Difference of Opinion

For the last year we have been working on homeschooling with D. We aren't always consistent and often times it just involves him reading to me or playing a number game or something simple like that. Even though we haven't devoted a ton of our day to homeschooling, he is learning quite quickly. It makes me think I can really do this homeschooling thing. But then there is D's opinions.

We live in Michigan, and because of the late kindergarten cutoff date of Dec 1st D could start kindergarten this coming year at the age of 4. He won't be because we are moving, but all his friends are. All his friends are in preschool and love it and will soon start kindergarten. D has decided that he want to go to school for kindergarten. It makes me a bit unsure of my decisions.

I know this choice isn't for a 4 year old to make, but I know D's stubbornness (He's like his mom) and I don't want school time to become a fight everyday. Luckily I still have another year to decide.

"Seek ye out of the best books"

One of my favorite scriptures about my role as a mother and wife is found in Doctrine and Covenants 88: 119. It reads:

Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God

 It is not the most profound or deep, but I have always liked that it was a blueprint for me. It contains building blocks for our family and home. Each building block helps us to create a house of God in our home, a place where the Spirit can dwell.

Of course there is another part of the blueprint we do not want to forget. It is the foundation of a strong home.

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:12)

This idea of a blueprint may be oversimplifying things, but it allows me have a measure of how we are doing as a family and how I am doing as an individual. Today I was thinking about how we are creating a house of learning.

This brings me to the idea of "yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118).  Although I feel gospel learning is the most important thing we can study and learn about, secular knowledge is also important. That is why we have been taking the time to homeschool D at a preschool age. During our schooling time today I realize something. My hubby spends his time at a job in academics, where he is always teaching, as well learning and growing himself. I plan activities and lessons that help D to learn and grow. But I wasn't doing anything to help me learn and grow. I was stagnant as far as my secular learning was concerned. I felt I should be a better example of what I believe to be an intricate part of life. I believe education is not only for schooling years. It is about growing as people, about using the gift of the ability to reason and to understand. I decided to start my education again. It starts here:

I ordered a calculus book today. I bought an older edition for $8. I used to love math and it has been years since I have used it. Maybe calculus isn't the most practical choice. Maybe I should spend my learning time on something I would use more often, but I am actually excited to relearn something I loved before. Plus, it helps when you are married to a math professor, right??? (I was actually surprised he didn't have a calculus book in his vast collection of math books. I guess it is just too simple of math.)

So, I feel really quite nerdy for being so excited, but I am. I think I will find joy in learning and stretching myself. Yea for education!

How do you keep the process of learning alive in your life?

Homeschooling?!?!?

The idea of homeschool was not something I ever even thought about until I quit work last year to move across the country for my husbands work and chose to stay home with my then 2 year old son.  Looking back it is so strange I even started toying with the idea considering what a hard time I had adjusting to being a stay at home mom after working full time for the last 6 years. Nonetheless, I was very intrigued by the idea. I still am, but I waiver back and forth even more know that I know I have an only child.

Having an only child often makes me reject the idea all together. What if he doesn't get enough time with other people? How will he do without built in friends/classmate from siblings? Will he be missing out on something by not having constant and strong relationships with other kids? Play dates are never a problem when kids are young, but know that friends of his are in preschool and kindergarten, it gets harder and harder to plan them. What about being home with just me all day long? What about my schooling? I always thought I would go back once my husband get a permanent job.

Having an only child also often makes to think I couldn't do anything but homeschooling. How could I ever send my only baby away for 7-8 hours a day, just to come home at 3:00 to do homework, help prepare dinner, then start bedtime routine? When will we get to spend time together? Maybe it is selfish, but why should a complete stranger get to spend all day with him and watch him learn and grow? Why can't I be there to experience that?

I still waiver back and forth. Because of where we live and the strange school cut off dates, D will be able to start kindergarten next year. That is only 10 month away! How will I ever decide? I had a hard enough time deciding whether to send him to preschool or not. We didn't. It just wasn't right for us, but sometimes I still worry I made the wrong choice.

So what am I going to do? I have no idea yet. For now I am starting homeschool. D was so ready to learn to read, so that is what we are doing. He loves being able to sound out words. He loves to get to read his stories to his dad. I love getting to see him get so excited about his accomplishments. I have to admit that I feel more confident in my ability to homeschool as I see him learn and grow.

I am sure whatever I decide to do, there will be people who disagree with my choice. I am sure I might even question my decision from time to time. I just plan on taking it day by day and pray that the Lord helps me make this decision when I absolutely must. I would love input from any of you who may be reading this. Thoughts? Feelings? Criticism? :)

The Golden Ratio

My husband is a mathematician. We actually met when I needed help passing Calculus II.  I can distinctly remember talking to him about the Fibonacci series. He saw it so simply and I just thought it was ridiculous (mostly because it wasn't making sense at all).

