science

While at Amelia's Garden in Westfield, MA, last weekend I really got into the patterns on the Coleus leaves, and figured I'd share some pics while talking about a related topic.

I spent yesterday afternoon (while my family attended a birthday party) reading through the Enki 1st Grade Nature Stories. These stories provide the bulk of the Science program for the Enki curriculum in the early years. Like other aspects of the Enki educational plan, there are some key differences between Enki's approach to science, and a standard "school-type" approach. And this difference is one of the primary reasons we chose to go with the Enki curriculum for our family.

The Enki approach strives to create an appreciation for the natural world and its processes, and guide the children in discovering their place in that world and those systems. As opposed to labeling, categorizing, and studying the myriad of pieces that comprise the natural world, the kids are allowed to explore the natural cycles and feel a part of them.

For instance, take the study of plants (given my photo theme for this post, I thinks it's a good example!). Rather than teaching the kids about leaf structure, photosynthesis, the carbon cycle, and the names and types of each plant, we instead read them stories about the Color Painters -- Little Red and Little Yellow, who carefully dab their paint here and there in the Spring, and Big Green who comes along after them and slathers everything with his wide paint brush, covering up Red and Yellows' delicate work. Red and Yellow get back to work during Summer, carefully dabbing their colors here and there amongst the greens of the grasses. In the Autumn, Green rushes around with his bucket to catch his color as it drips off the trees, revealing the original work of Red and Yellow on the leaves, which was there all the time.

There is plenty of time later in the children's development to learn the terms and specifics about the process of photosynthesis (for example, during 5th grade Botany, and 7th grade chemistry), but for right now we are encouraging the kids to EXPERIENCE the process rather than categorize it. This gives them a solid base from which to build more analytical learning as they become developmentally ready for it. And allows them to feel a part of the natural rhythms and processes of the world in which they live, which can only lead to a deeper understanding of and appreciation for science in all it's many aspects. I feel that this approach is especially important for kids like mine, who are such avid readers and are already, on their own, doing plenty of labeling and categorizing in their quest to know everything there is to know.

For our particular science curriculum, we will be reading one Nature Story per week on Friday evenings (around a campfire, or a fire in the fireplace). On Saturday mornings over breakfast, we'll recall the story (in much the way we do the Fairy Tales during our story work with them), and the kids will have time to paint or create with beeswax or clay, or some other form of artistic digestion of the story. At some point that weekend, we will take a family adventure to a location where they will have the opportunity to observe the process covered in the story -- for instance, with our above Color Painters example, we'll take a hike to an observation tower to view fall foliage. Or we'll rake leaves and jump in the piles. Or (more likely) both. And our morning walks will give the kids plenty of ongoing opportunities to observe and discover more about these processes. Finally, we will gather materials on our adventures to do nature crafts that tie in with the stories -- in the above example, we might collect leaves and do leaf rubbings.

carnival

Earlier in the week, we drove by a local fireman's carnival being set up in a nearby town. The kids were instantly excited and asked all week if we could go. As luck turns out, the rainy weather gave us a break last night, and we were able to attend, and despite some soggy footing, had a marvelous time.

The kids of course rode all the rides, most of them more than once. The Ferris Wheel was their first choice -- smart, because it gave them a bird's eye view of the rest of the carnival so they could plan out which rides they wanted to do next. But despite the absolute blast they had on the rides, the favorite part of the evening for all of us was the circus acts:

Here's an 'air ballet' by one of the performers on the "Scottish Tight Rope". She had some pretty cool moves that made me dizzy just to look at.










Zoo Boy had been skeptical about taking time out from the rides to watch the show, but he quickly lost his doubtfulness and enjoyed the performances whole-heartedly. He just couldn't believe he was actually seeing some of these things -- at one point he exclaimed "It feels like I'm dreaming!"






The world's most talented juggler. I kid you not, this woman was AMAZING, and The Map Man and I just can't figure out what she's doing in a side-show act at a small-town carnival. Apparently she's won awards for her juggling and has been featured on ESPN. We were certainly blown away!







J got a kick out of the trampoline act -- 3 brothers (who won a gold medal at the the Circus Olympics in Great Britain last year -- who knew they even HAD such a thing?!?!) put on an entertaining sketch where one of them was dressed up as a clown that kept disrupting the trampoline act of the other two.

