A green clean trick....

We've been taking steps to cut way back on the harsh chemicals used in our house cleaning. One thing I will share with you now is

HOW TO CLEAN YOUR TUB WITHOUT KILLING THE PLANET

So, I have an 8 year old boy who literally LIVES in the dirt for many hours of the day. He gets seriously dirty. A cloud of brown dust follows him wherever he goes in the afternoon. This means that when he takes his bath, that dirt and grime gets transferred onto my tub.



Ewww....

So, how can I clean my tub without using deadly poisons when it is that dirty on a daily basis? It's actually quite simple, but it is a little more than just spraying and wiping (and choking).

On a daily basis, after the Chief's bath, I take the wash cloth he used, and once the water has finished draining, either he or I wipes the tub with it. It actually takes most of the dirt off, because it's fresh. Then I just rinse the cloth, hang it up to dry. When I am in the shower, I do the same, I just wipe the walls and stuff with the washcloth. It might take one minute, but no more.

For our weekly cleaning, a more deep clean, I take a lemon and cut it in half. Then I dip the open side of the half lemon in a dish of Borax powder, so it looks like this:



Then, I simply hold the lemon and scrub the tub with the powder side while squeezing a little to release the lemon juice. It smells great, and I find it cleans as well as any tub cleaner. Just dip the lemon back in the dish of borax if you need to replenish it, and go over the whole tub and shower. Then, rinse, and don't be afraid to inhale the lemony scent of your fresh, clean tub!

Testing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7......

We, like many other families, have a Wii. Yes, we wii. But.... Well, it looks very different in our house than it might in most others.

First, the Chief really has no desire to win. When he bowls, half the time his goal is to see how far he can throw the ball into the other people's lane. He entire purpose of playing the Wii, whether it be sports or Mario, seems to be to test the limits of the game. He has 267 pins in front of him when bowling. What does he do? He throws the ball down the side of the alley, and takes down one pin. Do you know how hard it is to only take down ONE pin, when faced with over 200? And, regardless of what the game told him, he was very proud of this accomplishment.

When he plays golf, it's all about sand and water. If he can bounce the golf ball off a tree at a very high speed, his day has been made.

MarioKart--"Look, watch what happens when I drive over here, Mommy!" "Look, I'm driving in a store!"

When we all play Super Mario Bros. together, the game is more about smashing and breaking bricks. "Mommy, watch what happens when we smash the floor at the same time!" He thinks dying in a particular way is hilarious. He will purposely set things up so that watching him play becomes like a comedy routine. In the mornings, when he comes down and plays a little before breakfast, the house is filled with shrieks of laughter.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, the other day, at the bookstore, he took a kaleidoscope out of the toy bin, and looked through it. He was a bit unimpressed. Then he was thinking... He picked up a little toy from another bin, and then looked through the kaleidoscope at it. This was very serious stuff, by the way. Then he picked up another little toy, and looked at that. He looked at the first one again. He picked up a third and looked at that. He was comparing the patterns different toys made.

He found a horse chestnut in the yard the other day, and stomped on it and hit it between two rocked until the picky skin broke off, and revealed the nut inside. He looked at it a bit. Then he found a hickory nut. Hmm..., you could see him think. Stomp stomp. Wow, this one has a nut inside too! It's a little different. He finds a hard acorn. Stomp stomp. His forehead wrinkles. The outside of this one is hard. He works at it a bit more, and cracks it open, to find that the inside of this is soft. Huh.

The Chief loves to listen to music, but you don't realize how much he really listens to it until one day he tells you that this song sounds just like ____ in one part, just like ___ in another. He finds this to be hilarious. And he can make the most interesting sounds with a water bottle, combining percussion and woodwind and voice... There is a pattern, a rhythm to everything, as far as he is concerned. He just has to find it. And he is determined to!

And of course, with all of this testing and experimentation, comes testing and experimentation with rules and conformity. WHY does he have to do that? It makes no sense to him. And he will make a decent argument about it. Discipline at times can be a challenge if I am not clever and quick on my feet. He could argue his way out of a bear trap. I could get very frustrated, I could yell, I could get angry and resist and I could even, in time, crush his will and STOP that testing.

