happy homeschoolers

So as my friends' kids and many neighbors headed off to begin their new year at school and Noodle stayed home, I must admit I was having some doubts about continuing on our homeschooling adventure. I wondered if Noodle would feel like she was really missing out or somehow deprived, or if I would be able to get a routine that worked for us. Well, we've had a lot going on, what with David's computer programmer staying with us for the past week and a half, but in spite of all the chaos, we're doing really well and I'm feeling really positive about this choice. Noodle is a happy and willing pupil, and we're both excited about all the things we get to learn. I'm amazed at the opportunities that arise naturally to learn things. Last week while we were on a morning walk she was interested in shadows, so we marked our shadows throughout the day and talked about how the angle of the sun determines how long they are and which direction they face. On Sunday we talked about camouflage and defensive coloration in animals, prompted by her questions and what she already had learned about the subject. Yesterday in the car she came up with new words to "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," which were "Buzz, buzz, buzz your bee, buzz down the hill," and she wanted to write them out on a paper so she wouldn't forget, so we helped her spell the words and she wrote them out. This took some considerable effort and patience on her part, but because it was a task that had meaning to her, she happily persevered.

In our Thomas Jefferson Education study group last week we were discussing how there are windows of learning that open in kids' minds, and these are not the same for every child. The advantage of homeschooling is that you can recognize these windows and act while the interest and ability is there. Deby related the story of her daughter attending a beginning music class taught by a friend, and the other girls her age were in tune (forgive the pun) and really "getting" everything, but it was obvious to her that her daughter had no idea what was happening. I think this frequently happens with children when learning math, especially if it is presented as abstract relationships of numbers without real, tangible applications. Sometimes you just don't get it. I was always a good student in math, but I still remember in my high school calculus class one chapter in the book that absolutely and totally went over my head. Try as I might, I could not grasp it, and in a class that I aced every exam, for that chapter I scored a 67% on the exam. I remember the frustration and futility that I felt, as I could not comprehend the material, and it wasn't for lack of trying. It's sad to think that many kids feel this way at a young age when working to learn something that they aren't yet capable of understanding. I'd always been an "advanced" student, so I didn't experience this awful feeling until my senior year of high school. Had I felt it earlier, I may not have developed the academic confidence that I had by that point. The next year, when I took calculus again in college, I understood the subject material of that chapter without too much difficulty.

I think to really learn rather than just regurgitate facts, at least two keys are required: relevance and readiness. Without those, temporary learning (i.e. regurgitation) are the best we can hope for.




And just for fun, I'm including this picture of the kids rolling the water barrels around to sterilize them with bleach last week. They had such a good time, they were disappointed when I said we were done. Happily, we have two more barrels to do and I finally bought some more bleach!