Amazingly good show, especially considering it was free. All we paid for was the kids' ride bracelets (and they more than got our money's worth out of those!). Oh, and a fried dough, which is now Zoo Boy's favorite food....

needing more

(We moved our morning walk to the local cemetery today. I'm sort of a cemetery fan, if you are too, then enjoy the pics.)

The kids are ready to start school. Now. Our expansive Summer Rhythms which served us well during our break in July have now turned around on us. There is bickering. There are tears. And a couple nights ago, J uttered the telling words "It's almost night already? But we didn't DO anything today!" In fact, we haven't DONE anything in well over a month. And it's starting to show.

Unfortunately for us all, I'M not ready to start now. I didn't anticipate them being in need of a more supportive rhythm yet. Our beloved lake beach is still open! And I still have much curriculum planning, reading, manipulative gathering, etc to attend to. All of our supplies aren't here yet. And I haven't even cracked the lid of the Enki 1st Grade Movement book yet. I was counting on another three weeks of nothing!

Which of course doesn't mean that I can't pony up and add a bit more structure to our days. Our basic Summer Rhythm has been:


-wake
-eat breakfast (eventually)
-walk
-eat lunch
-rest
-lake
-supper
-bed

So starting yesterday, I began adding in some stronger components. Breakfast at a more dependable time. The calendar activity we do during the school year (where we identify the day of the week, sing a song specific to the month, recite a seasonal poem). Some formal Speech and OT work prior to dressing. A focused sensory integration activity after our morning walk. A formal call to rest, and reading a chapter in our chapter book at the start of rest (currently we are reading, and enjoying tremondously, The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth). And an outing each day, something other than just hanging out at the lake (although sometimes it WILL be hanging out at the lake).

The outing seems to be the glue that holds the whole thing together, and makes it feel like we DID something. It doesn't even need to be particularly educational in nature. In fact, yesterday's outing was grocery shopping, and today's was a trip to the bank (wahoo!) and a stop for ice cream on the way home. But I've not heard the complaint about not having done anything, so hopefully I can keep the rhythms loose enough to benefit me, but structured enough to benefit them.

I just need three more weeks....

gettin' with the rhythm

Wow, two posts from me in one day, can you even believe it? Here's some pictures from Amelia Gardens in Westfield, MA (in full bloom RIGHT NOW -- go check it out if you can!) to keep you entertained while I ramble on.

It occurred to me after posting this morning about the story work portion of our coming school year that it might make more sense if I FIRST post about the way our days/weeks are going to run, to give more of an overview, then fill in the details later. That might make more sense. Or it might just be so confusing as to not matter either way....

In any case, I'm still hammering out the specifics of our school year rhythms, but I've got the basics down, and here's what it looks like:

(starting when the kids get up, around 7:30 -- keeping in mind that I get up around 5:15 to take care of the majority of the critter-related chores)

-wake, snuggle, feed birds, eat breakfast (about 1 hr)
-calendar activity, poems, tooth brushing, sensory brushing (for Zoo Boy), Speech Therapy exercises (for Zoo Boy), dressing (about 30 min)
-physical exercise (walk, bike ride, horseback riding, etc) (about 40 min)
-concentrated sensory integration activity (about 5 min)
-formal circle (about 30 min)
-snack

-story work (about 1 hr)
-creative/outdoor play (about 1 hr)
-lunch (about 30 min)
-chapter book reading (about 30 min)
-rest (about 1 hr)
-Afternoon Adventures (about 2 or 3 hrs)
-settling in and practice time (about 1 hr)
-supper (about 1 hr)
-bed prep (about 1/2 hr)
-family story time (about 1/2 hr)
-bed

It's those Afternoon Adventures where our weekly rhythm kicks in. I'm still sorting through what we do and do not want to include, how many days we want to leave our own property for adventures elsewhere, etc. But so far here's what I've got for weekly rhythms:

Monday: homeschool classes
Tuesday: occupational and speech therapy sessions
Wednesday: stay at home day, painting, afternoon stories
Thursday: museum classes and/or play date/co-op
Friday: play date and/or museum classes (one Friday a month, Aquarium homeschool classes)/co-op

For the weekends, it will be a more relaxed rhythm, but still following the above daily flow, but with no therapy exercises or formal circle, just a family morning walk. Friday nights we'll read a nature story around the fire as a family, so Saturday's Story work will be based on that. Our adventure on Saturday afternoons will be a family one, some sort of field trip relating to our nature story. Sundays are a "day off" for us -- The Map Man will follow through with the basic rhythm of the morning, as I will be working, and the afternoon adventure will basically just be watching football and hanging around at home as a family.

