The Learning Umbrella

I did some fun embroidery projects as Christmas gifts this year. The patterns were all from Sublime Stitching, and they have several cool sets. Things like pirates, monkeys, tattoo art, or retro.

The perfect way to incorporate lots of reading into Carbon's life is to use it for winding down time right before bed. Then we leave him alone with a stack of books, and we'll hear him in there repeating the stories to his stuffed animals and talking about the stories. He loves to hear the same stories over and over again, as well as new books from the library. He's also recently developed an interest in non-fiction books with lots of technical illustrations - books like the My First Encyclopedia of ... series and The Big Book of ... series.

Related Posts:
Literacy Efforts

Currently to be seen on my magnetic poetry board: (authors not always known)

Every Lovable Female is Beautiful



Tiny child
in You I sense My Reflection



Safe Warm Full Belly
Caring for a Life
Trust Mother nurture
Lullaby in the Womb

I'm currently reading Reclaiming Childhood: Letting Children Be Children in Our Achievement-Oriented Society by William Crain. The basic premise is that we look too much to the future, and fail to acknowledge just how important and wonderful childhood is for its own sake. He discusses the child as a dramatist, naturalist, artist, and poet, and encourages parents to follow their children's lead and just let them be children rather than trying to improve and accelerate them. I like the book quite a bit, and it reminds me of the spirit of things like Winnie the Pooh or Puff the Magic Dragon. I'm reminded that they will grow up all too fast in the end, and now is the time to enjoy their childhoods. The world is a wonderful and magical place to a small child like my son, and I should watch that and celebrate it.

Now that the main push of Christmas is over, I feel a bit lost and down. It's hard to make that transition - and usually my house is full of wrapping paper and packaging and lots of new stuff that doesn't have homes yet. It all feels very messy and uncomfortable to me. So, I'm trying to sort and clean and tidy, and look ahead to the new year and what I need/want to accomplish for it. I have a huge event coming up - the birth of my baby. So there are plenty of projects I could be doing to get ready. But I still feel sad that Christmas is over.
One project I'm starting is a set of little scrap books for Carbon. I'm just using spiral bound sketch books, one for each exploration or topic we're studying together. For instance, right now we're doing Birds and Stories. The bird journal has a list of resources for the first couple pages, then books read for a couple of pages, then we'll be putting in observations we make and notes about what sort of birds we can identify. Eventually he can start drawing pictures of the birds. In his story journal, I'm writing down the stories he tells me, with dates. Eventually, he can illustrate them and then start writing them out himself. These journal/scrapbooks may take years to fill, but in the end I envision having something cool for him to look back on and having a record of what we were doing for schooling. For me, this is more fun than just keeping a log or stuffing a few things in a file cabinet.

One of my big worries was not getting Carbon's stocking finished before Christmas. Whew - I just finished it! I'll be able to spend the rest of the evening working on some finishing work for a couple gifts, then tomorrow baking cakes and cookies.
These felt kits are cool - but way more time consuming than I expected! All those little sequins to sew on, etc. I've got three more to make - and my husband wants his pattern altered to have a Santa wearing a pirate outfit. I'll be working on Christmas stockings all year until next Christmas!

We've hung a suet basket in the tree outside our house, to replace the feeder Carbon made that was destroyed by a squirrel. It's interesting how different feeders attract totally different birds. No more sightings of the jay - today we had about 15 little brown birds in the yard. It was great for Carbon, because there was plenty to watch and as soon as he settled down quietly at the window, they ignored him. He looked at them through his binoculars, and was generally very intrigued. I was asked to say "what birds they is?", and so I turned to the bird guide. There were house sparrows, of course. And I was chagrined to learn that a small bird I'd been calling a sparrow for years was actually the black capped chickadee - a clear case of learning along with your children! There was something else, that was really small. I thought it might be a wren, but the books say the wrens tail stands up, and this had a tail that pointed down. More research and hopefully further sightings, are called for. Carbon still is interested in the birds, and he loves for me to read him picture books about birds. We'll have to put up some more feeders, and maybe build a birdhouse too.

