Coffee Infused Memories

My love affair with coffee began when I was a little girl. My best friend and grandmother started out her day with one cup of coffee. I loved the flavor of coffee because she always had coffee flavored ice-cream and coffee flavored candy in her home.

“D-mom’s” home on Sylvan Oaks (?) in San Antonio was the one place I longed to be. Not because of the coffee, of course, but because I knew that my grandmother loved me and that she loved me unconditionally. When I stayed the night at her house, I woke up each morning to the warm fragrance of fresh coffee. I would follow the scent down the long hallway towards the kitchen where I was greeted with an enthusiastic, “There she is!”

With memories and associations like that, you better believe that I wake up excited and ready for my coffee each morning.

My oldest son enjoyed staying the night with my "D-mom" just as much as I did when I was a child. When we were little (we were not little at the same time you understand) we both had to be pulled away from our D-mom's house kicking and screaming. He called her "D-mom" too. There are probably twenty people in Victoria, Texas, who referred to her as "D-mom."

I could call her on the phone and chat with her like we were high school girlfriends. I could share my opinions and she wouldn’t hesitate to tell me that I was wrong. (She didn't agree with my decision to homeschool my children.) That unconditional love coupled with honest and gentle chastisement helped keep me balanced.

We shared a cup of coffee once or twice a week until she passed away a few years ago. I think of her every morning and throughout the day.

I didn’t mean to type all of that. I was writing about some of the changes in our home since my husband and my oldest son returned from Europe. It had to do with how my husband has started to drink tea instead of coffee. The mention of coffee stranded me on Memory Lane.

She would be ok with my husband's mutinous preference for tea. I know this because she would have been thrilled that they were able to go to Europe. She would be proud that my son is saving up his money so that he can go back.

She always told us that we were "baked in the squat."

I'll post the post-Europe post later...

Karaoke with Jewel (link)

The other day my daughter asked me a question. “MOM YOU KNOW THE SINGER JEWEL?” (I typed it in the exact same style as I heard it.)

My children ask lots of questions and this was one of the most random.

She repeated, “YOU KNOW THE SINGER JEWEL?” She was obviously setting up context.

Her question made me think of the Singer Mansion and a big diamond like The Heart of the Ocean diamond from the movie, Titanic.


Then, I remembered April, a friend who rode and showed Arabian horses with me and how she and her family had moved away from Port Lavaca to Arizona. They had visited the Singer Mansion. She had written me about it. We were pen pals for awhile. I recalled a picture she had sent me of her with her big teased blond hair sitting together in the back of a limo. They were on their way to a Motley Crue concert. I was so jealous. She was younger than me and I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts. She also had bigger hair. Why is it that everyone who moves away always seems to have a better life? Bigger hair. Where is the Singer mansion? The Singer jewel?

So, I responded to my daughter’s question with, “The Singer jewel? Is the Singer mansion in Arizona? I bet it’s a really big diamond!”

My daughter gave me a confused look and my husband said something like, “Unbelievable,” as he began to walk away. My daughter remembered that she was talking to her mother so she hummed a tune from a song made famous by the singer, Jewel, and then it all made sense to me.

“Oh! the singer, Jewel. Yes, what about her?”

Sometimes I like to blame a head injury for my "ding dong" mom moments, but then I remember that even BEFORE the car wreck people had always apologized to me after telling blonde jokes in my presence. I wasn't blonde.

Anyway, all that so she could tell me about this:

Undercover Karaoke with Jewel


(I didn't tell her that I had seen it before.)

Where is the Singer mansion? Maybe it was the Hoover mansion? The Hoover Dam?

Confessions of a Former Hooker

“Open confession is good for the soul,” or maybe “There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.”

Confession is good for the soul but I wonder how much information is too much information when it comes to confessions on our local logosphere. Scottish proverb or Joni Mitchell?

I figure we all have a past, some shadier than others.

My shady past began during my childhood. Times were tough when I was growing up. Once or twice a year we were faced with the daunting challenge of getting a hundred bales of hay from the flatbed trailer into the second story loft of the barn. This required everyone to take on a specialized task. My job was usually that of the “hooker.”

As “hooker” I stood in the opening of the barn loft with my hook in hand ready to pierce the bale of hay as it was hoisted up and swung in my direction. It was the “swingers” job to cause the bale to swing towards and away from the opening of the loft. I had to learn to use that momentum to strategically guide the bale into the loft. If I didn’t accomplish my goal as the bale was swinging towards me I had to quickly let go of the hook or else I would leave the loft still attached to the bale. Once the bale was hooked and pulled into the loft the person behind me neatly stacked the bales – I was probably “stacker” too.

I didn’t weigh much more than a bale of hay so I am not sure how I defied the laws of physics to avoid falling to my death. Looking back I wonder if my parents had it out for me.

The greatest reward, besides completing the task, was finally getting to play with the rope and two-story-high pulley. You can imagine the rappelling that took place.

At the time, I hated growing up in the country: it’s where I developed my skill of artfully avoiding manual labor. Looking back, I realize that the chores I hated the most while growing up now provide me with my fondest and my most rewarding memories.

It hurts to confess that to my mom.

My sister recently confessed to me that while in the Navy she was a “stripper” aka deck hand, so I’m not the only one in my family with a shady past!

Maybe Peter De Vries, “Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff—it is palliative rather than a remedy.” Also, the “stoned by popcorn” quote is fun.

