Lakeside Math

On one day each week our schedule is such that the window of time between when I pick W up from PE at the public school and when we pick M up from preschool would not allow us much time for work if we went home in between. We tried a few different things in the beginning, but we have settled on this weekly routine: I bring math things along, pick W up, head in the direction of preschool, and we stop at a spacious pull-off by a lake on the way to do math sitting there in the car before we continue on to get M. It allows us 30 - 40 minutes of math time since we aren't using time on extra transitions home or to work at the library or somewhere else. While sitting in the front seat of the car, he's done a lot-- practiced finding the common factors of two numbers, learned how to make equivalent fractions with like denominators, worked through ways to multiply by 4-digit numbers, and practiced multi-step word problems. We try to limit the materials needed for math on these days to pencil and paper and clipboard, but some days require more, and there was the day we lost a fraction bar underneath the passenger seat.

The first time I parked and said to hop up front because we were going to do math right there, W said something like, "Seriously?! Are you kidding?" and I think was a little embarrassed by how strange that seemed. But as with so many things, he's adapted to the new normal. It's turned into one of the special little eccentricities of homeschool life. Maybe weekly math in the car will help him learn flexibility, and the idea that where there's a will there's a way for important work, even if the circumstances aren't ideal. I can hope. The mere fact that he can be productive in an unusual setting shows growth. W said in an essay he surprised me with as a Christmas gift that one of the reasons he likes homeschool is because "we can go more at my level...instead of knowing everything I have to figure it out. Also, I don't have to wait for people to be done. In addition, if I don't understand something, you can slow down." There's some 9-year-old perspective in those phrases for sure and an economy with words too, but the sentiment is about learning being at his speed, and I find that we are as able to do that side by side in the car as we are sitting at a table.

The view is pretty great, too. It's startling how quickly it has changed. It seems like just the other day we could sit there with the windows open and W had to climb down the bank and throw a few rocks in before we started on work each week. Then the fall colors reflected in the lake were really something to take in, and one afternoon from our spot we glimpsed workers at the summer camp nearby taking in the docks for the season. And now the lake has ice that is steadily creeping toward the middle. Even now with the cold, sometimes when his brain or his body needs a break W hops out and runs around the car a few times or stands and takes a few deep breaths outside looking at the lake. Maybe sometime in his future when he has to recall long division or finds himself adding up some fractions, he will reflect back to when he first learned it with a beautiful lake view to ponder in front of him.

Books for Days

I've always loved the tiny library just down the road from us. The librarian, Ms. L, has known W since before he could walk, and often when we walk in she has a new book saved out for us that she thought we might want to check out. If I ask about a particular book she doesn't have, one way or another she'll have it there the next time we are in. She leaves phone messages telling us about upcoming library events. At the library, my kids have played with kittens, planted seeds, decorated gingerbread houses, carved pumpkins, tried playing a harp, and attended concerts. The library was the first way we felt a part of the community, before the kids were the age for school or sports or lessons. Ms. L has been her usual helpful self now that we are homeschooling. She has always let us be pretty loose with our due dates but knowing that we are using our books for school now, she's taken to digitally renewing them for me, so I don't even receive the automated "books due soon" or "overdue" emails that I used to. Right now I am reading a book called The Brave Learner solely because she heard about it and purchased it with me in mind. (It's nice to feel special!) Ms. L is also the one who connected me with a homeschool parent who recently moved to our town and whom we've gotten together with a few times.

And yet our library is very small and its stores are limited. Before our homeschool year began, I was worried about having access to enough of the right kinds of books at the right times. I wanted to have books to go with topics we were studying in the content areas. And to teach reading itself, I wanted to have a lot of a given type of book for 6 or 8 weeks while we worked on strategies to read and understand that type of text and while I gave W big periods of time to read independently and put those skills to practice. The first set of reading skills we focused on this year was fiction in general, and for that I probably could have been satisfied at our library, but I knew later in the year I wanted to have, for just as long, a selection of books on the American Revolution, and later a bunch of historical fiction, and later a plethora of different biographies, and eventually poetry anthologies... I wanted to have enough of each of these categories not only to supply a voracious reader, but to offer him with choices and the ability to make comparisons at any given time. I knew I'd want to be able to keep most of these books longer than the typical two-week library loan time. I considered buying some of the great books I'd researched and felt I had to have. I made a wish list of titles for our studies across the year. I tried contacting companies like Heinemann to see if I could get a big discount on some sets of books for use in a homeschool setting, since the book lists they offer are excellent but the quantities and prices are intended for entire classrooms. I even asked the area sales rep if there were used books in certain categories that we could borrow. (The answers to both were no.) I knew I could buy some books through Kindle, or find some things through Epic or Reading A-Z which were sites with online kids' books I had access to. But I still wanted a lot of actual books.

Well, my fretting was for naught because I haven't bought any books and it has all worked out beautifully so far due to not one but a combination of local libraries, which deserve a special shout out. Besides our favorite little library, we also have free library cards at three other local libraries and the public school library. All these places are helpful, and by using some books from all of them, I have been able to find, if not every specific title I had in mind, plenty of books on any particular subject or genre that we have needed. We renew them as many times as we can (which is, depending on the library, anywhere from over a month to indefinitely) and that allows us to have things around as long as we need. I am often checking due dates and sorting out which books need to be returned where, but it's well worth it for all the free resources we use.

Another way I've been getting the resources we need is with free trials. What a fabulous concept! I have a free trial on Newsela, which is a great source for research content in general and kid-appropriate news and current events. You can even click to adjust the reading level of most articles. (I probably shouldn't say anything, but I've been using Newsela for free for a lot longer than the 30 days the trial was supposed to be.) I currently have a free trial to Freedom Flix, through Scholastic, which has provided some great online texts on the American Revolution while we're learning about that. I got a lot out of Mystery Science for free for a while but eventually paid for it ($69 for the year) because I wanted a feature that it wasn't allowing access to without doing so. (I appreciated that they offered a reasonable price for homeschoolers which was less than the regular classroom price, as I've found that too many great educational resources don't seem to consider, in their cost or otherwise, that homeschool families also might want to use them.) I had a free 30-day trial of Audible, which I've since cancelled because I didn't want the monthly fee, but that free month was great and allowed us to listen to some books not available through the library, which leads me...