Previous Posts on this topic:
Early Gift
In Our Backyard
Birding Fever
The Jay

Ok, I can get this all done. I just need to do a few things, really. I've tried so hard this year to simplify my holidays, after I read Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. I was especially trying to avoid the role of "Christmas Magician" that the authors point out a lot of women take on. I don't need to go crazy trying to make the "perfect" and "magical" holiday for my family. So far we're having a good holiday - lights up on the house, a tree, an advent calendar going (and I haven't missed a day on it), lots of holiday music, we went on a lights walk in town, etc.
A few things are left to do, and I'm a tad stressed about the list. Here it is:
1. little gifts for my husband's coworkers, dropped off with him at lunch today.
2. something for the mailman, put in the box tomorrow.
3. Finish making a homemade gift for my father, needs to be done by Christmas.
4. Finish making the felt stocking for Carbon that I'm almost done with
5. Finish sewing a tree skirt before everything gets put away for the season.
6. Make more wheat free cookies to give as a gift to my dad
7. Make two wheat free cakes to take to Christmas dinner
8. Finish some embroidered gifts for my in-laws - needs to be done by 12th Night.

Ok, it's actually not that bad! I'll just get cracking on it.

I know I've been getting visitors here to my blog - don't be shy! Leave a comment, I'd like to hear from you.

Today could be a depressing day. It's dark, cold, short - just not very much fun! So people around the world, and especially up far north, have ways of marking this season and this day with lights, warmth, and merriment. Traditionally in my family we had a time on this evening when we raced around and briefly turned on every light we owned and lit all the candles in the house. A giant burning ball of illumination was the goal! As a kid I loved that. Now I usually just light one candle and think happy light thoughts. Of course, as an adult I'm responsible for paying the electricity bill!
The phenomenon of seasons and different lengths of day is really quite interesting. The reason for the seasons is one of the most commonly misunderstood scientific concepts. Most people surveyed will tell you it's because of the earth's orbit around the sun being like an egg or an oval, and that we are farther away from the sun in winter. Not the case! It's the earth's tilt.

Some good websites for kids to learn about the winter solstice:
National Geographic
Enchanted Learning
The Weather Dude

I probably shouldn't dip my toes into this issue, because it is a very delicate and controversial issue right now. Intelligent design proponents are certainly not happy with the judge who ruled today against the reading of a statement in biology classrooms - and maybe they are right that their views should be heard in school. I personally think kids should be given as much information as possible about as many viewpoints as possible, although some viewpoints should be presented as philosophical or religious rather than scientific. That said, I'm glad the judge ruled against a requirement for teachers to read a specific statement. I'm uncomfortable with that kind of requirement, because I think it could lead to all sorts of "special interest" groups lobbying for statements to be read in classrooms. It also could lead to government required statements even being applied to homeschoolers or private schools, creating a huge door for propoganda.

For those interested in multiple views about intelligent design, check out religioustolerance.org, which has a page about the issue.

I volunteered to take part in my church's Giving Tree this year. There were (are?) three volunteers, but I'm the only volunteer who doesn't "work". I don't mind doing more than others, because my schedule is more flexible. Keeping score on these kinds of things seems silly to me. But it did get a little irritating this weekend, as the final push for this project hit me all of a sudden. A fellow volunteer kept quizzing me to see if I "had enough help" and suggesting general calls for more help - but never offering more help herself! And of course some people had not turned in their gift donations, so there was last minute scurrying to be done to get toys and food certificates and what not purchased, wrapped, and sorted. I felt like a very silly big pregnant woman, making many many trips from the church out to my car with everything. And then I got to feel like Santa, driving along with a station wagon stuffed with goodies.
Carbon handled having an influx of presents that were not for him, in what I thought was a very mature manner. There were a few items peeking out of gift bags that he was excited about, and he spent some time "checking on" a stuffed panda bear that was going to a little boy. But he didn't try to open anything or make a fuss about "wanting" it. It was almost sweet enough to make me go out and buy him a new stuffed animal - until I go into his room and remind myself of how many he already has!