Originally posted August 31, 2010 Here.

Chasing Zen

I miss running. I compare running to psychotherapy. I remember thinking during one of my sessions that if it weren’t for my evening treatments I would be clinically insane. I love that alternate state that is reached after ignoring all cries of “are we there yet?” from the body. Only after the messages from the physical are hushed can communing with the subconscious begin. Is that “Zen” or “Nirvana?” Fasting only faster?

Well, one leg injury and six years of snowballing emotions and shallow introspections later, I think I’m insane.

But, there is some good news for us all. Last night hubby and I hit the trail. I thought we were there for a romantic stroll when he asked, “Think you are ready to run?” I felt like a parakeet who had been given permission to leave the cage. I’m very competitive so if hubby is jogging I have to jog faster. I won’t stop until hubby stops. Eventually, I was covered in sweat, doubting the effectiveness of P90X -- this only after a few steps. How is it that I can get through an hour of Plyometrics but only jog for a few minutes before I am physically spent?

After my injury I did walk in the evenings, but the rewards weren't the same. Walking takes you out of yourself only as far as nature. Don’t get me wrong, I love to hear the cicadas and watch the setting sun, like Midas, touch and turn the landscape into gold, and smell what people are cooking for supper… A few of you were BBQing last night and one was playing Tejano music. I'm Czech so Tejano feels like home.

I want an escape that’s deeper; one that transcends time. Will I ever reach that sacred place again?

This morning when I woke up I could walk without pain. So, if I can have patience, there’s hope. My lack of patience is what caused my injury in the first place.

I look forward to being able to bring my everyday problems, stresses, and wounds to that invisible spacetime in the universe to be assured of how insignificant they really are.

I miss running.

I'm chasing running.

Love at First Sight

I want to talk with you about love at first sight. I’m not talking about romantic love. I’m talking about a type of love that results from when your soul recognizes itself in another. A love that won’t die even though you know you will never see him again. The vision unreachable; a soul-mate found and lost in one day. Your gut wrenches and the artist is born to safely channel the feelings.

I’ve experienced this type of love once in my life. The first time I saw him he was standing in the sun. His temper matched his fiery red hair. He was intelligent, melodramatic, and tricky --and I was in love. I understood him. I related.

His trainer said that he was one of the meanest horses she had dealt with. My mom told me that he was too young and too green for me. Green? He was a chestnut! I remember staring at him as he stood in the round pen resting from giving someone hell.

We drove home from Seguin to Port Lavaca without Ibn. But I was melodramatic and stubborn too. I cried for Ibn. I drew pictures of Ibn. I wrote stories about Ibn.

Our discussion of love at first sight ends right where our discussion of fate begins. Do you believe in fate?

Fast-forward a year or so to my eleventh birthday. No one showed up to my birthday party. The lady who taught me horseback riding lessons pulled up to our house hauling a horse trailer. Guess who was inside? Fate.

My mom had learned that someone in Port Lavaca had bought Ibn and that they were ready to get rid of him. He was living up to his name.

(I explained the meaning of his full name in my previous post.)

I don’t remember IBN as mean. I remember him as my best friend. I could relate to horses better than I could relate to people. People wounded and horses healed.

He was playful. Before he would let me catch him and halter him he would run about fifty tight circles around me as fast as he could with his head in the air, his nostrils flared, and his tail over his back. He may have been three-quarters Arabian but he acted like he was 150% Arab.

I told you that he was Rebecca-trained. He responded to my voice commands as quickly as to my physical cues. I could jump on him and tell him to “canter” and he would go from a stand-still to a lope in one movement. He wouldn’t do that for anyone else. I also trained him to bow and to rear on command. He was a fast learner and an even better teacher.

We were soul mates.

I don’t know if “fate” is the best word up there but it is shorter than destiny. I'm too lazy to look up the right word. I was also too lazy to saddle Ibn and I usually rode him bareback and barefooted with just a halter.

Missing Horses

I loved horses as a little girl. I was collecting model horses and constructing stalls and fences out of pieces of wood when other little girls were playing with Barbie. Ok, I was playing with Barbie too, only I was trying to help her ride my Breyer horses. Her legs wouldn’t bend the right way and she always sat a horse cockeyed. Barbie made Breyer's Clydesdale look like Breyer's Shetland pony. Barbie was far from perfect.

I fell in love with The Black in the Sears catalog and named him, Cass Ole, before I was sure he was my Christmas present. Even my favorite celebrities were horses.

I had a Shetland pony named Charlie Boy and eventually I graduated to a three-quarters Arabian named, IBN. “Ibn” means “son of” in Arabic and his full name was Ibn Sharamoot. (Don’t look that up unless you want to get schooled in Arabic profanity.)

Ibn was "Rebecca-trained" and extremely versatile. He could run barrels and poles, and go from Western Pleasure to Hunter Hack. We won high-points at horse shows. He didn’t wait for my cues in pleasure classes; when the announcer said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, would you please trot your horses,” Ibn would assume the gait. Like I said, he was Rebecca-trained --and I was a mouthy little girl. I was also a one horse girl.

During my teen years the horse bug had morphed into a pesky fly as our love wasn’t strong enough to withstand my hatred of back-breaking labor in triple digit heat. Plus, it was more fun to chase boys than it was to chase horses. (I couldn't outrun horses but I was faster than all the boys.)

