Posts by bluebirdmama
Missing Out
Yesterday, I ran into a friend whose daughter is the same age as Rain. They went to preschool together for a year and a half, have attended each other’s birthdays and had play dates. I asked my friend how school was going for her daughter. She told me how much her daughter likes getting ready for school in the morning, how she’s asking to ride the bus instead of being picked up, how she loves having a spot to hang her backpack. I’ve been thinking of these things the last two weeks as I remembered to slow down in the school zones on my way to work, as I watched the kids in the new sneakers and backpacks walking to the front doors of the school two-by-two and smiling, as I noted the adorable rows of bikes on the bike rack. There’s this little part of me, deep down, that feels like I’m depriving Rain of all those things. In many ways, I liked school. I have a lot of fond memories: Going back-to-school shopping – we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but it was one time when we were guaranteed at least a few new things. The novelty of riding the school bus School supplies – pink pearl erasers, cahiers (french immersion-speak for those ruled notebooks with half page blank to draw a picture), a new plaid pencil case with a zipper, and the Laurentien pencil crayons carefully arranged by colour to create a rainbow on the night before the first day Waiting in the line up to use the pencil sharpener on the wall to sharpen all of our pencil crayons Getting assigned a desk by alphabetical order and hoping a friend would fall nearby Arranging everything neatly in my little desk (until it eventually became a mess of crumpled paper and uneaten peanut butter sandwiches – even today I have good intentions but not the follow through). Sitting cross legged on the tapis (carpet – some words are forever in french in my memory) to do calendrier (calendar) – what day is it today? what is the weather like? Swinging at recess Recess! School lunches in a brown bag or my red Tupperware lunch box – with tiny snack size things like juice boxes A new back pack The first trip to the school library Picture day and getting the pictures back Clearly I was a bit of a nerd, but man, I really loved those things and I still kind of do. It makes me smile to think of Rain experiencing it all and part of me is sad to think that he is missing out. And part of me is sad that I am missing out on living it again vicariously through him. I have to remember however that Rain isn’t a mini-me. He would rather be building in the garage or digging for worms than sitting at a neat row of desks, and unlike my friend’s daughter, Rain hates getting dressed and ready to go anywhere, let alone to spend 6 hours in the company of 22 peers. I also remind myself some of the ways schools have changed since I was there. I think about the ways I felt let down by my education. But this week, I find myself wistfully wishing that public school really was the idealized version that exists in my memories. What did you love about elementary...
Read MoreWhat We Do All Day
This month’s carnival topic couldn’t be more appropriate for us. Last week was our first official week as homelearners. Of course, as the carnival theme points out, “we’re all home schoolers” and “children, of whatever age, are learning all the time” whether they attend traditional schools or not. In fact, our daily routine this past week really didn’t differ much from our routine over the summer. The difference now is just that as I’ve officially signed up with a home learning program, I’m responsible. Ack. How nerve wracking! The program we’ve signed up with is called SelfDesign and it isn’t curriculum based. We can learn any way that we want and follow our kids’ whims and interests. There really are very few constraints and I love that the program recognizes exactly the theme of this month’s carnival: kids are learning all the time, just by going about their daily activities. We are assigned a learning consultant who helps us come up with a learning plan for the year. They encourage you to do mind maps with your kids so they have input into what they want to do over the year. The learning plan becomes the road map that guides us. The more overwhelming part is that we must report weekly to our learning consultant. The report includes a journal and reflection on our weekly activities and we must log a certain number of hours spent in these activities each week. Initially I felt really worried that we wouldn’t DO enough to account for all these hours. I have ordered some books and art supplies and other project materials that I intend to have in a cupboard to dig into when the little sister is napping. But alas, they haven’t arrived yet. Swimming lessons don’t start until October. We’re still deciding on some other group activities. What were we going to do every day?! It turned out that the answer to my dilemma wasn’t to rush to the computer and start googling and printing off worksheets for my not even 5 year old, pre-literate little one. The answer was to just start observing our day with fresh eyes (funnily enough our reports are called Observing For Learning). What did I see? The first day, Rain was outside in the garage with his dad. He came inside with a board. Onto the board he had screwed some fasteners to hold down some flexible hose. He had attached some plumbing bits to the hose, including a spout and a tap/valve. He showed me his handiwork and then went straight into the bathroom to test if his valve worked. Sure enough, it did. Water poured from the faucet at the bathroom sink, through his hose, past the valve (which he had put in the open position) and straight onto the bathroom floor. Success!! We mopped up the water, and put him in the bathtub with his contraption and he proceeded to play experiment for another 30 minutes. Early science experiment disguised as play. Later that day, we went for a walk on the beach for an hour. Rain ran about and dug for crabs by following the air holes in the sand at low tide. He identified various types of shells, filled our van with rocks and driftwood and watched some kite surfers playing in the wind. A walk at the beach became both science class and gym class. And what about the questions I answer all day long? In the last couple of days, I’ve answered questions on why the tide always changes, how to identify an evergreen tree, why someone might lie or steal and whether or not it’s a good thing to do, what is in the center of the earth, and a surprisingly tricky one to answer: what is math? It’s a little tricky getting the hang of logging our “schooling” hours but it’s not from lack of time spent learning. It’s more a matter of quantifying all these little moments spent in conversation through the day, as we drive, as we grocery shop, as I keep a...