Monday before Christmas - whatever madness we are all engaged in (don't go to the post office - the line for a parking place looked awful!), I hope it goes well and brings joy.

I finished reading Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph yesterday. For the most part, it was pretty obvious stuff, but well written. Fathers should be involved - yep. Boys need help developing healthy views toward sexuality - just spend some time with adolescent boys and you'll notice that! Sports can be good or bad, depending on the adults running them - yep. Mothers help their sons have healthy self-esteem - or too much of it! One really interesting thing was the chapter on schooling. The author cited a school in England that decided to divide up their English and Drama classes by gender, and the scores for the boys came up dramatically! I find that intriguing, because when I was writing my Master's paper on gender equity in math and science, I found studies that showed girls do better in gender segregated math and science classrooms. Can it be that we should abandon coed schooling? There are pitfalls - it becomes easier to fall back on gender stereotypes and teach completely different curricula. There is less opportunity for the sexes to mingle and learn to work together (although that feels a bit to me like the arguments about socialization and homeschooling - adults learn to work with people they never encountered in childhood all the time). It's a tricky subject. Of course, homeschoolers and progressive schools with more one-on-one instruction don't have to worry as much about this. One-on-one is already tailored to each child's needs, regardless of their gender!

We are spreading the gifts out this year, so as not to overwhelm the little guy. This way he can enjoy them a lot more than he could if he openned them all in one big crazy whirlwind. We just exchanged presents with my mother and siblings, and Carbon got some cool stuff for his birdwatching. He got some binoculars that are supposed to be "wide angle, no need to focus", made by National Geographic. They aren't great binoculars, but they are pretty easy to use and he can see through them. He also got a kit to build a wooden birdfeeder and a pre-made bird feeder. Those are great, because yesterday the squirrels finally discovered our little bird feeder. He watched from the house, fascinated by their acrobatics, but he was not happy when they finally broke the whole thing and sent it falling to the ground. I've had to promise him that this coming weekend we'll get another feeder up in the tree.
I found a good birding book for little kids, too. It's called What's That Bird by Joseph Choinierre, and it only covers the most common birds. Because it's simplified, Carbon can find birds in it, and the information it gives about each bird is fine for him. I'm thinking I'll scan the pictures of the birds into the computer and we can start a little birding journal, and paste the pictures in when we see the bird somewhere.

I got this article through the UU Homeschooler email list. Thanks to "uuterri" for the heads up! I really like Wikipedia, and I like not having to pay for it. I've never spotted any inaccuracies, and the articles do present different viewpoints rather than take partisan stances. Check it out.

I currently have a son, and I'm expecting a baby girl (in about 4 weeks now!). I love the idea of rasing my children completely equally, and of treating them just the same. But I'm also aware that this rarely comes true, even for parents who are trying very hard. It's also up for debate whether you should treat them just the same. There are differences, and it's so very hard to pin those differences on "nurture" or "nature". I've read recently that mothers talk and read to their sons less than their daughters, starting at a very young age. Could this explain why so many boys read later than girls, and have poorer language skills? Or is it that brain research shows there are fewer connections in the corpus collusum of boys (the part that connects the left side to the right side of the brain). Or are there fewer connections because there was less stimulation to make those connections? It's almost a chicken and the egg kind of thing.
I've settled for the idea that I want to do my very best for each of my children, recognizing their unique needs and keeping gender issues in mind as part of those unique needs. For my son, I've started making more of his clothes. After he graduated out of "baby" and "toddler" sizes, we found the clothing options in the store really boring. Why can't boys express themselves a bit more through their clothing? So I take him to the fabric store and let him pick out fabric, then I make it into little flannel shirts and what not. But the other day he requested this pink fleece for a hoodie sweatshirt, and I found myself telling him NO! I just pictured how much teasing and questioning we would both get when we were out and about, and I caved to that. Should I let him wear pink if he wants to? It's so hard!
I read in the magazine Living Without that boys are more likely than girls to be referred for medical intervention if they are short. That's funny, because that's exactly how we realized Carbon had celiac disease - he fell off his growth curve after he started eating solid food. I think I would have done exactly the same thing for a girl, but I know families who are having growth problems with their little girls and they just say "well, she'll be petite". That's great, if we're not ignoring a disease that will cause her to have bowel cancer later!
Gender issues are never easy to sort out. We have trouble even in households that want to promote gender equality. And it's not just for our daughters - our sons have special gender issues too. I'm reading Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph, and I'd recommend it to anyone raising sons. I'm still thinking about some of the issues that book has raised in my mind - probably more on that later.

