Natalia's Catholic Formation

You may or may not be privy to the information that I struggled a lot with my faith after Natalia's birth.  Postpartum depression and anxiety are no joke, on top of the usual stressors of major lifestyle changes that coincided with her birth: quitting my job, selling our house, and moving out of state and away from any family or friends.  I knew the clock was ticking for me to get my act together.  I wanted to raise Natalia with a strong faith foundation.  I knew there were too many benefits from "being religious" for me to ignore it and figure "she'll believe whatever she wants to believe."  Obviously, I cannot program her brain, so that goes without saying.  As she matures, she will form her own opinions on everything, faith included.  But I would be remiss if I didn't do my due diligence in introducing her to the beautiful, meaningful, rich faith that is Catholicism.  The onus of the responsibility for her faith formation would fall on Oscar, as I kept telling him, because I couldn't teach something I didn't believe.  So I am very happy to report that God has blessed me with a renewed sense of faith, just in the nick of time, I believe, as the below paragraphs will illustrate.

Crossing herself.

We don't talk much about God yet, as this would be hard to explain without resorting to some sort of metaphors appropriate for Natalia's age, and religion already boils over with metaphor.  I'd hate to have to unteach things later.  So I've found myself focusing on the second person of the Trinity - Jesus.  Jesus has a physical body like us.  We have images of Him we can look to, we can discuss what He did and what He taught. We go to Mass to visit Jesus.  Adults and big kids receive Jesus in Holy Communion.  We pray to Jesus (ie. "talk with Jesus") at home.  This is actually pretty good practice for my own faith formation, having struggled with the idea of Jesus-as-God myself.

Our nightly prayer routine has led to amazing progress!  The three of us kneel by the bed each night and say a few classic Catholic prayers.  We do the Sign of the Cross in Polish and Spanish, and then we pray in unison in English: the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be.  When we finish, we say goodnight to Jesus and Mary, followed by besitos (kisses) for Daddy and Mommy (and sometimes baby brother).  Half the time, this meant that Oscar and I kneel in prayer, while Natalia jumps on the bed, or plays with her stuffed animals.  But more and more, she's been taking her "friends" to the edge of the bed with us, holding their hands/paws together in prayer fashion, and presumably teaching them to pray.

Deep in prayer.

 A few days ago, she shocked us by reciting the first half of the Our Father all by herself, before we even joined her!  On Sundays, when it is time for the Lord's Prayer, Oscar always picks her up so she can be on everyone's level, and we hold hands and pray together.  Today, she was very confident and correspondingly loud in her prayer, especially emphasizing the words that we tend to pause on.  We were amazed and proud of our little girl having essentially taught herself.  I will be trying to capture her progress on video this week, as the first video I have is of our starting this tradition about a year ago, when she was around 2.

Another spiritual growth is with morning prayer.  I have begun to read from a couple of praye books in the morning, pause for some quiet reflection, sing a little here and there.  I tell her I'm speaking with Jesus, and when I'm quiet, I'm listening to Him, so she's started to be more respectful of this time, either whispering to me or holding the book I'm not holding at the moment and doing her own praying.  Friday, she visited the confessional with me, and we paid a quick visit to Jesus in the Eucharist at the Adoration Chapel, another opportunity to observe how others quietly sit and listen to Jesus.

Amen!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but a few weeks ago, Natalia also started walking up with us to Communion with her hands across her chest.  We showed her how the other kids who weren't big enough to receive Communion did that, and she was happy to start also.  The first two times, she got a blessing from the person distributing Communion, about which she was just beaming!  Today, she didn't get a blessing, but she didn't seem too upset about it, so that's good.  Ideally we should sit so that we go to Communion to the priest, since I believe there's some conflicting opinions on whether Eucharistic Ministers are "supposed" to give out blessings in the Communion line, so the hope is that if we go to a priest, she will be guaranteed a blessing.  But that would take us far away from the restroom... still, it's something we ought to consider, because as long as we go by the restroom before leaving the house or when we get to church, that shouldn't be an issue.

While we're on the subject of Mass "socialization", we've started giving Natalia cash to put into the collection basket, and now when she sees the basket, she asks for the money if we haven't already given it to her.  I've told her during the week that the money goes to help people, like the blind man in one of her books that is healed by Jesus. Depending on her mood, she'll shake hands with strangers for the Sign of Peace, but we don't force this.  She sees us doing it, so it'll become the norm soon enough.  And I've got to mention how she prefers flipping through the church hymnal and following her finger along lines of lyrics rather than reading her own books that we bring from home.  She also dips her finger in the holy water font and blesses herself - not exactly by making the Sign of the Cross, but more along the lines of Rafiki blessing baby Simba in The Lion King.  Still.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, we arrived early for Mass, and Natalia asked where Jesus was.  I started to tell her, but soon she said "there he is" pointing to our pastor!  I told our pastor after Mass that Natalia thinks he's Jesus, which gave him a little chuckle and he said that the separation would come.  I'm thinking if she sees different priests, different churches, Mass will become something they all have in common, not something that is tied to a specific person or place.  (As a quick aside, I am wondering now if religious ed is something I'm going to want to involve the church in, or keep it under the homeschooling umbrella.  I have a year to think about it before she becomes eligible for the church Pre-K program.)

