Parenting by the Seat of My Pants: Civilizing the Barbarians, Montessori Style

"Veronica, you have the table manners of a wild boar," Isabella informed her sister at dinner one night. It's true. Veronica approaches each meal as though she were trying for the Guiness world record for the most food smeared on one body. She isn't alone in this pursuit. All toddlers do it. Isabella herself, when she was VeVe's age, once managed to destroy an entire outfit with one chocolate chip, a feat that has gone down in the annals of Griffith history. 

Still, it called my attention to the fact that my standards had clearly slipped too far. You know how, when you have a baby, people are always telling you, "Loosen up. Enjoy the ride. They're only little once." That kind of advice, while true, is best aimed at a different sort of mom. I have always been more likely to stop and smell the roses than stop and clean the bathroom. There's only so loose things can get before they come apart. 

I decided to return to my roots. My mother was a legendary preschool teacher, and I, myself worked for a while at a Montessori preschool. I know that kids can be civilized. My older kids are downright useful. 

My first goal was to find nice, kid sized tableware. Something nice enough to elicit careful attention from preschool aged children, but inexpensive enough that I wouldn't cry if they broke it. I hit up the thrift store 40% off sale and bought dessert plates, punch cups, creamer pitchers, tea cups and saucers, pretty table linens and vases, most of them for under $.50 a piece. 

The effect was almost instantaneous. The kids started sitting more quietly. They said please and thank you. They cleared their place when they were done. 

The boys learned how to hand wash and dry dishes, taking care to do a thorough job. 

I bought this Raskog cart at IKEA to store our new treasures and make moving dishes back and forth a less harrowing experience. The entire cart can be pushed from the sink to the dining room, or from its spot by the wall to the table for easy place setting. 

We also bought kid size tools for cleaning. We found a stick vacuum with a telescoping handle at a thrift store tgat, when the handle is down, is the perfect size for a young child. We set up a mop, broom and crumb station in the corner of the dining room, and we have been getting the children to help tidy after meals. 

Isabella quickly discovered that preschoolers need guidance for sweeping or they speak the mess around. She made a sweeping guide out of painters tape to help them focus their efforts. 

Even our resident wild boar is beginning to mend her ways. 

Real Math

Fifth grade math has gone well, but we have been hitting a bit of a dry spell lately.   Staring at fractions and decimals, factors and least common multiples was starting to seem, to the eldest child, like a sea of useless drudgery that brought up the timeless question, "what do you use this for?"

It's a fair question. It does seem to me that we like to divorce arithmetic from its context in real life applications. It's easy for kids to see the purpose of learning language, because they use it everyday for their own purposes. Math seems, from their perspective, less relevent. 

Cheyenne and Bella have expressed an interest lately in learning more about cooking and budgeting, so I decided to suspend my planned curriculum for the month and refocus on some practical life skills. 

We started with price comparisons. The night we began this study we were making tacos, so we decided to start by having the girls compare the cost of the individual packets of taco mix with the cost of the Costco bottle and, once we get the prices on the bulk spices, the cost of the mix recipe from The Tightwad Gazette. It's some good, solid mathematical thinking. How do we find the price per unit using the information printed on the package? What is the basic unit, for our purposes? If we use 3 T per pound of hamburger with one mix, and 4 with another, do we compare by teaspoon, or by one pound batch? What makes the most sense? If the amount on the package is given in in teaspoons, how can I convert that to Tablespoons? How about cups? If I'm making the homemade mix, how do I scale the recipe up or down? Does any of this look familiar? Fractions? Decimals? Factoring? 

Next up, I'm having them make a price book comparing prices of our most used items at different grocery stores, again taking into account units in a package. When it's all done we will have a taste test of some recipes using different products in which quality might make a difference because, after all, price is not the only factor to be considered in evaluating a decision. There are other, non-quantitative factors that make a difference too. 

This "break" from their math homework seems to be putting a little more steam in their learning engines. Suddenly the math problems have purpose and context. They are a language that expresses something meaningful. If nothing else, they'll leave home someday knowing how to make good use of their money and evaluate data for decision making. You could do worse. 