I'm cleaning up some of Carbon's art projects today, to make room for new ones. The leaf poster was created using leaves we gathered on nature walks, then pressed. As a whole family we drew the tree trunk and glued the leaves on the poster board, then painted over them. It had to come down off the mantle to make room for Christmas decorations. The fish are all construction paper cut-outs, some cut by me and some by me step-mother-in-law when she was here visiting. Carbon and the adults painted on the fish after they were cut out, then they were hung from the ceiling above his bed, along with blue streamer paper. It was a long term project, spanning several months and having fish added a few at a time. The final result was an "under-the-sea" effect over his bed. We'll miss these projects, but we can't keep everything! We've made a solar system model out of styrofoam balls, and it's time to hang that from the ceiling now.

In the elementary school years, the classical method assumes the child cannot/should not engage in analysis or logic work - no "higher order thinking skills" are required. I disagree with this, and this colors my entire perception of the classical curriculum. In general, I think even young children need to be encouraged to interact with what they are learning, not just regurgitate a "narration" of what they read. Creativity should be encouraged, and interwoven into a variety of "tell backs" or ways to check on what your child has learned. My other general critique is that the emphasis on written language as the only way to learn is a disservice to all the children out there who have different learning styles or learning disabilities. They have a chapter in The Well-Trained Mind that states that computer software and videos should not be used as part of schoolwork, because they are passive methods of learning and make the mind lazy. I learned with many wonderful software programs as a child, and for my brothers they are invaluable as tools to overcome their learning disabilities. It's short-sighted to categorically denigrate these mediums.

In language arts, I disagree strongly with the phonics first approach, and with requiring students to do reading "work". The argument that the authors put forth is that following the child's interest would be like letting them pick all of their own food - a road to nutritional disaster! The simile is false, because most nutritional experts now recommend that you do not force a child to eat anything, else they will always hate it. Instead you put it in front of them and then model enjoyment of it. The same should be done with books and reading. In writing, the authors recommend having the student copy good writing more than work on their own original writing. Some copying is fine, I suppose, but creative narratives should also be created and writing for real life purposes should be employed. For instance, I would rather see a child write a letter to the author of the book they just read than write a narrative summary of what the books was about. And the discussions you have with your children about what they've read should include opinions and original ideas, not just "what happened when ..." fact recollection.

In mathematics, I actually agree with what the authors advise. They call for using manipulatives to introduce each new concept, then memorizing math facts after the child has something concrete to relate the symbols to. They also advise against calculator use, which I also agree with. In my own tutoring experience, memorizing the math facts makes an amazing difference with struggling math students. And my mother (A Kumon math instructor) finds that frequently that is what is missing when students come to her failing their math classes. Math should also be practiced daily, and follow a structured pattern. That's all fine with me. During our unschooling years, the only subject I "had" to do daily was math, and I'm very thankful now for that structure.

Ok, so history is next. I agree with the authors that history is a story, and should be told like a story. I worry that the resources they've listed are too Eurocentric and leave out too much of "herstory", but their list isn't as bad as some I've seen. What I really disagree with is their method of interacting with the story. They once again call for "narrations" or simple fact based tell-backs, then an illustration or coloring page, then further reading/investigating. That's ok sometimes, and at least they have the illustration in there, but history can be explored in so many dynamic ways - re-enactments, plays, creative writing (what would Washington say to the current President?, etc.), murals, etc. Why limit yourself to dry fact recitals?

