Learning by Heart – Sept. 23, 2011

 Butterfly Unit

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”

– Henry Ward Beecher

 

Butterfly Unit

We are in love with butterflies here. :)  We ordered our own set of Painted Lady caterpillars and watched them grow, form chrysalides, turn into butterflies and hatch out. We fed them and watched them for a few days, then released them. 

SCIENCE:

The caterpillars came in a jar with food, and we were told opening it could introduce bacteria into the jar and kill them.  Because of this, I wasn’t able to get any good photos of the caterpillars, but we really enjoyed watching them move around and grow (they grow fast!).  Once the first one started forming her chrysalis, we kept a sharp eye out and when they were all finished we opened the jar and transferred them into their little butterfly home (a net pavilion that came with our kit, found at Walmart): And then we waited, and waited, and waited some more.  I was worried about the one on the top right, because when I transferred it I had to pry it away from the side of the jar and was afraid I had torn a hole in her chrysalis.  Turns out I probably did, as she never hatched.  As you can see in the photo above, that one looked less healthy than the other three.  Also, if you look closely at the bottom left chrysalis, you can see the pattern of the wings through the thin shell.  This was the first one to hatch.

And here she is:

She was all alone for two whole days and we were beginning to wonder about the others.  However, they did just fine and both hatched out within an hour of each other.  Here is a photo of the final one pushing her way out:

Isn’t that cool?!  All three of us hovered over it and were fascinated as she struggled out.  It was like watching a tiny miracle happen. :)  We are sentimental folk and not afraid to get all gushy over a caterpillar turning into a butterfly right before our eyes. ;)

We placed beautiful red carnations in the bottom of their home and dropped sugar water all over them for the butterflies to eat:It was very cool seeing them unroll their long straw-like tongues (proboscis, if you want to say a big word instead of tongue) to sip it up.  Unfortunately, with the netting in the way it was hard to get a good tongue shot with my camera.

We watched and marveled over them for almost a week, then we released them.  This was not an easy thing to talk M into doing.  He didn’t want to let them go.  He loved them, as only a child can. :)  But when he realized that they would die soon anyway (Painted Ladies only live 2-3 weeks once they are butterflies), and it would be awful if they died without ever having flown out in the big wide world, he agreed to let them go.

So we took them to the backyard, near our St. Francis statue, and read this little (modified, by me) blessing.  (I tell you, we are sentimental!!  But really this did make it very special):

“Blessed are you, Lord God, maker of all living creatures. You called forth fish in the sea, birds and butterflies in the air and animals on the land. You inspired St. Francis to call all of them his brothers and sisters. We ask you to bless these butterflies. May we always praise you for all your beauty in creation. Blessed are you, Lord our God, in all your creatures!”

M had named each one, so we took them out one by one and let them fly away.  The final one was busy having lunch when I picked her out of the net, and M got to hold her for a very long time.  He whispered something to her, and gave her a sweet little kiss:   

Then he set her in the little bowl:

Finally, she flew away and posed on the ground for me before taking off again:Beautiful, no?

We left the carnations out for them to come back to, if they were so inclined:This was a wonderful experience!  I highly recommend it.  We ordered our caterpillars through Insect Lore.

We took it easy this week, and did only a few simple activities related to butterflies…

SCIENCE:

M made a life cycle wheel (click on the link; the printable can be found towards the center of the page) for butterflies:

We learned some new vocabulary as we talked about the parts of a butterfly, and worked with our 3-part nomenclature cards:

We talked about the compound eye of a butterfly, just briefly (really is there much to say?) and I showed M how to look through a crystal at an object and see many of the same thing… this is a little bit like what the butterfly sees all the time. 

In our nature center class this week we also just happened to be talking about insects, butterflies in particular, and M made this little butterfly out of air-drying clay:

We also learned that all insects have 6 legs, as well as three parts to their bodies: head, thorax, and abdomen.  There was a very cute song we learned, sung to the tune of “Head and shoulders, knees and toes” which went like this:

Head and thorax, abdomen (six legs!)

Head and thorax, abdomen (six legs!)

Eyes and tongue, and exoskeleton,

Head and thorax, abdomen (six legs!)