Time Management System- Part Two, the Homeschool Chart

I have tried about a million systems of organizing my homeschool lessons and until I came up with this, nothing actually stuck. I am not really a big fan of rigid schedules. I have babies and toddlers and I have never been functional at 2:00PM of any afternoon in my 34 years of life. My life has a lot of variables to work around. Still, I don't want school to fall through the cracks, so something had to be done to keep us more or less on track. This little baby has been helping a lot.

 Each school kid has their own column of pockets, divided up by subject; Badge Work, Math, Grammar and Spelling (both of which include writing assignments) with a pocket at the bottom for completed work. James just has one pocket for preschool activites. The pockets are made out of envelopes I cut in half and stapled to the board. At the beginning of the week I put all of the week's assignments in their envelopes and they work on them during school time. If they want to keep working, and sometimes they do, and get it all done in a few days, good for them. They are done with school for the week. On the right side of the chart I have extra curricular activites, group activites, field trips and fun outings so they can see at a glance what our week looks like. It's not shown in this picture, but I have a simple dry erase calendar above this chart that shows us our month at a glance. It's simple, it's easy and it helps them work independently.

Homeschool Badges -First Aid

Our Second Badge is nearly completed! The girls wanted to learn First Aid. The requirements for this badge were to learn what to do, at a kid appropriate level, for:


-Burns
-Bleeding
-Seizures
-Broken bones
-Asthma attacks
-Choking in infants
-Choking in children
-Choking in adults

CPR will be it's own separate badge. We found a site from the UK Red Cross that had a good set of videos and games that taught first, how to prevent accidents, and second, how to treat them when they happen. We did have to make sure they understood that in the U.S. they have to call 911 instead of 999, but they got that point pretty quickly and now, should they ever randomly be in the UK and have to call for Emergency Services, they will know the number. :)

To earn this badge they had to watch the videos and, on a separate occasion, to make sure the information had sunk in, pass a test in which a sibling pretended to need assistance with each of the injuries or incidents and they had to accurately assess what was happening to the patient and treat them. Then they had to make a video of their own using iMovie to explain how to care for a victim of one of these conditions, in their case, they filmed their treatment of a minor burn Cheyenne got in the kitchen. Finally, and this is the part we haven't finished, they have to research what kinds of materials go into a first aid kit and what each item is used for. When they have completed that, they will be done, and we will be on to the Detective Science badge. I am really looking forward to that one.

Homeschool Badges Week 1: Animal Care

Studying the matamata turtles

Week One of the Badge system of homeschooling has gone extremely well. We fleshed out our list (I can post as a document as soon as I figure out how :) ) and the children were so excited they didn't know what to choose first. They wanted to tackle the entire list in a month. What can I say? They share my starry-eyed idealism.

Their required badges, Spelling Star, Reading and Mathematics, are mine to choose. I'm still working on a way to break those subjects, especially spelling and reading, down into pieces that will be both challenging and manageable for continuous study. I'm open to suggestions, by the way, if anyone has any ideas. At the moment I am thinking that reading may work similar to the Book It program we had when I was a kid. If they read a certain number of age appropriate books in a month (no credit given for board books, for example), they will earn their Reading Badge for the month. I've been breaking math down by core skills. Spelling remains a bit of a challenge to quantify.

 The optional badges were easier. This months selections were Animal Care, First Aid, Detective Science and Archery.

I did some reasearch and adapted the Animal Care requirements from this list of Cub Scout activities from the UK. Our list is a bit different, but it gave me a jumping off point.

Animal Care Badge Requirements

Choose Four Activities

1. Visit a zoo or nature center. Interview a Zookeeper or Naturalist about the habitats and feeding habits of three different animals.

2. Visit a farm and assist with farm chores. Learn about common animal illnesses and how to prevent and treat them. Learn about the feeding and grooming of three different farm animals. Find out about how animals are cared for before, during and after birth.