Science is treated as a secondary subject in the Classical method. Of course I disagree with that! I think science is more than knowing a body of knowledge about the way the world works - it's really a way of thinking that needs to be developed and can be used in all areas of life. It's much more important to be learning observation, measurement, recording, researching, analysis, prediction, and reporting skills than to be memorizing the constellations. Ideally, science lessons should follow the child's interests and teach them to be active investigators of their worlds. The classical method goes through biology, earth/space, chemistry, then physics, in order to correspond more closely with the order of history. That's ok, since it does move from most concrete to most abstract. But in reality, "subjects" are artificial because there is so much overlap between the sciences.

Language - they require Latin. I studied latin, exactly like this method recommends (I even used the curriculum they recommend). I can't say it's done anything for me, and I didn't even find it helpful when I took college Spanish. I know it's hard for a homeschooling family to provide foreign language instruction, and a "dead" language that you don't actually have to speak seems easier than one that requires conversation. Ideally, you should find a native-speaker language tutor for your children in their elementary years. If you can't find one, or can't afford one, study just the grammar of a language. Really, any language would do. The argument that studying language disciplines the mind is fine - but the language could be Klingon or Elvish in that case! (My brother actually did study Klingon for awhile, and anecdotally that did him as much good as my Latin did me).

Finally, they throw "an hour or so a week" of the arts in to the mix. Once again, I point out that not all children learn best through language. And I'd also point to all the research about how much good music study does - it's just another foreign language, really. I grew up immersed in the arts (my mom plays cello and piano, my dad plays the violin and sings and acts, I studied Ballet seriously and then Opera), and I would hate to see them pushed aside. By making the tell-backs more creative in the other subjects, you can bring more of the arts into the curriculum without having to spend that much additional time on them. By playing music while you do your math drills, you can expose your child to lots of great music. And drawing is a basic skill everyone should study. In my own family, studying drawing helped my brother immensely with his difficulty with grapho-motor issues.

These are my thoughts on their elementary curriculum. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, and I'm not opposed to structured or orderly homeschooling. Structure is something that works for some families and children and not for others. I know that for me personally, I'll have a fair amount of structure in my homeschooling. I like schedules and "To Do" lists. That's not why I have problems with this curriculum. If you like this curriculum, go ahead and use it. But think about what I've said - can you be more creative and still accomplish these academics? And is it working for your child? Do you have a visual or kinesthetic learner on your hands? Do you have learning disabilities to accomodate?

I've noticed that a lot of people online are talking about the Classical Method. My mother used a similar method when she was homeschooling, but it didn't work out very well. I was curious if the new version was any better, so I started reading the most often quoted book, The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. Yep, this is the same method my mom tried with us. I can see the appeal of the method, because it is very systematic and lays everything out for the parent. It also has measurable goals and promises results that everyone can see (as opposed to something nebulous like a "happy, well-adjusted person"). Personally, I know that the method can work very well for academically minded kids who learn well through language. I was that kid. Of course, for those kids, just about anything you do will result in sucessful academics. The method did not work well for my brother, who is a visual/hands-on learner and has some mild to moderate learning disabilities.
My other critiques of the method are specific issues I have with their schema for child-development. They describe children as "sponges soaking up knowledge" and say that "there is nothing wrong with a child accumulating information that he doesn't yet understand. It all goes in the storehouse for use later on" (page 24). This idea of just filling little kids with bits of information and then organizing it later is completely counter to what research is showing about the way kids really learn. Kids are constantly building models in their heads to explain the information they have, and frequently they build incorrect models or explanations that can actually end up being held onto as misconceptions into adult life if they are not brought out and discussed. To treat the elementary school years as simply a time to memorize facts that will be useful later is to invite confusion as the child tries to make up their own sense out of these bits and pieces.