Back to celebrating libraries to mention one more awesome feature: online audio books. Maybe this is old news to everyone else, but I thought it was amazing when I discovered this year that, simply by having a NH library card, I could check out audio books online using an app ("Libby") and listen to them through Bluetooth in the car. Having these audio books on hand helped us make the long journeys to Nova Scotia in August and Washington, D.C. in October, and it's been a game changer for our daily 25-minutes-each-way drives to M's preschool. M is not a huge fan of audio books yet (at least of the novels W wants to listen to) so we usually spend the drive over there in the morning when it's all three of us singing songs, talking, or playing games. But after dropping her off, we listen to an audio book on the way home; we do the opposite in the afternoon when we pick her up. Besides helping W to actually look forward to the time in the car, this has allowed us to read so many more books. And what's really nice that it provides a slew of books we have in common to talk about. At the beginning of the year, I was startled by how difficult it was for W to discuss books. I'd ask him 4th-grade-level types of comprehension questions-- about the characters' traits or motivations, about how the character changed, how one part was important in relation to the whole book, or about theme-- and this probing could be a bit of a battle, even though we were explicitly working on strategies for thinking about all of those things. He'd insist he didn't know/he forgot/the characters could only be described as "nice"/the book had no theme or life lesson, and he'd just want to get back to reading. I sometimes wondered if he truly didn't understand books (beyond plot recall), or if it was just too hard to focus on the conversation part enough to really show he understood. Either way, he's come a looong way in this regard and it's in no small part due to the fact that we have had all these shared audio books between us to discuss. (I try to get him talking about the books he reads on his own too, and I've been known to look up online summaries and discussion questions about books I haven't read myself in order to do so, but it's much more natural and fun when it's a book we've read together.) I pause the books once in a while to ask him questions or explain vocabulary or make predictions and we discuss the bigger ideas each time we finish one.

Just the other day we had just heard the last words of The One and Only Ivan, and while W might still prefer I immediately start the next book we've got queued up, it was completely painless for him and pretty efficient to respond fully to all the questions I brought up about it. I pointed out to him how much harder this would have felt to him a few months ago.

Here are some library books (mostly audio) I've had the pleasure of sharing with W this school year. Every parent and kid is different, but these are all ones my 9 1/2 year old and I both enjoyed. (I'm leaving out a few we've listened to that I don't particularly recommend. I am also leaving out Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which is the actual physical book we are currently reading and which no one needs me to recommend.)

Books we've Loved Lately:
Fish in a Tree: Uplifting story about a girl with dyslexia and her self esteem and how we all have strengths.
One and Only Ivan: Narrator is a gorilla, yet there is strong character development. A nice story for animal lovers.
My Side of the Mountain: Old story about a kid running away to live in the Catskill Mountains by himself. W ate up all the tough and clever survival details.
Blubber: A Judy Blume gem, so much more of a book than Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (which was fine). Makes you think about the social games of upper elementary schoolers, and gives a good look at bullying from all perspectives.
Ungifted: Not the great literature that some of these other books are, but we both enjoyed this story a lot about an impulsive, always-in-trouble kid who accidentally gets sent to the gifted school and how it changes all their lives. By Gordon Korman, a prolific and accessible author who also wrote the Dive and Everest series we've gotten hooked on in the past.
Frindle: One of the best of Andrew Clements. I read this book as a student teacher in a fifth grade about 15 years ago and thought it was fabulous even then. About language, flouting authority, and the power of ideas.
Little House in the Big Woods: Very optimistic family story that is practically a manual of 19th century living in sections (how they made cheese, trading, sewing, hunting, cleaning the gun...).
Little House on the Prairie: More of the same, but as the family moves west the interesting bits about the biases and fears about "Indians" led to good conversations.
The Black Stallion: A beautiful story about a boy and a horse who save each other and it all works out in the end.
Love that Dog: Read some poetry first so kids have some background knowledge. Lots of cool references to famous poems as a kid works his way through learning how to write poetry without realizing he's doing it. Quick read.
Henry and Beezus: We loved the entire Ramona series a few years ago. The Henry books now are easy reads and it's fun to revisit the same characters through Henry's perspective. Henry is his own unique, earnest, do-the-right-thing kind of guy.
First Light: Complicated, cool book that is part fantasy and revolves around the impacts of global warming.
The Lemonade War: Well-written realistic fiction about a brother and sister and a competition. The sister is high functioning on the autism spectrum and her character gives some insight into how people like that can have difficulty reading emotions and interacting with others.
Wonder: A kid with a deformed face goes to public school for the first time. Given that, it's surprisingly upbeat and sweet.
The Tiger Rising: Sad in parts but uplifting overall, a super rich book by a great author with lots of symbolism and repeated imagery.

Animal Intelligence

I have a kid who has always been riveted by a story of a squirrel on a birdfeeder, wanting to hear it again with better details; he relishes stories about his grandmother's pug's latest escapades. He has a relationship with every dog and cat he knows and they all feature highly in his mind. He kisses our dog goodnight ritually, and the two of them share many, many cuddles every day. Whenever we are near a certain shop in town, he has to go in to see if the owner's black pug is in, because he happened to meet him once. I like animals, but W loves them.

But besides the definite interest he has in animals, I've come to really admire the manner he has with them. He has this sixth sense, a sort of animal intelligence. He knows every cat and dog has its own personality and he approaches gently, letting them come to him. He reads their signals and is really responsive to animals. He wants to be close to them and he gets as close as he respectfully can. He took seriously the quick video we watched on the New England Aquarium web site before a visit there last summer about how to be a ray "whisperer" at the ray touch tank-- and he really was. He touched a lot of rays that day, even the biggest ones that don't come close for long. When he was three and a half, we visited a petting zoo at an apple orchard. It was an intense scene, with a slew of animals-- chickens everywhere, a peacock screeching, goats poking at us. There were lots of people, and the rabbits darted quickly whenever anyone moved toward them. W was intent on holding a rabbit, which I did not think was going to happen. I was proved wrong; after he patiently sat still for a long time with palm upturned, they eventually sniffed him, and stayed near and let him pet them. He was so pleased with himself. The rabbits were the important thing from that day-- not the apples or wagon ride or pumpkins.