It takes a little work, but if you sing it correctly exoskeleton and abdomen rhyme (kind of).  And the “six legs!” part is said in a little afterthought sort of way. :)  M loved it. 

MATH:

We talked about what “symmetry” is and how butterflies are symmetrical – their wings are perfect mirror copies of each other.  

We worked on some symmetrical pattern block patterns we have:

I showed M how to hold the little mirror upright in the center of each pattern and see how the mirror reflected the other side.  We went through several patterns, doing this to see if they were symmetrical or not.  If the part behind the mirror looked exactly like the image reflected in the mirror, it was symmetrical.  We found that some patterns were symmetrical both “sideways” and “up and down” (horizontally and vertically), but many were symmetrical only one of the ways.  This was a hands on activity, so there are no action photos… but I’m sure you get the idea. :)  We also filled in the patterns with our blocks.
Note the bottom pattern in the photo above, does not have clear lines showing where pieces go, but it does have the colors of the blocks for guidance.  M loved doing this, and I think is ready for more of a challenge.  He also realized that if he didn’t have a certain shape, like a yellow hexagon, he could use other pieces to make that shape.  (It is sitting on a cookie tray because our pattern blocks are magnetic.)

In case anyone is interested, we have this basic set:

and this more advanced set:   And these magnetic pattern blocks:

For another activity about symmetry, I used this set of butterfly cards from Prekinders (look at the bottom of her printables section; also, she has a whole section on bugs that is really great!); this is supposed to be a matching game, but I cut all the cards in half and we used one half on the mirror to see what the entire butterfly would look like.  This was probably M’s favorite thing of the week; and such a simple activity to set up: 

LITERACY SKILLS:

We used our chenille (pipe cleaner) letters to practice letter formation, using all the letters that are in the word butterfly.  I would have preferred using lower case, “baby” letters for this, but can’t find them anywhere.  Now, I’m starting to question whether I ever made them in lower case!  It is too late to make them now since M seems to be getting past the need for them pretty quickly, so we just used the upper case ones.

To do this activity, M traces the letter on the card with his finger, then practices writing it in a tray of flour:

After doing all the letters, we played a little game with these cards.  M shut his eyes, and I took his finger and traced the letter on one of the cards; he tried to guess, from touch alone, which letter he was tracing (I gave him a choice between 2 of the letters to make it easier).  This was a fun game and he enjoyed it enough that we actually got through all of the letters!

Then onto a little play dough fun.  I printed out a page with “butterfly” written on it, all in lowercase letters.  M rolled some play dough into “snakes” and used them to form the letters.  I explained that we normally would write butterfly in lowercase letters, like this:
I am not proud of what happened next, but at this point we were getting a bit silly (that never happens in your house, right?), and in the interest of pursuing knowledge with a 5 year old boy, I told him what the first 4 letters of butterfly spell by themselves.  Then I told him what it spells with the “er” added.  And soon there were all kinds of jokes about butt butter and “Oh, would you like some butt butter on your toast, sir?” and that sort of thing.  I am not winning any mother of the year awards this year, but I am also not really trying.   And, yes, he did actually learn something too. ;)

Here is a list of the books we read during this little unit; not all are listed, only the ones we liked. ;)

     

  

Just for Fun:

I whipped up a quick roll-and-draw game to go with our butterfly theme.  It reinforces some of the vocab for parts of a butterfly, and works a little on those fine motor skills too.  You can print our Roll-a-Butterfly page, if you are interested!
All the players get a blank sheet of paper.  Each player rolls the die and draws the part of the butterfly that the number corresponds to on the guide sheet.  The first to draw a complete butterfly is the winner.  M actually liked this, and started singing the “Head, thorax, abdomen (six legs!)” song again. :) 

There were a few other things I planned to do with M this week – another math game, and an art project – but it was a really hard week on us.  I don’t know if we just need to get back into the swing of things or what, but neither M nor I were really into much that we did.  I was very discouraged by week’s end, and ready to give up!   However, writing and then reading over all that we did helps my perspective a bit.  What do you do when you have a very discouraging week and feel like anyone else in the world could do a better job of teaching your child than you are doing?  Feel free to give me a pep talk, I definitely need one, and am not too proud to beg. ;)

Linking this post up to  Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up, and 

Check them out for some great homeschooling posts!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Butterfly Nomenclature Cards – free printable

I made this set of butterfly nomenclature cards for M to put together as part of our mini butterfly unit (which I’ll be posting about next week).  It was hard to find something - for free - like this, so I’m hoping some of you will find these useful too.

