The Merciful Edit

Well, we've been back to lessons for almost two weeks now, and it feels like we never stopped.  The boys and I fell right back into our groove, and I have to keep reminding myself that no one else we know is in the midst of their school year.  I actually assigned the boys watching CNN student news on our first day, and we were all briefly confused when the newest video on the website was from early June.  Then, "Oh, yeah-!  There's no student news when all the students are on summer break!"  I hope we'll remember to pick back up on that resource when the 'school year' begins for everyone else.  Although Sweet Hubby is a bit of a news hound, I tend not to follow current events very closely (too cynical, I don't believe much of anything that's reported), and as a consequence my boys are growing up a bit ignorant of the world around them.

I guess I still have to get around to writing a post about History Odyssey and why I love it so much.  I'll add to that my newfound affection for Microscope Adventure!, a unit study on the use and history of the microscope (this is going to comprise much of Radish's science curriculum for 4th grade, and Primo will do it along with his Holt Life Science textbook, to round things out for his 7th grade science).  What's on my mind today, though, is a tiny moment in our homeschool related to History Odyssey, and the quality of mercy.

A window into my methods as a homeschooling mama: when Primo was small, I used to write out his lessons daily, the night before.  After a year or two of this, I realized that I found it stressful to have to do this each day, and I sometimes had a hard time making the work over the course of the week add up to a satisfying whole.  At some point, I came around to a better way-- I sit down every Sunday and write out lessons for the week, in a little yellow notebook:



I make a section on the page for each day, and divide that into 'Radish', 'Both', and 'Primo'.  Then I list their work, using the textbooks and curricula that they're working from, and figuring out which lesson they need to work next, and also trying to make my best guesses about how much work they can reasonably complete in one day.  That's where the finesse comes in.  It's not unusual for me to under-plan, and have both boys turn up 'finished' after just an hour or two of work.  This is especially frustrating at those times when we've had a bunch of days in a row in which we have had to spend a lot of time out of the house, and then we finally have a good, solid day 'in'.  If the boys finish all their assigned work for the day, they get understandably salty when I say, "Huh, it looks like I didn't give you enough work.  Let's look in the yellow notebook and have you do some lessons listed under tomorrow."

So, sometimes I go too far the other way and load up my planning book with lessons, to make sure they'll have enough to do.  I was starting to do that this past Sunday, I had actually written in my planning book three separate History Odyssey lessons for Primo (we do three days of history each week), when I happened to look closely at the lessons I was assigning.  I noticed that the second one was pretty involved, and included a particular piece (a Record of War or Conflict) that Primo has had a hard time with in the past.  I thought about it for a moment, considering leaving things the way they were, and just letting him stretch things out during the week if he really needed to.  I even called him over to the table and pointed out to him that I was giving him a lot of history work, but that we could cut it down later.  He just said, "Ok," and wandered off to go back to whatever he had been doing.  Then, I chose mercy.  On him, and on myself-- I crossed that third history lesson out.  Drew a pen line right through it.  And breathed.  Nothing broken, just a little extra space in our week.

This is one of the things I continually struggle with in homeschooling my boys.  With my tiny class of one seventh grader, one fourth grader, it can be hard to figure out exactly how much each boy is capable of doing.  I have no basis of comparison, I just have to make it up as I go along, and pay attention to each boy to see if he is bored or stressed by the amount and level of work that I give him.  It can be really difficult to see, though, because neither boy will complain about too much work, nor will they ever ask for more challenge in their lessons.  I used to think that at some point I would notice that the boys needed more, and we would start grade skipping and then they might even outgrow homeschooling early and move on to college work.  Instead, I think that we adjust as we go along, so what I call '4th grade' might not look like '4th grade' level work in school.

