Making the proverbial lemonade

I misplaced the book. The FIAR book! The book about Mako, the little girl with the red clogs. I've been referencing Mako with some frequency because TJ has been complaining about her purple crocs. "No one else has two straps!" "They are dirty!" "When can I get new ones that fit?"

She might have a point with that last one.

Still, the book has appeared at just the right moment in our lives. All I have to do is say sweetly, "Yes, Mako, maybe I will get you new ones before the next festival day," and TJ stops whining.

And I couldn't find it, just when it was time to read it.

The plan was to read it to them as they ate a Japanese lunch like Mako might have had. It was a stir fry of snow peas and carrots, beef, and udon noodles. TJ discovered a new love for beef, and PJ slurped down the julienned carrots. Instead of enjoying lunch with them, I ran around the house looking through piles of stuff (because that's the way I "organize") not finding A Pair of Red Clogs.

To set a good example and not panic about losing the book, I decided to make the best of it and try something that I've been wanting to do anyway. It's the technique of narration as described by Charlotte Mason; just see how much of the story TJ could recreate, since I COULDN'T FIND THE D**N BOOK. (Is it clear how much I have to censor my internal dialogue, that I practice it in my blog?)

TJ then proceeded to narrate for me, beginning to end, Mako's story of the red clogs with the crack in them. I "scribed," to use the CM terminology, and wrote three and a half pages.
We followed this with the math lesson I had planned for TJ, of circling the multiples of 2 in a Hundreds Chart. Then she wanted to circle the odd numbers on another copy of the chart, and then to put hearts around each individual number.

All's well that ends well. Daddy came home and found the book ... next to the bed.

We will not be ordering the duck.

Because I just can't let go and embrace unschooling all the way, I am adding the tiniest bit of structure to satisfy the teacher inside me. I have been looking at curricula for almost three years now: Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, the Well Trained Mind topped my favorites.

What they all have in common is gentleness and appreciation of literature -- even children's books as literature. Each of them is too didactic for me to embrace completely. I like pieces of them ... but I had hang ups, too. Especially as applied to TJ's learning style, none of them fit the bill.

Plus, when I notified the county that TJ would be educated at home, I explained that she would be completing a series of "unit studies" designed to meet her interests as she did her three R's. Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic, right? I did not use those words exactly. Can you imagine? The stumper for me: in the big, wide world of education, WHICH units to study? Where to start?

It figures that the last curriculum in my search is the one I like the best. (Sure, sure, the thing you're looking for IS always in the last place you look for it, because then you stop looking.) The idea is to read a picture book every day for five days in a row. Each day you do a different activity afterwards, with a loose structure of Social Studies, Language Arts, Art, Math, and Science tie-ins through the week. Ta-da! Each book is a unit!

Bonus: Little PJ can participate too. And for me, I love to read to my girls, not that I needed another excuse.

We are reading The Story About Ping this week. I'm thinking about doing a lap book like this one to go with it. On the other hand, we haven't finished our first lap books yet ... so maybe we'll go out for Chinese on Friday to celebrate the end of this short "unit." We just won't order any duck.

Monkey Bread

I've been on a bread baking kick for a couple of weeks.  The girls love the sandwich bread recipe from America's Test Kitchen Cookbook (my kitchen bible) so much that they eat the crust.  It is cheaper, and more fun, to bake our own, so we've been making lots of bread.

This particular cookbook has lots of pictorial explanation, and the very next recipe after the sandwich bread looked so tempting!  Monkey bread is a variation on the sandwich bread dough that elevates it to dessert heights: seven tablespoons of butter, almost two cups of sugar, lots of cinnamon, and nuts.  (We didn't use nuts because we were going to share this with lots of kids.  But I do want to try this with pecans.)

"Where's the chocolate?" they asked.   

"You are going to like it even though there isn't any chocolate.  Trust me."

We had a great time measuring out the ingredients and talking about yeast.  TJ will tell you that the yeast burps, and that it needs sugar to eat and something to keep it warm.  She knows that the burps make bubbles in the dough, and that the bubbles make the bread rise.