I can count on him to be attentive and responsible with our dog. At 14, our Brunsy frequently needs to be carried up and down stairs or lifted on and off the couch and W is always the first one there to do these things. Over the summer it surprised me when I realized I trusted him to carry the dog. He asks me if he can feed the dog each night, whereas I'm the one reminding him about almost everything else. In life in general, love him as I do, W he can be impulsive, forgetful, distractible. In certain day-to-day respects-- how he reacts to his sister, carrying a glass of milk to the table-- he needs support and reminders. With animals, it's different. He is so engaged and attuned, he does not have the same challenges when it comes to critters. He doesn't forget, he doesn't do anything precarious, he never displays poor judgement. It's fascinating.

Retro pics:

Since one of the benefits of homeschooling is the chance to follow personal interests, one thing I knew all along I should help W learn more about or have more experiences with was animals in some capacity. We first set up a visit with our nearest humane society. They didn't offer any programs or opportunities for kids to help out, but they were nice enough to offer us a little tour and we got to meet all the animals and give some treats. We got to learn about how they do things. It occurred to me that W had never been to a humane society before, and barely knew what one was, so I felt we did a good deed in introducing an animal nurturer to that aspect of the animal world. During our visit he was so interested in everything from the information on the walls about the number of pets that had been adopted that month, to the way the two chinchillas moved around each other in order to both fit in a very snug way under the little plastic dome house in their crate. He was completely calm and collected walking by the dog kennels and trying to get a treat to each of them through their chain link walls as they barked up a storm and the echo made it incredibly loud. (And here was my affirmation that I was correct in my decision to not bring my daughter along on this particular field trip.) He understood the dogs were excited and he was careful to watch out for his fingers but he wasn't scared. He didn't ask that many questions on our tour, but he asked some, and I could tell he was soaking up every word and was super engaged with the animals themselves. Even the littlest detail shared with us, he remembered-- such as the advice during our tour to just briefly pet a certain cat then give her her space. He remembered, including the cat's name, and which one it was, when we had the chance to go back and visit the cats on our own before we left. I never had to remind him to have a calm body around the animals or worry about him doing something that would make the staff nervous. It was a 45-minute visit with a 45-minute drive on either side of it, but it was well worth it to hear how it was the best day and to get so many thank yous for doing it.

 
Because of the success at the first humane society, I spoke with another one only a little bit farther away after that. They were happy to have W come volunteer as long as an adult was accompanying him. We went last month for the morning and we went again this week. I feel good that I am getting him out to do some volunteering, period. But the fact that he is doing something he cares so much about makes it more than worth the "lost" academic time and the drive there (even though cleaning litter boxes would not be my first choice if I was volunteering on my own).

Some special highlights from our visits have been:
Along with sweeping and mopping the cat rooms, we were asked to change out all the blankets and cozy poofs and toys as part of their weekly room rotation schedule. W was fully engrossed in choosing the coziest blankets and deliberating over where to put them, not to mention the toys. After shopping for a couple handfuls of fresh ones in the supply area, he then thought hard about where to put them in the cats' room, and played with the toys long enough that he enticed the cat that hadn't moved the whole time we were cleaning the room to get up and attack it. He was so rewarded.

They let us take two Husky puppies for a walk around the field. I had forgotten the roly poly, tug-of-war experience that is walking a puppy who isn't yet leash trained (not to mention two) and W had never experienced this. He put his all into it as we strategized how to leave the right distance between us to not stress the dogs but also keep them from getting tangled up with each other. W was so happy to find they both had been adopted the second time we visited. 

W needs to visit each cat room while we're there, of course, not just the ones we clean. The great thing is that the staff seems to expect and want this from volunteers-- just hanging out with and petting the animals for long periods of time. W reads each cat's name and age and bio on the door (and remembers it). One cat kept licking him on the back of to head while he was sprawled on the floor in the room, which he loved. He can't get over the question of who would give up this animal, or why, when it says "surrender" in their information. He'd adopt them all if he could.

There are less exciting jobs we help with, too, like folding the constant vast pile of clean laundry there. But even with that, he feels that he is doing something for the animals and therefore enjoys it even though I don't think he's ever folded a towel at home. Plus, he likes to overhear conversations about the animals as we fold, and ask staff questions about particular cats and dogs.

He comes home each time, telling our dog about these animals we've seen as Brunsy smells the evidence all over him.

Some pics of our two visits so far (he apparently wore the same shirt both visits):

Two Morning Hikes

It was the end of the second week of homeschool, in mid September. We'd been trying out our schedule for nearly two weeks and in my quest for balance I figured it was time to break out of it and do something fun because we could. The weather looked good Friday and I planned a little hike.

I didn't even mention it to W ahead of time, partly because suggestions of things like this are often met with whining. He gets super engaged once we're out and does a great job physically, whether hiking, biking, or cross-country skiing, but the motivation to go in the first place is usually lacking. I was attempting to let it be a "surprise" at the last minute to leave no time for debates. Because even if he didn't want to, I really did and this is my adventurous year too. So, after dropping his sister off at preschool that morning, I told him he'd been working hard and we were going to do a new little hike to take a break and celebrate. I was pleased that he just said, "Okay" and thought it might be because he was pretty focused on his book in the back seat. I had picked out Eagle's Bluff, overlooking Lake Morey, which involved a relatively short but intense hike to a ledge jutting out of the side of the mountain. I'd done it a couple of times long ago but not in his lifetime and I thought he might appreciate the spot (and the novelty of a new spot was also part of my strategy to get him into it). As we drove over there on that foggy morning, I found myself worrying a little that the fog better hurry up and clear off soon so we'd actually have a view.

The hike was immediately uphill right out of the parking lot. We hiked up and up, stopping a few times to test out newly learned map skills with the trail map I'd printed, to let W take pictures of moss, leaves, and fungi, to relocate a newt from the middle of the trail, and just to catch our breath. Even though it only took about an hour to get to the top, sections of it made it one of the steepest hikes I've done. We were bent over, needing to use our arms as well as legs to navigate some especially steep, washed out portions (which felt even hairier going down later). We had conversations about mushroom foragers and how they know what to gather. W stopped and hushed me in order to observe a chipmunk and then managed to get unnervingly close to it before it darted away.