My knight in shining armor would not be a cowboy. I wanted to get away from horses.

I have been horse free for almost nineteen years. But, for the past two days I’ve had to “cowgirl up” and live the life I thought my husband had rescued me from: back-breaking labor in triple digit heat.

Ibn is still around. He is 34 years old. That’s pretty old for a horse.

Today I looked into one of his big brown eyes and saw the familiar shades and patterns engraved in his iris. His iris always reminded me of rough craggy rocks sketched around his cavernous rectangular pupil. In his eye is a miniature scenic shot of the Grand Canyon. I remember thinking he had the Grand Canyon in his eye. Not literally, of course, that would be impossible.

Regaining that twenty-year-old observation made the fact that I was covered in sweat and mud worth it. It also made me miss horses.

NOT THE WORK.

(I can't sleep again. I am so wired and I don't know why.)

Originally posted July 31, 2010 here: http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/weblogs/learning-in-freedom/2010/jul/31/missing-horses/

Do you believe in ghosts?

I was shocked when I looked at the clock and realized it was 2:00am. I couldn't sleep. The steady noise produced by the box fan seemed to solidify the air -suffocating me. Every few seconds the chain from the ceiling fan struck the metal casing that shields the bulb, acting as a cymbal in the symphony of my insomnia. I wasn't tired.

Usually, when I can't fall asleep I tell myself (imagine) a story just to cast a shadow over the thoughts that keep me wired. I always fall asleep before a plot unfolds. Sometimes I read a book and sometimes I watch television, but hubby was asleep and I was scared to move.

I feel like my mind has stagnated and it's because I have not allowed thoughts to flow, naturally. I fill up my waking hours with purposeful thoughts or some type of digital entertainment, even when I'm doing "work," which should free my mind to wander. As I fall asleep at night I try to corral the stream of thoughts that run through my mind. A wandering mind during consciousness is like entering dream-state during sleep - both are important to our mental health. I haven't allowed my mind to be free.

I wondered if controlling the thoughts of children five days a week was healthy for intellectual growth. I wondered if it was healthy for me, so I tried to think of nothing - just to see what would surface.

I pushed my thoughts out of my mind and sometimes caught myself slipping into sleep. This awareness quickly woke me up and I was back to the humming of my room.

Box fan and ceiling fan - there was a rhythm. I could stack it like blocks in my mind.

Maybe someone was mowing their yard? I was standing in the tall grass back at my childhood home admiring the gray water. I looked to my left and I noticed that a stranger was using a push mower to mow our fourteen acres along the bay. My "mee-mee" always mowed the grass on her riding lawnmower. I felt sorry for the stranger but there was a nice breeze.

Someone whispered in my ear that my childhood home was now for sale and I wanted to buy it. In real life the two-story country home on the water I grew up in would never be affordable - even if I had a job. I knew hubby would never move back to Port Lavaca, even if to live out in the country and on the water.

I turned to go up the hill towards the house but I was standing in a grass-less unfamiliar pasture looking back at an unfamiliar one-story small white house. I had never seen it before, but it felt like home.

Little Tykes toys littered the yard. I imagined myself reading a book on a blanket under the sun. I wanted to have a family from Canada come and stay for a few days. I thought about how I would approach the subject with my husband. "They are free-range hippies."

When I woke up I was sad. There is a part of me that I can never have. I miss the house I grew up in. I feel like a part of me is still there. I feel sorry for whoever lives in that house now. I haunt that house in my dreams.

I am the ghost.

*****

This song reminded me of this dream:

Making fun of Homeschoolers

Love this.

Astra Taylor on the Unschooled Life

John Holt used the word "unschool" to describe those families who opted out of institutionalized learning. As the community grew and as the movement became mainstream it morphed into something that looked less like "unschooling" and more like "school at home." By the time I began to teach my own, "unschooling" was a sub-group of the homeschooling community. Over the years I have developed some negative associations with the word "unschool" and have always tried to distance myself from the word but it, in it's most original meaning, probably describes my philosophy of education. As Astra explains her mother's schooling she touches on the history of educational alternatives and talks about radical pedagogy. She asks what happened over the last forty years to stop the conversation. She shares how unschooling shaped her as an artist. This is my favorite topic!



She mentions A.S. Neill's Summerhill School, and at some point, when I feel like it, I am going to try to look up and share links to the books Astra mentions as well as any of the sites...

Diamonds for a Girl's Best Friend (recycled from the VA site)

When my daughter was about four years old I told her that we needed to clean the house because her best friend was coming over. “We need to make the house really pretty for Alexa.”

Alexa’s mom and I had been friends since we were pregnant with our girls. Alexa had been my daughter’s friend since birth.

My friend was a self-professed obsessive compulsive clean freak and I’m not lying. Example: One time we went to visit Alexa and her mother at their house. I had to “powder my nose.” The bathroom was fresh and clean decorated with butterflies in shades of purple and green. I washed my hands and dried them on a new purple towel with beautiful butterflies embroidered along the edges. I can’t remember why, but a few minutes later I walked back in to the bathroom and noticed that the towel was now a mossy green! I was puzzled. She admitted that she had replaced the hand towel because it had been used! ONCE!

You understand how absorbed I was in straightening up my house knowing that my clean-freak friend was coming by to pay me a visit. My daughter, however, was no where to be seen and she was not being much of a help. Four year olds are capable of cleaning up their own toys.

