ThadenPierce School

As Christopher gets older I can see he needs to have more responsibility for his education passed to himself. I think by the time he’s 8 he’ll be ready to plan his week (in a binder we’re setting up) and let us know what his educational goals will be. He can keep track of things day by day and let us know when he needs help. We’ll be supervising still, of course, on a daily basis. But we’ll also be having a weekly “meeting” with him to go over his goals and see what time he needs and help from us in meeting his goals.

For example, today I asked him what he wants to work on over the next week. He chose:
- exercise by play
- learn to be nicer to plants & animals (science & nature study)
- learn how to be kind to siblings and help Mom & Dad more.
- work on 2x multiplication; addition & subtraction.
- date, time, temperature, money reviews.
- diagram sentences.
- history reading (he can read it alone now, but I help with vocabulary.)

I can already see how excited he is to have his own plan, things he initiated with minimal input from me. He didn’t include reading, but I think scripture and bedtime readings are so second nature that he doesn’t think of those as school work at all.

We’ll play around with different formats – binder, calendar, notebook, etc. Let him see what seems to fit him best.

My goals are for them to take initiative, organize, find a system that works well and keeps them accountable, and help them feel an ownership over their own education.

This is the week of spring break which means only that we have no speech therapy and we’re postponing history group. I thought this was a good week to focus on two habits we DESPERATELY need to work on around here – listening and obeying!

I know with so many little ones (and so much noise!) that the kids often don’t hear when I give them instructions like, “It’s time to clean up,” or “Go wash up for dinner.” But then I have to repeat myself (and they learn even more to just tune me out) and it’s a horrid cycle with me ending up angry and ignored and snapping at kids for not listening and obeying when asked.

I hesitate with even the use of the word “obey” because it has some harsh connotations in my mind. But when I say, “Please come to dinner,” then unless they have a really valid excuse (like using the bathroom!) then I want them to come quickly or explain why they aren’t. Too often they end up not hearing me or hearing but not responding or just wandering off ignoring me (that would be the two year old with her own agenda.)

SO, this week we’re doing some habit training. Mom is training herself to only say something if I’m willing to drop what I’m doing and enforce it, to make sure the children truly hear what I’m saying, to give ONE verbal statement (not request, not question, but statement like, “Time to clean up,”) and then getting up to physically redirect if needed.

I’m also working to make sure I give them ample warning and transition time. I can check the time and see I have x minutes left before we need to do something but they don’t understand the concept of time and they cannot check the clock. I have to be their transition help for now and I need to be better about warning them, “It’s time to clean up for dinner in five minutes. That’s when the long hand on the clock points here,” or “You can finish this game and then come.”

I’m also making sure I have their eye contact before I walk away and assume they heard – for now I’m probably going to need to get verbal feedback from them to assure they DID hear me and understand.

As for the kids, I’m reminding them that unless they have my eye contact, they may not have my attention. I’m making sure they understand all directions (since sometimes I say something and presume they get it and they don’t, then I get frustrated.) They are being reminded that if Mom or Dad say something, they are to immediately respond & obey (unless they have a valid explanation for why they cannot.)

Not obeying gets a physical contact (hand on shoulder, take their hand to lead them to the table, physical intervention to get them on the toilet if they refuse to go try when we know they need a potty break.) Not punishment, but intervention. And I have to be patient and kind – “Here, I’ll walk with you to the bathroom. Do you need help?”

I am reminding myself that the more verbal reminders I give, the more I invalidate my own message and the more the kids tune me out. And if I raise my volume, they learn to ignore me until I yell. And if I say it four times before I get angry, they know they can ignore the first three times. I have to teach them that I will say it ONCE and they need to listen. I need them to take me seriously.

This is in large part habit training for me because it’s easy to yell from the couch, “Stop doing that!” but am I willing to jump up and stop it? I have to say what I mean, mean what I say, and always be willing to enforce.

We’ll see how this goes.

Craft Ideas

Thank you, Abby!

All Systems Go about organ systems.
Exploring the Heart
Science Lab

With the last minute addition of Moira’s new speech program, our spring schedule is shifting again…

Mondays: lessons in morning, including art & motor lab/exercise. Moira has speech from 11am to noon and then Kit works in the afternoons.

