons.
     Reading Practice: Read through Amelia Bedelia and Play Ball, Amelia Bedelia, in addition to lots of reading outside school.
     Handwriting: Practiced capital formation, magic c lowercase letters, words in lower-case letters, and writing her name on the double-lined paper; learned the formation of lower-case b.

Read-Alouds

• Carousel, Brian Wildsmith
• What Mary Jo Shared, Janice Udry
• The Legend of the Sand Dollar, Chris Auer
• “The Sleeping Beauty” in The Barefoot Book of Princesses
• “The Market Square Dog” in James Herriot’s Treasury for Children, James Herriot
• Birds, Brian Wildsmith
• Dawn, Uri Shulevitz
• Hide and Seek Fog, Alvin Tresselt
• Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, Charlotte Zolotow
• Sing of the Earth and Sky, Aileen Lucia Fisher

Mathematics
     Miquon Red: Completed pages I-6 & I-7, as well as J-4 through J-8.
     Developmental Math Level 3: Completed page 52.

Science
     Human Body: Finished the formal study of the human body by reading pages 56-59 in The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia.
     Animals: Read about Deer, Elk, Hedgehog, and Mole in The Kingfisher First Animal Encyclopedia; read Deer and Elk, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent and Animals Under the Ground, Allan Fowler.

Geography
We reviewed the states and capitals, sang The Star-Spangled Banner, and recited the continents.

Jacob
Jacob had Zoo Animals (Brian Wildsmith) read to him, and he also gnawed on it independently.

We haven’t done school today, and instead I’m setting up this blog.

Welcome to Friday!