I just read a somewhat ridiculous book called The Brainy Bunch, a memoir written by a homeschooling mom and dad who have sent each of their children to college at around the age of 11 or 12.  They have 10 kids, and I can empathize a little with wanting to hurry the older ones out of the nest, with so many coming up behind.  What struck me, though, was that these weren't really success stories, nor did it sound like these were kids who needed more of a challenge.  Instead, the parents had embarked upon a program of rushing their average IQ kids through boxed curricula, and then having them take college entrance exams and start community college when they had reached some minimum level of competence.  One of the oldest daughters had always wanted to be a doctor, but after graduating college at the age of 17 or so, was unable to pass her MCATs to get into medical school.  Instead she ended up pursuing a D.O. degree, and entering the navy as a medical trainee.  Her parents were pleased and proud as could be, but I was left wondering, "what if?"  What if she had been allowed to stay home through her high school years, pursuing biology and doing some kind of medical internship or job?  What if she had entered college, maybe even a four year college, at 17 or 18 and graduated with other kids her own age?  Might she have done better on her MCATs, been able to go to medical school the way she wanted?  How do these kids feel, knowing that their parents expect them to be 'done' with homeschooling at the age when their peers are in middle school?

I was glad this book came to my attention now, as my oldest is just beginning what I think of as the 'transcript years', when he's old enough to conceivably do things that might be interesting or high-level enough to show up on a transcript for college entrance.  Reading what these parents had done, and the results, gave me a push in the other direction.  I don't need my guys to enter college early in order to give my homeschooling legitimacy.  They can take their time and be 'ordinary', I can refuse to step on the crazy train of college expectations that so often is a part of modern parenting.  I want to help my kids find opportunities to do neat things, especially the kinds of things they wouldn't have the time for if they were in school and bogged down with homework.  But the last thing I need them to be, for my sake, is impressive.

Rooting

Our month off from lessons is half over.  When I mentioned that fact to the boys yesterday they groaned but I'm looking forward to getting back to it soon.  Due to our weird homeschooling year, they've already completed one 10-week 'quarter', before we took our July break.  I have yet to do my paperwork for the coming year, but that's par for the course-- I always send it in sometime in August.  I don't know why I'm so looking forward to going back to lessons-- because we started back in May, there is nothing new to the work they'll be doing.  For now, I'm happy with all the materials we're using (and beyond happy with History Odyssey, but that's a separate blog entry, or will be soon).  Next year I'm going to look into Discovery K-12, a free online comprehensive curriculum that I just heard about from Ariel, homeschooling mama extraordinaire.

Homeschooling and staying home with babies is like living on a glacier.  Everything is slow, out of step with the rest of the world and their hurry, but at the same time there is constant change and we never return to where we were before.  It's funny to look at my last post from a month ago and see that I was concerned with not giving Snorzy enough enrichment on a daily basis unless I planned for it.  The weeks between then and now have been a kind of a renaissance for him, his language has grown exponentially and he's gotten more clear and firm in his will too-- I could never go a day without reading to him now, when he brings his favorite "boo" to me over & over throughout the day (the favorites evolve every few days, he isn't loyal to one the way Primo was to Dinosaur's Binkit or Radish to both The Pudgy Where is Your Nose? Book and Quack Quack by Claire Henley).  I can't make it through a day without taking him " 'side" either-- he insists on being taken out on the front porch or into the backyard many times each day, aside from any outings we might go on in the car to shop or swim or whatever the day holds.

I drove myself crazy for a week at the beginning of the month, the way I do periodically-- I get too much time on my hands and end up somehow thinking that I can single-handedly solve the whole 'work-life balance' thing that has plagued mothers since the dawn of time.  I nearly convinced myself that it made sense to spend an enormous amount of time and money taking a graduate class that would throw the whole family's schedule into chaos twice a week for the fall semester, and then lead nowhere (it is the only evening class available in that department, so I wouldn't have been able to follow up with any more classes in that field without quitting homeschooling).  Out of the blue, one evening, inspiration hit and by the next day I was over at a local community college, jumping through hoops to register to take an (inexpensive, conveniently placed in the week) night class in writing fiction this fall.  I literally had not written a word of fiction since I was ten years old (a poignant, one-page tale about a bunny, if I remember correctly), so this is scary good fun to look forward to.  In preparation, I've been working through a free online mini course from Open University's OpenLearn portal, called Start Writing Fiction.

