Earth day has always been something that I feel that students should be aware of. And, while we are rather environmentally conscious at our house, I still like taking time on this special day to really show love for our Mother Earth. Our project today was to make some recycled materials flowers. I found this on the Internet through Parents magazine here. We used some bamboo skewers, some old Christmas tissue paper (you know the kind, it's crammed into a bag that you hope to reuse one day, the tissue all wrinkled and a bit torn, but you can't seem to part with it because it matches the gift bag perfectly!), and some toilet paper rolls (which we always seem to be saving for projects just like this). We painted the flowers some fun spring colors and added some construction paper leaves and viola! Some pretty flowers to help celebrate Earth day. We even walked over to my parents house where The Monk could share his flowers with his Mamu. It was a nice (cheap) project that was fun and really creative.
0 Comments
It's only Wednesday and it feels as though it's been a long week already. I suppose it doesn't help that I have been sick and The Monk has not (even The Hubs has been ill - and The Monk is not), so making it through the day has been...challenging. Not to mention that it's just been gorgeous outside and all The Monk has wanted to do is play. But, we are still making our way through lessons (even with a few tantrums - mostly thrown by me). We are right in the middle of our Picasso unit. The Monk is actually really enjoying it and is has started to copy the style of Cubism into his own drawings. We are drawing our Fairy Tale unit to a close (today we are going to watch Tangled and then compare it to the Grimm version of Rapunzel), and our dharma talks are going really well, actually. Unfortunately, we are still working on implementing what we are learning during those talks into our every day lives (although we've been doing homeschooling for several months now, I'm still getting attitude and procrastination from The Monk in regards to doing the work). But, I'm able to bring things back to what we talked about during that time and he pulls himself together.
I'm not sure why we are still struggling in our day to day. I would like to think that it's because it's getting warmer and The Monk just loves being outside (although his allergies often prevent him from doing a whole lot). I would also like to think that, perhaps, we are still going through the phase of getting used to being home and the whole mom/teacher dynamic. I'm not sure though. I know that I don't want to put him back in public school (he's actually doing well with his lessons, when he actually sits down and does them), and I don't want to go back to the classroom with the way that the current educational system trend is going. I want to teach HIM. I think a lot of it is that he's stubborn and strong-willed. He likes to dig his heels in and think that he can do what he wants. I have to remember my own lessons from our dharma talks in the morning and remind myself to be patient, to be kind, and to not want to lose my absolute s**t when he is being stubborn. Especially when I am sick and not feeling up to par. One of the things that I have struggled with most while I've been homeschooling is curriculum. Now, I feel as though I have actually got a good handle on the typical subjects of math, science, reading, etc., but what I'm really struggling with is finding material to help my son grow as a Buddhist. I follow a lot of homeschooling blogs, but they are all mostly Christian. That's all fine and good and if they feel as though "God called them" to homeschool their children, great! And it's wonderful that there are all these fantastic curriculum choices for those out there who want to include The Creation story, or put Jesus into every day math (I mean, why not? I believe the Devil put letters into it - hence Algebra), but there is really nothing out there for those of us who are not Christians. There are planners, and reading materials and Bible studies and, and, and. There is nothing out there for us who homeschool as Buddhists (or Hindu, or Muslim). There just doesn't seem to be a market for anything outside of mainstream Christianity. And I don't think that it's fair. However, I am not going to get on my soapbox about that. I'm wanna talk about what I'm doing DESPITE all of that...