Preschool Week 4

This week was a lot less structured, if you can call the first three weeks structured to begin with. Trying to scale back on the premature formal academics and instead focus on habit formation, in particular independent play.

LANGUAGE ARTS

No formal sit-down reading times planned.  Going through her book rack before swapping books and asking what she likes and doesn't like.  If there's a book she says she likes and I know she's looked at it multiple times that week, I'm keeping it in the rack for another week.  If she doesn't like the book, and I don't particularly like the book, we are not going to be keeping it.  So far, we haven't agreed much on this, so either I could stand to get rid of the book but she says she likes it, or she says "eh" but I really like it and think she'll come back around to it (or her brother will like it).

Also, adding longer, paperback books to her potty bin has been very helpful, as we read these books the most frequently.  Even though they're not displayed in any sort of fancy way, she still seems to remember after the first day of rotation what's in there and sometimes asks for a book that's from a different week's rotation.

One newish thing we've been trying to do is add reading as part of bedtime, so when she may not want to go to bed just yet, but we want her to be winding down, so we "allow" her to pick a book or two or three to bring to one of us to read to her. ( One day, after I initially said she could pick one book, once she had it in her hand, I said she could pick two, so she picked an additional one, totalling two books.  Sneaky little math "lesson", eh?) This is turning out to be another great way to work read alouds into the day, and it shows which books she's really enjoying.

MATH

Ok, so since abandoning "formal" math "teaching", I think Natalia is teaching herself.  When asked how many apples were left on the table for the next day, she went and counted "one, two, three" and reported back that there were three!  Another day, she did the same with the accurate number (I think it was 2) again.  So since this teaching-herself business seems to be working, we're going to stick with it.  (I should note that leaving a tray of fruit that she can easily get to by herself is what encouraged this sudden urge to count, as well as increasing the whole family's fruit intake, as she practices sharing when helping herself, usually to an apple.)

That said, even though I decided not to count "rote counting" as a necessary skill anymore, she has nonetheless reached it anyhow.  When asked to count, she counts in the "correct order" 1-10.  In English.  When prompted in Spanish, she counts in Spanish.  When prompted in Polish, she counts in Polish.

I've started pointing out groupings in books and the like by saying how many of something there is without first counting them one by one.  The idea is that she associate the number to the real world objects and doesn't think any given number is a "name" for an individual item.

Very cool color and light experience.

I've been reading up on the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, and one of the things that appeals to me is the focus on light and color and shadows (hence my excitement over the shadows during our late night walk - see the science section below).  We also found a neat lesson in observing the color shadows of her shape decals. She was intrigued by the fact that, according to the decal shadows, there were two ovals, but she knows we only have one oval, and one circle.  She got up and went to the window to point out this fact!

SCIENCE

Natalia's nature corner gains her attention nearly every day.  She gets her treasure box and looks through its content, sometimes with a magnifying glass, sometimes not.  I'm trying to encourage her to use her bamboo placemat to keep things more organized.  She also reminded me one day when I had forgotten and it was already lunchtime that we need to bring her plant out into the sun for the day.

One night we went walking, the three of us, once it was dark outside, to avoid the nasty heat.  With the assistance of a flashlight, we were able to get up close and personal to some flowers, trees, bushes, but also to have some fun learning with shadows.  Unfortunately, I have no idea how to capture shadows on photo.  But she got a kick out of the giant Natalia with her braided pigtails walking ahead of her on the sidewalk and on fences!  When we returned to the house, right before we went in, she found a slug in the grass thanks to her flashlight pointing.  We spent another 10-15 minutes observing the snail, picking it up, watching it stay still and then start slithering on my hand.  In the end, she finally braved it and touched the snail herself.

A great end to a late evening walk.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Even though she hasn't been watching Signing Time daily (it's not "on the schedule" - I play it for her whenever she asks for it, since we don't have all the episodes purchased and are limited to what's available online), she nonetheless is using the new signs she picks up throughout the day.  This morning, when Oscar came in to cuddle, upon waking she signed to Daddy in response to something he asked, even before saying anything.  Of course now it escapes both of us what that sign was!

CRAFTS & SENSORY

So this was one of the few things "on the schedule" for the week.  The artsy idea was a flop.  We did crayon rubbings of various textures, but it was mostly me showing her what crayon rubbings were, and then she was ready to move on to something else.  So she didn't care for the crayon rubbings or the textured pieces in themselves either.  I left the whole set up on her little table for hours, but she never went back to it.

The flop - crayon rubbings and textured material.

I also gave her a little box of various beads and pompoms, with the idea of this being a sensory experience, but she quickly realized the beads had holes in them, and wanted to make a necklace. (She's played with these same beads many times before, but this was the first time she took note of the holes!)  I gave her a few small pipe cleaners and helped her thread a couple on, and she was able to work on this without assistance for a good 10 minutes.  We made a necklace and a bracelet for one of her toys. She also remembered that there were a few other beads on a necklace elsewhere in her room, so she went to get it and asked me to untie the ends so that we could add those beads to her box.  I'm going to need to get better pipe cleaners for her to work on this, as the ones I have are Christmasy, and as such sparkly and a bit messy, plus not very soft.

