The Flat on Cabaniss Crescent

Playing with kids

I had pool date with a mom yesterday and after being in the pool for two hours she made the comment, "I do not know how I am going to fit play time in today, we've got a busy evening planned."   I asked her to clarify what she meant by play time and she explained her parenting playtime philosophy with me: She plays WITH her daughter for one hour every day. 

"But you just spent time with her at the pool," I said.   "Doesn't that count?"  "No, I just spent 2 hours WATCHING her at the pool, but she played with other kids and by herself."  This mom went on to say that for one hour a day she will get a timer and tell her daughter it is her time.  Then for one hour they do whatever the child chooses.  Sometimes they paint, sometimes they play hide and seek, sometimes they kick the soccer ball around.  Some days she chooses to watch a movie, but then the mom watches it with her and holds her the whole time.  When the timer goes off, an hour later, the daughter understands that now mom has work to do around the house, etc...and she will happily play independently.  This mom said she saw an episode on Dr. Phil when her daughter was a baby how you should set aside time like this each day so your child know sthey are special and valuable to you and that having time for them is something make time for. 

I listened and listened to what this mom said.  I went home thinking about it, I thought about it in bed last night, and here I am the next morning still thinking.  The truth is, I never really play WITH my children.  I read to them often, I listen to them all day and answer their questions and welcome their interruptions.  I drive them to places and take them to activities.  I organize play dates so they can play with other children.  I put sunscreen on them every morning and make them brush their teeth every night.  I provide age appropriate toys and activities for the home.  I make sure they are safe and healthy.   I make sure they have fresh clean clothing that fits.  I buy food and feed them and eat meals with them.  We pray together. Sometimes we bake together.   But I do not PLAY WITH THEM.

Sometimes I will play a board game and I often think I should do more of this, but I really do not want to play.  I have always thought it was good for kids to know the difference between kids and grown ups.  Maybe this is the Montessori in me,   I do not want to be a friend or a playmate, I want to be a mother and I want them to know the difference. 

But this mom really got me thinking...maybe I could try this?  Should I?  I do no think I could commit to an hour each kid.  I would have to do 30 minutes each.  I am curious what other moms think about this.  Please share your thoughts.

New York Trip

I am getting pretty excited (and a little nervous) to take my two kids (and sitter) to The Big Apple.

Several weeks ago, I was day dreaming of NY in the grocery store and now it is turning into a reality.  Owl's cousin just happens to have a vacant apartment we can stay in and I just happen to have a baby-sitter who is ready and willing to travel with me.  So am I crazy to consider driving across the country alone with my kids and a sitter to go to NY for a few weeks?  A little... but I am still going to do it.

And I am super excited about this book I found:

In this handy-size book, renowned critic and historian (and New Yorker) Leonard S. Marcus has created and narrated twenty walking tours of New York City based on children's literature. Illustrated with maps, photographs, and book art, the tours can be followed from start to finish or abbreviated to suit a reader's, or a family's, particular interests. Together they feature over one hundred places and spaces by which New York has lit the imaginations of writers and artists as varied as E. B. White, Maurice Sendak, Judy Blume, Faith Ringgold, Madeleine L'Engle, and many more. Along the way, Marcus deftly discusses more than two hundred of the best books about New York City ever written for young people.

Naturally I will order this book before we leave.  And searching around Amazon, I found a list mania site that included several NY titles so I have not only added these books to my NY kids sidebar, I have also searched my local library and put reserves on everything they have (surprisingly all but 2!)

This book also looks COOL so I will order this as well.

I have a lot of planning to do but these books should at least cover most of NY.  I know we will do the MET, Ellis Island, Empire State Building,  and the Natural History Museum.  If anyone has any great New York ideas or tips please tell me.

I will also have to plan all our stops and visits with friends and family along the way.

And also plan all our school stuff for the car.  I am so glad, for times like this, that I am homeschooling and have the freedom to do this.  The only downside will be a month off of speech and occupational therapy for Tigger.

Oh, and I am also look for a house and a school at our next destination where we are scheduled to move to in March  (which for purposes of confidentiality on this blog I am going to keep secret).

 

New materials

New supplies coming soon...