3.  Read a book on the care of a specific animal you are interested in knowing more about.

4. Learn about five different fish or sea creatures in a particular aquatic habitat (rivers, lakes, deep sea, coral reef, etc.) Write a paper or give a presentation to your family and friends about the animals you have studied

5. Keep a nature journal for one month. Record the animals you view, or any evidence of animals you see (footprints, scat...) along with your observations of the animals. What are they doing? What do they eat? Are they alone or in groups? Are they frightened of you? Are they calm? Are they sleeping?

6. Care for an animal for one month.

Extra Credit:
-Participate in a junior farm or zookeeper volunteer program or class, such as the Junior Docent program at Como Zoo (http://www.comozooconservatory.org/) or a variety of programs at Gale Woods Farm in Minnestrista, http://www.threeriversparks.org/parks/gale-woods-farm.aspx
programs at the Minnesota Zoo (including a teen volunteer program) http://www.mnzoo.com/education/education_kidsFamilies.asp or the University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center. http://www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu/

The kids chose #s 1, 2, 3 and 6, although they are interested in doing all of them. We've already gone to the zoo and interviewed the zookeeper on the care and feeding of tigers. We registered for a farm helper program at Gale Woods Farm park (which includes breakfast from the farm, yum!) and they have taken over the care of our cat Shadow. All that's left is a trip to the library for a book about cat care and we are done with our first badge. Technically. I suspect they will push to accomplish all of the tasks, and I will be more than happy to accomodate their enthusiasm.

Our New Approach to Homeschooling: Scout Style

Image courtesy of Adafruit

I've been in a weird place with homeschooling lately. Sometimes my brain reminds me of a snowglobe. I've got all of these seemingly random ideas floating around in my head, and until I give them a chance to settle, I have a hard time seeing the pattern. I've been in one of these snowglobe phases with homeschooling the last few months. I could tell there was a plan brewing, but I couldn't really see it yet.

I have never been able to totally nail down our homeschooling style. On one hand, I really, really love classical education. I love its focus on quality reading materials and its rigorous standards. I was not especially challenged in school, at least academically. I'm not saying I was a straight A student, but the main cause of my stumbles was boredom. As an adult, I have struggled with the consequences of the lazy, undisciplined attitude that grew out of too many years of remaining unchallenged. Classical education does an excellent job of addressing that. The downfall is that a lot of classical education is very book oriented. That's great in some ways. We love to read. We love our poetry recitation and our Latin. We're a little obsessed with books, actually, but we are also very hands on learners. Any approach I take that doesn't consider that part of our learning style is going to be incomplete.

Because of our hands-on style, I also have a great love of project based homeschooling. I love its interdisciplinary approach. In the real world, almost nothing falls into neatly divided categories. You don't go to work and work on your math, reading and science. You go to work and do a whole job, often divided into projects. It seems like a more natural way of approaching a lot of learning oriented tasks and the hands-on aspect of it really helps to cement the concepts in the children's minds. We can (and do, all winter) read about gardening, but there's no amount of reading that replicates the experience of taking a garden through all of its stages, planning, planting, tending and harvesting. A project like that touches on a variety of subjects, from the composition of e-mails to a gardener friend asking for advice, reading books on different methods of growing, to the obvious science of actually planting and growing a variety of flowers and foods. The big downfall of this method is that it can be extremely hard to quantify what we have learned and make sure that nothing gets through the cracks.

Cheesemaking

I've been trying to integrate these ideas for a while, with varying degrees of success, but I've lacked that key something that would make it feel like a more cohesive school experience. Then yesterday, while I was conversing with a friend about her son's progress in Boy Scouts, it hit me. Badges!

I've seen these Maker Skill Badges from Adafruit before and really liked the idea, but what if I put together my own system of badges that correspond with skills or academic units that we want to cover? Each badge will have a specific set of activities associated with it that have to be completed. Some badges, like mathematics related badges or reading related badges, will be required. Others will be chosen by me on a monthly basis and others will be chosen by the children themselves. Badges that cannot be purchased, we will make using a button maker. We'll make each of the children a wall-hanging to put over their bed to display the badges they have earned.