The success: we will be adding more threading activities!

Also under sensory activities, we have to include water play. This week, this was limited to bath time, during which time she did some "swimming" practice (laying in the water and blowing bubbles into the water), but also squirting with some bath animals, washing her plastic dinosaur, and sticking foam letters onto the side of the tub.  When putting them away, she's shown she recognizes a new letter -"W", and counts the items as she takes them out - language arts and math without ever being on the schedule!

Natalia has also started to show a bit more interest in her easel, especially since I rearranged her playroom a bit and it has been left out, right by the door to the room.  (It was previously inside the closet next to her doll house.)  Almost daily, I see that she has stopped to draw or write something on the blackboard.  I'm careful not to guess what it is, and instead, ask her.  I'm getting some pretty creative responses.

This is a picture of "ongos" (mushrooms) that we had observed in the yard earlier that day.

PHYSICAL FITNESS

This is really a section for me to stay accountable rather than her.  At her age, it takes effort NOT to be running around burning off calories all day long!  But since I've become intentional about fitting prenatal yoga into our daily routine, Natalia has started joining me in some of the poses.  I follow a YouTube video, and sometimes she compares what I'm doing to what the instructor is doing and corrects me!  At times, I can hear her taking in slow, deep breaths.  Other times, she just plays in the vicinity and waits for my practice to be over.

 

One time, when I was using a yoga ball, she came up behind me and placed her hand on my back, saying "relax, peace, good" - cues that she's learned from participating in a HypnoBabies script Oscar was reading to me, in preparation for birth.  (Perhaps not exactly "physical fitness" in the traditional sense of the word, but certainly in the realm of health :) )

Ready to read my HypnoBabies script with daddy.

SOCIALIZATION

She had two Skype sessions this week, one with my mom and another with my grandmother and aunt.  This also reinforced her Polish. In addition, we went to a restaurant for dinner one night, to church, and we had some friends over the house yesterday.  Even though the adults mostly spoke among themselves, she was able to introduce her "friends" (toys) to our guests, and charmed one of them into playing especially well with her. There was a little girl, about 10 months old, also here, so they enjoyed the air coming out of the A/C vent together.  She had also planned on scaring one of our guests with the assistance of her dinosaur, because I had mentioned to her that this friend enjoys being scared (which she said she does).  So she looked forward to the get-together and got a real kick out of yelling "boo" as if the dinosaur was saying it.  She practiced greeting our guests and saying goodbye to them and taking turns at the table and in conversation.

When everyone left, I was able to reflect on the importance of Natalia referring to these adults as HER friends.  And why not?  Why would she be limited to only friends her own age?  We don't impose such restrictions on adults!  So I'm feeling very good now about our approach to socializing, without contrived same-age groupings that honestly, I think do more harm than good if not kept in check.

INDEPENDENT PLAY

This week, I removed all ideas of scheduled activities and focuses on encouraging independent play.  I am happy to report that this "deschooling" of myself has already started to bear fruit.  Here's what we're doing.  First of all, I don't carry my phone with me everywhere I go, which would encourage constant checking and Natalia would just see me looking at a screen and be reminded of her own screen time.  Second, if she was playing on her own and no one was in danger, I LEFT HER ALONE!  I didn't join in.  I didn't make suggestions.  I didn't comment.  I also didn't call her away from her play for meals or to start bed time.  It seems that she plays independently the best towards the evening, but luckily I do not need to be at work in the morning, so we are flexible on when she goes to sleep.

Also, when she did want my participation in her play, I would humor her, but only minimally.  I'd do my best to try to turn questions on their heads instead of giving her solutions.  I literally found myself sitting on my hands and biting my lip to let her play how she wanted.  At times, I had to go start an activity with her to gain her interest, and then I'd quietly withdraw.  Once she was enthralled in her play for a while without coming to me for anything, I'd leave the room for a bit.  If gone too long, she'd come looking for me, and I found that I couldn't get on the computer in the next room just yet.  So I started to just sit in her room and read a book silently to myself.  Or even across the hall in the bathroom with the door open!

On one occasion, she played like this on her own for a good hour!  Another time it was around 45 minutes, and several sessions of 20 minutes or so.  The biggest hurdle was myself.  I'm so used to being hands-on when it comes to playtime, that it was difficult for me to just observe quietly.  But I'm seeing the benefits, and the goal is for her to consistently entertain herself for at least a half hour at a time with me in another room.  It seems that if I'm up and doing something - cleaning, for instance - she doesn't look for me.  But the moment I sit down to the computer, she somehow senses that I'm "not doing anything" and stops playing independently.

HABITS

Aside from socializing and independent play, I've been trying to bring Montessori-inspired activities into our everyday lives, instead of concockting artificial experiences that are more appropriate for a preschool setting than home.  Instead of giving her a tray with cutting as a skill to practice, I let her cut up all the mushrooms for our lunch one day.  She followed that up with wanting to cut up some banana for her cereal on another day.  I give her a plastic knife and leave her to her work.