I went ahead and ordered The Right Start Math program.  I originally was just planning to do math activities from What your Kindergartner Needs to Know, but after one week of making all the materials and preparing the activities myself I decided to buy a ready made program.  I do not want to use the little free time I do have to be making materials, I just do not need that stress.  The program should arrive next week and I am very excited.

I also ordered Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons and that too should arrive next week.  It looks like a great book and I have heard good things about it.  Tigger is already reading the basics so probably the first 30 lessons or so will be quite easy for him, but I figure that will just give him more confidence.

Finally I ordered some religious supplies from Our Fathers House. 

Our Homeschool Schedule/Extracurricular Activities

I am still working out all the kinks in our schedule, but ideally the way it will work is that we will be home 3 days week and 2 days we will run errands and do extra-curricular activites and other fun stuff.  Tigger will start OT and Speech soon and I am not sure what day yet.  I am hoping that we can do the therapies on the same day, back to back.  I am also hoping that we will only need therapy one day a week vs. two.  Once we know the OT and Speech schedule we can build everything else around that.  We have our evaluations Tuesday so hopefully soon after that.

I went ahead and signed both Tigger and Piglet up for gymnastics last week.  It was kind of funny: we went for a trial class and they were the only ones there.  When we asked where all the other kids were we were told that no one has signed up for this particular time so they were the only 2.  I told the coach part of what I was hoping for was to give them an opportunity to be around other kids since we are homeschooling and we may try to find another class time but we stayed and tried it that day.  It ended up being great- basically a free private lesson for my kids.  They have never had that kind of one on one time with a gymnastics coach.  The coach and I agreed that the one on one time was good for them so he could work with them individually and then in about a month we will transfer to another class with more kids.  At that point they will also be separated, Tigger going to a Boys Beginner class and Piglet staying in Tumble-tots for 3-5 year olds.  So one day a week is gymnastics. 

I am trying to decide if Piglet should also have ballet.  The one little girl her age in the neighborhood that she has become friendly with goes to a ballet class and I think it would be neat for them to experience that together.  We'll see how things look in a few weeks and will maybe add that in November.

I also want Tigger to join the Swim Team.  They practice for an hour 4 nights a week at the indoor pool right across the street from us and have meets about once a month.  Swimming is one of his strong skills and we need to nurture that and give him an opportunity to keep up his skills all winter.  I am going to talk to the coach this Monday to arrange a try out.  If swim team does not work, then we will just attend open family swim 3-4 nights per week.  I wonder a bit if we should just plan to do family swim since it will be good for Piglet too.  If he does get on the team, I will still have to make a point to take her there at least once a week. 

In Which Tigger goes to the Grocery store in the middle of the day

It was Monday morning, 10 AM, and I needed groceries.  Owl was home, because his program did not start until Wednesday, so I left Piglet home with him and took Tigger to run errands with me.  Tigger and I do not get much one on one time and we we do, I just love it.  He is so well behaved when it is just the two of us, so eager to help me, and just a delight to converse with.  We have been in transition for weeks now, and we have chosen to homeschool, so I am pretty much unaware that school has started and most kids his age are in school during this time.  So when we get to the check out, the cashier looks at him and says, "Hi there big boy, why aren't you in school today?"  He said nothing and neither did I.  I just froze.  I did not yet have the confidence in myself or what we are doing to say "We homeschool."  But do we even homeschool?  We are just not sending him to kindergarten.  Do I need to explain to this cashier?  No, I did not, it was none of her business.  So I said nothing.  I wanted to say something but I did not know what.  So I just pretended I was busy loading groceries and that I did not hear.  I felt angry and frustrated at the reality that we would probably be asked this question a lot.  (And we are.) So later, I told Tigger that if someone asks him that question again to just tell them: "I go to school at home with my mom."  "Okay, Mama," he said.  But does he understand?  Since the time he was 1 years old I have sent him to a school.  These are tough emotions for me to deal with.  I do not want to give him a complex about any of it.  He knows that a lot of his friends went to kindergarten this year.  Hopefully the move has made it all make sense enough to him.  I told him when we were moving, "We are going to go have fun in Pensacola for a little bit and while we are there you and Piglet will not go to a school, Mama will be your teacher at home (to this he laughed!)  Then, when you are 6, we will move again and you will go to a kindergarten at that new house."  That makes sense to me.  Now I just have to come up with an explanation for all the cashiers and other curious folk out there.  Or do I?  Maybe I will just continue to pretend I do not hear them and let Tigger handle it however he chooses.