Then we were at the top. A few steps down from the trail and we were on a boulder, nothing in front of us but a vertical tree-covered hillside and the lake. It's a lake we've swum in, ridden bikes around, and ice skated on, but from up there it seemed so much bigger and grander. There is a road around the lake and W commented on how quiet it was. We could see the unoccupied buildings of a couple of summer camps, but not many signs of life otherwise. We could see a bit of highway straight across the lake at about our eye level. I remembered a 4th of July years before driving home from somewhere north and stopping on the side of that exact section of highway to watch fireworks over the lake. The leaves were not yet starting to change, so they were still thick, but their greenness was starting to pale, so you knew they'd only be around a little longer. Now that were weren't sweating and climbing, we needed our sweatshirts back on.

The best part was that the fog had in fact not cleared, but was moving around in pretty fantastic ways. There were big swaths of it travelling up and to our left and W commented that it was like a big ghost the way it moved slowly. There were little wisps of it hovering low all over the lake below. There were patches of it straight ahead obscuring part of the hills across the lake, then allowing more of a view, then covering them up again. We'd never seen a view quite like that. I'm also usually not at high elevation looking across a valley first thing in the morning. W was appropriately impressed and kept commenting on how awesome the fog was.

In wanting this hike outing to feel like a good homeschool treat, I had tried to bring a good snack: crunchy apples, chocolate-covered pretzels, and a thermos of hot chocolate. We shared it and kept pouring it from as we sat there. It had been a very long time since I had been anywhere but a basement classroom on a beautiful fall weekday morning and it was exhilarating, surreal. It was barely 9:30 in the morning and we both felt energized up there, looking out. I imagined and hoped that W was noting that homeschool has some obvious pluses.

Eventually we drank most of the chocolate and made our way back down. It took noticeably less time than it took to go up. We drove back on the curvy road around the lake and back home and did our regular work for the rest of the day. But that hike was with us all day. W even raved about it to his dad when he got home later.

...And a week later we did it again. While I wasn't planning to go for a hike every week, it looked to be another nice day and we were only going to have so much longer to be able to get outside in these ways. I was eager to repeat the feeling of starting off our day with a relatively quick, rewarding hike. I had planned, though, to go a different place the second time, one we happened to be more familiar with, just for variety. But when I told W my plan, he lobbied and convinced me to instead return to Eagle's Bluff, comparing the views of the two options and saying that the lake and the fog were "just so cool." I couldn't argue with that. I of course had brought along hot chocolate and snacks again, and they were just as appreciated this time, even though it was a warmer morning on the rock and was much less foggy. It was neat how different the view felt just one week apart.

We went on a couple other novel, quiet weekday hikes in the fall and they were all great. But those couple of Friday mornings were majestic-- our own mini tradition of hot chocolate and a grand view to start the day. 

First hike, fog changing by the minute:

    Second hike a week later:

The First Day of No School

M was to begin preschool the day after Labor Day. Way back in the summer I planned that W and I would start school at home that day as well, September 3, even though the public school began August 28 for older kids. It made sense to me to start on the day his sister started, so he had my full attention and we could start off on the right foot. I figured W would enjoy a few extra summer days in the meantime-- the first little perk of our homeschool plan. 

But The First Day of School in town was W's first day of not going, and it was tough for him. In those first non school days he kept stopping me in my tracks with some of the things he said and did. I knew this was a big deal for him, it wasn't his choice to be homeschooled, and it was going to be an adjustment. But I think in all my positive vibes and optimistic anticipation, I had underestimated how much was going on inside of him over this transition.

August 28/T-minus 6 days until Homeschool
When he woke up on the first day of public school and (and several times the day before) he seemed lost in thought. I said, "What are you thinking about, buddy?"

"Everything."

...

We had an hour-long visit at M's preschool for her orientation on this day. (She attends preschool at a public school in our district, but not the school W had attended.) So W had to troop there along with us (side note: going to preschool orientation was a thrill for me, because in all the previous years my children had attended preschool, I had never been able to attend because I had to be teaching). While walking down the hallway for M's orientation, with the crisp new clothes and bright bulletin boards and new school year aura about the building, an adult who recognized W gave him a big smile and said hi, then said, "Are you missing your first day of school, W??"

...

Later that morning we stopped at the playground for a nice little picnic. Boy, was he mad at me. He hadn't been mad at me over the summer. The initial news last spring that we were planning to homeschool was a shock to him but he had seemed to adjust to the thought, with some reservations. He hadn't been mad at me all summer, but now it was August 28 and he was mad. He was giving me snide responses to things. He growled at me, "I should be in school. I've pinched myself ten times. I just feel so weird." 

"I'm sorry buddy, I know this is a big change. It's going to be okay. Remember, we decided to do this because we love you. We just want you to get the best education you can." 

"I was getting a fine education!" he snapped. "Did you hear Mrs. So and So at M's preschool?! I can't wait till 5th grade. I'm going back in 5th grade, right?? I never thought I'd want to go back to school, but I'll be so excited to go back to school." 

This was six days before beginning homeschool. Nothing had changed for him yet. But his peers had started school.
     
...

Later at home he was furious with me, something about carrots. How I cut them maybe? Or I picked some without him? I can't remember. But I remember telling him, "I understand you're mad at me. You can be mad at me right now. But please don't be mad at me about everything. Don't be mad at me about carrots." 

And he cooled down a bit and said, "I know, I'm sorry." 

...

That afternoon (still the first day of public school) we were in our yard. It was a sparkling summer afternoon. M was blowing bubbles, W was aimlessly shooting his plastic bow and arrow over and over. The school bus went by on its first afternoon run. I was trying to chat with W, since I've learned that in these moments where he's occupied with something mindless he's usually willing to open up and chat, or take in an idea, more than if I sat him down and said, look here. I thought I'd try to help him see the bright side, so he could focus less on this intense sense of feeling different that was pressing on him today. 

"Remember that with homeschool, we can learn about stuff you're interested in, besides the stuff we need to learn about, which we'll try to make fun..." I was trying to be very positive, trying to cuddle him with my words. "We could learn about cooking, or something about animals maybe--"

"Thanks for reminding me about cooking. That makes me excited for homeschooling."

