Natalka's Preschool April

Still in unschooling mode, though not for long.  Plans are in the works for a more intentional, guided early education, focusing on a holistic approach without premature academics.

Antonio's placenta going into the kids' palm.

 
Natalia's and Antonio's placentas are both buried in this little palm, as a reminder of how they nourished them and now help nourish the palm.

Gardening has begun! We are giving it a go!

planting green onion cutlings

 

Learning about grey water use.  Antonio's bath water being used to water our pine trees. Water conservation, baby!

 
 



Recently found out Natalka has a Sanguine temperament, which includes a need to be around other people.  Very social, I could've told you that.  Her favorite activity seems to be walking hand in hand with her friends!

 

Preparing for Easter with egg coloring and card making....

 
 
.... as well as helping with the traditional Polish Easter food basket, brought to church to be blessed.

 

Speaking of being blessed, here's our little Saint in the Making singing to Jesus in the Adoration Chapel and playing with her Resurrection cut-outs.

 

Spotted a bird on our nature walk

loves picking wildflowers

who doesn't love the sandbox

been asking for a bike...

touch screen art at the library

helping in the kitchen by cutting up mushrooms

private moment with Babcia via Skype

holding baby alligator at a homeschooling fair

learning to share with her baby brother

Sending Kids to Daycare and Preschool

I assumed that, as a stay-at-home mom and future homeschool educator, I wouldn't have to deal with the decision of sending my kids to daycare and then preschool.  But one by one, more and more playdate moms have started revealing to me that they're sending their kids to some sort of organized school-ish environment, if even for a few hours each week.  My first shock was when other stay-at-home moms started doing it.  My second shock came when a future homeschooling mom likewise revealed that her elder child will be starting preschool in September.  Note that "shock" does not mean "disapproval".  It just wasn't on my radar.  I assumed that only working-for-pay moms sent their kids to daycare or preschool, out of necessity.

But I would be lying if I said the thought of sending my own daughter somewhere outside the home for "enrichment" never crossed my mind.  In fact, it has recently crossed my mind as I lamented having to stop any serious preschool homeschooling with the birth of Antonio.  During my pregnancy, I really enjoyed not only sharing various educational lessons with Natalia, but also documenting them and being able to see how she's learning.  Then I gave myself a couple of months after baby brother's birth for unschooling, and again I was pleased when I went to document these months to see how Natalia was learning without any advanced thought given by me to planning out what she should learn.

However, having a baby in the home who loves attention and physical proximity but doesn't care much for baby carriers has proven to be quite challenging.  At best, we have been able to take full advantage of our local library, both in terms of exploring lots of books, especially on nature, but also classic children's literature and even Spanish, as well as the occasional storytime where Natalia interacts with the librarian and other children.  And while this is all fine and good for the time being, I am not satisfied with this arrangement long-term.  And so when one mom after another started sharing with me where they are sending their kids, suddenly the idea arrived on my radar.

I immediately thought of Montessori preschool.  I knew that if I ever sent my kids to preschool, I'd want it to be Montessori.  I love the environment and philosophy behind Montessori.  We've incorporated various Montessori-inspired activities into our daily living over time.  I also like that the children are not segragated by age but that they are in a three-year age group, where younger children can learn from older ones, and the older kids can practice leadership skills while helping the younger ones.  But one internet search put the idea of Montessori preschool idea to rest.  Tuition.

A couple of moms have been praising the co-op preschool they've selected for their kids, and while I like the idea of spending most of the time outside, focusing on social interactions rather than premature academics, and the fact that it's a tiny fraction of what a Montessori preschool costs, I hesitate.

First of all, I would have liked to have been able to send Natalia somewhere right now, over the next few months, until Antonio becomes less clingy and I am freed up enough to take over homeschooling again.  But it seems that unless I were satisfied with a daycare, all preschools start and end along with the public school year, and there's a comitment generally for the school year.

But there's more.  I also do not like the idea of surrounding Natalia with other kids who, like her, have yet to learn proper social interaction skills, and let them influence each other for better or for worse.  One-on-one is one thing.  But in a classroom setting... and without my presence, it comes down to this: who knows what she'd actually be learning from her peers!  Name brands?  Disney characters?  Attitudes towards toys, food, clothes, hair, the list is really endless.  The whole point of me staying home, first of all, and then homeschooling is to maintain control over what my children are and aren't exposed to. (I use the word control here not in a Type-A personality way, but in the it's-my-responsibility-and-perogative-as-parent way.).  The point is for me to not delegate the task of raising them to others, whose values I may not share.

In addition, giving Natalia a regularly recurring time away from home would also limit her exposure to one of our minority family languages. (I say one of them, thinking here of Polish, because her Spanish exposure is mostly tied to when Oscar is home, which wouldn't change if she were to attend preschool.)  Especially during the first 5 or so years, language exposure is critical if we want fluency for our kids.  There is no need for us to worry about English for our kids, because we live in an English-as-majority-language community.  But if we want to safeguard our minority languages, we need to seek out more opportunities in Polish and Spanish, not less.