We have been brainstorming our lists all morning as we recover from our latest bout of sickness. Here is a sample of what we are thinking of. Some of these ideas are borrowed from the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or Adafruit, others are our own creation.

Car care

Carpentry
Circuits
Biohacking
Aeronautics
Fossil Hunter
Naturalist
Tesla Coil
Ohm's Law
Soldering (already working on)
Solar Panels
Cooking (Series of Badges)
Baking
Money Manager
Adventure (borrowed from Cub scout list)
Farmer
Animal Care
Communicator
Reader (Series)
Cyclist
Equestrian
Geologist
Marine Biology
Navigator
Faith (Series of badges)
Personal Safety
Road Safety
First Aid
Out of Your Comfort Zone
Mathematician (series of badges by skill)
Programming
Historian (series of badges by historical era)
Ornithologist
Winter Sports/Recreation
Summer Sports/Recreation
Child Development
Detective
Spelling Star
Foreign Language (Series)
Orienteering
Storytelling
Poetry
Gardener
Nutrition
Swimming
Family Camp
Fire Safety
Knife safety
Knots and ropes
Fiber Arts (series, knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery)
Fine Arts (series, drawing, painting, sculpture)
Paper crafts
Pottery
Bike Repair
Robotics
Wild Life
Adventure Racing
Music (series)
Meteorology
Traveler
World Cultures
Scientist (series)
Theater
Domestic Skills
The Great Outdoors
Fishing
Jewelery making
Architecture
Photography
Map Master (Geography)
Corporal Works of Mercy
Citizenship and Government
Fiction Writing
Non-fiction writing
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
Journaling/blogging
Journalism
Nature Journaling
Memory Master
Hospitality
Manners
Handwriting Hero
Adventure Sports/Recreation
Photography
Crafts (series)
Gymnastics
Human Anatomy
Martial Arts
Dance
Letterboxing

Geocaching

Scuba Diving

Obviously, this is quite a hodge podge of ideas, some of which will have to be sifted through, organized and sorted, but its an exciting list of learning activities that should help to get the brain juice flowing.

Help us Solve a Mystery!

Bella is a mystery lover, especially when the mysteries involve art. She spent a full month talking her siblings out of playing Avengers and into playing Finding the Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of Galilee for the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum. If she were any less sincere, it would be unbearably pretentious. She comes by it honestly. We are art lovers in our family. My sister owns an art gallery. When she and I were homeschooled as teens we'd get our work done by noon and spend the rest of the day at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 

 

That said, we are not exactly on a fine art budget here in the Griffith household, so I get most of my artwork at the Goodwill Gallery. I brought these two pictures home the other day for $5 a piece, with another $5 for the candle sconce between them. I was sick to death of looking at the bare walls and these just kind of fell into my cart. (tangentially, whenever I am thrift store shopping I'll look at the prices and think, "Are you kidding? $5! This is not Target! You're a thrift store. Price like one." Then I get home and think, "Actually, that was a pretty sweet deal.")

 

 

 

As we were hangning these beauties, Isabella read the back of this one, on which someone had written A Little Princess, with a bunch of numbers above and below it. (and a price, written in another hand, of $40. I guess it was a good deal.) She set about trying to find out which princess and prince these pictures could be.

 



 

We searched the internet for the name of the picture and, not surprisingly, came up with nothing but a bunch of links to Amazon selling the Frances Hodgson Burnett novel by the same name. 

 

Next we decided to look for the clues in the pictures. The castle in the background, for example. Windsor Castle, maybe? We're not sure, but it could be. 

 

We asked my dad, who thought they looked a bit like the work of Thomas Gainsborough (The Blue Boy, which we saw at the Huntington Library just last winter). 

 

I can see his point. We did a search on Gainsborough and discovered that he painted King George III, who had 15 children. We looked up each of his children and found nothing that convinced us one way or the other.

And then I thought, I have a whole lot of nerdball friends and family. There's someone out there who can help us with this. Any ideas? What era is the clothing? Recognize the castle? The country? The style of painting? Do a nerdy seven year old a solid and help her find the answers.