Why Science in Early Education?

I now have received my first question from a homeschooling parent.  It went something like this "I want to include hands on science for my child, but I find it hard to squeeze it in with all that I NEED to do with math and language." 

This is a huge problem for all educators, not just homeschooling families.  As teachers we hear all the time that if kids can't read and do basic math, then they are doomed.  Granted, I teach middle school science, as well as home school my two six year old boys.  I am seeing how reading and math effect kids on all different levels. 

First, it is true that if a child can not read and follow directions, process basic information, or read for engagement and entrainment they will struggle academy and professionally.  Second, only emphasising reading and math for the sake of building foundational skills without application, is thwarting your child's scientific and social literacy and stopping their natural curious nature. 

When I was an elementary student, I was considered stupid and a "low achiever" by many of my teachers.  Why?  I had bad handwriting, poor gross and fine motor skills, I was a terrible speller, and I did not see the value of doing endless math drills because I was never sold on the value and application of the concept.  I spent most recesses staying the room to practice sitting still, or working on my handwriting or spelling.  I would be pulled out from science experiments, art, or music to make me a better speller.  What is crazy is that it took until I got in high school and collage to got into the advanced for me to be able to prove to my teachers that I was smart despite my handwriting and spelling.  Oh wait, that was because all work had to be typed, busy work was non existent, and I could use spell check.   

I can still remember the first time I felt like I might be worth something in elementary school and it is probably why and I am such an advocate for the "non schooly" kids I work with.  In 5th grade we went to outdoor science camp for the week.   All of the sudden, it was OK to make mistakes, to guess and then test something.  It was valuable for me to notice the things around me that were not just the things placed in front of me by someone else.  There were not right and wrong answers, but things to explore and discover.

What I discovered is that I really did like learning.  I just did not have the patience of task, for what appeared to be, for task sake.   As educators, we know what we are doing and why we are doing it, when we plead with our children to sound out their letters, practice their basic math facts we are doing it because we know they need this foundation.  We know from personal experience and professional learning that this is necessary.  Guess what though?  The kid usually does not care, unless there is value shown typically by allowing them to use the information for something that matters to them.  Imagine if I told you, I am going to teach you how to do something, and in 12 years, you can go out into the world and use it to make your life better.  We, as adults, would never stand for that.
So, how do we do we include science and experimentation with the time constraints of life?  My biggest advice is thematic teaching.  Have things that are connected.  If the math concept is division, the science concept can be building a scale or balance to prove that things are split evenly.  Let your child try and build some tool, rather than just going and buying it.  The act of building, testing, tweaking and rebuilding is science.  If you are reading Charlotte's Web, have kids observe spider webs and see what kinds of food different types of spiders eat, let them build a web and play blindfold web tag, run a test to see if there are less mosquitoes in rooms with spiderwebs. 

Why is science important?  Kids are naturally curious about the world around them.  They are faced with numerous problems and obstacles in their day to day life, that can be solved through observations, questioning, testing, reworking the idea through reflection and revising their solution.  Our job as parents, teachers, and caregivers, is to nurture them through this process.  Allowing our kids to mess around with their world with out the parameters of correct or incorrect, but with a spectrum of learning levels.  Scientist do not really mind being wrong.  I tell my students that if they want to always be right, study history (I say this in jest, as there is a lot of discovery involved in interpreting and untangling the past.)  When you are "wrong" in science you are just discovering another way something does not work and getting closer to something that does. 

So, I encourage you to see where and how science skills can be incorporated into your busy day.  What are the questions your child(ren) are asking about the world around them?  Have them keep a list (or you can keep it.)  Don't miss those teachable moments, and by all means, ask for help from others about ideas to keep our children willing to explore the world around them.  I can say with years of experience, when kids are inspired, their willingness and attentiveness to the math and reading follow.  Just like there is a window for teaching our children to become literate in the literal sense when they are young, kids also have a time where we can either keep their curiosity alive, or we can suppress it to the point of extinction. 

Homeschool Spring Week 1 K5

So a huge point of this blog is that I would like to start supporting other homeschooling families with weekly plans.  When we decided to home school, I like many others, thought "I can't do this.  I don't know how to teach ...... (insert what ever grade your kids are)"  But, when push came to shove homeschooling was the best option for our boys.  I am a teacher and I have taught everything from 4th, 5th, 6th grade elementary students, 6th, 7th and 8th grade science, middle school language arts, high school and collage aged science field schools and even adult science education expeditions.  I finally developed the self confidence to realize that I could teach my own children what they needed to know. 

What I learned right off the bat was that I need to apply some of the things I do for my science students.  I needed clear goals and objectives, routines that work, an organizational structure, and I needed to make sure that the lessons were engaging and meaningful for my kids. 