Unfortunately, with the drawing I was working with, there wasn’t a good way to show the proboscis (butterfly tongue), or the legs on these cards.  And it just seemed strange to have two of the cards show side views while the others show the top view.  M knew about the proboscis because we actually got to see our  butterflies unrolling theirs and sipping nectar through them; we saw their very delicate jointed legs also.  I may still add those two cards in – if anyone would like them included, or as an add-on set for this one, let me know in the comments, and I’ll make them available.

parts of a butterfly

The parts of a butterfly that these cards cover are: antennae, head, compound eye, thorax, abdomen, forewing, hindwing, and one card for the full butterfly.

To use these Montessori-style, print two sets and cut the cards apart.  Leave the pictures and labels together on one set, and separate them on the other set.  The child takes the picture-with-label cards and lays them out in a row, then matches up the separate pictures and labels cards.  It’s a good way to learn new vocabulary, and begin associating printed words with the pictures.

Enjoy!  And remember, these are for your personal use only; you are welcome to write about them on your blog, but please link back to this post!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Off Like a Herd of Turtles.

That is one of my husband’s many pithy sayings.  I’m not sure where he got it, but he loves to say it with a cute little sarcastic smile that is trying oh-so-hard not to be a smile.  He’s awful at being sarcastic.  Too sweet-natured.  (Opposites attract, you know. ;) )

Anyway, this is my way of re-introducing myself into your cyber world.  I’m back!  Ye olde laptop is up and running once more and I’m faithfully backing up every little thing I do on it daily.  We did lose many months of pictures, but thankfully quite a few of our favorites were on my personal Facebook page for family and friends to see; so when we are old and gray the first 6 months of this year will not be a complete blank (still pretty sad about losing all the others though!).

Knowing how life is busy and days fly by, I’m sure many of you have not even noticed my absence; but it has felt like forever to me!

Now, the herd of turtles part… I’m not making any promises about how much I’ll be posting in the next few weeks, on account of the approximately 1027 other projects I took up in my spare, un-plugged free time this summer.  I have to see these to completion and that will take time. 
I am also in the middle of planning school activities to begin next week, and I’m sure many of you know how time-consuming that can be.  To help, I’m using a variety of things as a sort of homemade curriculum to follow (mostly free, as I’m just not ready to pay real money for a preschool curriculum at this point.  Yes, I am thrifty down to my toes). I hope to post about all of this in more detail at some point…

And yes, I know I’ve mentioned how I’m not a curriculum sort of gal and M’s not a curriculum sort of guy and we like to just fly by the seat of our pants when it comes to learning, and I’ll just custom-make everything we need, and all that. 

Ah well, I’ve never claimed consistency as one of my strong points.  :)


I hope to post at least once a week to cover our school activities, and eventually get on a more regular blogging schedule.



Have a beautiful day! :)

Pre-preschool and curriculum "push down"

The following is a guest post from Lindsey Wright, who writes for Online Schools (which has many articles related to all parts of education - well worth reading if you are interested!).  Lindsey contacted me recently to see if I would publish the following article about a little of what's wrong with our current education system.  I'm interested to read your comments!  And please check out the links she has included - I found a couple of them fascinating.


The once carefree environment of preschool is slowly eroding as school curriculum is being pushed down grade by grade in an effort to meet goals set to accommodate standardized testing. It’s beginning to seem like preschool is the true start of a child’s academic career, which begs the question: will preschool no longer be enough? Will kids be have to attend pre-preschool in order to be properly prepared?





The Test Score Conundrum



In recent years, evaluation of student performance has increasingly been based on standardized test scores rather than overall comprehension of curriculum. Test scores have become the benchmark for determining if a school or program of online courses is successful. Little or no attention is paid to student demographics, involvement of parents in education, or other similar factors that may affect a child’s overall academic career. Even teacher performance is being viewed as “good” or “bad” depending on how well his or her students do on standardized tests. Government funding programs use these scores as the basis for which districts get money and which need to “improve” before aid is given.