The next step is the most fun: divide the dough into thirty-six pieces and roll them into balls.  I foresee lots of lessons in multiplication and fractions as we make this recipe in the future.  Then dip the balls in butter, roll them in cinnamon sugar, and then fill up a bundt cake pan with these goodies.  

This recipe is awesome.  It even makes its own sauce!  "Drizzle the leftover butter and sugar mixture over the dough balls."  We turned the bread out after baking and caramel dripped out of the pan.

I thought it would be nice to get a picture of this fabulous thing when we got to park day.  I showed up carrying my platter with still warm bread, and suddenly all the kids who had been on the play equipment were in the shelter around the picnic table where I had placed the bread.  I turned around to get my camera out of my bag, turned back ... and it was like locusts had descended.  The whole thing was almost gone!  

Which is fabulous.  We had a blast making the bread, and I can't ask for a better end to one of our kitchen creations.

Coffee House Kindergarten

The preschool co-op started for PJ this week, and I had the good fortune to be in the classroom with her on the first day. She has the advantage of familiarity with the way the day begins, having watched her big sister the last two years. PJ walked in the door and right away knew what to do: put her show-and-tell in the basket, hang up her bag, wash her hands, and find her nametag. From there it was different, because she stayed and her sister left.

PJ had a pretty good first day. She did three paintings, made two "kissing hands," and played at the bean table for a long time. I hope she will do well without me next week. I'm a little nervous about her because she was so clingy, but she has friends there and she likes her teacher. She's going to be okay! And I'm going to repeat that affirmation to myself to make it true.

What does TJ do while PJ and I are at school? It won't happen all that often, but when it does, she is off to Coffee House Kindergarten with Jennifer and G. Jennifer took the kids to our usual coffee place (for the record, this is not an SBUX but a locally owned cafe). They played with Cuisenaire rods by making patterns with them. Jennifer brought along her yarn dobbie and knitted rainbow snakes that the kids formed into letters.

And they ate doughnuts.

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Thank you, Jennifer, for the Tinkerbell bracelet and necklace! PJ is so attached to them, that she has to know where they are before she goes to bed.

We're doing the fun stuff

I attended the orientation session for PJ's preschool this morning. I like the co-op aspect of it, and I like that it will give her a chance to rely on herself and not on me. She'll decide what activities to participate in, she'll follow someone else's directions and rules, she will experience success and failure and then come home and tell me all about it.

TJ's preschool teacher was there this morning too. I like talking to her, and she has a real interest in TJ's homeschool experience. She asked how it's going ... which is a question I've been getting from a lot of people ... and what is there to say? We haven't changed much about what we do at home except that we have a bunch of activities that are starting up with the school year. I told her that I didn't think there was much to do, school-wise, for a kindergartner. "What do they do all day there, anyway?" I asked. "Mostly just move the kids around," was her offhand remark.

I know that isn't true, exactly, but that is one of things that I sense about a kindergarten classroom of twenty-seven children. And that's another one of the reasons why we're homeschooling. TJ's peers have spent much of the week learning how to sit at their desks, raise their hands to visit the restroom -- or not, as I understand that there were a number of kids who got home and the first thing they said was, "I have to go potty!" -- and other new behavioral rules. TJ played, played, went on a field trip, and played some more. With friends, for anyone about to use the S-word.

There are many academic expectations for kindergarten, according to the Virgina Standards of Learning. Not that I am following the SOLS! I refer to them in the moments when I doubt myself and wonder if I really can homeschool. The document reassures me that I can so do better than what is expected.

Of that long list of objectives, the set that interests me most is for social studies. TJ can count to thirty, count backwards from ten, and pretty much do the math that is expected by the end of the K year. (To see the Virginia SOLS for all subjects and grade levels, click here.) Same with the reading objectives ... so that leaves us to pursue the fun stuff.

The next time someone asks, I guess I can say just that. "We're doing the fun stuff!"