I understand why public (or even private) school-bound kids' parents may want to give their kids "a head start" by enrolling them in preschool.  Expectations for school kids has risen to unrealistic levels, so that arriving in Kindergarten on the first day of school, kids today are already expected to know the alphabet.  I disagree with such premature academics.  I didn't start to learn to read until I was 6 or 7, and I dare to say that my reading and writing skills are much better than most public school graduates, not to mention that I'm literate in three languages.  I don't say this to brag, but to prove a point - so-called "delayed academics" works, and it works better than premature academics.

But other than academics, school-bound kids also have to prepare for the social aspects of school.  For better or for worse, kids these days don't just go to school to learn (in fact, I doubt that's actually the reason for many anyway), but to make friends, try to fit in, learn what the mainstream says about what's normal and appropriate, and essentially lose themselves to group-think in many cases.  Bottom line, kids headed for school do need to be prepared for what that environment is like.  Standing in line, raising your hand before speaking, asking permission to go to the bathroom, taking turns with limited equipment or supplies, etc.  Without these skills, schools would be even more chaotic than they already are.  (Though not all agree, as the likes of Sudbury schools have started popping up more and more.)  As future homeschoolers, my kids have no need of these skills, especially not at age 3 or 4.

And so I conclude that in the end, the best decision for our family is to keep on trekking with what we've been doing.  Staying home together, building on family relationships as paramount, and only supplementing the value system we live at home by playdates and group events for kids.  That is enough.

Preschool Week 7

Outside Time

We grab what we can in regards to outside time.  We are certainly not outdoorsy people at this point, at least I'm not, but I try to celebrate every occasion we have to be outside.

Getting a jalapeno plant for daddy's dinner.

Observing moss and tree roots.

Watching a far off bird soaring.

Watering our pine trees.

We made a rainbow!

Language Arts 

Tea time!
I've started our version of tea time during breakfast to help encourage Natalia to stay at the table and feed herself, as this has become a daily struggle for us.  I collected all the books that have poetry I can see us using later on for copywork and memorization, and I've started reading from them during breakfast.  Below, we had breakfast outside, and we read a fantastic book in Polish that was all in rhyme, with wonderful illustrations, and lessons in geography as well as some character formation.

Social Experiences

In addition to her weekly Skype session with my mom, the biggest socializing took place at the end of the week, during Daddy's birthday party.  Natalia was a champ, and has confirmed my suspicions that she is an extrovert, meaning she is energized by being around other people.  She met a ton of new people, and enjoyed spending time with some friends as well as family.

 


Nature Study

Growing cucumbers!  I bought a little kit at the dollar store and we prepped the soil and I had her push in the seeds and water them.  We essentially put it into a mini green house (closed plastic bag) and set it on her windowsill, where it's getting plenty of sunlight.  To our surprise, the seeds started to germinate within 48 hours!  Now a week later, there are five tall sprouts that she gets a kick out of checking on every day.  Here's hoping we are able to keep it going and end up at the harvest :)

 

Math

Natalia pointed out the number "0" on her daddy's birthday card.  Unprompted.  We had recently read a numbers book a couple of times that starts with the number zero.  I'm loving how these early math skills are just sufacing on their own! She's got a solid hold on the number "1", pointing out she's got one dog, or there's only one cupcake.  We have been reading another book on numbers as well where we go through and point out on each page how many of some object are on any given page, which combines repetition of the number from that page.

Art & Music Appreciation

We put in a frame a print out of a lovely painting I found on A Well-Trained Heart, and we talked about it a few times.  I'll leave it on a low shelf for another week and then swap out the image. The idea is just to expose her to beauty.  We're not doing artist study per se right now.

We practiced singing the happy birthday song in English, Polish, and a little bit Spanish (it's too long still) in preparation for Daddy's birthday, which was on Friday.

Crafts

We've been neglecting these as I've tried to figure out how to be more deliberate about the types of crafts we'll be doing.  But this week, we made a birthday card for Daddy!

 

She was also surprised by a bouquet of carnations from one of the birthday party guests, so we got to do some flower arranging as well!

Independence

We had a rough day early in the week, and upon reflection, I realized that I need to fill Natalia's love bucket before expecting her to feel comfortable playing independently.  So rather than trying to get through my to-do list first thing in the morning, I've started reading to her during breakfast (while pre-loading her spoon and encouraging her to feed herself - something she's stopped doing a few months ago, presumably a regression in anticipation of becoming a big sister), and then I give her my attention for about an hour before trying to do anything that would require her to entertain herself.

In related news, she's started wanting to go on the toilet more, and I've had to bring out the toilet seat reducer, something I thought we had another year before I'd need.  I still supervise her bc it's a bit flimsy, plus I don't like the idea of giving her free access to the bathroom without supervision for safety reasons (I'm thinking falls, as the cabinets are child-proofed).

ASL

Among the guests at Daddy's birthday party, there were two deaf coworkers.  Not only did Natalia get to see the entire office using sign language, but when one of the deaf coworkers came to say hello, she signed that she remembered him! It blew my mind!

Spanish

Natalia got to practice her Spanish with someone other than Daddy.  She was able to see the usefulness of the language (just like ASL above) outside of just our home, by speaking Spanish with her aunt, uncle, and several cousins.

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.