All of these factors put a great deal of pressure on school administrators and educators to produce higher test scores. This pressure is ultimately transferred to students at all grade levels. Tests are evolving to include more difficult material at younger ages, forcing kids to attempt to process facts and concepts that they may not be developmentally or cognitively prepared to learn. In addition, kids are spending more time reviewing what will be on tests, taking tests, and getting ready for the next test than they are actually learning anything. The once comprehensive school curriculum is giving way to a standards-choked pedagogy that involves little more than teaching to the test. Rather than receiving true education, kids are caught up in what amounts to adults' attempts to manipulate the test score system.



Curriculum Push-down



The curriculum push-down is a gradual but ongoing process that seems to have sped up in recent years. Much of it is driven by the perceived need to produce higher test scores, leading to the idea that kids have to learn as much as possible at a young age in order to be successful at later tests. The expectations for what children should be academically capable of at any given time are steadily climbing. Homework is becoming the norm in grades where it used to be unheard of. Preschools are beginning to send home lists of required school supplies, and some states are even toying with the idea of requiring young children to attend pre-K programs.



The irony of all this lies in the fact that the standards set by tests were meant to improve academic performance and put America’s children on par with those in other countries. But test scores have become such a centralized focus of the very curriculum that is being foisted upon young children that it is having the opposite effect. This may be due in part to the fact that the course of childhood development remains as it's always been while the education system changes over the years. What children can and can’t process at an early age isn’t any different than it was before the curriculum push-down began. Being expected to learn and retain complex concepts before they’re ready can cause unhealthy frustration in kids that may result in behavioral problems later on. And those who struggle the most may wind up saddled with labels like “slow” or “failure” before ever reaching kindergarten. Such labels haunt kids throughout their academic careers and can color their perceptions of school as a whole, leading to higher rates of grade retention and dropout.



The Demise of Childhood



Although some early childhood education programs have shown promise, it seems that test score obsession and curriculum push-down have a negative effect on children overall. Early years of development that were once spent exploring the world and learning important life skills through discovery, play, and interaction are now being taken up with academics.



In short, kids are rarely allowed to be kids anymore. With kindergarteners being expected to understand what was once first grade material, parents are pressured by the idea that preschool is necessary to prepare their children for an academic career. The idea of pre-preschool isn’t far behind. Parents now face a conundrum: if kids have to know kindergarten material at a preschool age, are they going to need schooling even earlier in order to meet the standards set by today’s test-based education system?



The continuing downward push of curriculum into lower grades may be threatening the well-being of today’s kids. Scrambling to score higher on tests undermines true learning and points to a flawed education system. The idea of trying to prepare kids at pre-preschool ages for what was one kindergarten curriculum may very well have a negative impact on coming generations.

Free EBook over at Homeschool Classroom!

The Homeschool Classroom is giving away a free ebook for everyone who "likes" The Homeschool Classroom Facebook page! 

This is an excellent ebook if I do say so myself (I am one of the contributing writers, hee hee). ;)

Please note: There is a limit of 100 downloads per day. So, if you go to download and the quota has been met, try again the next day.

You will find complete instructions for how to get your ebook here.  Enjoy!!


On another note, I'm really no closer to being back to regular posting than I was when I last posted (try saying that 3 times quickly).  And... I'm realizing that since the beginning of this year my  heart has not really been into my writing here.  I'm not sure what that means for future writing, but I guess I've got time to figure it all out... I will need a new laptop anyway before and if I begin regular posts again.  I refuse to take twice the time to post than is really necessary just because my pc is old and very, very slooooooow.  So, I'm taking advantage of all this free time to work on a few projects, some of which were mentioned in my New Year's post many months ago.  I just thought an update would be nice, even though it's just an "I don't know anything" kind of update. ;)  Thanks to those of you who have emailed me recently.  It's so nice to know I'm not completely forgotten. :)

Take care, and have a beautiful day! :)

Uh oh!

Well I hope no one was really waiting with baited breath for today's final post on the topic of Academics in Preschool.  It's written up and saved and ready to go... but it's been lost.  I use Window's Live Writer to draft posts on my laptop and my laptop is now, apparently, resting in peace.  