She had disappeared into her room for quite awhile. When she came back into the living room her hands were full of little pieces of paper; these shapes that she had cut out of construction paper. She began to place these pieces of paper around the house.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“I’m making the house pretty for Alexa!”

“What are those?”

“They are diamonds.” She said, proudly.

The little pieces of paper were diamond shape. She had been in her room drawing diamonds on construction paper with a silver crayon and then cutting them out with scissors. To my daughter, making the house pretty meant placing diamonds all over the floor and furniture.

I don’t think Alexa’s mom would have been impressed, but I was. My daughter had created diamonds for her best friend. I was running around trying to impress my friend in another way.

I need to stop and see the diamonds!

Alternative Methods and Homeschooling

While we are here discussing the pros and cons of homeschooling there is an ongoing and revolutionary discussion taking place within a section of the homeschooling population. It involves how children learn and what methods are effective in transmitting knowledge.

Many parents who opted out of institutionalized learning decided to not utilize any of the methods used in public schools. Instead of setting up a mini classroom in the home some families took to worldschooling, unschooling, natural, autonomous, child-directed, interest driven, unstructured, informal, life learning... They decided to live a more natural non-traditional approach and to create an educationally rich environment instead of a school in the home.

A few of the heroes in the alternative homeschooling community started out as TEACHERS who tried to change the public schools. They found that the schools would not change.

Bureaucrats speak of raising standards and punishing teachers because even after increasing the amount of water poured onto the saturated sponge the sponge refuses to absorb. I doubt lengthening the school day will change the storage capacity of the human brain, Mr. President.

Instead of constantly trying to fill and measure the child some homeschooling families are changing the way they interact with children - questioning roles - teacher-mom, facilitator-of-learning, fellow learner, to mom. Some are even allowing children to be in charge of their own learning.

Anyway, I just had to share a tiny glimpse into a small part of the discussion among some homeschoolers. I love the discussion of alternative methods because it speaks to that optimistic "future teacher" who never became employed and disillusioned.

This video was circulating in the international alternative home education scene. It might strike some as radical but after living and learning with my own for 17 years it's "well that's just common sense!" It's from Education Otherwise:




Just a glimpse into what is going on out there in the alternative world of education. I know it's not a thorough account but at least I was able to get some rants squeezed in. That's always free therapy for me. =D

World History vs Acorn 101

I have confessed to you that we are very relaxed in my home. Some people might even say that we are lazy. Well, my daughter must have agreed with "some people" because the other day she told me that she wanted to do real school with real text books and real tests. I told her that if that's what she wanted to do then we needed to do that.

Where else can a student become so academically bored that they become motivated to create their own schedule; their own course of study? I think it's important for a child to come to the conclusion that their education is their responsibility and it's important for that child to become self motivated and an autonomous learner...

Side note: Apparently, in the homeschool or unschool community, it is common for many students to take control and direct their learning at about the age of 11-13. This is the age when my first born also sat me down and told me how he wanted his school to look. Actually, he wanted it to look just like Crain Middle School, so I enrolled him. =D

My daughter and I sat down and talked about what subjects she wanted to learn. She said she wanted to learn the same subjects she would have to learn if she attended a public school: reading, writing, math, history, and science. When she decided on which subjects she wanted to include in her course of study we looked through our collection of various learning materials and programs so that she could choose the ones which would suit her. I have some courses on DVD, some courses and texts on computer, and even a few text books in MP3 format. Pick your poison!

After we decided on materials or approaches to each subject she created a weekly schedule. It reminded me of a college schedule and it was built around her already existing extra curricular activities. You know, "Thursdays are tennis and volleyball practice so I only want to read and write in my journal that day." She only wanted to do World History twice a week and Physical Science once a week.

Well today's schedule called for reading, writing, and World History. But, we weren't alone. Last night after her out-of-town volleyball game two of her teammates spent the night. I had told their mom that they could join us for school in the morning. We could all learn some world history together! I imagined each girl with iPod Touch in hand researching various historical figures, civilizations, regions... a little cooperative learning group in my living room. We had three times the research power in my house today!

However, we woke up to the most beautiful weather and that pushed school to the back burner. I feel bad that I didn't force World History but there was so much going on in our backyard! First off, it was cool and windy, eventually a cat caught a hummingbird and ate it in front of us, and the neighbor's tree was filling up the backyard with acorns.

I gave the children a bucket and begged them to collect them so we had a bucket full of acorns.

We were all lounging around on patio furniture or porch swings with our ipods when I asked the girls if they knew whether or not acorns were edible. I tweeted the question and then googled it. You know how you lose track of time when playing on the internet? By the time I found my answer the girls were inside.

The girls had done their own research and were in the process of tasting fried acorn that they had already boiled, peeled, and fried!

Well, I had read that acorns contain tannins which can be toxic so I had the girls bring me leaves from the oaks around the house. We used "Trees of Victoria" to identify the specific oaks so that I could get more information on the acorns we had just tasted. They tasted like nutty squash... and were not bitter at all.

Did you know that acorns were a staple to some native Americans? They would place the acorns in a basket in a river to cleanse them of the toxins. How did they know to do this without google? They were truly educated!

It just blows me away how every time we set out to learn about one thing we jump track and end up learning about something else. When we do that we are doing the opposite of school. We are learning from what life throws at us, in this case, acorns.