I've been spending more time on GoodReads this month than on any other social media, and getting almost depressed by the exposure to all the things that I don't have time to read.  My appetite for books, like my appetite for sweets, makes me feel like life is too short.  If I did nothing each day but read novels and eat cake & cookies, there still wouldn't be time to consume everything that I want.  What's the answer to this?  Is it to have a taste of something exquisite each day, and try not to think about all the rest?

Blooming

In two weeks we'll take another break from homeschooling, this time so that the boys can go to summer camp(s).  In a perfect world they'd do all of their summer camps in August so we could stay on our 'three months on, one month off' homeschooling schedule, but over the years I've had to loosen up about that, so that the boys can do the camps they want to do (this year: Primo is going to one week of sleep-away Boy Scout camp, while Radish gets a week of Wayfinders role-playing day camp).  Later in the month they'll do two weeks at a local town Youth Department day camp, not our own town but a 'better' one nearby.  We'll start back to lesson in August, which means we'll have *four* months is a row 'on', before we take a break in December.

We've had some good days of homeschooling lately, and I've been trying to remind myself to slow down and pay attention, really appreciate what it feels like when things are going 'right'.  All too often I *expect* 'right' and ignore it when it happens, then pay a lot of attention to the times that everything seems to go 'wrong'-- anxiously fretting about whether we should be homeschooling at all.  On a good day of homeschooling, the big boys are cheerful and willing to do their work, they don't break down in frustration over how 'hard' the math is (or writing, or whatever they're least in the mood for that day).  They make connections between the different things they are learning that day, and between what they've learned in the past and the current work.  On a good day I am cheerful and clever, thinking of ways to help them through their work before they get frustrated.  On a good day Snorzy is able to amuse himself for a while during the big boys' lessons, using his toys and books without whining and without asking for too much extra attention, until it's time for his morning nap.

Snorzy is getting old enough that I'm starting to think it's time for him to have some 'lessons' each day, too.  When Primo was a baby I never had to think about it, I just naturally supported his learning by interacting with him over toys and books all day.  By the time Radish came along, I had to be more deliberate about it.  When he was a little guy, I scheduled some time into his day for 'working' on various skills (I was influenced by the books I read back then about Montessori and her methods).  Now Snorzy is a big boy of 15 months old and he seems a little at loose ends throughout his waking hours, and I'm so distracted by the older boys and my own activities that I can easily let a day pass without so much as reading him a book.  Luckily, I have plenty of ideas and resources for making his world richer in experiences, I just have to put myself on some kind of schedule like I did with baby Radish.  For today, we're going to do a modified version of the 'Age 1, Week 15' activity from June R. Oberlander's Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready.  The activity specifies making a simple play house out of a cardboard box, but lacking a big box I'm going to use a pop-up play tent that we've had since Primo was 4.  I'll have to keep myself alert to find a good time, after he gets up from his nap.

In other news, look how different my frenemy rose looks, since I let weeks pass between the last time I wrote on the blog, and now:



Here's the whole, bloomin' garden:



And here's a view of the backyard, which is looking better than it has in years:



My goal is to plan and plant the whole place, so that we have one little square of lawn in the middle of all deliberate plants and features.  Every year I talk Sweet Hubby into giving up a little more lawn, in favor of other things.  A few years ago it was the rose, lilac, and peach that you see in the left (back) of this photo.  This year it was the hostas below those three.  Next year I want to take my frenemy rose out of the garden patch and put it in that blank spot near the fence, rooted in our former compost pile.  Then I'll train it over an arched trellis, and put a metal bench in front of it.  I've always wanted a small water feature back there somewhere too, but I'm re-thinking that now.  Water attracts mosquitoes, and they're so bad this year, I'm worried that it's because our local bat population has suffered from white-nose-syndrome related dwindling in their numbers.  I'm worried about the bats.  And theoretically the bees too, but I'm not feeling their loss yet, the way I feel (itchy) without the bats.