Ironically, today's post was all about technology and young children, and how addictive it can be and harmful to their health.  And here I sit, not knowing what to do next without my laptop.  Hehehe.  It's been quite a year - computer problems last December and January, then an unexpected break for most of March and April, and then this... I think this is just not my year for blogging.

I'm not sure when I'll be back, but hopefully I will be able to retrieve that final post and publish it.  What I am more concerned about is the 6+ months of photos on the laptop that were not backed up anywhere else.  I'm not sure what it says about me that my first thought was of my blogging stuff and printables that I'm in the middle of making... but when I remembered the photos I literally felt ill. 

If anyone can send me in the right direction for retrieving items on my hard drive, I'd sure appreciate it.  I'm not able to get into Windows at all, I simply keep getting the start up screen and occasionally a "blue screen of death."   Helpful ideas left in the comments are very appreciated! 

I will still have limited access to email, so feel free to stay in touch!

Have a (more) beautiful day (than I am)! :)

Is Preschool Necessary? Academics (3)

{Continued from yesterday’s post}

The issue of attachment and how it affects a child’s ability to learn is something I’ve thought about a lot lately.  Dr. Gordon Neufeld makes a strong case for the importance of attachment in a child’s life in his book Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.  I could write a hundred posts about the wisdom in this book, but instead I’ll just highly recommend that you read it for yourself if this issue interests you at all.

The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life, by Michael Gurian also speaks a bit about the relationship between secure attachments and learning.  Here’s a bit of what the author says regarding this issue: 

“Children with secure attachments are more likely to make learning gains for a biological reason : the organic mechanisms in the brain by which the brain learns require secure attachment in order to grow fully.” (p. 71)

(I wrote more about this book here, here, and here.)

Attachment (love, affection, and a sense of security in relationship with another person) is necessary for learning in small children.  And there is evidence that making and then breaking attachments can actually hinder a preschool / kindergarten-aged child’s ability to learn.  Of course if the children have learned to attach to other children instead of the adult present then they have an easier time, at first, with focusing on learning, giving credence to the idea that socialization via being in groups of peers is a good and helpful thing in a child’s education.  Dr. Neufeld spells out how this “peer-orientation” as he calls it, is actually detrimental to a child’s future healthy maturation, and causes all sorts of problems in parent-child relationships later on. 

Dr. David Elkind predicted in the 1980’s what affect the then-current trends in early education, and the accompanying stresses, would have on the preschool children of the ‘80’s when they became adolescents.  It seems to me that he was right on the mark (just look at the violence and aggression that seemed to erupt with teenagers of the nineties!):

[Speaking of teenagers in the eighties, those who were preschooled in the late sixties, or early seventies] “Teenagers today are hurried children and show primarily stress symptoms, the symptoms of being pushed too hard too soon.  My guess is that the teenagers of the nineties will be more neurotic than teenagers today.  They will show more obsessions, more compulsions, more phobias, more psychosomatic symptoms than do teenagers today.

…If we refuse to recognize what miseducation is doing to our young children, we will put a significant proportion of the next generation at risk for personality problems and for occupational mediocrity.”

As far as the attachment issue goes, my main concern is two-fold.  The first is the risk that M will become more peer-oriented than parent-oriented.  The second is the idea of M becoming attached to a preschool teacher, than having that attachment broken, having to re-attach to a new teacher in kindergarten, and so on throughout the elementary years. Yes, I know this is just part of life in our current society, but I’m not sure it has to be, or is therefore healthy for small children to experience.  Many European schools have teachers follow “their children” from one grade to another for several years in a row because they know this is healthier for the children and better suited to the goal of educational success.  And of course, having Mama be the teacher eliminates this concern altogether. ;)

A thought that just popped into my head (or flew into my funnel as M, lover of trains, says):  Remember Laura Ingalls Wilder and how she taught children of all different ages, all in one room (socialization amongst different age groups?  Oh my!), and how she continued being their teacher throughout most of their schooling years?  That is how school used to be, and I’m pretty sure it was a great system.  How did we get from that to this current shuffling of children from one teacher to another, while losing many of them in the crowd; focusing more on teaching methods and classroom control, instead of children’s individual learning styles? Efficiency may not be worth the toll it takes on childhood and secure attachments.

I’ll finish up tomorrow… I know you wait with baited breath. ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Is Preschool Necessary? Academics (2)

(Continued from yesterday’s post.)