One of the great advantages of being a second generation homeschooler is that I get hand-me-down educational materials. My youngest sister is twelve, so there is plenty of stuff that she's too old for that Carbon can use. This weekend we drove up to see my mom, and we came home with a microscope and slides, a storage box full of children's picture books, and two file sorters full of "animal fact" cards. I want the telescope, but they aren't quite done with that yet!
The kindergym class that I'm taking Carbon to is almost done for the year. There is a two week Winter Break, and we're not going to sign up for January or February. I'll be busy having another baby sometime in there! I'm really happy that I took Carbon to this class, even though it looked for awhile like he just didn't want to be there. He still seems to be a "non-participant" a lot of the time, preferring to go play by himself instead of do songs during "circle time". However, he sings all those songs at home now, so he's been soaking them up even if he didn't want to sing them with the group. The social lessons of sharing toys, what to do when someone treats you badly, and following simple directions, are all good lessons. In moderation of course, and that's exactly what three hours a week gives him. He's playing with other children much more now, and he seems to finally understand the concept of taking turns.
I also have been baking cookies with him. We made a batch of candy cane cookies that was so much fun to work on together, because the dough is shaped a bit like playdo, and then baked. You can make all sorts of fun shapes this way, like candy canes, wreaths, or even turtles (that was what Carbon made).

Candy Cane Cookies
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp flavor extract of your choice
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
2 cups flour
(For those with wheat allergies, these cookies worked fine with 1 cup rice flour, 1 cup tapioca flour, and 1 tsp Xanthan gum)

1. Beat the shortening, butter, sugar, flavor, and salt until fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir in flour, 1/2 cup at a time.
2. Divide the dough in half, and add food coloring to one half while leaving the other white.
3. Refrigerate at least one hour, or up to one week.
4. Form into interesting shapes, and bake at 325 degrees F. Baking time will vary depending on what shapes you made and how big the cookies are. Try to keep a tray all similar sizes so that the little ones don't burn waiting for the big ones to be done.

The weather out here in the Great Northwest can be a little odd at times. Last week I was exploring snow with Carbon, today I was out in the sun planting the last of my bulbs in the ground. I know it's late - what can I say? Better late than never? They'll still come up, just maybe a bit late. We put in more tulips, daffodils, irises, crocuses, and anemones. We also planted something weird - a cyclamen bulb. It looks like a giant mushroom top, and the directions said to plant it "smooth side down" which looked upside down to me. That's going to be interesting, if it survives.
In other yard news, the blue jay continues to come to Carbon's bird feeder. He's a very aggressive fellow, and I think he's keeping all the other birds away. Carbon really enjoys watching him, though. I've put a whole bunch of books about birds and bird watching on hold from the library, so we should be getting those soon.
And this morning my husband, Noel, was discussing his plans for our front yard again. This year he's really become interested in gardening with native plants, and he's been reading all he can find about it. A side effect of that is that he's becoming good at identifying our native plants, and he can p0int things out when we go on family nature walks. Another side effect is that he's going to design some features of the landscaping to attract little animals and birds, which will be great for Carbon to see. This type of gardening seems like a great educational activity! Winter is the right time to transplant stuff, so he's been bringing salvaged plants home and arranging them. Carbon keeps talking about ferns, because that's what we've planted recently.
There's so much to learn and do right outside your door!