 

Another daily new thing is letting her pour her own drink - usually water - at the table.  I give her a small pitcher with what she's drinking, and let her fill it, drink, refill as needed.  The first day, I only gave her enough to fill her cup half way.  But the second day, I got brave and gave her more water than could fit in the cup, trusting that if she was paying enough attention to what she was doing, she'd know to stop pouring before it was too late.  And she did!  One time she literally caught herself with the water already bulging above her cup, looking to me for guidance on what to do next.  I showed her how to slurp the excess off the top (!), and she hasn't overfilled her cup again.

Along the same lines, instead of giving her a scooping activity, which I've tried multiple times with very limited success with various materials (dry beans, dry pasta, rice, cornmeal), Natalia is in charge of feeding our dog, Bigos.  She is still working on staying consistent with the correct amount to scoop, so this is a supervised activity.  She can open the door to where the dog food is kept, she can open the bag of dog food, and she can scoop the food into the bowl, as we keep both measuring cup and bowl next to the food.  However, we have to keep the dog away long enough for Natalia to prepare the meal, and then we have to open the gate for her to place the bowl where it goes.  In the picture below, we were still mixing Bigos's old and new food, so we had a separate container.

 


She also has started to ask to floss - her own teeth and mine!  She saw this in a Signing Time video.

CHARLOTTE MASON PRESCHOOL

This is the newest take I want to introduce into our preschool, very laid back, which I discuss in my previous post here. Since I haven't had a chance to implement any of these ideas, them being brand new to me and all, there's nothing to say about it yet.  But in future weeks, I will have a section on our progress in this area.

Preschool Goals

Probably not what you think.  Charlotte Mason-based, mostly, with some adjustments for our multicultural family.  Ok, so CM advocated delaying formal academics (reading/writing/arithmatic) until around age 6 or 7, which works out beautifully, bc both my kids' birthdays fall late enough in the year that they are not required to "do Kindergarten" until shortly before the will turn 6.  That said, I still wanted to gather some CM-inspired activities to give us things to do during the day, always with the understanding that they'll be free to go off and pursue their own interests unencumbered by me or a preset curriculum.  But we'll have a loose curriculum to come back to when they start to get bored or restless.

That said, one interesting thing I just read about CM "year 0" (based on the free online CM curriculum, Ambleside, which refers to all the years prior to start of official academics, so preschool included) is to focus these years on, first and foremost, spending free time outdoors.  Then, it's a good idea to incorporate the so-called "extras", what perhaps might be "electives" in formal school, but what I'd instead call "non-academic" interests and activities, bc "extras" makes it sound unnecessary, and I think everything my kids study should be "elected" by them to some degree.

Ok, so CM includes the following as these non-academic "subjects" that we can work into our preschool time:  art appreciation, classical music, hymn study, folk songs, tea time, handicrafts, foreign language, and play card/board games.

We recently had a flop with our attempt at art study, so I'm going to shelf that idea for another year or so, or at least until I am able to acquire an art book or art postcards to use for this purpose.  That said, CM includes sculpture and architecture here, not just painting, which I think is great.  However, the particular list of art seems very heavily Western, and I'd much rather include art expressions from around the world.  For the time being, I think we may want to consider an art museum, especially if it features one of the art pieces we did have a chance to study already.  And I'll keep an eye out for any festivals or events that may feature traditional art.

Similarly with classical music.  Skipping ahead to tea time, this may be a good time to put on the classical music for now, because I can't just have it on all day (any background sounds annoy me!)

Hymn study I'd like to base from my prayer book, in Polish.  There are hymns in there that lift my spirits that I'd welcome incorporating into our regular daily life.  So far, we sing Jeremy Camp's "Give Me Jesus" most mornings (it starts, "in the morning..."), and Natalia's even asked to sing it to visitors at our home!  So I think this will be a good idea, perhaps a new hymn every month, focusing on just the first verse for now.

Folk songs I don't really know what is meant by this, and I'm not really very keen on incorporating it at this time.

Tea time sounds like a variation of what I remember growing up with, which we called "kawka" (little coffee).  The idea is to take a quiet time each day, ideally mid-afternoon, for some fancy tea and a bit of snacks (practice care of delicate items, manners), and play some classical music, read a verse from the Bible, or a poem, something short and sweet for us for now.  And just hang out screen-free until our snack and tea is finished.  Sounds like a great way to sneak in a bit of possible "memory work" and of course exposure to classical music.

Handicrafts a la CM really spark my interest.  I'm not a very crafty person, but I have been trying to incorporate at least one craft every week for Natalia.  The CM approach would be to focus not on doing arts and crafts as an end in themselves, but as a way to work on a skill that can continue to be useful in adulthood, in particular something that can be useful in fixing things around the house or creating gifts for others.  A lot of what was listed is currently over my head, and most of it is probably too advanced for a three year old (like knitting).  But we can definitely make Christmas ornaments this year, and I'm really excited about that!  I like the idea of these creations being useful, not just something we display on the fridge until the next week's project replaces it.  I'll have to think of what else we can do now, but many things come rushing back from my own childhood, so I'm excited to ask my mom for ideas!  Doll/puppet making, knitting, napkin folding, woodworking, needlepoint, Christmas ornaments, these are all things I remember from childhood, and how sad I've forgotten most of these skills, but look forward to regaining them with my kids!