We have now been teaching our boys since September and I feel like I have worked out many of the kinks in writing the lesson plans each week.  I already write them all out, because my husband must do much of the teaching in the morning and then I finish up and do all of the reading in the evening.  These lessons are geared towards meaningful experiential learning for kids age 4-7, and I do gear them to how my kids learn.  One is a visual learner and the other is a hands on learner.  I provide opportunities for each of them to be successful and challenged each day. 

So with no further ado, I present to you my first published week of home school lessons.  The are free (for now.)  And all I ask is that you choose to follow this blog, or my Teachers Pay Teachers site, and that you provide feedback.  What did you like, what did not work for your kids?  What do you wish I had included, what totally flopped and why?  Do you have questions for me?  If so, please post a comment to this post.  Ideally, I will be able to create something to empower other people to believe in their ability to stretch their kids minds. 

Go to this link to get the whole thing: 

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Week-1-K5-Homeschool-Lessons  

Date:     April 1-5                                               Theme:   Spring

Letter:                  Long Vowels                                      Number:   Diving things into equal parts

Reading Focus:  Characters

Vocabulary:  Balance, Scale, Weight, Long Vowel, Divide, Equal

Field Trip:  Personal Choice

Objectives: 

1.       Know what long vowel sounds are, and the sounds they make and why

2.       Learn what a scale and balance do, how to build one that works, and what makes it work

3.       Use measurement to make food and use division to split food into equal parts

4.       Sort laundry by color/fabric and compare the size of each pile

5.       Practice reading to parent or sibling

6.       Visualize and describe characters in a chapter book of choice

7.       Participate in physical exercise daily while using games to enforce learning objectives

8.       Keep up with their journals to record major events, learning and pictures of their lives.

Credits:

Vowel Poster Pictures

http://theinspiredapple.blogspot.com/search/label/Long%20Vowels

http://tiedupwstring.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/img_2758.jpg?w=223&h=300

http://tiedupwstring.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/classroom-posters/

Things to Print For the Week:

 Fine Motor Skills:  Use this web page: http://dailycoloringpages.com/alphabet-letters-to-print/challenging-animal-alphabet-letters-to-print/ to print off vowel pictures.  Have students color the things in the letter that have a long sound a different color from words with a short sound.  Then write the long vowel sounds off to the side. 

Blueberries and Brains

Blueberries are ripe in the South right now, so I spend about 1/2 hour each morning in picking mode which is as close to meditation, contemplation and prayer I can get most days. There is something intimately personal about spending this time with my plants, the harvest I get, the joy and nutrition each berry brings my family. I must confess that while I pick 2-4 cups of berries a day, I have not frozen any this year or made any jelly. Something I know I will regret come winter time. But for now, they are here and the cycle of the times tells me that we need this food now to balance the colds we are fighting, to cool us off internally while it is so hot externally, and to provide us with that little burst of energy and excitement.



While I am picking I get to do a lot of thinking. The boys will sometimes come with me, but they are afraid of the bees that inhabit the orchard so I usually am by myself. I also find natural processes to be extremely helpful for me when I am trying to make sense of a world that feels artificial and reinvented by the market. Here are some of the reflections that have come to mind while harvesting:

1. Not all berries become ripe at the same time. This is a good thing for us or the goodness would last only a little while. It is also how kids/my students/adults develop. We are not all on the same pace and that is OK. It is natural. I don't fret about the blueberries that are still green, I know they will ripen over time, and fortunately I have plenty of blue ones to enjoy while I wait.

2. You must have a variety of blueberries growing close to each other because bushes cannot self-pollinate with their own variety. One, plants don't even like to inbreed, and two variety is necessary for propagation. It fuels the natural world and without it life would be sparse to non-existent. Unfortunately in this day in age of infotainment "news cycles" variety and differences are shunned, shamed and looked at with trepidation. Imagine if my blueberry bushes asked about politics, religion or sports before agreeing to pollinate. Come on people if a blueberry bush can recognize its interdependence on differences than I think we can probably do the same. Turn off the "news" go outside your comfort zone and go make friends with someone who is not like you, who knows something sweet might come out of the moment.

3. For goodness sake be patient. An unripe blueberry is an abomination. It is hard to believe that something so good in its ripe form can be so nasty when it is not ready. You can't rush a blueberry into ripening (trust me I have tried) just like so many other things in life. I love the Homer Simpson quote "isn't there anything faster than a microwave?" I was raised by an engineer (efficiency is everything) and a mother who could get more work done in one day than most people could get done in a year. The bar was high, and waiting for good things to come in their own time was not something that was part of my vernacular. Just like forcing a job, a relationship, a milestone, a house, a baby, an adoption, summer to come, summer to leave. Ripening into something wonderful takes time and it is worth the wait and there is not a darn thing I can or should do to speed it up.