Read MoreBriefly August
This monthly review is inspired by Amber Strocel‘s monthly What I Learned post. Hop over to her site to catch the other participants in her link up and to read what she learned too. Here’s what happened in August: I learned that committing to a homelearning program for Rain feels surprisingly good (for now). Ask me again in a couple of months. I learned how attempted to can dill pickles. I say attempted because we have to let them sit for a couple of weeks before we try them so at this point I don’t know if it was a bust or not. However, we took the kids to a local u-pick farm and picked cukes together and then Aaron and I canned 19 quarts of pickles for the first time. Can’t wait to try them. I discovered that our local Waldorf school initiative will be starting small this year by offering a two morning a week Waldorf Kindergarten group. This means that Rain can go there and get some Waldorf education, I can get a bit of a break, and we can still try out homeschooling. I can’t tell you how happy I am about this arrangement. This is actually my ideal set up and I wish it could continue that way into the coming years. In addition to the two morning Kindy program there is also a Friday morning Waldorf circle (where parents stay) that sounds like a fun social outting too. We’ve enjoyed getting to know the families from the school over the past year and we look forward to our continued involvement with the school initiative and to developing a deeper friendship with these families. I thought a lot about what it takes to feel done having children and discovered (even before this baby is born) that I am totally done. I had always wanted three kids and yet, I also felt some very real disappointment about the positive pregnancy test. For the first time, I could see all the benefits of only having two children and it felt ok. In fact, should I have miscarried early on in the pregnancy, I’m not sure that I would have continued to pursue the idea of three kids. This was a surprise to me and put things in perspective a bit. Nevertheless, now that we’re on the road to three, I am getting excited and looking forward to February and I’m also content knowing that after the baby arrives, I won’t find myself perpetually yearning for another. I’m sure Aaron is relieved to hear that too. I celebrated as four of my friends welcomed babies this month (including one set of twins). All of the singletons (and one of the twins) were boys by the way. I reflected on the idea of wishing and whether or not I subscribe to it. In the coming days, I’ll tell you about my experiment with wishing. I started to feel moderately less sick and tired and I officially crossed over into the second trimester! What did August hold for...
Read MoreWishing
This spring I took an e-course called Mondo Beyondo. It was about dreaming big. That is, it was about the things we wish for – how do we figure out what we want and how do we go after them? Among the books on the recommended reading list were The Alchemist and The Wishing Year, neither of which I had read before. The Wishing Year in particular spoke to me because the woman who wrote it, Noelle Oxenhandler was a bit of a skeptic. I loved Mondo Beyondo and I got a lot of out The Alchemist too, but sometimes there was this one little thing that rubbed me the wrong way. It’s hard for me to believe the claim that the Universe wants us to achieve our dreams and if we just wish hard enough, it will happen. I mean, every single day there are millions of people wishing very hard that they weren’t living with drought, or famine, or war, or genocide. I refuse to believe that the Universe doesn’t care to remedy those situations but is willing to help Noelle Oxenhandler in her dream of “a house, a man, and [her] soul” or me with my (comparatively) insignificant dreams. I appreciated The Wishing Year because Oxenhandler raised those same concerns. Yet, she still became a believer in wishing (or dreaming) and in fact, she even achieved her dreams for a house, a man and renewed spirituality. Mondo Beyondo (and the above mentioned books) turned me into a believer too, but not because I ended up convinced that the Universe does care about our dreams. What I gleaned from all the reading and thinking I did on the subject was that wishing makes dreams come true for three reasons: The act of wishing or dreaming, particularly if associated with some ritual like writing the Mondo Beyondo list or following the varied and elaborate steps in The Wishing Year, clarifies what you want and puts it front and center for you. To achieve your dreams, you need to keep focused on them. You can’t let them get swept into the corner. Having a clear intention is the first part of taking a step towards a goal. Making a wish often involves an element of release or letting go, closing it up in a box or forgetting about it. This is the part about believing that there are outside forces involved. For me, this doesn’t mean that there will be divine intervention. It means that part of making a wish or daring to dream is to allow it to