The beauty of learning in freedom - not having any time restrictions on when we "school" - is that it's not too late to watch our history DVD and maybe read some of "Pride and Prejudice" before bed. I'm pretty sure my daughter's schedule will be honored by midnight. ;)

Never mind, I know it will, because three girls just walked in and said, "Let's do school!"

Guess we are doing night school.

Dragons and Rockets and Pi, Oh My!

I attended a Homeschool 101 meeting for new homeschoolers and I was blown away by some of the observations and examples of "interest driven learning" and "child directed" learning and how allowing a child to follow his passions and interests unfolds as the child matures and grows. As the child gets older he may go from asking hundreds of questions about a wide range of subjects to honing in and becoming an expert in one.

The typical scope and sequence designed for the classroom can work against that natural learning and curiosity for the child learning in freedom - the home. It seems mind boggling that strictly adhering to a program designed to teach children "everything they need to know when they need to know it" could actually slow some children down. A few of us have observed this.

I heard a few examples but I have an example of how my children's curiosities take us away from our school books or my lesson plans:

The other day I decided to read "Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi" to my children for math. Looking through the book I realized that there were a few words I needed to familiarize myself with: circle, radius, diameter, and circumference...

I wrote these words on one of our dry erase boards and let the children witness as I review-taught. That's mom purposefully thinking out loud as she familiarizes herself with something she should know by now. Believe it or not my children have learned much from my bad memory.

For radius I told the children to think of sun rays. I drew a sun and several "rays" which "emanated from one point." I drew these rays about the same length which eventually suggested the shape of a bigger circle. (This was to set up my explanation of circumference.) As I drew these many "rays" I said, "rays" and "radius" out loud.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the book: Just mentioning the word "sun" set my seven year old off into a question tangent. He wanted to know "how come our sun is a small star but it's so bright?"

I explained that our sun is very close to us compared to the other stars and that is why it appears bigger and brighter... I didn't finish my explanation because that triggered another question, "How far away is the sun from earth?"

My hubby and I couldn't remember so I said, "I don't know the exact distance but if you headed towards the sun in a rocket it might take several months to get there." I added, "If you headed for the nearest galaxy at light speed you wouldn't get there in your life time..." Which brought up more questions... "How fast is light speed?" which triggered more questions...and more...

We ended up in a family discussion of what all it would take to get a human to the nearest galaxy - alive.

It is common for one topic to trigger curiosity about other topics. This is part of the reason many homeschoolers see adhering to a typical scope and sequence as limiting their child's learning.

Even my own plans to read a book and to talk to my children about "radius" had us orbiting subjects like "the solar system" and "light speed."

I think these questions that take us away from the lesson plan can be more important than the lesson. When a child asks questions it shows that child is thinking. Thinking should be the goal of learning and not just finishing a workbook. The questions can then be the curriculum.

Trying to review these words so that I could read a book I planned to read sparked so many questions that we almost didn't make it to the book. It got to the point where I told the kids, "Go get your notebooks because I want to read this story to you TODAY but keep asking questions and I'll write them down..."

The story is about a little boy who has to solve a riddle to save his father's life. The riddle is the definition of Pi and the little boy has to find that number. You get to be there for his "ah hah" moment and you are there as he tests his theory on an onion, a pie, a wagon wheel...

After we read the book we did our own hands-on discovery of Pi. We collected several round objects from the kitchen and cut strips of paper the exact length of the diameters. Then we could see how for each object (circle) three of the diameter sized strips fit around the circumferences "with some left over."

Days later we are still using the questions and looking up and talking about exact distance from the earth to sun, astronomical units, and today (now a few days ago) I said something crazy like, "I guess the closest we can get to time travel is looking up at the stars at night." Which was a remnant of our discussion of "light years" and galaxies being so far away it would take several generations to get there...

So we have already "put down the school books" to go off down a "bunny path" as one veteran mom put it...

This is an example of what I mean when I talk about focusing on the learning and avoiding the schooly things. I will abandon our "school" for "learning." The questions are the superior curriculum and I will "let the questions be the curriculum."

Rebecca ツ

This is your brain on tired.

I was thinking about dreams earlier. Not my hopes and aspirations but the little stories that play out in my head when I'm asleep. I close my eyes every night to end my predictable mundane day and enter an exotic world where the laws of man, God, and even physics don’t apply.

If I’m lucky I sleep. I have nights of insomnia which might explain my fascination with dreams. Dreaming is proof of sleep, right?

Sometimes I keep a notebook and pen by my bed so that I can write down my dreams as soon as I wake up. Consciousness pushes many dreams out of my memory. Maybe dreams weren't meant to be remembered.

I read somewhere* that during R.E.M. newly acquired information is filed and stored in the memory. I guess new facts and data whirl around like bits of confetti until we sleep and dream. That’s when the bits get defragmented and sorted allowing for more efficient retrieval. McMemory.

So while our brains are busy filing and doing very important serious work that’s for our own good we repay that feat by reducing it all to a nonsensical story.

It’s kinda funny how even when we are asleep we get bored. The tedious task of storing and filing data causes our unconscious minds to wander. To zone out. Dream.

*Every time I hear myself say "I read somewhere" what follows reminds me of Tim-the-tool-man-Taylor as he tried to relate Wilson's fence side chats...

My six year old's journal entries:

I encourage my children to keep a journal even before they can read or write. Of course, my six year old mostly draws:


He is on the verge of reading and he wrote his first sentences yesterday:

"I miss you I loves you DAD"

I read it back to him and he erased the "s" after love. He tore the page out and put it on his dad's pillow. Isn't that sweet? His dad has been out of town this week.