Preschool today is very different from the nursery school many of us went to as a small child.  In his book, Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk, Dr. David Elkind writes about social changes in the past several decades that have led to the more formal education of preschool-age children. 

By all means, I do not think that many of these social changes in and of themselves were bad, but it seems that society doesn’t often think about the fact that the institutionalization of education in general, and preschools in particular, are relatively recent developments.

I could go on and on about this subject, but my main point is that what was once considered a necessity for mothers who had to work outside the home, has evolved into the norm and is now perceived by many as necessary preparation for kindergarten.

The idea that a normal, well-developed child needs special preparation in order to be ready for kindergarten strikes me as somewhat ridiculous.  It’s kindergarten!  If it is the case that a 5 or 6 year old child needs special preparation for kindergarten, then it seems to me (and I know this may not be a popular point of view) that something is terribly wrong with our education system.

I do believe preschool-aged children benefit from being exposed to all kinds of wonderful experiences, and encouraged to learn about what interests them (within parental guidelines of course).  However, I do have a few concerns about focusing too much on education during early childhood.

First, it seems to me that as we enrich our children’s lives with one wonderful experience after another, we sometimes forget to let them have down time.  Good chunks of “nothing to do” time is a stress-reliever, and a means of getting to know oneself.  Time to one’s self is also necessary in order to reflect on and process experiences, and eventually glean lessons from those experiences.

Secondly, doesn’t it seem like the more we provide interesting and stimulating things for our children, the more they seem to expect every moment to be fun and exciting? And if it is not, they look to us to provide them with some new stimulation.  In my childhood, an outing or special event, or a new activity, was an infrequent thing, and very special.  I sometimes think we fill our children’s lives with so many “special” things that in the end not one thing is truly special.  An eagerness to learn is one thing in our children, but a belief that the world revolves around them is quite another thing.  The current “busy-ness” of today’s children (which is becoming common even among very small children) just seems to promote this sense that they are the center of everything.

Before today’s institutional schools were common, middle class children had simple childhoods, were taught basics by a tutor or their mother, and then the burden of occupying and educating themselves was on their own shoulders, not the responsibility of anyone else.  I think education was more highly valued and more enthusiastically pursued then than currently, when a sense of entitlement has snuffed out the pleasure of working hard for, and achieving, an education. 

My third concern is regarding the issue of attachment, which I’ll save for tomorrow. :)

Is Preschool Necessary? Part Four – Academics

{PART ONE      PART TWO      PART THREE}

I thought this would be the easiest post of this series to write.  After all, how much can a person have to say about preschool academics?  But as my thoughts delved into more areas than I expected, the post kept getting longer and longer (you know I have trouble keeping things short and sweet anyway!).  For that reason I’ve decided to split it into four {oh yes, I said four!} sections – one post each day all the way to Friday.  Get comfy and hold on! ;)

Academics in preschool… this is actually where I began my journey toward understanding that there are alternatives to traditional school.  Now look at me – I feel like a completely different person than I was just a few short years ago. 

When M was very small (about the age in the photo above, not quite 2 years), I assumed we would put him in Kindergarten at 5 years old, which would be this fall.  His birthday is late August, and he would be one of the youngest children in his class, which was totally okay with me.  He was brilliant (hahaha, not that I was biased or anything), and I thought the sooner he started school the better – how else to develop all that latent genius?  And preschool, at 3 or 4, would only give him that much more of a head start.  Um, wouldn’t it?

And then, crazy as it sounds, I realized my husband had his own ideas about all of this (the nerve!).  He was adamant that, with a late summer birthday, it would be better to wait until M was 6 years old before beginning Kindergarten.  What?!  I started Kindergarten when I was 4, and there is nothing wrong with me. 

Oh wait.  Except that I never really enjoyed school. 

The pressures – socially and academically – were really stressful for me.  I can see now, that with another year (or two) under my belt I would have been better prepared developmentally for what was expected of me throughout all of my elementary years.  As it was, I loved being sick and getting to stay home (sounds pathetic, doesn’t it?).  All I really wanted was home, Mama, and a little security.  To be completely honest, I had begged to go to school, and my parents had reluctantly agreed.

I was ready and very eager to learn…but I was only 4 years old! 