4. The hardest blueberries to pick usually end up being the best. I will admit, I will go and pick the low hanging fruit every day, the stuff on the edge, the stuff in the middle, the bushes that don't have the thorny vines. I am deathly allergic to bees so squeezing in between bushes makes me nervous, and like most logical people, I don't like being scratched by thorns. But, the inconvenience to the high, low and hard to reach berries is a forced patience that allows ripening beyond to perfection. This is also true in life. Yes, there are many things that are hard that we will be asked to do, challenged, called to complete. Most of us will start with the easy list, but blueberries and adopting has taught me that the hard stuff is definitely worth getting, even if it means risking getting stung, or pricked by thorns, or months overseas.

5. Some berries will go to the birds. No matter how diligent I am in my attempts to harvest and use each and every berry, some will not make it into the mouths of my family. These are the dream berries, the wishes that were not meant to be. They are not failures or losses to the world. The birds love them, they need them too and goodness knows the world needs birds and dreams. If the thought or idea was good enough to exist then give it to the world even if it can't be yours. Someone or something will appreciate it.

6. On the flip side, harvest I must, if I want berries next year. If you allow the fruit of a tree of bush to all fall to the ground and nothing eats it before it rots near the roots, the tree or bush will not produce as much food the next year. It knows that its energy was wasted, not needed. When we let our thoughts die and rot, or be ignored our brain stops as well. We have to find time in this superficial world to dig deep, think deep and act fully and presently. Our brains are not stupid and they operate on the engineering principal that "a glass is not 1/2 full or 1/2 empty, but twice as large as it needs to be." Use it or lose it.

Fortunately for me, the decisions my brain will get to make about my blueberries will be very concrete and attainable. What do I make with them? Muffins, scones, pancakes, preserves, frozen yogurt blueberries or just enjoy them raw in their perfect form as nature gave them to the world.

Oh wait, the decision has been made, they have all been eaten for the day one berry at a time, one trip to the kitchen at a time, one precious berry at a time.

Formating Issues

I am going to try to keep this post up front because my brand new blog is having formating issues. 

Officialy Homeschoolers

Two weeks ago if you had asked me my opinion of homeschoolers and homeschooling, it would have been pretty narrow and very judgmental.  If you had asked me if my family would ever consider it, I would have given you 20 reasons why it wouldn't work.  And, well, now I am at a place where I get to eat a lot of words, probably be on the other end of judgment, and we get to figure out a way around all of those 20 excuses. 

For you see, we worked really hard to be given the privilege of raising our two boys.  We did not accidentally become the parents of two special needs boys with a convoluted, less than favorable, past.  We choose this path very consciously.  With that choice came a lot of risk, a whole lot of change, and ultimately a very new definition of what "adventure" would look like in this phase of our lives.  Most importantly we acknowledged what every parent must face, the fact that we must do what is best for our children. 

For four weeks, we gave normal an honest try.  What we got was reports that our kids were doing great at school, but at home we were seeing a drastically different tale.  Isaac would revert every afternoon, shouting that I was not his real mother, reliving his trauma nightly through night terrors, and went back to food hoarding, gorging and eating out of the trash.  Emerson came home daily a wreck from over stimulation and exhaustion.  His tantrums became so violent that he would punch me in the face while scratching me until he drew blood.  While my heart broke, and sanity dwindled at seeing their unhealthy responses to stress, I realized that teaching them to be confident and secure in who they are, had to become our first priority. 

Our kids were not ready for the one size fits all mainstream education.  They were not ready to drop their naps, or have several transitions throughout the day, or strong enough to have the will power to say no to things that are not good for them.  John and I knew it was not a good fit, but what next. 

We explored our options, and after 1.5 weeks we know the path we will take for this year.  We are now "those people" who home school.  Yup, try and squeeze our family into those stereotypes you have always thought of.  Funny picture, right?  This is what we have learned, there are 1000's of reasons why people do it.  I have two beautiful and talented reasons that live with me everyday. 

Off we go, into this adventure whole hearted.  We are excited to see where this leads us, our boys, and their concept of family.  I have signed the paperwork and we have made the commitment.  It is exciting to think of all of the possibilities and to be able to tailor their days to who they are.  For too long in their young lives, there were just a number, a check list, something to deal with.  For now, they get to be the priority and we get to teach them what they so desperately need to learn.

Searching for a Lost Chicken In the Dark

The other night I found myself wondering around the woods with a flashlight searching.  For what you might ask?  Some things tangible and somethings not quite reachable.  Ultimately what brought me out from my cozy spot in front of the fire place, was the concern over the final chicken count in the coop.  See, now we are back up to 11 chickens.  We recently acquired 10 new ones, and for the most part they have been given a very limited area to explore.   This, supposedly, helps them grow attached to their roost and nest, so they will come back at night.  It just so happens though, that several of them managed to escape during the day.  I saw this as I was playing with the boys.  I watched them explore tentatively for a while, before I also noticed our resident hawk was also watching his dinner wonder into the woods. 

