Monthly Archives: January 2006

Fun Learning Stuff, Methods of Home Education, Tidal Homeschooling, Who We Are

Tidal Homeschooling

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Click here for the master list of all my tidal homeschooling posts.

People often ask me what kind of homeschoolers we are: Classical? Charlotte Mason? Eclectic? Delight-Directed? Unschoolers? How, they want to know, does learning happen in our home? Am I in charge, or do I let the kids lead the way? And what about math?

Over the years I have written with enthusiasm about the Charlotte Mason method (which is highly structured) and unschooling (which is not). These educational philosophies seem to have intertwined themselves in my home, so that the what we do—read great books, study nature, dive deeply into history, immerse ourselves in picture study and composer study—is highly influenced by Charlotte’s writings and their modern counterparts; and the how we do it—through strewing and conversation and leisurely, child-led exploration—is influenced by the writings of John Holt, Sandra Dodd, and other advocates of unschooling. But I couldn’t say we’re "real CMers" because I don’t carry out Miss Mason’s recommendations in anything like the structured manner she prescribed; and I probably do too much behind-the-scenes nudging for us to be considered "real unschoolers."
 
The truth is, I couldn’t find any label that completely fit my family, so I made up my own. I call us "Tidal Learners" because the ways in which we approach education here change with the tide. Now, this doesn’t mean that we’re flighty or inconsistent, changing direction haphazardly. We aren’t Fiddler Crab Homeschoolers. What I mean is that there is a rhythm to the way learning happens here; there are upbeats and downbeats; there is an ebb and flow.

We have high tide times when I charter a boat and we set sail with purpose and direction, deliberately casting our net for a particular type of fish. On these excursions I am the captain; I have charted the course. But the children are eager crew members because they know I value their contributions. And also I provide generous rations. No stale or moldy bread on this ship: no dull textbooks, no dry workbooks. My sailors sink their teeth into fresh, hearty bread slathered with rich butter and tart-sweet jam. Well fed and proud of their work, my little crew exhilarates in the voyage. Every journey is an adventure.

And we have low tide times when we amble along the shore, peering into tide pools and digging in the sand, or just relaxing under beach umbrella. The children wander off in directions of their own choosing; they dig and poke and ponder. One of them may crouch over a rock pool and stay there for days, studying, watching. Another will run headlong into the waves, thrilling to the pull on her legs, splashing, leaping, diving under and emerging triumphantly farther out. Or a child might prefer to stay close by my side, drawing stick pictures in the sand or building a castle. All of these things may be happening at once. Sometimes it looks as though nothing is happening: there’s just an array of bodies on beach towels. But oh, the nourishment there is in a time of quiet reflection while the soul soaks up the sunlight!

Our family enjoys both kinds of learning—the heady adventure of the well-planned fishing trip, with a goal and a destination in mind, and the mellower joys of undirected discovery during weeks at the metaphorical beach. Around here, the low tide times happen much more often than the high tide times, and often I find that the children catch more fish, so to speak, when the tide is out. Beachcombing reveals many treasures. But they do enjoy their excursions with Cap’n Mom. I really believe joy is the key, the element we breathe whether the tide is in or out. It’s the wind that propels our ship; it’s the tangy breeze that cools and refreshes us on the beach.

In the coming days I’ll write about how the metaphor plays out in our house on a practical level. "So what do you do all day?" is a question I’m often asked, and since every day is different, it’s easiest to answer that question with snapshots and specifics. Right now, this week, we’re spending our mornings on the boat. We’re studying sign language and German; we’re enjoying a Robert Frost poem every day; we’re reading a book of English history together as well as the oft-mentioned The Penderwicks. Jane spends time on her self-prescribed drawing exercises every day, and my funny Rose continues her dogged pursuit of ancient Greek. (More on that another day). I’ve plotted a rough course that should bring us back into port in early April, when the newest member of our crew will arrive. And then I expect the tide will go out for quite a long time. It’s always a low tide time for us in spring, even when there isn’t a new baby. I’m laying in a good supply of books to read from the shade of my umbrella, but I imagine the children will spend most of their time off exploring the shore.

Read more about Tidal Homeschooling here,  here, and here.

ASL lessons, Sign Language

This Week’s Five Signs

I have another great ASL website to recommend this week: ASL Pro. Like the ASL Browser, it offers free video clips demonstrating thousands of signs. There’s a special category for signs especially pertinent to little ones (“ASL for Babies”) as well as a separate dictionary of religious signs. There’s even have a quiz option so you can test yourself! Very cool.

Unfortunately, I cannot link directly to individual words in its dictionary (just as with the ASL Browser), so the links below will take you to still-photo-demonstrations of the signs. As always, I recommend looking them up in one of the video dictionaries in order to see the sign in motion.

OK, on to this week’s new signs:

More.

Finish (or “all done”).

Want.

Need.