Of course I couldn't stop there. I kept going, talking about being excited to challenge him, to go his speed. How even really good teachers can't do their best with every kid when there are 20 kids and kids who have a hard time with different things. He launched into a whole bunch of tales of times that classmates were really badly behaved or really stressed. Maybe for him this was just the random association that popped into his mind. But it felt there was some hint of his feeling that maybe that'll be nice to not have to be so distracted by all that.

I followed up on the happy cooking topic later. We brainstormed types of cooking he might like to get better at. "Desserts with fruit and French desserts! I'm really excited about that now. Thanks for talking about cooking and stuff." 

T-minus 5 Days
The next day when W woke up, he came stretching and yawning through the living room, talking as if we were already in mid-conversation as usual: "So, they're probably just finishing morning meeting now and going onto something else." No apparent moodiness or anger today, just matter of fact. But still defining himself by school, by what his peers were doing that he's missing. 

After thinking over the previous day and how out-of-sorts he had felt, I had realized maybe I should have planned some tasks for him to do on the first day of public school to focus him so he didn't feel like he was just playing hooky. I realized he had felt he was doing something wrong by being home and wanted to help boost his dignity about it today. I told him I knew it felt weird to not be at school yesterday, but that I had some work I needed him to do today: I needed him to do a little spelling test to help me make sure I knew what level he was starting at.

He took a deep breath, but I could hear the pride, anticipation, in his voice when he said, "It will be really weird to not have a spelling test [with words] like 'boat.' I’ve known how to spell 'boat' since first grade. It will be weird to be like 'What, how do you spell that?'"

We talked about how that might be a good feeling, to have to think. I resisted an angry speech at this heartbreaking comment about meaningless spelling tests of the past, and said something instead about how even good teachers struggle to meet everybody’s needs in a busy class of 20-plus, and sometimes they’re doing the best they can for everybody but it isn’t really meeting everybody’s needs, such as spelling words that are too easy for some kids. W said, so matter-of-factly and with greater acceptance than I'd like, that yes, they do stuff for the kids who have the hardest time, and yes, for so and so spelling 'boat' would be hard.

...

The kids and I went for a walk that day (another mindless activity great for good chats). I got him talking about the things that typically happen on the first days of school, and what he would like to happen on our first day. We agreed we’d make some hopes and “rules” we’d both agree to and sign it, but it needn’t take a long time like in school. He wanted to jump right in on the first day. He repeated his excitement about cooking sometimes during the school day, that that would be fun. 

T-4 days

My husband had taken the day off and the four of us had driven over to enjoy a favorite bike path in the White Moutains. Before we started, we did a quick hike up to an outlook with an impressive view. Nothing had been said yet that day about homeschool but I know that doesn’t mean there’s nothing going on inside. As we climbed back down the trail, I asked W how he was feeling today about stuff. He said he was feeling okay and that "I think I will really want to see my friends a lot more, like I will really be thinking about the next time I see them, like it will be a really big deal. Like I can't wait for O's birthday tomorrow, and like every soccer game and stuff like that." 

T-2 days 

That night after dinner W stood behind his dad, massaging his shoulders (seemingly just being generous; this was not an ordinary occurrence). He good-naturedly shared, “I was crying in my sleep last night. I thought my whole class moved away. I was like L's and B's mailboxes are gone! Then I woke up and I was like I don’t even know where they live!” He also said he dreamed he’d never see a certain classmate again, that he’d moved away "and had a big stick, maybe to move or push his stuff with." He followed up, quite sweetly, saying that doing that massaging was a way to take out his frustration that I’m homeschooling him! 

That night when I noted this conversation in a journal, I wrote, "I do believe we will love this year, and that you will be glad for it and feel differently after some time. But I recognize how big this is for you. It’s such a big change and there is so much going on inside of you-- dreaming of losing classmates who you don’t even play with or talk about much! But they represent that world you feel you are losing." 

~

W was pinching himself at the start of our homeschool experience because he was finding it surreal that he wasn't attending school on the first day with his friends. Meanwhile, I was pinching myself because I couldn’t believe I get to have so much more time this year to be with my kids and help them get better at things without any external forces standing in my way. I get to do what is most important to me right now. I can not possibly understand how life-changing this year is for W. But he helped to show me, especially in those memorable lead-up days. I vowed then to try to have so much patience with him (and I have to renew this vow to myself frequently).

The first days of homeschool once we got started were eventful, too. There was some whining to be sure, and some fascination with the novelty of it all. W surprised me when, after we dropped his sister off at preschool the first day, he wanted a first-day-of-school picture of himself taken sitting on the stairs to our "loft" since that is where we planned to have our work home base be this year.

Over two months in now, he's not so angry. Some of the pros of our lifestyle have become clearer to him and I don't think he thinks a great deal about what's happening at school. Just this week one morning as we were getting ready to leave the house to go volunteer at the humane society for the first time and W was beside himself with anticipation about it, he said, "Mommy I know when I'm mad at you I say I don't like homeschool but I just say that 'cause I'm frustrated. I really love it at times like this. Thanks for setting this up for me."

Preschool Drop-Off

We are homeschooling only W, who is 9, for now. His school situation was what drove the decision to homeschool. M, who is 4, loved her preschool last year and loves it this year. While I know there are people who homeschool their preschoolers, I think really this means, or should mean, letting them play. I think it's better for her to play in preschool with peers her age than be on her own half the time at home if I was trying to juggle her needs and interests with those of a fourth grader. We thought it made sense to focus on how to homeschool one child, especially for our first year.

M is such an introvert. She says nothing in many new situations, yet she takes everything in, talks about it all animatedly afterwards in the comfort of our car or home. She takes time to warm up to a place, to join in. Having two years, not just one, it turns out is a special perk of preschool for kids like her. We feel she really benefits from the social skills focus of preschool. She is finding certain kids she gravitates to. (She told me one afternoon, "Mommy this is C. I just love her" as they went in circles down the slide and up the ladder together.) Her preschool does a great job with some early literacy stuff and they have their priorities straight with getting the kids outdoors multiple times each day, talking to them a lot, and focusing on play. They go on little hikes, they putter at the edge of the brook, they paint with apple halves, play dress-up and kitchen, and have circle time.