In Which I explain why I am choosing to homeschool

"Don't do it," was what my sister said on the phone when she heard my plans to home school my kids this year.  I hear it a lot, all the different complaints and ideas about home schoolers, and to a certain extent I agree with much of it.  I am not against schools or having a person other than me teach my children.  I believe there is a lot of value in going to a school setting every day, learning among peers, learning social appropriateness, and practicing patience as you stand in line, etc... I think many children (including my own) could benefit from a school experience. 

But I also think there is a lot to be said about homeschooling and I have been intrigued since Tigger was a baby.  I started reading Montessori back then and read everything I could on Maria Montessori and her philosophies.  I spent some time looking at the Waldorf approach, and from there unschooling, and finally moved on the Charlotte Mason.  It is with Charlotte Mason well all my ideas and belief about education seemed to come together.  I knew I had found my approach, yet I still continued to send both my kids to preschool.

I basically decided that I would be open to the idea of homeschooling and take it year by year and child by child.  And even if I sent my kids to school, I needed a basic parenting philosophy to work with...for weekends, summertime, and all the other times I spend with my kids teaching them as we live and play and work.

When Tigger was 13 months we were living in Japan and I put him in a Japanese daycare program 2-3 mornings a week.  He was the only American there and his teachers and peers spoke no English.  I did this for the foreign language exposure and also because I needed a break.  I was very happy with this program and it proved to be a good fit for us.  Tigger left Japan at age 2 1/2 with almost as many Japanese words as English words and who knows how much other 'wiring of the brain' that comes from early exposure to foreign languages.

Then at age 3, we put him in a Montessori program.  This lasted for about 3 months.  It was not a good fit for us.  Tigger was having all kinds of problems in the classroom so we pulled him.  And we began the testing...where we discovered Tigger had Sensory Integration Dysfunction.

This led to an intense developmental preschool 5 days a week.  He received some special services that the public school had to offer like Occupational Therapy.  We also did private therapy. 

At age 2 1/2 I put Piglet in a 2 day program.  She was ready.  Having an older brother, she seemed to mature early and spoke very well.  She had no separation anxiety or problems in the classroom.  She enjoyed her experience and I enjoyed my break.  For 2 mornings a week I had a 3 hour block of time to myself.  It was great and we all benefited form these preschool programs.

But after Tigger's 4 year old year, his teachers said he was ready for kindergarten.  I did not agree.  Although academically his scores were off the charts in the gifted range, I thought he had a lot of maturing to do.  He still needed to work on his fine motor skills and his listening skills.  After looking into a private transitional program, which was very expensive, I began to think about homeschooling.

Around the same time, Owl got accepted into a 6 month program that began it mid September.  We would all move so we could be together during this time.  This meant if we did do school, public or private, we would have to start the school year late and end it early.  This is what sealed the deal for me. 

So this year is sort of a test.  Will I like homeschooling?  How will we do?  Next year Tigger can go to kindergarten as a 6 year old and Piglet can go to a 4 year old program.  And I think, even if we have a great year this year, that we will do this.  After a year of being at home with me, I think the social aspects of a school setting will be good for them.  And I think I will need a break.  And if I do like homeschooling maybe I will use the break next year to really plan for the following year.  This year is easy because you do not have to register a child with the State until age 6.  So really, technically, I am not homeschooling yet.  But after age 6 not sending a child to school is serious business, and if I do it, I need to be sure I am aware of all the laws, etc...

Moving as much as we do, I think I need to be flexible with our schooling choices.  Each year it is just going to depend on where we live and what options are available to us, what we can afford, and where our kids are at. 

So, with all that being said, I would like to ask all my family and friends who truly think I have lost it  to have an open mind about all this.  And believe it or not, I am really having a lot of fun and enjoying the slower pace of life here on Cabaniss Crescent.