Noel and I are trying to prepare Carbon for the upcoming upheaval in his life. He knows we're having a baby, and he goes with me to every midwife appointment, but does he really understand what this is all about? Of course there's no way that he can understand the full impact of having a baby in the house until we actually have the baby. But still, we try to find books and things to prepare him. I remembered reading a book when I was a little kid, called Mom and Dad and I are Having a Baby! by Maryann Malecki, R.N. It's a totally hippie natural birth look at childbirth, with graphic drawings of the baby's head crowning and everything. I was sure it was out of print, but I asked my mom to look around her house and see if she still had it. Then, we were helping my mother-in-law clean out her garage, and we found a copy of the book there! Noel only sort of remembers reading it as a boy, but it's definitely the one I was remembering. Looking it over again, however, I see that it's too complicated and advanced for a child Carbon's age. And it is pretty dated, clearly belonging in the hippie era. A library book that I found that is good for kids around 2-4 years old is Hello Baby! by Lizzy Rockwell. Carbon really likes this one, and it has just enough detail about umbilical cords, development in the womb, and so forth. It also talks about how much the baby will sleep, and how it won't be able to play for a long while after it first comes home. Any other recommendations?
On a totally different topic, I'm reading Guerrilla Learning by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver, and I was really struck by a passage from the book today. Here's the passage:
"Perhaps our pressure on our children to grow, to learn, and to achieve is a reflection of our own way of being, as we hurry ourselves from task to task, from job to home, and through each moment, absorbed in our thoughts and anxieties, reacting rather than responding, acting from fear rather than love. Allowing our children the freedom to develop their own interests, to respond authentically to opportunities, and to grow and learn at their own pace is nothing less than refusing to indulge our fears and anxieties about the future and instead taking a courageous stand on behalf of love. The rhythm of the authentic, soul-based, inner-grounded life is slow and unworried. In it, we step outside of time, outside of the panicked cravings to achieve, to overcome, and to win, and outside of the desire to control ourselves and others. Here there is time for real learning" (p 106).
Isn't that profound? It really resonated with me, and I find myself completely drawn to that description of life. We do worry and hurry far too much, and in reality life doesn't need to be so rushed or so harried. I want that "authentic, soul-based, inner-grounded life". And I want that for my family as well.

I've volunteered to help run the Giving Tree at my church this year. The project is through the Salvation Army, to supply gifts to needy families in our area. My church adopted five families, and I went through the list of wished for items from each family and made little gift tags that people in the congregation could take shopping with them. Yesterday was the first day I had the display at church, and I was overwhelmed trying to help people find the gift they wanted to provide. I hadn't anticipated that people would want to shop for certain types of items, or that they would want a child similar in age to their own so that their kids could pick something out. Of course, it makes sense now. I feel so humbled by the wish lists from these families. When kids are wishing for sheets for Christmas, I realize how lucky my family is. We try to embrace a simpler way of life, but it's by choice, because that's what we believe in.
I wish Carbon was old enough to really help me with this project, but I will continue to find ways to involve us in the community as he gets older. It's so good for kids to see the importance of involvement and community work. I write a theme based homeschool ideas newsletter each month, and December's theme was altruism. In researching ideas for the theme, I found lots of good books about kids and volunteering. One of the best was The Busy Family's Guide to Volunteering by Jenny Friedman. The book is full of ideas, big and little, for family and child activities to make a difference. I would recommend the book to all homeschoolers as part of their curriculum, and to all families who want to "do good, have fun, make a difference as a family!".

Noel didn't want to start Christmas activities until December 1st, but now we get to get going on it. Of course, I've been working on hand made gifts for months, but that doesn't count as really celebrating the season. We've got an advent calendar this year, and we're still down in the low digits, so Carbon can find and recognize the numbers. Each door has a chocolate behind it, so he's very interested in finding the door for the day and openning it. As we get closer to Christmas, he's going to start having trouble with those bigger numbers, but it's actually a cool way to work on his numeracy this month. I'm disappointed to not be the first house on the block to get lights up, but we'll put ours up today. I would have done it earlier, but for some reason people don't want an 8 months pregnant woman on an extension ladder! Other holiday activities include writing lots of cards, baking lots of treats, and listening to and playing holiday songs. It's hard to play the piano with Carbon always joining me, but he's actually developing some skills beyond just pounding, so I'm not discouraging him. Carbon already has his favorite songs: Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. Frosty is a good song for working on his storytelling abilities, and I'm looking for a picture book to go with the song. He makes up his own snowman stories and points out snowmen everywhere he sees them.