One of the many bonuses of homeschooling is that I get to drop off at preschool. I never knew what it was like to do that. Last year, and back when W was in preschool for his two years, I almost never dropped off because the timing just didn't work with my teaching job. I usually picked up, but that was at the after school program. M was in the care of a kind older woman with a few other preschoolers by that point in the day. I literally never saw the teacher or daytime staff. Unless something major had occurred I didn't get any messages regarding how her day had gone. I could attempt to send messages through my husband, who dropped off and might get to speak with the teachers each day, or I could email. I felt a little distanced from her preschool world and I didn't like that, but I didn't know how different it would feel to me to actually be there during normal hours till this year. I get to have little chats with all the same parents each day at drop-off and pick-up. I see the teachers and school staff every morning and get to see firsthand how M has grown up and actually responds to their greetings with her own "hi!," which was a long time coming. I get to help her read the morning message as she taps the chart paper with the sparkly pointer, a very big to-do in M's mind. (We frequently have "morning messages" being written and read to us on her art easel at home.) I get to hug her goodbye and see who and what she settles in with as I walk out. I get to see her interactions and actually can match the names with faces of all her classmates now. W and I "volunteered" one morning recently and I did a little drawing activity with the preschoolers; M was beside herself with the thrill of our being there in her class. I pick up at 3 and get 30 seconds every day in the hubbub to check in with the teacher about bathroom accidents or funny stories or new playmates. I get to hear M talk about her day when it's fresh. I love being there to bookend her preschool days, and now I feel like I'm missing an important part of my day on the occasions when I am not the one to drop off or pick up.

Schedule and Balance

Before this homeschool year began I spent lots of time thinking about our schedule and just how we should approach our days.

As a teacher, I always gave serious time and thought to the schedule over the summer because it was like a framework that would allow every other good thing to work within. I sort of felt like I'd started to find my ideal schedule in my last couple of years in the classroom. I've learned a couple important things about schedules. One is, I've learned my classroom schedule needed to allow for sufficient time for each subject/part of the day or else it wasn't realistic and couldn't be adhered to. If reading workshop was supposed to be 45 minutes, trying to do it in 30 just didn't work. Squeezing science in for 20 minutes just because that was the time available that day was not worthwhile. I learned in the last couple of years to not try to schedule every subject into every day because that just means there is literally not enough time in the day for everything. A given part of the day would always run over into the next thing on the schedule or have to be cut off in the middle in order to start the next thing on time. If I felt frantic trying to get through twelve things too tightly back-to-back in the day, the kids must feel that way too. I moved toward teaching the primary skill areas four times a week, and fitting in the secondary subjects around that, and giving each block of math, writing, or any subject, the time it truly needed to feel sane and be able to finish a complete, rich session each time.

I've also learned as a teacher how a snow day, a day or two out of the classroom when my own kids were sick, an assembly or special event in school can bump back my lesson plans until I've found myself a whole week behind where I thought I'd be by a certain point. And those weeks add up to a month, which means whole topics or skills may be not covered by the end of the year. I've learned sticking to the regular schedule whenever possible is the only way to have a hope of teaching all I'm expected to, all that kids deserve to learn, in the year.

So I knew what I felt were some best practices around classroom schedules. I needed to decide how that translated to what would be best for us at home. I did research reading online homeschool forums, in a book about homeschool I bought, and in conversations about what other homeschool families do.

I knew there was no one way I had to organize the day at home, with my own child. First of all our state has very few specific requirements. And homeschooling is the freedom to not have to try to be just like school. Many homeschool families chose this path specifically because they wanted to do things differently, to literally "unschool" their kids. They base learning on experiences and whatever presents itself naturally in life-- an interest in birds, a fantastic Lego creation, putting together a model kit, going to the grocery store, etc. I wanted W to be able to follow his interests, but I didn't want his learning to be solely dependent on that. Also, while I like the mentality that learning is a part of life all day, all week, I felt we already lived our lives always thinking about what our kids were learning and we already tried to give them good experiences, cultural outings, and time being active in beautiful outdoor places-- on the weekends, all summer long, on family vacations. I felt like that was all so important and yet that wasn't what homeschool was all about for us.

Some people also talk about integrating all learning-- projects that include math, science, reading, writing, etc. I feel a little guilty I haven't done more of that yet because I know projects are fun and can be memorable. But I still feel a little stung regarding how much of W's public school time was eaten up some years doing large scale "projects" with 20+ kids because teachers prioritized that over teaching math or handwriting or anything else consistently. Honestly that's part of why we're homeschooling, so I could be sure he learned the academics he needs to learn this year (and to fill gaps from previous years). I feel uneasy about projects as a centerpiece to learning because I think there is big risk in telling ourselves we are integrating things when often that can really mean we just aren't teaching things explicitly. I think projects can be great, but I don't think it should be the only way that a subject-- say writing-- happens. The basic skill areas need to truly be taught in and of themselves as well. 

Many homeschoolers it seems give their kids a list for the day (math workbook page 30, social studies chapter 3, handwriting letter "l," 30 minutes of reading, etc.) and when the child finishes the list, they are "done." But I also didn't love that idea because I wanted to be able to actually teach him some things, not just print out and hand him piles of worksheets. I knew a list for the day would just overwhelm him, or make him frantic with the idea that he could be playing-- if only he was done. I also wanted him to grow as a learner, to be more motivated and engaged and do some higher level thinking and get challenged in ways that independent written work all the time couldn't accomplish.

So several modes of homeschooling I learned about didn't seem to fit-- unschooling wasn't for us, all project-based learning all he time wasn't my thing, and a slew of workbooks and worksheets for W wasn't what I wanted.

I knew I did want to take advantage of the flexibility this year afforded us, and I wanted us to have fun and do really cool things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. I wanted him to have choices in his day. I didn't want to feel like we were trying to be just like school. I wanted to take advantage of one-on-one time with my kid. Of course I wanted to do "all the things" with him out and about, as one homeschool parent described what was so special about the experience. And yet I didn't quit my job or decide to continue sending M to preschool this year in order to just let W hang out or go on field trips every day.