Foreign language in our home is ASL, and for now we are working with the free Youtube videos of Signing Time.  We are going to be budgeting in purchasing the full episodes of Signing Time to base our further study of ASL.  Formal study of Polish will begin probably next year for Natalia, when we plan to start her in Saturday Polish school.  Still not sure if this is something that will be a long-term commitment or not.  Also don't know if Spanish will find a formal expression somewhere.  For now, daily communication, books, and occasional shows in our languages provide the informal language learning environment that we prefer.

Playing card/board games is something else that I need to look into.  I'm not much into games, but I do remember playing Yahtzee with my parents when my mom was expecting my sister (so I was 9).  I enjoy playing Uno, I've played Operation, Monopoly, and Master Mind (we do have this game, but it's way too advanced right now for Natalia).  I suppose the point of these games is to work on teamwork/cooperation (if the right games are chosen), as well as pre-literacy & pre-numeracy skills?  I'll keep my eye out for these, but nothing formal is currently in the works.

However, these are the "extras" that CM offers.  There is one thing that is most definitely to be encouraged to the exclusion of all other things if need be (even reading!), during these preschool years, and that's time spent outdoors.  This is going to be a big challenge for us.  We live in a climate where the 3-4 month summers are very hot and humid, definitely not conducive to daily nature walks.  And when it starts to get more bearable as the evening dawns, the mosquitos come out.  So really, the only decent time to be outside most summers is at night.  I suppose early mornings, too, but we are night owls, and I do not see us rising early enough to beat the heat of the morning sun!

Yesterday we went for a late night walk.  I believe it was 8:45pm when we headed out.  The sun was long gone, the stars were out, and with flashlight in hand, we walked for a good half hour before spending an additional 10-15 minutes outside our house observing a slug.  It was an amazing walk, what I think is the very goal of nature study.  I hope that as the summer ends, the days will become more conducive to daily walks, which I think are the easiest and most natural (sic!) way to do nature study.  Right now, we're sort of struggling to find nature inside - with our nature corner, with pointing out clouds through the window, with visits to the pet store or just caring for our dog.

There's been no bird watching since we made it a point to look for them, even though there were lots of birds in our yard when we first moved here.  Perhaps cutting most of our trees was a contributing factor, perhaps it's the time of year.  Hopefully next year, bird watching will be a solid nature study for the ugly summer months.  But I like the idea of late night walks outside, except that Oscar needs to get to bed by a reasonable hour, and I don't feel comfortable meandering outside that late without his company. But we do have a fenced in yard!  So I'm going to try to start spending time outside as part of our wind-down time once the sun has set and most mosquitos are gone.  We can swing in the hammock and watch the stars!  We can eat our kolacja (supper) on the deck.  But CM would have kids this age outside for 4-6 hours DAILY!  This is simply never going to happen in our climate, though I am willing to try during the milder months of the year.

So to recap, #1 priority: get outdoors at some point during the day or night, every day. Start with 30 minutes daily, work up to an hour daily.
2. Start the tradition of tea time in the afternoon, with exposure to classical music, reading a poem, reading a Bible verse, setting and clearing the table, and having some tea and snacks in a fancy way.
3. Start singing my favorite Polish hymns, one per month, one verse only for now.
4. Get ideas for useful handicrafts from my mom, look online for age-appropriate ideas, and focus on these instead of generic arts and crafts.
5. Budget for an art book and/or art postcards; budget for Signing Time episodes.
6. Look into preschool games that we can incorporate into our preschool.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention THE most important goal right now, and that is working on Natalia's independent play.  We have been working on this this week, and I'll be reporting on it in our weekly preschool recap.

Preschool, Week Three

Week three of preschool saw some additional changes, or least decisions to change.  Towards the end of the week, I reread John Holt's "Learning All the Time", which reminded me why I was originally interested in unschooling, and I became convinced (again) that I need to take the less-is-more approach to academics, reading/writing and math in particular, if I want Natalia to truly internalize what she's learning, and not just to begrudgingly parrot back facts.

LANGUAGE ARTS

I decided to add thin books to the potty book container, not sure why I was restricting them before. Since that is a guaranteed spot where Natalia asks to be read to, I thought it would behoove us to have more choices so that we can get through more books during the week.  The selection is swapped out weekly. We also started trying to include reading in our winding down process before bed.  That is definitely still a work in progress, but Natalia was happy to go to her book rack and pick out two books to bring back to the bedroom for me to read.  Added bonus, as she was picking out a book, I suggested she pick two, and so she did - instant math!  We still "officially" covered the letter "Nn", but really, this just seems so artificial, that I think I'm going to abandon any focus on a letter of the week, with the exception of just writing it down on Mondays, and going through the letter books to locate it, and having the flashcard on the fridge.  But that'll be the extent of it.  Mere exposure.

