Posts Tagged "kids"
Getting Organized
“The best thing I did was fill the house full of projects they could get out and do themselves.” My sister said this to me recently when we were discussing her 7 years homeschooling her 4 children. One of the things that comes up for parents who have multiple children learning at home is how to keep younger children occupied while you are working with an older child on something. This dilemma has been on my mind quite a bit, particularly because the younger children I’ll be wrangling will be a toddler and a newborn. I’ve been reading some posts on how to handle wee ones underfoot while learning with older kids but so far I keep coming back to my sister’s advice. I decided to gather a bunch of kid-friendly projects in one spot. We have this great bank of built-in cupboards at one end of our dining room. This has a bunch of random stuff stuck in it (even in the visible areas, as you can see). I spent Thursday afternoon re-organizing so that now it looks like this: Everything in this cupboard is for the kids. The very top shelf has some items the kids will need help with, but the rest, they can pretty much just go for. The beauty of this little cubbie is that we already had almost everything you see there but it was stored all over the house. The only things I bought were some of the art supplies. The storage boxes are shoe boxes I picked up for free from Payless Shoes after calling them and asking if they’d be willing to set aside boxes that were roughly the same size. They were very accomodating – you can bet I’ll be getting Rain’s new sneakers and Noa’s new rubber boots at Payless after that. Then I covered the ends with scrapbook paper thanks to this idea from Our Big Earth. Wanna see what we’ve got in there? The top shelf has a box of lacing cards, painting materials, notebooks, pencil crayons in glass jars, a box of crafting supplies, a box of art supplies. The middle shelf has foam puzzles, a giant floor puzzle, and various kid games including Mighty Mind*, Memory, Uno, Tangrams and more. The bottom shelf has big kid puzzles and a stack of toddler puzzles. I imagine that the contents of this area will change now and then over the course of the year to keep it fresh and to make space when we get new things. In the mean time, the kids are already thrilled to be able to open the two doors and choose whatever they like to work on. Now if we can just get some kind of handle on a routine for the day, maybe our lives will be as organized as this cupboard. What tips do you have for keeping younger kids busy while you help an older one with a project? What solo projects can your older kids do while you’re busy nursing a baby or putting a toddler down for a nap? How have you organized your house to make it kid-friendly? I would love more ideas for the year(s) ahead. *By the way, Mighty Mind is pretty darn great but their website is terrible, which is why the link above takes you to a place to buy the product. It shows an actual picture so you can see what it is. I’m not trying to make you buy...
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...
Read MoreThe New Home School
This is Part IX 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 in the fall. Some of our top options have included Montessori education and Waldorf Education. Today we are talking about homeschooling. Homeschooling certainly isn’t what it used to be. As I child of 11 or so, I knew one girl who was homeschooled. It was for religious reasons and it seemed strange to me. I think we often envision homeschoolers as shunning society in general, studying by light of an oil lamp in a cabin far from any possibility of the negative aspect of socialization. When people mention homeschooling, one of the first responses is often related to the child’s need to play with peers. That and “I couldn’t do it – my kids drive me crazy!” Let’s begin by saying that homeschool has evolved far beyond that stereotype. For one thing, mainstream culture seems much more accepting of homeschooling, perhaps not as an option for themselves but at least as an option for those who choose it. The Canadian magazine Today’s Parent actually had a feature article on homeschooling in their May 2010 issue. Secondly, it’s much more widespread than it used to be. The article above puts the number of Canadian homeschoolers at 80,000 and at 2 million in the US. Perhaps this is why the average person no longer regards homeschooling families as freaks – many people know at least one family who is homeschooling and realises that they have legitimate reasons for doing so and also, that their kids are thriving. Beyond that, what does homeschooling look like these days? In BC, provided you follow some kind of educational plan, you can school your child at home in any way you choose. That might mean registering at the local school but teaching at home and having access to resources at the school (if your local school is open to working this way). As the Today’s Parent article points out, there is financial incentive for schools to work together with homeschooling families because the government provides funds to the school to cover homeschool students registered there. Alternatively, you could register your child in a distance education program where the child will follow a specific curriculum but complete it at home. In the past this was done via correspondence with workbooks and texts received through the mail. Technology has revitalized this system but it remains essentially the same. However, there are increased opportunities for interacting with virtual classmates and teachers with the advent of chat rooms, message boards and Skype. There are multiple programs that fall into this category of learning including those that follow very closely the public school curriculum and those that use unit based learning for instance which might involve learning science, math, English and history all through the lens of a particular theme. These programs may also be religion based if that is important to you. In these programs you are responsible to follow the curriculum as set out by the program you have registered with which includes meeting deadlines, completing tests and reports (if there are any) on time etc. You can also register your child as an independent learner and then you can choose how you want to teach. On this side of things, you then have the option of registering in a program that supports independent learning or going it completely on your own. From what I understand, if you choose the latter option, you are then responsible to report to the ministry about your educational goals and progress. The sheer number of possibilities can actually be very overwhelming. Luckily, homeschooling was demystified for me 7 years ago when we began living with my sister the first year she started homeschooling her 4 children. I’ve had a chance to see up close how it works and I have an excellent person to ask for help and advice. Nevertheless, I should also say that one...