My husband can see math all around him. He sees how it is involved in nature, manufacturing, economics and much of politics, other sciences, and even in the gospel. Understanding math strengthens his testimony of the creation and of the gospel. He sees beauty and order in it.

I recently found this post on a favorite homeschooling blog of mine. I watched it with my husband and son. As a matter of fact, D asked to watch it over and over again. It is beautiful. After the video was over, my husband said, "And some people would try and make you believe that is was all by some chance," and shook his head. He was referring to order and logic that is involved in such beauty. It isn't all by chance, but rather there is a Divine Creator. I hope to be able to teach my son to not only see the beauty in mathematics, but also see how it can lead us to look towards our Savior and Father on Heaven.

As a little background, the golden ratio is a number, approximately 1.61803398874989, that shows up as you study math, biology, architecture, music, etc.  Understanding of the golden ratio seems to have started around 440 BC with the building of the Parthenon, and continued to grow as other scientists, such as Plato and Fibonacci, discovered other occurrences in math and geometry. The mathematician and philosopher Zeising wrote in 1854 of a universal law "in which is contained the ground-principle of all formative striving for beauty and completeness in the realms of both nature and art, and which permeates, as a paramount spiritual ideal, all structures, forms and proportions, whether cosmic or individual, organic or inorganic, acoustic or optical; which finds its fullest realization, however, in the human form." You can read more about the Golden Ratio here.



Enjoy!

(While writing this post, D heard the music from the video and came running in saying, "Mom, I love that video!" I guess we will be watching it again and again.)

Our Preschool "Curriculum"

I use the word curriculum lightly. Most it is books/info we are going to start using for preschool time in the mornings.  First up:

We bought this book a while a go. We have started it, but never stuck with it. I think we is one of the more traditional/scheduled parts of what I am planning. I have heard great things about the book, and my son D is ready to read. Along with learning to read using this book, we will continue to read books during the day. We read a lot of library books and books we own. Also, at night we read chapter books. Recently we read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." It was fun that he was able to understand well enough to notice the differences in the book and the movie. 

Next, some books for science:

I don't plan on starting at the front and just following the books through, but they are a great resource. D has especially loved the human body encyclopedia. He likes to look through it and ask about the different pictures. Today we talked about what parts of his body comes in pairs. We also read a lot of children's books from the library and also buy some of the good ones. I have recently discovered The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library. D loves those. We don't own any yet, but I think they might be purchase worthy.

For math we have been using easy workbooks made for pre-k/k. Plus activities like playing with money, using a geoboard to play with shapes, etc.

For writing we will soon be doing the assignments in "Teach Your Child To Read." We also use a workbook that has a lot of tracing. He enjoys it, and it helps a lot with his fine motor skills. He is going though it so fast, I think it might only last a month. I might have to take him to the the local teacher store and get some new ones.

I also have some great things from Confessions of a Homeschooler, such as days of the week, weather, practice writing sheets, etc.

Everything else we find from great blogs I follow. I'll have to share some of my favorites in the future. Although we have been "doing school," as D calls it, off and on for a while, Monday we are scheduled to start a more consistent schedule. Wish me luck!

Preschool At Home

We are going to start doing preschool at home. Other people talked to me about signing my son up for one of the many local preschools, but we didn't. Part of it is because I am selfish and don't want him to be gone from home for long periods of time. Part of it is because I don't think he is ready for that either. We did soccer this summer, and most of it was him sitting on my lap on the sideline. When I talked to him about preschool recently, he asked if I meant at home. I explained I was thinking of one at the local school and he cried that he was too little to go to a school and he wanted to be home. I easily obliged.

One thing I noticed is I think people are very surprised we don't have him in a preschool.  As an only child I think some people think he is missing out on an important part of childhood development by not having him in a preschool. That part is socializing. I think I disagree. We do story time. We do play groups. We go to the park. Yes, I am also close by, but he has plenty of time to socialize. Just today he sat under the picnic table with two girls from out church and played silly games and laughed together for about a half and hour. What they could find so funny under the picnic table is beyond me.

No only do these activities give him plenty of time with kids his own age, I think he is much better able to socialize with all age groups than most 3 year old. Maybe that is because the only people he socializes with at home are adults. At the library party the other day, he had no problem walking up to the ice cream lady and asking for a treat. The lady was the one who seemed more confused that he was there all on his own asking politely for his treat. I finally have to come and help out because the lady looked unsure if she should give him any ice cream. I am impressed that he is willing to do that kind of stuff on his own.

He may not be ready to be in school without me close by, be he sure knows how to interact with people and is still very socialized. He just likes to be able to make sure Mom is still close by if needed. Sorry that this is a little scatterbrained. Just thinking my thoughts out loud, or rather typing them.