MATH

When helping Oscar put the sofa cushions back, she said "ultimo" (last one) as she handed him the last cushion.  After eating some of her cocktail sausages for "kolacja" (supper, I suppose), she said she wanted me to eat the rest.  I was washing dishes and asked her how many she left for me.  She went back to look at her plate and then informed me that there were two left.  And indeed, there were! So there are definitely math concepts being internalized there.   I learned from "Learning All the Time" that rote counting is pretty useless, and that I need to be focusing on actual quantity representations.  Also, recognizing patterns is more important than just the symbol of the numeral. So I'm going to work on demonstrating ***** = ** *** (5), etc. instead of just drilling numerals out of context.

SCIENCE

We created a "nature corner" in the living room that has been quite popular.  Pretty much on a daily basis, Natalia gets her treasure chest and looks at the materials in it, sometimes with her magnifying glass, sometimes not.  She sings "baby finger" with one of the seashells on her pinky.  I've been showing her to take her plant off the shelf and put it on the coffee table for the day to get some sunlight, and once a week she waters it.  I also brought in a bamboo place mat that I'm trying to convince her to use as the basis of her play, but so far she usually just sits on the sofa with the treasure chest on her lap.

                                     


Yesterday, we went on a walk because she noticed through the window there were puddles and wanted to go jump in them.  It wasn't so hot that it was unbearable, so we went, and soon realized that the puddles were all concentrated on our side of the street, so we went to discover that a neighbor was pumping out his crawl space, which had flooded.  So that was a nice, unexpected little social interaction and nature walk.  We brought in a few sticks to add to her nature corner.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Even when it's been a few days since watching Singing Time, Natalia remembers and practices new signs on a daily basis.  A few times, I didn't know what she meant, so now I see I must watch with her, at least the first time, so that I can reinforce the signs she's learning.  This of course sounds obvious now that I type it up.

CRAFT & SENSORY

We did some animal footprints and tail prints in playdoh, made a couple of 3D stickers, and a neat little horse from glued hole-punched holes.  I've also made her a new sensory bin with dry rice, but sadly it doesn't hold her attention nearly as long as I would hope.

playdoh cutting was a flop :(

crumbs for the patitos was a much better activity

sensory play with rice

MUSIC & ART APPRECIATION

I have pretty much abandoned these endeavors for the time being.  Even having classical music in the background as we went about our day was starting to drive me nuts.  I tried several mornings in a row, but turns out that I really need silence in the background!  So we'll return to classical music appreciation in a year or two, when we can have a more focused timeframe for it.  In the meantime, I am thinking we should explore music from different cultures instead.  Art appreciation also is going to wait for another year or two.  Verdict: We'll try these again in Kindergarten.

SOCIALIZATION

Since realizing that playdates are not the be-all-end-all of socialization that I was led to believe, I've had a very laid back approach to this area.  I've decided to keep track of outings and visits on a calendar to document that indeed, Natalia is being socialized around people other than her parents, and that these encounters are teaching her about appropriate social behavior so much more than meetings with peers could.  That's not to say I've abandoned play dates, just that I am not going to make a point of them being "on the curriculum".

PHYSICAL FITNESS

I have been trying to get Natalia to do yoga with me.  I'm realizing I only have three more months of pregnancy and need to get with the program, and it can't hurt to have Natalia do the postures and breathing exercises with me.  So far, it's been hit or miss.  Sometimes she hangs on me or tries to get my attention away from the YouTube videos I'm following in my practice.  Other times, she watches with me and I can hear her breathing deeply and see her moving her body from my peripheral vision. Hopefully, as this becomes a regular occurrence, and as we do the same videos/postures over and over again, she will accept it as part of our routine and join me rather than interrupt.


To sum up, I'm paring down the curriculum to focus on arts and crafts, sensory experiences, nature study of some sort, reading aloud, and ASL, as well as manners, self-care, and chores, or what I believe the Montessori approach would call "habits".  After trying to artificially create some activities for this area, it occurred to me that I am not running a preschool.  We are learning in an actual home, with actual chores and self-care to do and meeting real people we can actually practice our manners with. So I'm switching gears to instead focus on reflecting on these areas and observing Natalia's progress and recording it here, rather than giving her fake activities that are supposed to translate into the real world.  That's not to say I don't see value in this approach.  It's just not working in our family. So I think I'll have a section on "Habits" that will include independence, helpfulness, and politeness from now on, replacing the much more limiting "Socialization" section.

gargling

 And I will be focusing on reporting after the fact rather than planning in advance, with the exception of arts & crafts (and maybe sensorial and nature sudy), since Natalia is too young to have independent access to various crafting materials.  She's never been big on coloring, so it's not like I can just leave out coloring books and crayons for her to peruse when the mood strikes.  Maybe that will come with time.  But because of this after-the-fact approach, I suppose I'm swinging back into a more unschooling method.