Tuesdays: lessons & history reading in the morning. Kit works morning and will be home in time for history group at 3pm.

Wednesday: lessons plus motor lab/exercises. Moira has speech from 11am to noon and Kit will work afternoons for March. In April Christopher will start soccer so Kit will have to work super early, meet us at speech and then take C to soccer from 2 to 4pm.

Thursday: lessons & piano lesson for C in the morning. Kit works mornings and is home in time for Book Adventures at the library at 4pm. Music time in evening.

Friday: lessons in the morning, Kit works super early & meets us at horseback riding at 12:30pm for Moira & Bennett then goes back to work. In April he’ll go straight to soccer at 2pm with Christopher and I’ll take the other kids home from horseback riding.

Saturdays: science experiments and handicrafts, along with home & yard projects.

The teachers’ site has clips and full length shows by topic! How cool is that??

We have successfully grown seedlings of oregano, cilantro, dill, and green onions! Though onions are easy and we’ve got lots of those going in pots. We’ve got basil seedlings sprouted but they seem rather fragile and I suspect we’ll just buy a basil plant one of these days. We started these out in our little pots and I wasn’t too optimistic since the kids were “helping” plant some of the seeds. As they got bigger we divided them into different pots and put a few together into big pots. We have no clue what we’re doing but today our cilantro seedling grew two new leaves! It’s been fun to check on them and the kids help water them every few days.

We also moved a dozen of our iris bulbs. We knew nothing about them but read they need to be thinned every few years, best done in September or so. Ours are going wild and growing outside the planter so we risked digging those up and moving them to a bare spot by our new patio. Keeping our fingers crossed that they’ll survive transport.

AND our ivy is doing great, growing around our new stepping stones and filling in around our fountain.

We learned yesterday (from our neighbor) that we have lilies on the side of our house! We’re going to try moving some of those bulbs this fall to another spot between some of our bushes in another area.

Our neighbor offered us some of his monkey grass to use as a filler in the spot behind our patio and suggested we try planting a dogwood back there. They grow well under other trees (our mulberry) and aren’t too tall and are very pretty. We hope to hit the nursery tomorrow to get some fungicide for our bushes (another neighbor tip) and look for a potted dwarf lemon tree for our sunroom. We also need a tomato, cucumber, and green pepper plant for our garden and probably basil.

This has been really fun to learn about our yard and all these great plants. I’m thankful for our kind neighbors that have taught us a lot (he use to work for park services and also helped Kit trim our enormous tree) and are sharing their plants with us!

I’m on a blanket in the backyard with Joseph. He’s eating grass and not sure he likes how it feels under his knees. The older kids are having a bike parade around the yard, looping around the hammock and over to the tree. I love our yard. Have I mentioned that before? I was checking on my herbs, too, I repotted some yesterday and I’m hoping these little sprouts won’t be discovered by children and destroyed.

I’m considering Christopher’s grammar lessons from 3x a week to 2x a week. Today he learned about predicate nominatives. (Anyone want to guess what those are?? I had no clue.) His lessons moved from a couple pages to four or five pages, which makes sense – it’s third grade level and he’s a good way into the book. But he’s only first grade and I think it’s a LOT of material to present to a seven year old all at once. I’ll probably plan to do two lessons a week and spread them out more so we can reinforce some of the concepts over the course of the week. In between days we’re doing composition, spelling, etc. Today he started writing and illustrating his first book (it’s so cute!) and he seems to remember rules well when learned in context – like he was including dialogue in his book and got all the commas & quotation mark placement correct!

Joseph has already crawled about 15 feet away from me! He’s under the hammock.

Moira’s math lessons are getting more complex, too. Today C helped Moira figure out using dimes and pennies to make “purchases” from a little store we set up and he was the proprietor. It was adorable, and he helped her figure out the tens & ones and how it all sorted out. I love seeing them teach each other.

So lessons are now taking us longer, between the two kids I would say we’re at about 1.5 hours for language & mathematics now. We’re not coasting through as quickly in all areas – though C’s book is still doing a lot of review for math so we jumped ahead another 3 lessons today after I confirmed he knows the material. I love the flexibility (have I mentioned that before??) of moving at our own pace.