I'll pick apart some of the components of our day over the next week or so. If anyone wants to know more about anything in particular, just let me know!

telling tales -- story work

(Breakfast with Lucario -- he likes to steal food from the kids, amongst other mischief.)

I finally finished reading all the stories in the Enki Education 1st Grade Fairy Tale collection. (The binder is about 400 pages, and there are about 100 Fairy Tales from around the world included.) Now my task is to select which fairy tales I want the kids to hear during our coming school year. To help myself, I kept a running page of notes which I added to after reading each story -- I jotted down the title, the pages I can find it on, the country the story is from, what I might use the story for (introducing certain letters, or number qualities, or math processes, etc), when in the year I might want to use them (marked "early" for simpler tales), and then rated them with a smiley face system. Stories that I felt suited my kids and our family well I rated with a smile. Those that were acceptable, but that I didn't necessarily love, I rated with a straight-line mouth. Those that I really liked in general, but had a component that I found objectionable I marked with a slashed-mouth. And those that I just found unacceptable I marked with a frown. The vast majority of the stories got happy faces, certainly enough to meet our needs for the coming year.

(Lucario showing a bit of self-control while Zoo Boy eats.)

Our first school block (which we'll begin the 2nd week of September) is a Language Arts block, and our focus will be on introducing consonants. Now, obviously, my kids already know their consonants (they are both already reading). But the idea behind introducing them via Fairy Tales is that they will develop a deeper understanding of how each individual letter is used in the overall makeup of our language -- in other words, the basis for comprehension -- while at the same time working on other basic language arts skills, such as reading, handwriting, rote memorization, grammar, sentence structure, and the poetry and flow of the English Language. And by using a balance of traditional stories from throughout the world, their study of Humanities is given a good strong start.

(Zoo Boy feeding Lucario -- he is doing a great job taking care of his bird!)

The reason Enki uses Fairy Tales, as opposed to other types of stories, in their approach is because all cultures traditionally use these types of stories in the upbringing of their children. These stories have survived the test of time, being passed orally from generation to generation. Ancient wisdom and the center of all humanity can be found in these stories. And 1st grade students are at the perfect stage of development to openly accept this ancient wisdom, and to listen to the rhythm of language and human spirit that flows beneath the words themselves. They soon outgrow this stage, and will identify the stories as "not true" or "that didn't really happen". But at this one magical stage of development, they are open to all possibilities and are still able to take in the world without over analyzing what is presented to them.

(J's pictorial directions for doing one of his magic tricks.)

So the work of our first block will look like this: I will read a fairy tale to the boys, including a repeating verse that emphasizes the consonant(s) I am introducing. (These verses are included with the stories.) The following day, the boys will recall the story (working on sequential thinking and comprehension), then we'll do a led drawing (I will show them what we are drawing and they will follow along -- well, J will anyway, I'm not so sure Zoo Boy is ready for that sort of thing yet), in which the letter we are working on is represented. We will also read (together) the verse from the story, which I will have prepared in advance. The day after that, we will again recite the verse, then look at the pictures we drew and find the hidden letter. Then they will write the capital and lower case versions of the letter. Finally, they will write out the verse from the story (working on all sorts of skills, including eye tracking as they have to copy the words from my version). In Zoo Boy's case, he'll only write as much as he is capable of at first (probably just the title, or one line from the verse). Later that day, we'll read our next Fairy tale and start the cycle over again.

(A sand face, my own beach creation.)

Our school blocks will be 4 weeks long, and after our first Language Arts block will come our first Math block (during which time I'll be introducing Number Qualities, in a similar way to the Consonants, but I'll write more details about that as we get into our first block and I start planning for the next). We'll alternate between Language Arts and Math in this manner all year. Our science work will come every weekend, as we work with the Enki 1st Grade Nature Stories, although much of that work will be field trips to experience the natural phenomena first-hand. Again, more details as we begin to delve into it.

Meanwhile, back to the planning of our first block! Now that I've got the Fairy Tales under control, it's time to take as serious look at the 1st Grade Movement activities and start planning our Movement Circle....

sand castles

We met up with some friends over the weekend for some swimming and beach play. Here's what we all came up with to adorn the beach at our favorite state park pond.

This first one is my personal favorite, perched on a rock at the water front.