Wouldn't it be great if he didn't need a schedule, or a carved out space in our house for our work, and was simply more motivated to make his learning happen anywhere, anytime. But for now he isn't quite there. I knew my son, with ADHD, and not a ton of internal focus or organization, really benefited from external structures such as having schedules and routines and help breaking big tasks into manageable-sized pieces.

Alas, after having this circular conversation many times in my head and with my husband, comparing our situation to other homeschoolers, how to fit in what I wanted to this year while keeping it fun, I did what was perhaps inevitable to start the year off: I made a schedule that was not in any huge way different from the way I would make one for a classroom. I pieced together a reasonable amount of time for each thing in the week based on what I'd learned in the classroom as well as my new learning about what fourth graders needed.

I figured any special things that came up that we chose to do, like concerts, or homeschool days at our local museum, or other field trips or occasional just-for-fun things would simply happen when they happened in place of this schedule, and hoped the days and times of those things would balance out so as not to seriously deplete any one academic area.

I fit in two scheduled-in blocks of time devoted to "enrichment," which is not my favorite word, but meaning whatever W wants to be learning about-- I imagined filling this time with something to do with his interest in Greek mythology, pirates, or animals, or teaching him sewing, or getting better at cooking or chess, taking music or karate lessons... Whatever it would be, I wanted to be sure we at least had some time every week dedicated to things besides the standard academics. I wanted him to be excited about choosing anything he wanted to learn about. I wanted him to get in the habit of following an interest with the intent to learn by giving him the gift and the requirement of time to be spent on it.

W checks our schedule as if it's an official document, and I use it to plan, and it's a guide for us both for the "normal" days. We told ourselves we'd start with this schedule but I could change it if it felt too rigid. Depending on how things went, maybe we could make the schedule somehow more flexible over time but decided to default to this structure. I tweak it a little each week or two, based on a problem-solving conversation with W, or a brainstorming session with my husband, or some new epiphany about W's learning style. Every once in a while I have a twang of doubt/guilt one way or another-- am I being less fun than other homeschool parents? Am I focusing enough on what makes him tick? Should I just let him curl up on the couch with a book sometimes and forego the lessons? (Or, on the flip side, yikes, we haven't completed half the work I thought we would this week because of special activities, preschool being closed for two days, etc.) But in general I am feeling mostly at peace about our balance at this point. It is how our days fit together for now.

What curriculum are you using?

Several people have asked me this question recently. I have plenty to say about this, but I try to resist launching into it in casual conversation. So I thought I'd document the details for those who may be curious or trying to piece together a homeschool plan of their own.

To clarify first:

Standards are the expectations for what students should know and be able to do by the end of the year.

Curriculum refers to how you get there-- the lessons, activities, teaching plan.

The Common Core State Standards for math and language arts, Next Generation Science Standards, and C3 Framework for social studies are my basis for the standards in the academic areas.

Some homeschool families rely a lot on online or video-based programs that their kids work their way through. There also is something called "all-in-one" curriculum that some use, where some person or outfit sells a package of plans and materials to use for every day in every area. And of course some homeschool families are doing something called "unschooling," informal learning based on their kids' interests and what pops up in life, and they aren't using any curriculum at all.

I can see how all of those things might make sense for some homeschool parents. But I was coming from a teacher's perspective, as well as the perspective of a parent who had long wanted my child to have a more challenging and personalized academic experience. I was starting out with ideas about what practices mattered in good teaching and learning, and an awareness of programs out there. I couldn't really imagine buying into many programs marketed to homeschoolers because I just felt my needs were so different from the homeschool-specific options I was finding. I wanted to choose research-based programs that were aligned with the standards to help ensure I was teaching well, so I didn't have to reinvent the wheel (or disregard the wheel entirely). I just needed to make sure what I chose would reasonably work for one kid.

Here's what I'm using. (Separate post coming about my attempts to find the right balance in how I schedule all this...)

Writing: Units of Study in Writing (Teachers' College Reading and Writing Project)
I've been in love with the writing workshop approach for over a decade, and there was no question this was what I wanted to use with W this year. It involves teaching a brief (ten minute) "minilesson" on a specific skill, strategy, or habit each day for students to add to the repertoire of things you've taught about the type of writing you're working on. Then you send them off to spend the bulk of their time on their independent writing (because kids learn to write by spending time really writing, just like they learn to read by actually reading). Students are never "done" during writing time. It is a workshop; they create and stay busy, whether planning, drafting, revising, or editing. There is regular self evaluation and goal setting using checklists of what narratives/opinion pieces/informational writing at their level should include. They usually choose their own topics to write about; the teacher doesn't assign topics. Part of the process is studying published writing of the type students are trying to write. They try to approximate techniques they find in a "mentor text" or two that they get to know really well through the unit. Writing workshop teaches ownership, initiative, and fosters a growth mindset. Most of all I like that it teaches writing explicitly, as a skill in itself, and writing is not just "integrated" into everything else. I've seen huge growth with it over the years in first grade, and so far this year with W. Our first unit was on writing realistic fiction stories, we're just beginning our second on personal and persuasive essays. There will be literary essays and informational writing about history research later in the year. I hope we'll also get to poetry.

Reading: Units of Study in Reading (Teachers' College Reading and Writing Project)
Reading workshop is the exact same approach as above which I am passionate about, but with reading instead of writing-- the short minilesson on a specific reading strategy, techniques, or habit, then plenty of time for students to read their independent books while the teacher periodically checks in with them individually and pushes them along where they can be pushed, supports where they need to be supported. At the first-grade level where I used to teach there was a mix of lessons on decoding strategies (learning to read) and lessons on reading habits and skills, fluency, comprehension. At the fourth-grade level, beginning with a fiction-focused unit, it is mostly so far about comprehension, thinking intensely about books, discussing with others the ideas you have about books, jotting your ideas occasionally as you read to "grow" ideas, thinking about theme and character traits and how characters change. There are rubrics and learning progressions and checklists to help students reflect and set goals and make progress. W is a strong and voracious reader. And yet it has been a big learning curve to pause, think, SHOW comprehension by discussing a book coherently, and find evidence in a text to support an idea. There is so much in these rich lessons that are perfect for him. Having the language of these lessons thread through our talks about the books W is reading independently as well as the one we are reading together has helped cause huge growth already.