So, I did what any good chicken owner would do.  I grabbed some scratch, put it in a can, and shook it.  They came running, I put them back in the coop.  Job done.  Or so I thought. 

See, counting to 11 should not be that hard.  But we have one chicken that is a hold over from the previous flock.  While she spend almost a year as an only chicken, she now has 10 roommates, and let's just say she is not so thrilled about it.  We have (now had) one really big roust that was big enough for all the birds.  But, when any of the new birds come near it she goes on a hen pecking tissy.  Needless to say, counting moving birds that are viciously being pecked is not as easy as one might think. 

I took the boys to dinner, not thinking anything of the chickens, until I went to turn on their heat lamp and saw them all resting on their newly built roost (thanks John for keeping peace in the hen house.)  The only problem is there were only 10.  Counted again.  Yup one was missing. 

Logically this lead us to begin our search for either a bird in a tree or feathers.  There is something about searching for a lost animal on a cold night that makes you think about the dreams, troubles, wishes, relationships in your life in a different way.  At the moment of searching I could not help but feel as though I had let the bird down.  I am her human, just like I am in charge of my boys (all three of them), or of my students, or of the finances.  It began to feel all to overwhelming of a task.  I had seen the predator.  It was there.  I did what I should have done, but not good enough.

I feel the same in life.  I am with my boys, but in an exhausted warn out state.  I make just enough to keep our heads above water, I teach my students just enough, but constantly feel rushed wishing I could give them the depth they so crave.  Then there is the whole being married thing.  Oh, I need to find time and love and energy for him too?  Is it good enough to just save 10/11ths of the birds?  It sure didn't feel like that was an OK option going to bed that night.  After looking for an hour I did not find the bird, but I also did not find the carnage either.  One thing I do know (please don't ask how) is that chickens have a lot a feathers.  They do not just disappear. 

The next morning I awoke anxious to get out in the daylight and just find out what happened.  If I found feathers, I would at least know.  But, when I made my way out towards the coop, low and behold she had flown back into the fenced in area and was squawking away at her flock inside the coop.  She had made it safely through the night, and managed to get back to the best place she could have been all on her own. 

What is the moral?  For me it is that life is going to take care of itself.  Yes, a lot of people depend on me, and they deserve the best I have got.  Fortunately we had a safe place for her to go and she made it there unharmed.  I hope the same will hold true for all of the other things in my little world.

Wilderness of the Brain

It is winter, and during winter, I teach my students about the human body.  Within the unit, I teach about the brain and how it works and how we acquire knowledge.  I often compare our newborn brains to a forest.  I say over and over again that the size of our brain is not as important as the paths that we build to lead us through the wilderness of our brain. 

I talk about how the places we go to most frequently in our brains are like interstates and the places we only go to once (or very infrequently) are like bushwhacking through the forest.  I talk about how it is not so great to have a bunch of buildings without the ability to get to them.  We discuss how as teens, they begin synaptic pruning to weed out the side roads that the brain does not deem necessary.  A chaotic but necessary quieting of all the information they have taken in so far.

With all this said, I am a lover of the wilderness and inelegance. Thus it has gotten me to thinking.  I must say, this year I have had a bit of an existential crisis as an educator, parent and homeschooling.  I love watching the mind grow and expand in function, problem solving, and innovation.  Yet, I despise noise, and facts, just for facts and noise sake.  I like peaceful and elegant. 

What does this mean then in regards to how we build roads into our brain.  A wilderness, no road area, is probably not the best.  But, on the flip side a criss cross of millions of pathways, roads, sidewalks, and interstates, is probably not the ideal either. 

So now, I am led to think about why we need wilderness and how we utilize civilization.  Wilderness provides clean water, clean air, natural resources, that when harvested sustainably, provide support for the society.  Wilderness provides a reprieve from the chaos of society.  It provides a template for much of modern inventions.  It provides a home for "the other" forms of life not so welcomed in day to day human life. 

So as a teacher and mother, how do I responsibly develop roads into such a pristine place. My students come to me as middle schoolers with a chaotic system of trails, roads, sidewalks leading inefficiently around the woods of their brain.  Do I make thousands of factual trails that a student's mind might go down one time for a test, only to have the trail grow over as soon as they never go down that path again.  Do I drill information in so that they have a super highway of basic facts.  Or, do I spend my time giving them the materials to build their roads, like curiosity, problem solving, experiences, passion... 

I am not naive enough to think it must be one or the other.  Kids do need to know basic math facts, grammar rules, basics about the human body, historical events, how the world works.  Yet, should facts be the focus, or the how to learn be the focus? 

The question I am left with is, how do I create an educational experience for my students that improves their knowledge and at the same time respects the wilderness of the brain and the quiet spaces that allow refuge from the constant hum of civilization?