I previously shied away from it as I found myself being quite frustrated with Natalia's lack of choosing her own activities, always resorting to asking for screen time.  That is what motivated me to look into Montessori and Charlotte Mason for inspiration.  But now that we've been at it for a few weeks, I see that I was just being a lazy unschooler!  Unschooling doesn't mean not taking an interest in what your kid does!  It means quite the opposite!  It means preparing activities, providing options, yet remaining flexible to always delve deeper or abandon anything based on the child's interest.  So in that regard, I think I'm at a place now where I have a reasonable sense of what I need to be bringing to the table as far as planned activities, but without any expectations of compulsory coverage of anything in particular.

Bottom line, and I think this falls under the "Socialization"-turned-"Habits" section of the curriculum, I need to be working on weaning Natalia off of needing my input and interaction when she plays.  I have definitely been guilty of interfering unnecessarily in her play, by constantly commenting, making suggestions, praising.... two and a half years of this, and she has learned to depend on my participation in her play.  So it will take some time to help her relearn how to play without input from mommy.  Believe me, this is much more difficult than it sounds, because I love to play with her, and I've said before that the playroom is MY favorite room in the house!  But if I want her to discover that wonderful experience of "flow", both in play and in learning (which really is one and the same at this point), then I'm going to have to bite my tongue and sit on my hands and just get her used to doing things on my own.

Helping with the dishes / water play

First, I need to remember that this is new to her, too, so I'll have to still stay with her for large parts of the time, and just observe quietly, only giving feedback or minimal assistance if asked.  Once I am able to sit in the same room with her without her looking to me for input for a good 10 minutes at a time, I'll start leaving the room for that length of time.  I need to remember that I'm at the damage-control stage, and I can't expect to leave the room and actually get anything done before my little shadow follows.  I've tried this, and my unrealistic expectations always frustrate me, because sometimes she really does get into her play for up to even 15 minutes, and so I assume she should be able to do so all the time.  But I haven't weaned her off of my input yet, so I have to go through that stage before I can expect consistent results.

Preschool, Second Week

Ok, so I'm glad I already consider myself eclectic in my approach.  I'm fine-tuning what goes into our preschool curriculum as we go.  This is precisely why I wanted to start homeschooling early, way before any stress of accountability loomed over my head, so that I could iron out the details and have the freedom to try different things and abandon what wasn't working.

LANGUAGE ARTS

So first off, all academic pre-writing activities have been shelved. We are focusing instead on read alouds, love of books (including proper care of books), exposure to different topics and a wide range of vocabulary in all three languages, and basic letter recognition.  This last one I'm keeping just because I think exposure can't hurt, but I am not trying to get worked up about younger kids already knowing many (if not all) of their letters by name and/or sound.  So what, I say.  She is operating in three oral languages and picking up sign language.  There is no way we can compare her to her monolingual peers at this point.

The second week of preschool, the letter of the week was "Dd", which she assigned to Dino and sort of called the capital letter dinosaur's letter.  Throughout the week, though, she was noticing and pointing out "capital B" (from the previous week) everywhere - on food, in print, her toys - and was very excited whenever she saw it.  I followed her lead by also pointing out lower case "b" occasionally, as well as the letter of the week "Dd", but I think the two sound too much alike right now.  She started looking for "her letter" on her own, so "Nn" became the letter of the week for week three.

I stopped reading from the Bible after a few attempts.  She wasn't liking my reading aloud while she played, and at times, she preferred to sit and flip through a book on her own, narrating the illustrations or even reciting memorized bits of text.  I think this is a good sign - shows that she is taking ownership of her books and the ability to access the information on the page.  Potty time seems to be the best time to do read alouds, as she asks for it, and those books seem to be her favorites.  (I keep smaller books in a container next to her potty, while the larger books are in her book rack in the play room.)

MATH

So we are counting together every chance we get, and she initiates counting as well, but there is still no direct one-to-one correlation between the number she says and the number of items she indicates.  So she might point to one finger and say "one", then point to the next finger and say "two, three", then say "four" with the third finger, go back to a finger she had already counted, etc.  It seems like she likes to count up to 10, no matter how many actual items there are.

As far as activities, we did work on sorting pompoms in an egg carton, though Natalka wasn't really wanting to put them in their own rows.  We also did a shape sorting activity, which went a bit better.  We focused on the square, circle, and triangle, and I gathered some household items, toys, flashcards, and had her put them by the correct shape decal.  Even though we technically still have a number and shape of the week, that is mainly for the purposes of putting those flashcards on the refrigerator, which we can review periodically throughout the week.  I'll be working on more activities that focus on shapes and counting in general, rather than sticking to the number/shape of the week.

SCIENCE

This past week we had a great nature study.  On Friday, we got into the right frame of mind by reading a book on farm animals and doing the corresponding puzzle.  On Saturday, we visited my sister's farm, and Natalia got to pet a goose, watch sheep get fed, and rode a miniature pony for a bit.  She didn't want to leave, and a tiny toad came to the rescue by distracting her enough to enjoy yet another aspect of nature, right in her hand.  Lucky for the toad she didn't smoosh her though!  She got a couple of home-grown squash from her auntie for the road.