One thing that is so helpful to me, the teacher-mom, is that I can always look through the journals and see what they are learning or what they are READY to learn.

Like, yesterday, I noticed that my son had not only written a few sentences, but he had written a few words: boom, boo, pop, poop. I took a cue from the word "boom" and showed him how to write the words: broom and room. So, now he has a few more words in his journal:



He is not only thinking of words but he seems to be thinking of math. He hasn't officially learned multiplication but he seems to pick up whatever his big sister is doing:


Guess what this is:


He loves us all: (He loves his dad FIRST and me SECOND, Oh well.)

Coffee thoughts - multiple ages in the learning environment

This post should follow Family Learning: Converting Fahrenheit to Celcius (turned into a rant on democratic schools):

This morning my son and I were playing around on the internet. Actually, he had woken up and crawled in my lap while I was reading about Eva Braun. I had a dream last night about her children surviving….something about an article that was written before WWII coming back to haunt us…... something about two rivers… one was discovered to be frozen….for some reason that was important. You know how dreams are? I recently read, “Eye of the Needle,” by Ken Follett, so my mind must be wrestling with pieces of the book and my constant flipping between channels 75 and 29.

Anyway, as usual, my son started to quiz me. “What does H K L E spell?” May be when a child is on the verge of reading they have these random letters dancing around in their head mocking them as their minds try to make sense of them. He needs my input to help him crack the code and find a way to stick these random letters together. I guess it’s like my mind as I sleep. I have experiences during my day and at night my mind is trying to file but some things aren’t definable and easily classified so they hang around and torment me. I wake up and look up Eva Braun. Maybe the unsolved information gets left on the surface so that we can figure it out. So, my WWII dream and ABCs are on our minds this morning.

After the spelling quiz my son went over to the dry erase board and began to quiz me in math. “What is C plus 5?” I told him that it could be anything depending on what he wanted C to be. I told him to give me any number and we could find out what C was. We did this a few times until he was satisfied. Then I walked away to start this blog because something about my dream and his first morning thoughts about his ABCs seemed important to me before I finished this cup of coffee.

As I was typing he called me back to the dry erase board and he had written: F=9/3+365 He must have paid attention to his sister’s calculations on the dry erase board the past few days. The formula has been and is still on the board today. I told him that it was easy to solve because 9/3 is another way of expressing the number 3. I solved it and told him that F was 368 and that he had done Algebra today. He looked upset and said, “Now I have to skip to Algebra.”

I assured him that he didn’t have to skip to Algebra.

Now he is singing and playing bottle cap wars with his bottle cap collection.

But, this reminded me of when my oldest was learning Algebra. My daughter played around with some trinomials and factored a few with him. I made sure to make hers easy as she was just seven or eight. I blogged about it back then.

Over the years I have learned and observed the benefits of having different ages or grades learning in one room. I can see how multiple stages and ages are a good blend in the learning environment. They influence and challenge each other…….

Just sharing my morning thoughts over coffee.

I forgot to mention that at one point he asked me, "What is a google plus a google?" I answered with, "TWO google." He said, "No because a google is a mystery number." I went with it because he was defining google as a mystery number and he drew it as circles in circles. We could work with that. I just thought that was interesting. I guess to him as he learns how to add and subtract he watches his sister as she seemingly breaks all of the rules so he breaks and creates them too.

Paper Plate Puzzles

Paper Plate Puzzles - Create your own materials to teach number, letter, and word recognition:

All you need is: cheap paper plates, some markers or crayons, and a pair of scissors. Depending on the purpose of the puzzles you can tweak the design and its placement. We have used many variations.



For the younger ones who are learning their ABC's you can draw a letter and image in the middle of the plate and with the scissors make a distinct zigzag or wavy cut down the middle of the plate so that the image can be easily matched to its other half. This is easy enough as the child completes and image and sees the letter that starts the word. Notice the consonants are dark blue and vowels are light blue!





Maybe after the child knows his ABCs you can make the design placement or unique cut where matching is more of a challenge. For example: Take the paper plate and write one letter of the alphabet on the top of the plate with a marker and draw a picture that starts with that letter on the bottom of the plate. Use the scissors to cut a funky shape to divide the letter from the image. The picture can be matched with the correct letter like one big puzzle with two pieces. The child isn't simply completing the image by matching the two halves of the plate but trying to find a picture that starts with the correct letter.

Another variation would be to draw an image and have the child match the whole word:


My daughter made these paper-plate puzzles to help her little brother work on his reading skills. After he matches them he can try to read only the words back:



I have made number recognition paper plate puzzles too! Notice that the even numbers are red and the odd numbers are blue!



Have fun!

Converting Fahrenheit to Celcius (turned into a rant on democratic schools)

My children and I have a little game that we play whenever we get in the car. When I start the engine we all look up to see what the temperature is in Fahrenheit and then everyone guesses what the temperature would be in Celsius. Then I click the button to change the temperature display to Celsius and the winner gets nothing but the hoorays or boos from the other family members. If my oldest is with us he will win. After today, the game will forever be changed as my daughter was introduced to the conversion formulas in her math work book.

Do you remember the formulas? I certainly didn’t remember the formulas and I just went over all of this with another child just a few years ago. I’ve been in the fifth grade THREE TIMES and still, I am NOT SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER.