Help. *The illustration for this sign shows a closed fist on top of a flat palm. I learned it with the thumb of the fist pointing upward, as it is demonstrated on the ASL Browser. Also, this is a “directional” sign—while making the sign, your hands move in the direction the “help” goes—from me to you, for example, if I’m offering to help you; or from you to me, if I’m asking you to help me. The ASL Browser demos the basic sign (without direction), which uses a slight upward movement of the hands.

And a bonus: the sign for YOU is, not surprisingly, simply pointing your index finger at the person to whom you’re speaking. Which means you can now sign:

“Do you want more?” Sign: YOU WANT MORE, raising your eyebrows and leaning forward slightly to make it a question.

and:

“You need help!” Sign: YOU NEED HELP

and lots of other simple sentences using last week’s words (yes, no, please, thank you, and hello).

Poetry

Our Winter Poet

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Now Close the Windows
by Robert Frost

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
It will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.

Family Adventures

The Joy of Ordinary

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This post needs to be green. This whole blog ought to be green today, but I can either play with templates or write a post.

Green is the color of Ordinary Time, and according to the liturgical calendar, that’s what begins today: ordinary time. I love ordinary time. The holidays are officially over. For many of you, they may have ended a week ago, but for us the holiday season rolls along until the Feast of the Epiphany, which was observed yesterday. But now the Christmas decorations and all their accompanying excitement are packed away for another eleven months, and the quieter pleasures of humdrumity are upon us once more.

Ordinary Time is like returning to a nice steady beat after a rousing drum solo. I married a drummer; I can appreciate the merits of a good drum fill. But a steady background rhythm has a merit of its own: a comfortable reliability, like a heartbeat. And that’s where we are today. Today we return to the ‘normal’ stuff: nature walks, Flylady, board games, historical fiction, a new artist with whom to get acquainted, a new symphony ditto, occasional tea times, poetry, birdwatching. Each child has her own set of plans. Yesterday Jane plastered a new notebook with stickers in anticipation of some happy quote-collecting. The fancy gel pens her aunt and uncle gave the girls for Christmas have inspired her to capture some favorite passages (mostly from the Redwall books, I’m told) in sparkling, mother-blinding color. She also intends to devote a span of time every morning to practicing her drawing, following the advice of her drawing guru, Mark Kistler.

Rose has taken over the filling of bird feeders and wants to ‘learn everything there is to know about birds,’ so she informs me. Beanie wants what Beanie always wants: stories, Sculpey, and snuggling. She’s a girl after my own heart. Wonderboy has no plans that I’m aware of, but his therapies will provide the bassline that anchors our schedule. And there’s a homeschoolers’ astronomy class planned, and weekly visits to the city rec center for the homeschoolers’ games day. Not Too Much Stuff: just enough to keep us contentedly busy.

For my family, this mellow rhythm will continue (barring unexpected health crises or other shakeups, which, by now, I have pretty much come to expect) for about three months past Ash Wednesday and through Lent to early April, when (presumably) the new baby will arrive. I like a nice three-month chunk of time. It’s a season-sized piece of the calendar; it’s just the right amount of time for beginning and completing new projects. I have a patchwork blanket planned, a novel to wrap up, and a small stack of books I’d like to finish reading before my arms fill up again. We’re all re-energized and ready to slip back into the comfortable beat of Ordinary Time, the pleasant iambic pentameter of the year.

Art

Great Tip for Painting Boards

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In case you missed this in the comments section, Ann suggested a terrific alternative to the painting boards I mentioned in my art supplies post:

For painting boards, I bought 3 large plastic food service trays for about a dollar each from our local university surplus store. Each one can hold a large sheet of watercolor paper nicely and the low rim all around catches any dribbles. The quirky part is that they all have the word “Nourishment” written on them with permanent marker. I guess the trays were used by the Univ. Hospital’s dietetics department in their previous life. We just laugh and agree that painting is a *very nourishing* pursuit!

Thanks for the tip, Ann!

Books, Chesterton & Dickens

“The Ungovernable Sense of Life”

From G. K. Chesterton’s Charles Dickens, the Last of the Great Men

No man ever encouraged his characters so much as Dickens. “I am an affectionate father,” he says, “to every child of my fancy.” He was not only an affectionate father, he was an ever-indulgent father. The children of his fancy are spoilt children. They shake the house like heavy and shouting schoolboys; they smash the story to pieces like so much furniture. When we moderns write stories our characters are better controlled. But, alas! our characters are rather easier to control. We are in no danger from the gigantic gambols of creatures like Mantalini and Micawber. We are in no danger of giving our readers too much Weller or Wegg. We have not got it to give. When we experience the ungovernable sense of life which goes along with the old Dickens sense of liberty, we experience the best of the revolution. We are filled with the first of all democratic dontrines, that all men are interesting; Dickens tried to make some of his people appear dull people, but he could not keep them dull. He could not make a monotonous man. The bores in his books are brighter than the wits in other books.

And also:

Dickens’s art is like life because, like life, it is irresponsible, because, like life, it is incredible.