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Ok, so it turns out Signing Time will need to be something we budget in, as only one full 30-minute episode is available on YouTube, and it no longer runs on PBS.  However, Natalia loves this series, and has been asking to watch it again and again.  Generally, she'll watch the "Welcome to School" episode for 10 minutes or so, practice the signs, and be done.  Or she'll want to see some of the shorter clips they have.  She has internalized several new signs and uses them throughout the day, which delights both her parents, but I think her dad in particular.  Some of her newest signs include: crayons, pencil, paper, backpack, pay attention, and the signs for the names of the two kids in the video (Alex and Leah).

CRAFT & SENSORY

Since realizing it's too soon to push academics, I've decided instead to focus on crafts and sensorial experiences.  This week's crafts included an unexpected tie dye design on paper towels, created using melting ice cubes with food coloring.  This was a bit messy, which is how we ended up with the artwork, bc I was bringing in paper towels to help absorb the melting water.   At the end, she even created her own activity by rubbing the different color ice cubes on the black and white butterfly designs on her placemat, thereby coloring them.  You can see in the photo below how she has her rag ready to go in her left hand for clean up to prep for the next color.

The final product spent the night drying and hardening on the window; we're putting it in her portfolio to see if it keeps.

We also had a sensory art with home-made edible paint.  We watched a video on how to make it, and Natalia asked to do it even before I had a chance to suggest it, so we mixed food coloring with cool whip, and she had a good time finger painting for a good 20 minutes.  Her creations are currently on display in her room.  We froze the remainder for a future use.

 

Since this is coolwhip based, not sure how long we can keep it...

MUSIC APPRECIATION

This week we listened to Chopin during meal times.  We watched a few performances as well.  And I realized this wasn't going to work, as it involved too much exposure to the laptop, which was only reminding Natalia of the other things she could ask to watch.

ART APPRECIATION

The same goes for art.  We focused on Leonardo DaVinci's "Mona Lisa", "The Last Supper", "St. John the Baptist", "The Anunciation", and "Vitrusian Man", but none of these compared to the interest she had shown to the very first piece of art from last week (Boticelli's "The Birth of Venus").  And again, since we were using the laptop to bring up the images, she started asking to watch other things instead.  (The good news is that she usually requested Signing Time.)

In my last ditch effort to save Art Appreciation, we also watched several videos of people painting a landscape and two portraits.  I'd say these were moderately interesting to her at best. I would still like to use classic art exposure, but it will have to wait until we budget in postcards that they make for this purpose, so that this can be separated from screen time.

SOCIALIZATION

Another jam-packed week for socialization.  Monday, we went to Walmart together, Wednesday to Safeway, and the skills we practiced were walking on the right side of an aisle, watching where we're going so as not to run into people, saying hello when addressed.  I also try to have her help at check-out time, by having her put something on the conveyor belt and hand the cashier money (we are trying to go back to the envelope system, which will have the added benefit of letting Natalia have real world experience of the money-for-goods system that we use in our society).  She was upset about Daddy going to work every day, so this will also tie in nicely when it finally clicks that we only get money thanks to Daddy going to work to earn it.  It's still a ways off, but it's never too early to start teaching money management.

Returning grocery cart.

Friday, we went to a music class at the library, which was a bit of a flop.  She wanted to sit at the computer instead after the first song.  She did laugh, and dance, and participate, but she had the computer on her mind the whole time.  Plus, the other kids were mostly a few years older and their dancing was putting their limbs awfully close to her face on several occasions.  We ended up leaving a few minutes early, and she got a couple of minutes on the computer (which meant I brought up a Word Document and let her type large colorful letters).

We also met up with a lady whose son is Natalia's age (who also has six year old and 6 month old daughters).  There was no chance of looking at any books to check out, as she made a bee line for the two dinosaurs sitting on the table in the kids' corner. She read one book to them, but the rest of the time it was all about her sitting next to me on the sofa playing with the dinosaurs, while the little boy kept bringing me books and putting them on my lap and wanting me to comment on them.  It was a bit chaotic and reminded me why I am questioning the benefits of these gatherings.  The adults really weren't able to have a proper conversation, the kids didn't really interact, and I couldn't get home fast enough for some much needed peace and quiet.  There was another, bigger girl, there who at one point came up to take one of the dinosaurs that Natalia had let go of, but she only dropped it on the floor and went back to her seat.  It looked like she was bored and wanted Natalia to come after her, so I tried to encourage her to go play with her, but that wasn't happening.

She also had lunch Saturday with my parents and Sunday with Oscar's mom, and we went to church and Lowes as well.  All in all, I find our every day outings to be much more conducive to teaching proper social skills - like eye contact, responding when being addressed, etc., than putting little kids together in a room and spending the entire time correcting their behavior.

PHYSICAL FITNESS

This was another great success, as Natalia spend a good deal of time in the hotel swimming pool after visiting my sister's farm.  Saturday evening, she was exibiting incredible trust in Oscar and doing all kinds of bouyancy experiments I've never seen her do before.  Sunday morning they went again after breakfast.


I think by the end of August, I will have ironed out the major wrinkles and have a pretty good curriculum in place.  The goal is for preschool to be running smoothly, with activities prepared and ready to go in advance, so that there isn't much disruption between baby brother's birth and the end of the calendar year.