Here it is just in case you are like me and can’t remember:

F=9/5(C)+32

That’s three easy steps!
1. Replace the letter C with a numeral (temperature) and multiply it by 9.
2. Divide your result by 5.
3. Add 32 to that.

C=5/9(F)-32

What is interesting is while I don’t remember the temperature conversion formulas that I’ve learned and that I have taught twice; I do remember what my first child was ‘into’ when he learned how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. I remember because it was during a time in our home school adventure when I decided to try out the methods used by “democratic schools.” If you haven’t heard of democratic or free schools let me just say that they are a shocking contrast to the schools that you and I spent 13 years attending. Many of us can’t fathom their existence without some twitching of the eye.

A democratic school is a school where the child is free and has control over what she will and will not learn. The child would work with teachers to create a curriculum and the “teacher’s” job would be to find ways to bring that learning to the child. The child may want to learn to play the guitar for the next few months and/or may want to learn how to create web pages. The child has that freedom. The children are encouraged to teach classes and to share what they have learned with others. The graduating body will have its share of “slackers” just like any other school. The alumni stories are amazing!

Anyway, after a several months break from academics and encouraged by a bit of “burn out” academically, I decided to give democracy a chance – in education. I told my children that we would only learn about the things they wanted to learn about. I told my children to make a list of all the topics that they wanted to learn about and that their lists would become their curriculum. They were in charge of “school.”

Each child created their own list. My daughter dictated her list to me. Her list contained the names of various fluffy creatures like: lion, fox, cheetah… We took the lists to the library and checked out many books on the first words on each list. We spent the next few days on the living room floor reading, learning, and sharing our discoveries with each other. This was a wonderful time in our educational journey together as a family.

My son had “gems and minerals” first on his list. He was always fascinated with rocks. One of the first books that he dictated to me before he could read was titled, “MY ROCKS” and it was a book about his rock collection. So it was natural that he would check out many books on this topic. He began to take an interest in diamonds and “diamonds” was added to his list of topics that he wanted to learn about. As he was reading about diamonds he found out that they had a melting point or boiling point, I can’t remember. This book only gave this temperature in Celsius. This made him curious about what how to go about converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. Converting Celsius to Fahrenheit was added to his list. One day, he came to me and said, “Mom, help me memorize the periodic table of elements.” It was amazing to watch one topic, “gems and minerals,” trigger a curiosity about diamonds, converting temperature, and eventually the periodic table of elements. When he wanted to rest, I let him.

My daughter at some point in her self created interest driven curriculum ended up wanting to learn how to create a webpage to display some of her favorite animals and her artwork. We did that. I miss those days and my son just told me the other day that he thinks he actually learned more during that time of academic freedom that at any other time in his life.

Many people fear that allowing a child this type of freedom would result in havoc or laziness but I can assure you that I didn’t see that.

I saw the opposite. I watched as one topic or interest would trigger another like a domino effect. Something happens to a child when they are allowed to be in charge of their learning. It becomes “theirs” and they cherish it more. Freedom is a good thing, especially for children, and it's very important for learning.

All that flooded back to my memory yesterday as my daughter’s math book explained the concept and gave the formulas for converting Celsius to Fahrenheit and vise versa.

My son was very influenced by his sister's lesson. Here is the post about that: Family Learning: Coffee thoughts - multiple ages in the learning environment

A few things I have learned while teaching my own children at home.

What have I learned from over ten years of teaching my own children at home? I have learned with each child that many of the educational materials out there are a waste of money, children can learn without a “qualified” teacher, and that children need a reason to learn.

I wonder how many children associate the first day of school with a big brown delivery truck. My six year old son’s school year began when the UPS man dropped off his school books. For me it was like Christmas but I don’t think all of my children shared my enthusiasm.

I wasn’t sure if my son would be in kindergarten or in first grade this year so I ordered materials for both levels. He picked up the kindergarten math workbook, flipped through it, and said, “This is too easy!” He had learned basic math skills by just living with competent counters. We made a point to count out loud and to verbalize our thought processes as to instruct. He ran off with the 1st grade math workbook and completed the first twenty lessons on his first day of school! “I’m in first grade like eleven year olds” he told his big sister.

He wanted to “do school” even on the week ends. I found myself saying things like, “No more school!” or “No school if you don’t eat all of your dinner!”

I witnessed the same thing when my now 15 year old was about five years old and ready for kindergarten. UPS was on strike that year and our materials were late. By the time the school books finally arrived my son had learned how to read on his own. What a waste of money! If I knew that a child could learn to read by playing around with refrigerator magnets I wouldn’t have invested what little money we had in expensive instructional materials.

Like his little brother, he ran off with his math workbook and completed the first 20-30 lessons on his first day of school. He finished his whole kindergarten math workbook before Christmas and had learned to read on his own. I didn’t even get a chance to “teach” him.

I think one of the things that helped my son excel in math was that his favorite computer game, Math Blaster, required that he work several math problems quickly so that he could save the world from enemy invaders. If that's not a reason to learn I don't know what is. Armed with an abacus and the ability to count to twenty, he spent much of his day solving math problems.

My daughter had a similar reason to learn to read. Her favorite computer game, Roller Coaster Tycoon, required her to read the messages that were flashing on the screen. She knew that in order to please her park guests she would have to read those messages.