To supplement my son's learning, during his morning pages we have started having Dharma Talks. This is that time where we read some of our children's books on Buddhism and talk about what it means to follow the Eight Fold Path and to practice being a kind and compassionate person. I'm lucky in the fact that I can surf the Internet with relative ease and find what I'm looking for if I dig hard enough for it (granted, I shouldn't have to dig for it, but again...no soapbox), so I'm able to locate some coloring pages and such and we already have a pretty good library on Buddhist picture books for kids (which were also rather difficult to find at times). Although we've only been doing these Dharma Talks for a few days, I feel as though we are making some progress on his attitude and I feel better about educating my son about our religion. We don't make it to the temple as often as we'd like for services (it's rather far from where we live), so being able to talk with him about what it means to be Buddhist and how we can become better people through Buddha's teachings really gives me a sense of comfort that I am truly giving him the education that he needs and deserves. As I've been reading the various homeschool blogs that I follow, I have noticed that a bunch of people out there are already looking, planning, and preparing their curriculum for next year. Since I am already ahead of the game in this endeavor it seems, we are simply extending our learning. What does that mean? Well, I'm simply moving things into our day that, normally, would have been started at the beginning of a "new school year." We aren't going to take the summer off, so I might as well just add into our day what I want to do. These new things are Spanish, music, art, grammar, and getting back into spelling (I got all frustrated and lazy with it, so spelling actually got put off to the side - then it got lost!). For Spanish, we aren't going to do anything very formal. I got some workbooks for The Monk to work through, so we are going to try that, you know, just to get his feet wet and have fun with getting some of the basics down. For music and art, I am using the curriculum that were created by one of the bloggers that I follow at Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has two great units on famous artists and composers, so we are going to make our way through those. For grammar, I actually broke down and bought a grammar curriculum, because, like I said in my last post, I hate teaching grammar and I figured that if I had a curriculum to follow, I might be confident in teaching it. And finally, for spelling, again, I broke down and bought an outlined program for it. I tried just doing it on my own, and like I said, I got all lazy with creating spelling lists and giving tests and practices and...just ugh. I figure I am already working hard enough, I don't need to reinvent the wheel when I know that, somewhere, it has already been created. Maybe, as I grow more confident in my homeschooling abilities, I'll be able to create my own curriculum and sell it...maybe. Right now, I'm just concentrating on getting The Monk to do his math work without having a fit and trying to get housework done while I'm at it.
When I was teaching Literacy in public school, there was always a point when I would have to ultimately break down and do something that, if truth be told, I didn't really have the training to do: teach grammar. Now, I don't have an English degree - I just happened to take enough English classes to be considered Highly Qualified in my profession (about 36 credit hours or so). Since I don't have an English degree, I didn't take any pedagogical classes on how to teach prepositions, prepositional phrases, or complex and compound sentences. I mostly winged it when it became obvious that my students had no idea what a preposition was or how it differed from a verb. Granted, being a highly intelligent person with a vast background knowledge (and a few helpful sites on the internet), I was able to soundly instruct my kids on verbs, adverbs, and the like with relative success and now I feel rather comfortable when diagramming a sentence for telling The Monk what a noun is.
All that being said, there was a REASON why I didn't take said college courses on teaching grammar. I really don't like it. Don't get me wrong, I understand the necessity of understanding the various parts of speech and how, in the long run, they help us to construct meaningful and interesting sentences. That doesn't mean I like to teach it. In fact, I loathe teaching grammar. It's not as easy as one might thing to show another person what a preposition is, or how a verb is actually important to make a complete sentence, much less why we need to know these things. This was very true with a bunch of second-language learning middle schoolers and it's even more true while trying to teach a 7 year-old. Luckily, (more for me than for him), he was actually able to tie a lot of our learning on prepositions today to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While he was drawing his pictures in his workbook today, there was a bunch of "Michelangelo goes into the sewer!" and "Donatello goes through the tunnel!" This certainly made it easier for me...somewhat. I still find it difficult to describe "at" or "during." What's even worse, this was only the beginning of our new 3rd grade grammar curriculum. Ee gads! I never imagined that homeschooling would actually be more work than being in a classroom. I remember that planning didn't actually take hours upon hours (at least not when I was a part of the Fantastic Four. My last year, well, that's a different story), and prepping for lessons didn't seem as involved or all consuming as it is now.