But would I really want him to be any other way? Testing is testing. It can be positive and negative, but both are testing, and in the end, as long as there are set boundaries, and firm grounds, testing rules is exactly the same as testing the limits on a game. He will learn that he can only go so far. It may take a lot of experimentation on his part (and lots of patience on mine!), but like any other test, it is a learning experience. As long as the rules don't change, he will learn the boundaries and eventually not need to test anymore.

Parenting the Chief on a good day is a challenge (as it is with any child, on the "spectrum" or off). But I know that these tests will make him a stronger person when he is grown, and some day, after much trial and error, he will learn that by doing things a certain way, only the sky will be the limit. And it is making me a stronger, more patient and compassionate person as well!

Monsoons and such...

For the first few weeks of school we will be learning about India, with the help of several books and a DVD series. Our focus is around two picture books, Monsoon by Uma Krishnaswami and Chachaji's Cup, by the same author. They are both listed in the Global Village School's 3rd grade curriculum guide. This is a snapshot of our bookshelf for the next couple weeks:



Here is Koopa Troopa showing off one of his favorites:



I plan our week using what I have learned from Five in a Row, but basically make it our own. The Chief likes to read the core book several times, and so for five days we read it (if he did not want to read it every day, I probably wouldn't push it, but I would be sure to read it at least once at the beginning of the week, and then again toward the end). Then we take some aspect of the story and pursue knowledge of that subject a bit further. Monsoon was a great book for this. We learned about India and its culture, Hinduism, monsoons and weather patterns, the water cycle, making paper boats... We did this all last week, and will continue this week with learning about the Hindi alphabet, the clothing people wear in India, some of the myths and legends of India, and we will eat at an Indian restaurant. This coming week will overlap with next week, when we will be focusing on Chachaji's Cup. I will do a separate post on what we do with that book later on.

I supplement with several outside sources, mostly from the library. Bobbie Kalman's books are wonderful ways of learning about other cultures. We have also been enjoying the PBS series, "The Story of India." I print a lot of images from the internet, things like what a flood looks like, what monsoon clouds look like, what a drought is like. I find pictures with children doing things in them, so it's easier for the Chief to relate to them. All these pictures I make sure are specific to India, with Indian people in them.

The Chief records what he has learned about in what he calls his "Adventure Book." It's like a scrapbook; black hard covers with a spiral binding. We had tried lapbooking last year, but it was hard to store the lapbooks conveniently in a place where the Chief could refer back to them. I find that since having an "Adventure Book" was his own idea, the Chief is more excited about reading over his work again, and often takes the book down and looks at it on his own. The bonus to this versus the lapbooks is that he has to go through all his work to find the thing he was looking for. This way he can get "distracted" and happen upon bits of information that may not have been his favorite. With the lapbooks, he would just want to look at the same one over and over, whichever was his favorite.

I will say this again--I am so glad to have gotten the Global Village School curriculum guide. The Chief actually is looking forward to doing school with this. The other day he actually said, "I think it's time to do some school now."

A Poem...

In light of the many un-American acts and speeches of intolerance I have witnessed in the past weeks, most notably that of Mr. Terry Jones of Gainesville, FL, I would like to share a lovely poem with you, from Rukhsana Khan's book Muslim Child: Understanding Islam through Stories and Poems. This is a wonderful book for introducing Islam to children and other people who are curious about it.

Muslim Child, by Rukhsana Khan

Muslim Child
child of Peace,
child of War,
from a far-off distant shore,
what do your black eyes see?

My eyes are not only black.
Sometimes they are blue as the sky
or green as the tropical sea
or brown as the trunk of a palm tree
and every shade in between.

My skin can be black as molasses
or as pink as the blush on a rose,
as golden as freshly made honey
or dark copper brown as a penny
and every shade in between.

I am the richest of the rich
and the poorest of the poor;
as famous as famous can be;
a general's child, pampered and bored;
a soldier's child, orphaned by war;
and every rank in between.

