Moving...Again

Well, it's been awhile since I've written anything. To be honest, I stopped because nobody was reading it, but then a writer friend pointed out that I should write for myself.

I left my teaching post because we will be moving soon, so writing this blog will help keep my sane. I am planning to homeschool my daughter until we get settled in our new location, so my blog will still be about education and parenting.

In preparation for our move, my daughter is making a book about North Carolina. She is researching famous people, wildlife and plants, places (we recently visited Ocracoke Island) and the three regions. I thought she could share the book with her classmates when we move. She chose what she wanted to include in the book, using her knowledge from living here as well as the internet, books, newspapers and magazines. She also decided that her finished product would be a book and not a song, poster, pamphlet, etc.

The other day, my daughter heard Michelle Obama speaking about nutrition in school lunches. She really liked what the First Lady had to say and wanted to learn more about her. Moments like these are great opportunities to capture a child's natural love of learning.

What are your child's interests? Capitalize on these interests to teach your child about research and finding reliable sources on the internet (Did you know that anyone can add or delete information to Wikipedia?) Think about the research you do every day. How much of it is driven by your interests or things you need to know and how much of it is dictated to you (from a boss or supervisor or instructor)? Which do you enjoy more?

Experimenting

My daughter decided she wanted to make her own scented hand soaps. She had no recipe, just her own imagination. She went around the house looking for small bottles to fill with her concoctions. She added toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo, petroleum jelly--you get the idea.

She spent the day trying different combinations, writing her recipes and labelling the bottles. She was a little disappointed when I told her she could only use them on her hands (she wanted to shower with them).

Now, when my daughter first told me she wanted to make these hand soaps, my response was, "Let's look up some recipes on the Internet." But she didn't want to use a recipe; she wanted to create something of her own. It may seem wasteful that she used toothpaste and mouthwash, but it was worth it. It's not the product that matters, it's the process.

Some of her mixtures turned out better than others, and she experimented with the amount of different ingredients to include. She enjoyed making her own decisions and testing the results. At times, she was disappointed, but she also found satisfaction in creating something of her own.

Now she wants a chemistry set for her birthday.

Note: If your child wants to experiment, but you are concerned about wasting ingredients, measure them out for your child.

Imagination

Imagination is more important than knowledge. --Albert Einstein

Do you remember your first imaginary friend or believing in fairies? Have you ever seen children open all their Christmas presents only to be more interested in the boxes they came in? I love how children find ways to use objects that never occurred to me.

Children are resourceful and they will find something to do with the most uninteresting objects.The other day, I was watching my daughter role play with her Star Wars action figures. She had taken a straw that had three loops in it (in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head) and was using it as the spacecraft. She fit two action figures through Mickey's ears and R2D2 fit perfectly in the third loop. She imagined an original story for her characters but incorporated what she knew about "the force," levitating and storm troopers from watching the movies and reading a Star Wars guide book.

I find this time she spent creating to be time well-spent. I believe this play will help her with her writing, problem-solving and reading comprehension (she needs to understand story structure in order to make up her own stories).

Don't underestimate the value of your child's imaginative play.

Recording Homework in Planners

Well, the planners have been handed out, the children helped come up with a list of activities to do at home and we're starting to address the curriculum. Now what? Rather than tell the children what to do at home and have them record assignments, the planners are used as a place for children to record all the wonderful things they do outside of school. They should record the books they read each night, as well as the genre, but what they do from that list is their choice. This is what my daughter's planner looked like last week:

Monday
Book: Teacher Trouble
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Tae Kwon Do
Cared for cat and fish

Tuesday
Book: Stars
Genre: Nonfiction
Practiced Violin
Cared for cat and fish

Played Rat-a-Tat Cat (math)

Wednesday
Book: Stargirl
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Practiced Violin
Tae Kwon Do
Cared fro cat and fish
Set the table

Thursday
Book: Reptile Room
Genre: Fantasy
Practiced Violin
Cared for cat and fish
Set the table
Wrote a note to mom

The planner will serve as a permanent record of all the learning that is going on outside of school. I hope this helps.

Weymouth Woods

Last weekend, my family and I went for a walk at Weymouth Woods. You can often find us there early on a Saturday morning. I wanted to share with you all that we experienced on our one-hour walk.
1. We watched some woodpeckers, that we later identified as Red Cockaded Woodpeckers.
2. We admired humming birds flitting about in the upper branches of the pine trees.
3. We found squirrel midden, which are the remains of eaten pine cones. You find midden under the trees where squirrels nest.
4. We spotted two snakes coiled up on a little island of grass in the swamp. We spoke with the ranger and learned they were Cottonmouths.
5. We saw a centipede/millepede (didn't have time to count the legs) and that led to a conversation about survival skills: don't eat anything with more than 6 legs. Could thing to know, don't you think?
6. We watched a pecular looking spider spinning its web and wondered how they spin the threads at spans of 8 feet. We later identified the spider as a Kite Spider.
7. We especially enjoy finding different fungi--they are so colorful.
8. We always look for animal tracks and scat--we did find some deer tracks and a mystery track that might have been from a dog, but we couldn't make out the tip of the claw.
9. We saw a black bird which led to a discussion about the difference between a crow, raven, blackbird, jackdaw and rook. We researched the birds, their range and bird calls.
10. The snake spotting led to a story about a green mamba my husband saw in Africa.
11. The squirrel midden led to another survival tip: how to trap a squirrel.
12. The snakes also led to a survival tip about how to kill and prepare a snake for dinner.

Of course, we were also spending time together as a family, interacting with one another, wondering about the world around us and getting exercise.

Weymouth Woods if free and they offer free nature talks on Sunday afternoons. I've included dates and topics on my blog.

Hope to see you there.

Trying New Things

I don't happen to like seafood. I grew up in the midwest and the closest we got to seafood was beer-battered perch dipped in catsup. Oh, and Gorton's frozen fish sticks. My husband grew up in Connecticut and loves seafood. Thankfully, he has been influential in expanding our daughter's food experiences.

Tonight, I bought my daughter some sushi and it occurred to me that experiencing new things, including food, is a learning experience. It encourages open mindedness, a sense of adventure and awareness of different cultures. Where do they eat sushi? What is the word's origin? Why might people eat raw fish? Why do we cook other meats?

Try something new with your child this week. By the way, I did taste the sushi; I didn't like it.

My daughter and I were in a book club this summer, and we read four books written by Sharon Creech. After reading Granny Torelli Makes Soup, I was inspired to make cavatelli like Granny Torelli. I happen to love cavatelli, but I'd never made it from scratch. (If you have never had cavatelli, it is pasta made with flour, eggs and ricotta cheese.)

I asked my daughter to help me. She loved sifting the flour with her hands and watching the eggs ooze into the bowl. I think she would have been happy just to play in the flour. She read the recipe to me and helped me divide the dough into fourths. Then we divided each fourth into four equal parts--are you seeing the math going on here? Then we had to roll the dough into 1/4 inch thick ropes and cut the rope into one inch pieces. Math, math, math.

Then the fun part. We had to transform the one inch pieces into cavatelli. I won't attempt to describe the process, but let's just say it took plenty of practice. We had to persevere, trying over and over to get the right shape. We felt a real sense of accomplishment when the pasta started looking like cavatelli.

Is there something you would like to learn how to do? Why not do it with your child?