Science: Mystery Science
For a very reasonable fee, homeschoolers can access the Mystery Science web site (but this, also, was something I used in my classroom). It is aligned with Next Generation Science Standards. It is inquiry-based. Every session is a "mystery" for kids to explore and figure out, step by step: How can some animals see in the dark? How does your brain control your body? Why do some volcanoes explode? How can you figure out where a rock came from? It is a web site, where you click on one "mystery" at a time and go through it step by step. You have to have your materials ready to go, but they are minimal and easy to acquire. The lesson part might be ten minutes max, then there is lots of stop and talk times and tons of hands-on learning to do. This outfit is run by a (former) science teacher in California. I am not normally one to go for online programs or videos to teach, but this site has won me over. It is fun and engaging and really helps kids understand what they are learning. I think that "Mystery Doug" as kids know him is a far better science teacher than I am on my own, but with his guidance we have some amazing sessions.

Math: Singapore Math
The school I taught in used a "spiraling" math curriculum. (Spiraling is hitting on each topic multiple times over the course of the year. The idea is you add more depth each time you revisit it during the year. I was always advised by math curriculum trainers to not worry if students don't "get it" because the topic will come back later in the year. But that never felt quite right and it felt that some just don't ever catch on this way.) I'd become less than convinced that a spiraling math approach was the way to go. So I was ready to try a whole new approach... I like Singapore Math because in contrast to spiraling, it is mastery-based; we study a topic until W understands it, then move on (while it is still brought into cumulative reviews periodically). I like that the program aims high. It gets right into things. It is focused on straightforward math. There is a very affordable set of program books for homeschoolers: textbook, workbook, home instructor's manual. As far as I can tell, the homeschool version is not a lot different than the other versions, just inexpensive and not dependent on a lot of specific materials. The teaching of a new skill progresses from concrete to pictorial to abstract (e.g. blocks/cards/manipulatives, to representative visuals, to algorithms). It brings in estimating, number sense, and mental math with each section.

Social Studies: A Mix of Things
This is where I had to dig deep this summer and couldn't just buy a program or use one I already had access to. There is a relatively new C3 Framework that lays out not standards, but guidance for states to establish social studies, or "global citizenship," standards. It is vague, focusing on approaches that are best (start with a compelling question, use an inquiry process, do projects with lasting impact, etc) and broad categories to be studied. So I had some background info from that, but still didn't know what we needed to learn in fourth grade. I attempted to communicate with teachers from my son's public school at the end of last year about what their social studies curriculum was from grade to grade...long and frustrating story, but the short of it is that they wouldn't tell me. I met with a former colleague who was very generous with her time and knowledge about social studies at the upper elementary level and she gave me some big ideas to work with about what fourth graders often study at least in the state of Vermont. I got the gist that many schools teach the same set of big ideas on a different scale in different grades-- like rules and laws, citizenship, and history about your town in third grade, your state in fourth, and nation in fifth. With this basis of my C3 reading and my colleague's guidance, I still needed to fill in the details on what I was going to teach when. I found the curricula of some schools I respected online. I also found the Core Knowledge Foundation, which we were aware was used by a nearby private school. I also felt more assured I was on the right track by reading through some general sites intended to give parents an overview of what their fourth graders will learn in social studies by the end of the year, such as Scholastic and Greatschools.org. From all this I began to see overlaps and themes and was able to start to sketch things out. This year we plan to study: map skills, a survey of U.S. history pre-colonization through the American Revolution, our state history and geography and culture, regions of the U.S. and states and capitals, and some current events and their comparison to New Hampshire and relevance to us. My plan is to study these things through a combination of: borrowed free units online, a New Hampshire history for homeschoolers course once a month at the New Hampshire Historical Society, my own hodge podge of things I've put together through research, and some good kid-friendly web sites like Newsela.

Spelling/Word Study: Words Their Way
As a teacher I participated in a book study of the Words their Way approach to spelling instruction. While I'd never taught it myself in the primary grades, I had a good understanding of this program. The idea is that you assess students to find out exactly what stage of spelling development they are at. Then the program provides lots of word lists. Students get a word list targeted at their level each week. Students sort the words in their list multiple times, getting familiar with them. They discuss meaning and "discover" what the spelling rule is. The words all have a certain characteristic to them such as different ways to make the /k/ sound and students figure out the generalization of which words are spelled which ways, as well as the "oddballs" that don't really fit with the rule. There are various activities we can do during the week to work with the words, looking them up in the dictionary, making sentences with them, and spelling games. There's a test at the end of the week. I like that it's not a random list of spelling words and it's not a spelling list on a content-area theme; it's a list of words that have a similar feature so students really have to figure out when to use which spelling. W has challenging words each week, right at his level.

Social-Emotional Learning:
Obviously kids need social experiences to learn social skills. We are working hard to provide W with at least as many social experiences as he always has had, minus the actual school day itself (more play times with friends, the sports he wants to play each season, attending the school Halloween dance and all-school hike field trip, attending PE in the public school twice a week). That said, there are some kids who naturally develop great social skills and others (most, I'd argue) who need some explicit teaching and practice on these matters. So while we value all those social experiences W is having, I also felt he could use a little more guidance sometimes and that there are in fact typical developmental social issues that kids deal with at different ages worth focusing on. Because of this, I managed to get access to the Second Step social-emotional curriculum. It is a simple lesson each week focused on a topic. It includes a 1-2 minute video (max) showing kids his age engaged in incredibly typical scenarios (fighting over who's out in a four square game, for example). We discuss the issue from different perspectives and there's usually a little activity to do to help us be really aware of and intentional about the issue. It might seem a little silly to be doing social skills lessons at home with one kid. Yet it's quick. He enjoys it and it has caused important topics to thread through our week and our conversation-- things like showing empathy, and being assertive rather than aggressive or passive. I think it impacts how he is with his sister or on the soccer field or in other situations. It feels well worth the 20 minutes per week we spend on it.

I think that's all of our official curricula...I'll share soon about some other fun stuff we're doing, including art and music.