I come from many countries,
speaking many languages,
but with one set of beliefs.
I believe in Noah and Jesus and Abraham,
Muhammed and Moses and in GOd who sent them
and in every messenger in between.
(God bless them.)

So then,
Muslim Child,
child of Peace,
What do your bright eyes see?

I see that we're each a piece in
the puzzle of humanity.
I'll try to understand you
if you try to understand me.

Terry Jones claims that he believes Jesus Christ would tell him to burn Korans. Has Terry Jones read the Bible lately? He is inciting people to violence, which is no different from him committing the violence himself.

It is my fervent, fervent prayer, wish hope, dream, desire, that this extremist will somehow see how unChristian and how unAmerican his behavior is, and does not carry out his Nazi-like book burning. I pray for those that will be touched by the violence of this entire ordeal, should it take place. Yes, there is freedom of speech, and Jones is covered by the 1st amendment. But the 1st amendment also grants people the freedom to practice the religion they choose.

Nutshell

This year, we are using the 3rd Grade Whole child, Healthy Planet Curriculum Guide from Global Village School as our springboard for homeschool. You can see what they are about by going to their website via the links. The curriculum is centered around the Earth Charter.

Global Village School can basically be as structured or as relaxed as you want it to be. There are many levels. You can buy the curriculum guide and use it as a reading list and starting point for your own style of homeschool, you can sign up for their "school" and have a teacher do all the organizing for you and do grades and all that, and you can pretty much do anything in between.

Basically, what I do is take the curriculum guide, which is exactly that, a 94 page "guide" giving you suggestions (most are very relaxed anyway!). They suggest ways to use the books, ways to expand your child's learning, they discuss GVS's learning philosophy. The entire guide takes the tone of "suggestions." Then I purchase or plan my library lists for the books. There are "core" books, which are the necessary ones, then there are recommended ones and optional ones, which you can use your discretion about using, depending on the type of home school you have (spelling and grammar, for example, not everyone teaches formally at these younger grades). After getting the books, or looking at them in the library, I decide how long to spend on each, how I want to use it, in what context, etc. I personally like to do the immersion project type things with my son, that's how he learns best. I plan about a week or two in advance, enough time to gather my materials but not too much time so I have to worry about glitches in schedules and falling behind. In the younger grades for GVS, there are no schedules in the curriculum guides, they leave it pretty relaxed so you can do what is best for your child, since their philosophy is 100% about getting your child to love learning. The guides also have suggestions for art and music, pretty much all the bases are covered I think. They even mention PE, one of the first guides I have seen to do so!

The curriculum guides seem expensive for what they are, but personally, I think they are worth it, simply because I love all the books they recommend, I love their philosophy, and I really want GVS to be there when my son is going to be older, in high school, when I plan on perhaps actually enrolling him (they offer a diploma program)! I really don't mind supporting them because they are one of the very few places I have found that shares my philosophy about homeschooling, and are tolerant of and encourage diversity and celebrating life and differences, truly helping others no matter who they are, etc.

I will be posting more in the future, as specific projects take shape. Our first project for the year is going to be about India. I have taken two of the books on GVS's reading list, and have collected resources around them from the internet and from the library. More on those later!

Melanie

Could We Start Again Please?

I'll let those Andrew Lloyd Webber fans out there try to get that song out of their heads for a moment before I begin... Well, it's just not gonna happen. So, anyway...

Sometimes people can have the best of intentions. Sometimes they actually DO the thing they intended. And sometimes, it just doesn't work out. Sometimes, you can have accomplished a great deal, a HUGE deal, but still not have achieved the end goal, and without that goal, all you have done and worked for is for nothing. In fact, it was the opposite, it was not nothing, it was everything, only in the wrong direction. Well, that's what's been going on here. Those of you who know me know what I am talking about. For those of you who do not, well, I'm not going to get into it right now, but perhaps you've been through something like this. The only thing to do is damage control, and then you have to get up, dust yourself off, and continue on. Look at what happened, and what SHOULD have happened, sure, to make sure that history does not repeat itself. But in the end, all you can do is move on ahead the best you can.