unfold. Because we can’t foresee the future and the ways we may change as we proceed towards our dreams, it’s important that we give our dreams some wiggle room. You may get exactly what you wished for despite the fact that when you wished it you couldn’t even see clearly what it would look like. You have to leave some of it open to chance (or divine intervention, if that’s what you prefer). The reasons some people seem so good at having their dreams come true is because they change their attitude. They approach life ready to say yes, to try new things and they go about their day with a sharp eye for opportunity (signs or omens if you read The Alchemist). They are willing to change their lives. They don’t let fear or negativity hold them back and because they take more risks, they get more rewards. To me, wishing involves all the things we call we prayer, asking the Universe, certain meditations, superstitions and if they are heartfelt and accompanied by the attitude change and willingness to be flexible that I described above, I really believe that all of these forms of wishing carry power and beauty with them. Do you make wishes? Do you believe in wishes and dreams coming true? Has it happened to you? What do you wish for right...
Read MoreFinally, A Decision
This is Part X of the series Kindergarten Considerations in which I have been discussing (and wrestling with) the considerations behind the seemingly innocuous decision of where to send my four year old son to school. I will tentatively call this the last post in the series but can’t promise that I won’t ramble on about this in the future. Apparently I can’t stop myself. Last week I formally committed to a decision about what to do for Kindergarten. Not bad, two weeks before Back-To-School. The decision had been gradually unfolding over the course of the summer and in some ways was precipitated by the news of our pregnancy but it was only last week that I finally signed up for a homelearning program. Maybe part of me always wanted to make this decision, but I was scared. I’ve been looking forward to a bit of a break. I do feel sheepish saying this but it is true. Aside from a 6 month contract doing part-time work for Environment Canada, I’ve been home with my kids for 4.5 years. In that time, I went back to University to complete my degree, wrote two business plans, participated in a year long self-employment program through Service Canada and BCIT, ran my own business, moved to a new community (and changed houses twice), and helped my husband start his own business for which I now run the office. On top of that, I’ve had about 1 year of decent sleep since Rain was born and 9 months of that was pregnant sleep. I’m tired. I was looking for some time to think about what I want to do, to think about self-care. I’m tired of trying to fit work in during nap times. Kindergarten looked like a realistic time when I could accomplish some of these things. Not to mention, we all get along better when we occasionally hang out with other people. Sometimes we need to miss each other. It’s good for Rain to do some things without me and for me to be away long enough to remember that he’s just a wild four year old, not someone intent on driving me crazy. Thankfully, there are enough positive things about homelearning to make me commit to it and to commit to us finding mutual breaks as a means of making homelearning successful too! So, putting the fears aside, here’s why I’m excited to embark on homelearning: For a variety of reasons, I don’t think that Rain would really enjoy certain aspects of school as we know it. He would probably surprise me and do better than I imagine, but I think that homeschool is the better choice for him right now. The implementation of Full-Day Kindergarten was the catalyst that made me think long and hard about Rain’s learning style and about how Rain does for long periods of time in large groups. I am confident he will be happier and more excited to learn by facilitating small group social activities and by following his lead and interests when it comes to formal learning. I am excited that the process means I get to learn with him. I am really looking forward to the things I will learn both along side Rain and in my role as facilitator. This is an adventure we are embarking on as a family and we will all grow and learn through it. Through this process I have the opportunity to learn more about parenting, marine life, learning philosophies, wet felting, math, our family relationship, discipline and more. Basically, I get to learn everything Rain is learning PLUS I get to learn through the experience itself. How awesome is that?! I am looking forward to exploring the varied ways there are to learn including mentor relationships, classes, hands on, or more formal learning like reading or doing worksheets. I hope to encourage a love of learning by focusing on child-led learning, exploration and play. I want Rain to know learning doesn’t just happen within the hours of 9:00 am and 3:00 pm and within the...
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