She taught herself how to read without the aid of instructional school-like materials. She had this wonderful Leap Pad alphabet desk that would say any three letter word that she entered. She figured out how to get this toy to help her read Dr. Seuss books.

I didn't know that she was able to read until I caught her reading a book to one of her beanie babies. She acted embarrassed when I caught her. I don't know why. I guess she hadn't perfected her reading ability and she wasn't ready to share it with the world.

She figured out the concept of multiplication by organizing and grouping her beanie babies. She taught herself many basic math concepts during play time. I wrote about it at the time.

It would be a big confidence boost to be able to say that I was a wonderful teacher. More important than a good teacher are good learners who have a reason to learn! More important than a "qualified" teacher is an atmosphere conducive to learning, a reason to learn, and freedom to play.

If I wouldn’t have allowed my children the freedom to play most of the day I don’t think they would have had the time to use an abacus to solve math problems to save the world, cuddle up on the couch and demand that mom read ten books, figure out how to make their toys help them read words, or learn mathematical concepts while playing with their beanie babies. If I would have made my children sit in a desk and do school would they have learned as much? Would they have learned to read naturally and with ease?

A loving and educationally rich atmosphere or environment can be more important than a "qualified" teacher. I know that because I can’t say I’m a “qualified” teacher, yet my children still learn.

Did I mention that my daughter would be considered a "late" reader? I had read enough research to know that children don't need to learn to read at such an early age. That is the only reason that I can say that teaching her how to read was not a struggle - I waited until she needed a reason to read and saw the value in it. I had to tell myself "Just so she can read by the time she takes her SATs." And she did. ;)

Teaching Reading IS NOT Rocket Science!

I remember watching a program on PBS about teaching children to read. One statement that stuck out was “teaching reading IS rocket science…” Good thing I didn’t have a mouth full of liquids at the time. I thought it was a joke when I first heard the statement, but they were serious. A web search for “teaching reading is rocket science” brought up the article which I assume the PBS show was quoting. My reaction to the statement was “Only if you try to teach 30 children before they are developmentally ready!” For the average child learning how to read isn’t difficult; we make it difficult by expecting results so early.

Two of my children taught themselves to read. Any teaching on my part was purely accidental yet 100% effective. It wasn’t rocket science but my methods would be just as difficult to transpose to a classroom setting. I spent one on one time with each child for several hours a day. When my son was an only child I would read a stack of books to him during the day and another stack at night to try to get him to fall asleep.

Reading was an important part of our world. He lived 24/7 in a home that placed a high emphasis on reading and he spent much of his time sitting in front of a book or having a book read to him. We also wrote books together. He would say the words and I would write them down. I would fold the pages in half, punch holes in the paper, and secure the pages with ribbon or I would fold the pages down the middle and staple the folded area to create a spine. Our "readers" were written by the child. We created these books whenever we could and he could read these little books because he was the author.

Our refrigerator was decorated in refrigerator magnets shaped like the letters of the alphabet. We had alphabet puzzles, alphabet building blocks, alphabet shaped water toys, and many “ABC books.” Each day as we read side by side on a comfy couch I would point out a letter of the alphabet and then I would challenge my son to find the letter as I read to him. The only plan I followed was mother’s intuition. We did this almost every day until he learned how to recognize all of the letters. Eventually, I would challenge him find three letter words or common words. This family reading time eased him into becoming a reader. I didn’t teach him to read on purpose, it was purely accidental and natural. I followed a curriculum of love and a scope and sequence driven by mommy's intuition.



My daughter also taught herself to read but maybe because my time was divided between her and her brother she learned at a much later age. She and I didn't read 10 books a day. Still, I had confidence that she would eventually learn to read so I didn't force her to become a reader at an early age. At some point, using educational toys, she figured out how to read. She might be considered a late reader but she reads just fine now and she learned with little or no instruction.

I have one child who was an early reader and one child who was a late reader but both taught themselves how to read. I think the secret to their success might have been that they weren't taught how to read. They were allowed to learn when they were ready to learn – late or early. They lived reading and were read to often. Learning to read might be a lifestyle instead of some expensive miracle program.



There’s a point to all of this. Either children are smarter than rocket scientists or we are trivializing something that should be simple and natural. Are we trying to teach many children how to read too early thus making something as simple as child’s play seem as difficult as rocket science? Waiting until the child is developmentally and physiologically ready to learn would make teaching reading as easy as pie!

I know if I were teaching in a classroom I would be forced to observe the conclusions of the article that I mentioned and to understand why some people think that TEACHING reading is like rocket science. A child who is surrounded by love, books, and plenty of time and patience will find learning to read is as easy pie most of the time.

You want a nation of proficient readers? Then you want everyone to be the same and that's not reality. Read to your children daily, model the importance of reading by reading, and don’t expect all children to read so early. Let them learn when they are ready. I think children are better learners than we are teachers, anyway.

Here is the article "Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science." You have to give some of these people credit. They are masters at making something very easy and natural look like a very daunting task. Glad I didn't read this article ten years ago when I started homeschooling. They make a pretty strong case with their big words! As a homeschool mom I felt like the message of this article was "Don't even try it. It's too hard for you! Leave it to the 'educated' 'qualified' 'experts.'" Fact: Many homeschooled children are learning to read without these "experts" and some times before mom gets a chance to try to teach! I wish our public school teachers had to freedom to allow more time when it comes to learning how to read....