Raising boys, Teaching Boys

The assumes that I am working with boys plural, but I have just one that I am raising and teaching. I think this topic fits all boys no matter where or how they are schooled. As James and I have been doing our lessons these past 2 weeks, I have made some keen observations about his readiness for academics. As we concentrate on math, reading and writing each morning I have discovered the following:

1. James does not yet possess the fine motor skills to write some of his letters. (nor the desire)
2. James has yet to understand what rhyming words are. It's hard for him to match two rhyming words together. When we play rhyming word games, he will make a guess then look at my face for clues to whether he is right or wrong. He even sings, "Rain, rain go away, come again another time.". 
3. Math is boring right now. He gets it. All that counting cubes is slightly mundane. (I can turn this into a positive)
4. He loathes coloring/crafting unless he gets to use "gadgets" or if it's messy.

So, first, please see here that one of the beauties of homeschooling is that I can observe my child upclose and personal and adjust academics accordingly. As I have talked with some of my mommy friends over the summer, I have often repeated that if James were going to public school, I believe Chris and I would have made the decision to hold him back a year. He just turned five in July so he is a "young" five-year-old. He is not ready for a 6-hour "work" day. Not only have I considered what would be expected of him academically , I have also considered his desire to learn. I believe this can not be ignored. I remember taking a workshop once during a retreat at work and the presenters talked about willingness and abilities. Exceptional abilities may not matter so much if the person with said abilities has no willingness or desire to apply them. I would expect this is doubly true for children. I am also taking into consideration that James is a red-blooded American boy. He needs to move. He needs to talk. He needs to catch bugs outside in my garden. He needs to play and pretend that he is a monster robot coming to attack the house. He needs to pretend to be my newly found dog that I must care for and play with. With all that being said, I plan to make some adjustments to our lessons.

1. We will continue handwriting lessons but we will take it slower. We won't learn a new letter everyday but only when he has mastered the current letter. I am also acting as his scribe. For example, during math, I don't care if he can write his numbers right now. We will get to that. I want him to focus on counting. I will write the numbers. When  I do this, he gets excited because he gets to "teach" Mommy. Another thing I have started is letting him tell me what to write for him. Sometimes kids need to be free from the process of writing their words so they can think about what it is they want to say. So, we sent birthdays cards to 2 people last week and I helped James write a letter to each person. Granted it was only about 2 sentences long but they were HIS thoughts. HIS words. And I made him sign his own name.
2. Recognizing rhyming words are a very important pre-reading skill. Nursery rhymes are being pulled out and dusted so that we can sing more. I have a CD and everything. 
3. For our math lessons, I may skip some of the lessons so I can find ones that will be challenging for him and keep his interest. 
4. As for crafts, I don't know if I will ever get this child to do crafts on a regular basis. I have to accept that. He IS doing crafts in his Animals class on our Legacy Friday co-op days and he is participating...but he is doing the bare minimum. Last Friday, they were supposed to glue feathers on a picture of a dodo bird. James glued 3 feathers. That's it. He was proud of himself and really he loved learning about the dodo bird and then educating me about it. 
5. One more thing we did yesterday was to pull out jigsaw puzzles. James was never really interested in doing them but I thought it was time to introduce them again. We had a great morning doing the puzzles. For some reason that I can't articulate right now, it seemed to fit with the rhyming words struggle. I figured that if he can visually look at puzzle pieces and find the ones that go together, maybe he can also start to auditorally match words that rhyme.

In addition to these little changes, I am reading a great book about boys. I just started it and I really like it. Boys are amazing creatures and need to be understood from that perspective. I can not expect to do justice by James academically if  I don't look at him as a whole person. 

A Series of Firsts this week

It has been a good week. James and I have moved into our second week of homeschool kindergarten and with that came the first Friday with the Legacy co-op through the group in which we are members. I was very nervous going into it. See, I would be teaching a class for the first time...for other people's kids! And James would be taking two classes in which others were teaching him. It was a great experience!!

First day with Legacy (each Friday for 8 weeks).
James just knew there would be Show & Tell and he wanted to take the horn worm he had caught on Thursday evening. I, hesitantly, allowed it. I figured if it didn't go well, we would release him and no harm done. He stood up in a room FULL of strangers and talked about his horn worm. He told them where they live and that  they turn into pupa and then into hawk moths. He told them about the white cocoons that can grow on their backs and turn into wasps. I almost cried. What a wonderful Show & Tell. As soon as he sat down, a little boy came and sat next to me on the floor and stared at me; willing me to look at him. It worked. I looked at him and realized exactly what he wanted. He wanted an up-close view of that horn worm. James was making friends. I should have known. He was also a big hit during snack time too. Even little girls wanted a close-up look.

Show & Tell

First time teaching kindergartners.
After Show & Tell and some announcements, James went to Geology class as I went to my Five in a Row reading/crafts class. My co-teacher, Diana, was leading our first class so I helped with getting the crafts set up. We have about 10 girls and 2 boys in our class. Wow. Girls are soooooo different than boys! And Diana and I are a great team because she has a daughter in the class so she knows about little girls...and of course I know about little boys. These two boys weren't much different than James. They can't sit still and the little girls can! it's uncanny! We read "Three Names". It's a story of a boy and a dog. Then we moved to the craft table. They are decorating paper plates each week so that by the end of the class, they will have a complete mobile of all the stories we have read. I take no credit for this. Diana is great with crafts. After that, Diana took the kids to the floor for a game of marbles. There was a part of the story in which the boys play marbles. Everyone enjoyed that.