The basic emotional and psychological needs of my little 4 year old self weren’t being met by being in school, and so everything was a struggle. 

I wanted to be a big kid, but you can’t be a big kid until you’re all done being a little kid! 

So I want M to take his time with being a little kid – it’s an important time of his life, really his foundation for a happy life – and it’s not something I want to rush him through.

I was academically ready to learn what I was “supposed” to learn at 4, but the joy of learning, which was what prompted my strong desire to go to school in the first place, was completely snuffed out.  I struggled with being unhappy and yet at the same time having to put forth the effort to learn new things... things that someone else had decided I needed to learn, not the things I was interested in and naturally wanted to learn about. 

(Not that I think kids should never have to learn about something they aren’t interested in, just not basic academics at 4 years old, in my opinion.  Exposing them to new ideas and skills, and playing off of what naturally interests them, is different than requiring them to learn.)

In this country since that time (mid 1970’s) kindergarten has changed dramatically.  What once was reserved for first and second grade is now being formally taught in kindergarten, and kindergarten curriculum is being pushed down into preschools.  Yes, it’s presented in fun ways, and many children love it.  But the pressure to learn is still there – not necessarily from the preschool teacher, but from parents who want proof that their children are learning and thus getting a supposed leg up on the competition.   (Yes, I know this is not all parents, but I know myself and am concerned that I could turn into that kind of parent, given the chance.)

After many conversations with my husband, I began doing some research on this crazy “later is better than earlier” idea, and I have to say, I’ve been convinced.  We have time.  Time for M to grow up at his own pace.  Time to learn to read, time to explore science and develop math skills.  Time.  He does not have to go out and get a job tomorrow.  He just needs to be happy and secure and loved right now. 

More tomorrow…. :)

Fun Father’s Day Crafts

Go check out my latest post over at The Homeschool Classroom, and see the sweet little gift my husband will be getting from M for Father’s Day. :)

Here’s a sneak peek:
Have a beautiful day! :)
 

Mama’s craft time – A Silhouette for Father’s Day

  

I’ve been meaning to do this project ever since M was a little guy.  Finally I’ve gotten around to it, and it is going to make a fabulous Father’s Day gift!

I remember my Kindergarten teacher doing this with all of her students (what a patient woman she must have been!).  She used an overhead projector, and had each child stand in front of it in order to cast their shadows on the wall. She had large pieces of black paper taped to the wall and she traced the shadows onto them.  My memory is a little fuzzy about how exactly she traced the shadows onto the paper, but I remember standing very still and how absolutely adorable the finished pieces were, and how much my parents ooh-ed and aah-ed over it. :)  I’d guess they were about 9" X 12”, finished.  I decided to make a much smaller version for my husband.

To do this with M, I first had him stand in front of a sunny window, showing his profile, and snapped a quick picture:Much, much more do-able for him than standing still for a long time!

Then I played around with it in my photo-editing software so I could see the details and have good contrast, and eventually printed it out at the size I wanted.  I had already bought little wooden plaques at Michael’s, the faces of which measure 3”x3”, so I cropped closely around M’s profile and printed the picture out at just under 3”x3”.   

I (oh, so carefully) cut out the profile, then taped it, photo-side down, to a piece of heavy weight black construction paper, and used a sharp pencil to trace around his profile, adding in eyelashes for definition of his eye area.I placed it face down, by the way, so when it was finished the opposite side would show him facing the same way as the original photo.  That’s not necessary, I guess, but somehow felt “right” to this OCD mama. ;)

I ended up (after several that weren’t turning out just right) using a craft knife for the detailed areas.

I carefully cut out his sweet little silhouette, decoupaged some patterned paper to my wood pieces, then decoupaged on the silhouette.  I finished it all off with 3 coats of clear varnish.

 

 

 They are a little shiny because the sealer hadn’t dried yet. 
I just couldn’t wait to take pictures!

Sweet, no?  I made one for myself while I was at it because I know the one for Daddy will be going to his office.  And then I made one for my parents.  I’m on a roll, anyone else want one?  Heehee. ;) 

If I do this again in the future, I will probably go with a larger size as the detail areas were really hard to get right.  Overall though, I really enjoyed this mama-craft! 

Have a beautiful day! :)