Today we had enough snow for Carbon to actually get out and really play in it. It's the first time that he's been old enough to really enjoy snow when we've had it, and he had a blast. We woke up to a winter coat over everything, Noel went into work an hour late, and we went out and made a snowman, threw some snowballs, and then let the boy explore however he wanted to. I'll have to clean the patio door and windows again, because he threw so much snow mixed with sand from his sandbox on it. Oh well, it was fun anyway. We watched the Eyewitness Video: The Artic and Antarctica today, and Carbon was enthralled by images of the poles and all the snow there.
And we had a very large and flamboyant blue jay visit our bird feeder, which was also an exciting happening for the day. After watching the bird for awhile, I helped Carbon find a picture of it in our bird field guide.

Ok, so I have to crop the image after I do a scan. This software that came with the machine is pretty nice, and this is going to make it so much easier for me to illustrate the curriculum units and newsletters I write. This picture is of me playing mini golf, at my birthday party. A family funplex is a great place to host a party for a large family of diverse ages, because everyone has something to do. Carbon had little kiddie rides, my husband and brothers and father had aggressive go cart racing, my mother-in-law enjoyed lazer tag, and my mother enjoyed mini golf. All of my sisters had fun with bumper boats, and two of them tried this insane flip over ride that made my stomach turn just to look at it.

I just got my new scanner up and running. It's kind of pathetic, because my dad gave me this scanner/printer as a graduation present (in June). But our old computer just didn't have the resources to run this machine with all the other stuff already on it. Now I've got a new (to me) computer, too, and my husband just got it all set up for me this weekend on a new workstation in our study. I decided to try scanning some photos from my last birthday party, because they are the most recent photos I've got on hand.

And no, I don't mean avian flu. I mean that all of a sudden everyone seems interested in bird watching. My in-laws just got back from Mexico, and today I visited with Sandra and she told me about their bird watching adventures down there. She thinks she may be hooked, even though it was mostly just Fred interested before. And on the backyard front, Carbon and I made a bird feeder on Tuesday and he hung it up outside today. He spent a lot of time checking on it through the window, and he's really excited by each and every bird he sees. So far it's just crows and sparrows, but he's not bored yet. I really wish I had a digital camera, but I'm going to have to get my film developed and then scan in a picture of him making the feeder. It was cute.

When I decided to go to school to become a teacher, I was mostly motivated by the fact that I just didn't want to leave school. I loved college, I loved learning, and I didn't want to narrow my focus and become "expert" on one little tiny aspect of something. I looked ahead to a life running similar lab tests all day long, or something like that, with dread. Now I realize that I could have done anything after college and been fine, but at the time I thought the best way to be happy was to stay in the abstract world of academics. I pictured my grandfather, a college professor, and that was what I wanted to be - somebody who never stopped learning and being curious and engaged with their interests.
I still want to be that person, but now I realize that being a teacher in the public schools wouldn't actually make that happen. What can make that happen is me, doing anything really, but taking the time to stay engaged and learning and growing. Sometimes a life of academics lets you do that, as it did for my grandfather. But my mother is also like that, and she's lived her life as a mother and childcare provider. My mother loved homeschooling because "she got to learn with the kids". That wasn't what I felt encouraged to do as a student teacher - I was supposed to be an expert. It was hard to say "I don't know, let's find out" if a student asked me a question out of the blue. It was tempting to blow them off so that I wouldn't get "off schedule" or to say "that isn't what we're working on right now".
I don't want to be my childrens' teacher. I want to be more of a librarian, helping them find the resources they need, putting together attractive and thought provoking displays to try and get them interested in a new subject, and being there to answer any questions that I can. I also want to be a role model, a sort of more advanced learner working side by side with them. A love of learning, and of life, is the most important gift you can give a child. In the book Guerrilla Learning by Grace Llewellyn and Amy Silver, they phrase this idea as "continuing your own involvement in the world of ideas and culture, continuing to read, to think, to discuss, and to create - and being a walking, talking invitation to your kids to do the same" (p. 35). These authors rightly point out that you can do this for your children whether or not you are homeschooling them. Involvement with school, even with college, is only one aspect of learning. We can all be learning, all the time, no matter our age or circumstances. The world and life provide plenty of things to learn about.