Read MoreOutdoor Education
Living in the Pacific Northwest means that the winter is dark, gray, rainy, and wet. As you can imagine, we have rubber boots and rain gear so that we can still get outside in the middle of winter, but I will be honest with you: we really don’t do it a lot. Come summer though, we practically live outside. The days are long and bright. The weather is warm, not hot enough for my liking, but we make up for that with the lack of bugs. There are plenty of opportunities for fun in our backyard and around our lovely corner of the world. There are so many amazing things about outdoor play: the opportunity to blend play with exercise and fresh air, the ability to create unique and imaginative play spaces with fewer restrictions than you might have indoors, the possibilities for open-ended play because there are fewer toys outdoors. One of my favourite things about outdoor play is the way that being in nature inspires learning. From the time he could walk, Rain loved bugs. This is probably where his outdoor education began as we started turning over rocks in the back yard to find pill bugs, snails, banana slugs, ants, ladybugs and spiders. He learned their names and where they were most likely to be found. He has an observation jar (clean peanut butter jar with holes in the lid and the labels removed) where he keeps the specimens he catches so he can watch them. We do enforce one observation jar rule that all critters be released at bedtime each day so they don’t starve or miss their mothers too much. From there he started learning plant identification. Daddy is an arborist so we tend to notice and talk about trees quite a bit. By the time Rain was two and a half, he knew how to spot a weeping willow, a mountain ash (rowan tree) and a Japanese maple. Some great books to incorporate when learning about trees and shrubs are the Flower Fairies series by Cicely Mary Barker. We have the Flower Fairies of the Autumn book which has lovely illustrations and poems for Oak tree, Rowan tree, Dogwood, Blackberry, Rosehips and more. He would point and call out the names of trees he noticed when we drove around town. There are many tree related learning activities you can use to continue the conversation after you move indoors or as you explore the forest. You can: Talk about the shapes of leaves. Gather a whole bunch of different ones and paint them and use them to make prints on paper. Discuss the difference between conifers and deciduous. A fun story to listen to at the same time is The Evergreens by Odds Bodkin (find it at your local library on CD). Compare the size of a seed to the size of a mature tree. Talk about the different types of tree seeds/flowers there are: samaras, catkins, cones, acorns or other nuts like horse chestnuts etc. (Oh and by the way, they aren’t called pine cones if they’ve fallen from a hemlock or a cedar tree. My husband has pointed this out to me more times than I care to admit.) You can also compare the size of cones from different evergreen trees. Identify the shapes of different trees. Are they triangular, oval shaped, bell shaped, globe shaped? Talk about the life cycle of plants over the seasons – this is particularly obvious for trees in fall and spring of course. When Rain was 3.5 years old we moved to a new house where we had a yard that was big enough to plant a veggie garden. This created many new opportunities for outdoor learning as he helped us plant seeds. He learned that they need warmth and water to grow, that when they first sprout there are usually only two leaves and that sometimes the sprout is still wearing the seed case like a hat. (A great book that talks about seeds in called A Seed is Sleepy). He learned about transplanting bedding...
Read MoreBalancing Needs When Baby Trumps Mama
Welcome to the April Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting advice! This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month we’re writing letters to ask our readers for help with a current parenting issue. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. *** Strive for Balance in Personal and Family Life It is easier to be emotionally responsive when you feel in balance. Create a support network, set realistic goals, put people before things, and don’t be afraid to say “no”. Recognize individual needs within the family and meet them to the greatest extent possible without compromising your physical and emotional health. Be creative, have fun with parenting, and take time to care for yourself. ~ 8th Principle of Attachment Parenting, Attachment Parenting International. Sometimes I think this oft-overlooked 8th principle is the most important principle of the Attachment Parenting philosophy. Sometimes I think that it’s the part that makes all the other principles possible. However, for me, it is also the hardest principle to implement. And I don’t think I’m alone. It seems that striving for balance and finding time for self-care are on the minds of most parents in some shape or form. There are a lot of sites out there rife with advice on how to do this. Jen Louden of Comfort Queen talks about renewal, comfort and making time for yourself, with coaching geared specifically for women. Sarah Juliusson from Mama Renew gives tips and offers workshops for mothers. Renee Trudeau wrote a book called The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. Advice varies from lighting candles to attending week long child-free retreats. There should be something there for everyone. And in many ways, there is. However, dear reader, what does one do when trying to honour our own needs pits us against our children? I recently read Raising Your Spirited Child: A Guide for Parents Whose Child Is More Intense, Sensitive, Perceptive, by Mary Kurcinka. The book outlines the different ways that a child can be spirited and has scales for rating your child on the various aspects. There is also a section where you rate yourself. I was reading the book because I suspected that my powerhouse of a four year old was spirited and he did come out mildly spirited based on our appraisals. What surprised me was that in some ways I am spirited as well (I think Kurcinka would term me spunky). And here’s the kicker: Rain and I are spirited in opposite ways (for the most part). He rated low on the things that I scored highly on and I rated low on the things he scored highly on. An example would be that Rain is fairly exuberant (for those familiar with Kurcinka’s book, you will recognize my attempt to use a positive label) and I am sensitive. Rain rates highly for energy; he is always wiggling, always on the move, always making noise. He can’t talk; he yells. He loves to bang on drums. I scored low on energy. I have always been quiet. As I child I preferred to read, colour or draw rather than join in on a team sport for instance. It drives me crazy that my husband shakes his leg or drums his fingers when relaxing on the couch. I tend to be still. I rate high however, on sensitivity. I am a far pickier eater than anyone in my family, I am always cold and I find noise extremely stressful. I am often reminded during the course of my day that excessive noise is used as a method of torture and as a means to end hostage situations. I have also been known to joke that having kids is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain. When our house gets especially noisy, I feel myself tensing up and my reactions to otherwise innocuous behaviour become harsh and grouchy. I react like someone being attacked. I counter-strike. I understand that kids have lots...
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