A game of marbles

After the first hour class (the kids who are a part of Legacy take 2 classes each Friday morning), everyone goes to the big room for snack time. Lordy!! I forgot that I was supposed to bring snacks for James! I was mortified! Luckily, Diana came to the rescue. She had an extra granola bar. But as soon as I saw James come into the room, I realized I had nothing to worry about. He had a chocolate mustache!!! I was thinking to myself, how did he get a chocolate mustache in Geology class?!?!?! I soon found out. He comes up to me (still carrying his creature peeper with the horn worm inside) and, with a big grin, tells me, "Mom! We made the center of the Earf (Earth) with marshmallows and chocolate!!! Well, well, well. Geology IS a great class! Rocks, fossils AND chocolate! No doubt! He loved it and told me that he knew his class was WAY better than my stupid class. Yes, he actually said that but in the car on the way home he says to me, "Mom, tell me about your class. I want to hear allllll about it.". Ha! One of the benefits of Legacy is that the Moms teach a class and then they get an hour break to have some R&R with the other moms. It was nice to have that time built in. My group had about 15-20 moms and we introduced ourselves and decided on how we would use our time for the remaining 8 weeks. We prayed for each other in small groups at the end of our hour. It was touching. I haven't prayed with others so intimately in years.

First 5K
As a way to carve out some time for myself, I started the Couch to 5K training program. I had seen some of my girlfriends via Facebook running and having a great time doing it. I ran in high school and I have always thought of myself as a runner even though I haven't run in years. I was a sprinter in high school, did some road races in college and I thought it was time to reconnect with the runner in me. So, the Couch to 5K program was perfect. It's a 9-week training program and I signed up for a 5K that would take place 10 weeks after beginning the program. James watched me train each day. He tried to run with me sometimes. I ran yesterday. At the North Carolina Zoo. There were about 500 runners there. And I did it! It was so awesome! Chris, my husband, and James were with me and it made it so wonderful. I loved that they were with me. My men. So, it's official. I have the bug now. My next 5K is on October 6th with one of my very best friends from high school. We haven't been in touch for a while and I am looking forward to running and reconnecting. :) The one after that....is Thanksgiving Day!!! Haha. See? I have the bug!

Run Wild 5K

I have another blog post in me right now but on a totally different subject. The next topic will be about knowing your child and readiness. :) Can't wait to tackle that one.

It's Back to School week!

One of the great things about homeschooling is that I get to decide when the first day of school will be. :) I never started school AFTER Labor Day. At least for this year, it's perfect. James is starting to get an itch to do science! But let me back up a bit and start at the beginning.

I set a budget for myself of $400 for curriculum this year. And I was very confident about the math, handwriting and science programs I wanted to used. But deciding on a reading program was proving quite difficult. I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to go down to the Homeschool Gathering Place, look for a person working there, get them to hold my hand and help me find what I needed. And it happened just like that!!!!! I met Victoria and she was wonderful! She saw me wandering around store, I guess, and as she passed me helping another mom she says to me, "You're new. I'll be with you in a minute.". Just like that! She came to my aid armed with information that all beginners need to know like when to register your homeschool and helpful websites. I told her what I was looking for. Here's what I bought:

1. Math U See Primer Teachers Manual- $15 on consignment (normally sold for $30)
2. Backyard Scientist the Original-  .90 on consignment
3. Backyard Scientist Series 1- $1.80 on consignment
4. All About Reading- $79.95 brand new

                                        Grand Total: $ 104.24 including tax

I had to order the Math U See student manual and manipulative block set which was $72.26 and that includes shipping ($12.69).  I had purchased the handwriting program during the NC homeschool conference back in May which was $20.

So, overall I have invested $196.50 on curriculum. I have also spent $50 to join a local homeschool group and enroll James in the co-op where he will be taking classes. And with just spending about 1/2 of my budget on curriculum, I still have money left over for field trips, supplies to keep at home, etc.

Now, back to the reading curriculum. The lovely and talented Victoria at the Homeschool Gathering Place was very helpful in showing me several choices. It's so great knowing my student so intimately because I was able to tell her that James is not quite ready to read. He still gets the lower case "L" confused with the upper case "I". He is ready for pre-reading work and this, to me, was the best fit. It's called All About Reading. I considered buying the "Five in a Row" since James will be using that in the co-op but the structure of that program requires that you read one story a week. James (nor I) would have the patience for that. We like new stories every day. But the story books for that program are wonderful. Charlotte Mason would be proud. She would not call them "twaddle". :)

All About Reading

So we start this week. And James has asked me everyday for the past several days if we can do a science 'sperment. LOL. He's even tried to get sneaky and ask his Dad!!! I love his eagerness. So here we go! Another year of adventure!!!!