Soooo......

The Chief is starting a new school year in September with the new 2nd edition of the Whole Child, Healthy Planet Curriculum Guide from Global Village School. I love it. I'm using it within the framework laid out in A Thomas Jefferson Education, so basically we are being very casual with it, reading books during "Kid School" time and discussing them. We'll be looking at different service projects we can do, things where we can help people and animals and our neighborhood. We'll be learning about different cultures around the world, and learning about our place in the world and how we fit into the big picture.

We had been using Five in a Row, and it was good and enjoyable, but I think we are ready to work on another level now, and the book in the WCHP guide resonate with me in a way that the FIAR books didn't. Yes, the FIAR books are wonderful, and we are going to continue doing those units here and there, matching them up where the topics are applicable. But what we are going to do is take the methods we learned from FIAR and apply them to the WCHP books. These books I feel will go a bit farther as far as the "Inspire, Not Require" because the topics actually mean something to me, rather than just being nice stories. It will be easier to inspire with these than it would be for books that might be nice stories but I feel are "young" or trivial.

The Chief will be going into Math U See Gamma, where he'll be learning all about multiplication. We've really been enjoying Math U See over the past several years, and I am glad to see it is Global Village School's top choice for math!

I've been kind of torn about the Workboxes lately. On one hand, they really help Elijah with his independent work, keeping him organized and on track, etc. On the other hand they are not very TJ Ed-ish... With the new program we are doing, I am thinking of kind of using them to hold things, but not as a schedule. I'll have to play around with ideas and see what works.

Things I've Learned From My Son

Some people might think that homeschoolers teach their kids at home, and that's why we keep them here. Well, that's not entirely true. Sure, I might teach my son how to do math, or how to find out more info about his favorite planet, or we might read stories together. But truly, the learning goes both ways. Take this, for example:

My son has discovered video games. The only thing we have is the original Play Station game, and a few disks, including his favorite, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage. The other day, I sat on the couch and was watching him play. Every two seconds, I was cringing and saying, "Be careful! No, don't do that, you're going to die!" And, "You'd better get more butterflies so you can earn more lives..." There was this big monster, and he was shooting fireballs, and the little dragon couldn't move fast enough... and... and... and... DOH sure enough, Spyro bit it. Not only that, but it was his last life, and the screen was filled with the message "GAME OVER."

Then I looked at my son. He LAUGHED! And then he just pushed a button and started the game all over again, and continued on as happily as ever. All I could think of were all those times I had played that same game, and all the times I died and became so frustrated and stressed out. And yes, I knew how silly it was to get so frustrated over a game, something that didn't really exist, but there it was. I admired my son for his good attitude, and for keeping the good spirit of the game.

Fast forward to the other morning. I've been working on a present for my mom, a homemade something. And I was pulling my hair out and cursing at my sewing machine, and announced that the thing was just physically impossible. I threw in the towel, tossed the thing on the ironing board and sat down to watch Little House on the Prairie. On which, might I add, I saw the very item I was attempting to make and said to myself, "Look at that, Ma could make it, and she didn't even have a sewing machine!!"

Then I remembered... The Chief, who is SEVEN, who has the attention span of an ant, who should be the one to get frustrated by things, just accepted the fact that he had to start over again at his game. It was just the nature of the beast. He wasn't good at it, he didn't get it right, so he just kept on trying until he DID get it right. He was so Zen about the whole thing. I suddenly felt kind of foolish. This was the last gift I had to make, and I still had several days to do it. I had nothing really better to do (I got a head start this year on Christmas, yay!). Why was I getting so frustrated? Furthermore, what sort of example was I setting for the Chief? That you just quit when something gets too hard? No way. So I picked that thing up, and just picked it apart and started over. I tried things a few different ways, and gosh darn it, I did it! It's not perfect, by all means, but it was the first thing of that sort I had ever tried to sew, and I did better than other people might have. I did a lot better than if I had just decided to quit!

So thanks, Chief, for that lesson.