Maybe it's because I'm planning for way more subjects than I did when I was just teaching Literacy. Maybe it's because elementary requires more hands on activities. Honestly, I couldn't tell you. What I can say is that I feel as though I am constantly printing, gluing, cutting, planning, pacing, and prepping just to get ready for the next day. And none of that actually includes any of the teaching (which also includes coloring, gluing, cutting, and drawing). Still, despite the fact that I feel as though I'm always on the move or that there is no resting throughout the day (aside from afternoon tea), I am still loving every minute of what I'm doing with The Monk. Most of the time, it's awesome! The Monk loves to draw. There are sketches and drawing and plans and what-have-you all over the house (and heaven forbid if you try to throw ANY of his drawings away!). So, as we continue our slow migration into the 3rd grade, I decided that I was going to go ahead and introduce him to some of the more famous artists. Thanks to Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler, I have found a really great unit on some of history's finest (which you can purchase from her store here). Although I am supplementing some of the lessons with a few tweaks and twists, I know that The Monk is going to enjoy learning about the artists within the unit. I am hoping to be able to follow this up with a trip downtown to the art museum so that we can really see what famous artists are capable of. He really liked talking about the "strangeness" of Pablo Picasso's work today and the bright colors and bold lines, so I'm hoping that he's going to be interested in exploring new techniques in his own drawings as we move forward (not that I don't mind his dragons, knights, Angry Birds Star Wars, and TMNT drawings, but it would be really cool to see him take on what he is seeing in our studies). I'll keep everyone posted as we move through this and show what The Monk is doing!
During our school set up yesterday, The Monk decided that we needed to put Life Skills on our agenda because we were running out of cakes for our daily afternoon tea time. Like I've said before, I know that afternoon tea seems rather old fashioned, but the boy and I love it (albeit for different reasons - mine as a small restful break before The Hubs comes home and the dinner, bath, and bed routine gets going and The Monk for the little cakes that we enjoy before he gets to go outside to play). Since he has become familiar with Life Skills (mostly cooking, sewing, or other chores) as part of his educational routine, The Monk was rather clever in his asking of putting it on the agenda so that he could make sure the cakes would, indeed, get baked.
So, this afternoon, as we were enjoying our tea before he completed his Daily Reflection, he made sure that we were all set for baking the tea cakes that were promised him (although, I do admit, I did try to get out of it - claiming that it was a long day, that my elbow hurt, that there were other things that needed to be done - he would have none of it). I got out the cake mix and as we were reading the ingredients, The Monk shouted that he knew exactly where he could get 3 large eggs. As he runs out the door to the backyard (because, you know, we have chickens, and to him, the freshest eggs would be the ones from the coop itself), I yell to him that while he gets the eggs, I would get everything else together. Right before the door slams I hear him shout "Mise en place!" I couldn't help but smile. The cakes are done and we are set for our tea time for the rest of the week. And, as I sit here writing this, I can't help but be proud of my son for him just being...well...him. It's cold and snowy out and the public school across the street has the day off for President's Day. Despite all of the this, The Monk and I are inside the classroom, doing lessons. Why? Well, mostly because we take Fridays off. What?!? Yes. We take every Friday off from lessons. We do this because The Hubs works a flex schedule and has every other Friday off to be at home AND I need a day to wrap up the housework and run errands for the week. Plus, it allows both The Monk and I a day to just relax and let our brains turn to mush. Oh, don't get me wrong, I really would rather be sitting on the couch reading a trashy romance novel while the boy watches TV on a day like today, but there are things that need to be done, and lessons and learning are some of those things. Besides, if we take a Monday off, both he and I tend to get into lazy mode for the rest of the week and then not nearly enough gets done, which leads me into a panic and, therefore, stress. It's just better if we do what needs to be done on Mondays and take Fridays off.
It has taken us some time, but we are slowly making our way through Greek Mythology. We have studied most of the Olympians and have even drawn our own maps of the Underworld. We are making our way towards heroes and monsters, where we will even create our own mythical monsters. It's been a lot of fun, but it is certainly taking longer than I had anticipated. Granted, some of it is my own fault seeing that both The Monk and I have been answering the siren calls of warmer weather and sunshine, so we've been spending a lot more time outside than we probably should. But we need to get back on track and try NOT to get distracted by the blue skies and singing birds...at least for now. Soon, we'll just pack our stuff up and head for the park and do our reading, writing, and math while laying on the grass. However, right now, like it or not, days are still a bit cool. Plus, we need to wrap this up so that we can continue to examine Hero's Journey through one of The Monk's favorite characters of all time...Luke Skywalker.
|
How it all started...I was a public school teacher for 6 years in a very urban middle school for both 7th and 8th grade. As the red-tape got thicker and teaching became more of a business rather than a place to prepare young minds to enter into the world, I decided that if I was going to work that hard to give an education to someone, it should be my own son. So, my adventures in homeschooling has begun. Follow us on Instagram!
@bexluther76 Categories
All
Archives
May 2016
Blogs I follow:
Curriculum I recommend: |