The Map Man and the boys built an entire walled city. Anyone want to guess what The Map Man does for a living? Anyone? Did I hear someone say "geeky structural engineer?" Ding ding ding....

(sorry honey, but you KNOW it's true, embrace the dorky-ness....)

Here's my creation. It's so,.. I dunno,.. ME.

Someone reminded me that it's supposed to be a sand CASTLE, not a sand hut.

In my defense, it DOES have a wall around it, and a flag, hence it's a castle. So there!

The Map Map plopped this unadorned castle down on an island (which the kids and I named "Pudgy Pidgey Island" in honor of a recent Pokemon episode we watched together), and told me that he built that house for me. I thought it was pretty romantic, our own tropical hideaway, surrounded by water and beautiful views. That is, until I realized that he was creating his own SEPARATE house, a ways up the beach:

He calls it his hovel. That about covers it. It's outside the walls of the great sand city, yet close enough to keep an eye on the kids (who are Kings of the city). Although Zoo Boy, looking at The Man's hovel, decided he wanted to close off the road to the city, and walled across the opening.

There are some pretty strong metaphors there somewhere. I just don't have the energy to draw them out, so I leave that in your capable hands!

It was enough for me just to spend the day with my family under a brilliant blue sky, creating nonsense and memories.

making space (in 29 days)

I thought you all might like to see a few photos from the past week while I hammer out my mind's dribblings today. The kids finished up their swimming lessons yesterday, much to my relief (I just didn't like being at the lake before noon, I'm definitely an afternoon-at-the-lake kind of girl). I may post at some point about swim lessons and what they did and didn't do for us this year, but for right now it's adequate just to say that J passed Level 1 (much to our surprise, as it required him putting his head completely under water!) and is on to Level 2 next year. And Zoo Boy....well, um....J passed!


Feels good to be back to "real" blogging again! I have LISTS of topics I want to talk about. The first of which is what I want to dedicate the month of August to -- making space. Space in our learning environment for playing and exploring; space in our schedule for those things that are priorities for us; space in my head for making conscious choices amongst the myriad of options.


The first of those goals is fairly straight-forward, and just requires some down and dirty cleaning and clearing of those things that are clogging up our physical space. It's time to finally clear out that room full of junk that we call, laughingly, the Family Room, and turn it into usable space. Create a safe place to hang all that expensive OT equipment we bought two years ago and then stuffed, still in their never-opened boxes, into a corner of that room. This year is going to be heavy on the OT for Zoo Boy, and I need a place for that to happen (other than in our every day lives, where it already occurs). I'm also still in need of a massive tag sale or some serious ebaying time to rid ourselves of a mountain of unwanted and unused toys, including enough Geotrax to stretch from here to Altoona....And meanwhile, our bedroom still looks like, well, our bedroom. I'd really prefer it looked like someone else's bedroom -- you know, one where you can actually see the floor and open the closet door.

Making space in our schedules (or rather, weekly rhythms) is a little tougher. I'm not so good at the whole priority-setting and sticking-with-it thing. I tend to like, at least in theory, a bit of a go-with-the-flow feel to my day. But more often than not, if things start flowing without an actual direction to it, I panic, or worse, feel hurried, which to me is somewhat like feeling miserable. As much as I like to be busy, I really DO desire a more slow-and-steady pace to life, and truly believe that less is more. My favorite days are always those that don't involve a lot of running here and there, that have more of a sense of serenity to them (although I suspect a day of serenity for me might be too chaotic for some folks -- but I'm entirely sure that a day of chaos for me is just unbearable for everyone!). I want that in my life, for my kids -- that sense of not being hurried. Which leads right into my next goal:



Creating the space I need to make conscious choices that support an integrated rhythm for our entire family. I think the first step I need to make is to establish a time, if not every day at least often enough to be helpful, that I can spend in meditation. I have so many ideas for the coming year whirling around inside my head -- curriculum pieces, and co-ops, and play dates, and museum classes, and aquarium memberships, and art materials, and grocery lists, and a perpetual feeling that I really need a nap....


Ok, so it's going to be a process. Nobody said this was going to be easy. But as of today, it's time to get my butt in gear on some of this stuff. I've got exactly one month to get ready for the coming year, including planning out the details of our first block, which begins for us on Tues, Sept 9. (The 10 days prior to that I will be working at herding trials and clinics, so I need to be ready to roll by Aug 29.)


My first step towards my goals, my plans for this first of 29 days? To breathe. Who'd like to join me?