Wow. That was just about all we could say. Wow.

If you're not a Lily-head, you should be. Check out Lily's Purple Plastic Purse and Julius, The Baby of the World. Excellent.

So, the reason we could only say Wow is that DD read to us tonight from a regular library book, not a reader, not some level-1, painstakingly selected by me book, but a real, regular book. Her reading was so smooth; it was unbelievable. Further proof that backing off was a good thing for our homeschooling. When I tell people that her reading improved once I stopped "teaching" her, they laugh, but it's so true. I was really killing her spirit. I'm going to try to remember this as we homeschool this year and beyond. Anyone interested in betting how long I can remember?

Also, she wowed us by asking her Dad if the moon was a crescent or a half. What in the world??? We are the luckiest parents in the world.

Cooking with Gas

We are official homeschoolers. We are registered with our local Board of Education and we are ready to roll. Kindergarten will start on August 3 somewhere deep in the Hundred Acre Wood or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

So all of the 1984 scenarios that I imagined were completely unfounded. As soon as I get my official letter, I can hie myself over to Staples and receive a free tote bag full of goodies. I'm so excited!

Fear Factor

This is it. We are "officially" homeschooling one week from today. I'm turning in our Declaration of Homeschooling this week to our local BoE and I'll begin keeping records (ugghhh - not my forte). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In our state, homeschoolers are required to log 4 hours per day, 180 days per year. Although my rational self realizes that this is very manageable, my irrational self (who, sadly, remains in control more of the time) immediately started freaking out. Four hours a day? How will I fill four hours of every day with something educational? Then, I took a deep breath; several deep breaths and gently lowered myself from the ceiling. Ok, I thought. You can do this. You are already doing this, you just aren't cataloguing your days for possible review by the BoE.

We did not purchase a curriculum for kindergarten; the "real" schoolwork will begin in earnest next year. Or at least that's what I think today. In kindergarten, we will be focusing on fluency with reading and numbers, encouraging her burgeoning writing efforts (without correcting spelling errors or attempting to teach technique) and pursuing other interests as they come up. For example, DD asked about astronauts and fireflies today, both worthy subjects to explore.

I'd also like to teach her to identify coins and their respective worth. We checked out a book called Bennie's Pennies, but we haven't read it yet. Interestingly, since we began reading chapter books at night, we've not read as many picture books during the day like we used to. We rectified that today by reading a couple of wonderful picture books, including Ella's Big Chance by Shirley Hughes. Definitely check it out if you get a chance. It's a wonderful retelling of the Cinderella story. I really loved the twist at the end.

A Beautiful Day for the Zoo

We've been enjoying lovely, fabulously unseasonal weather here, with not a trace of humidity. We celebrated by spending the day at the zoo. We meandered over to the home belonging to the original owners of the land and took the tour.

It's a beautiful old home built in the Federal style filled with gorgeous antiques, Haviland and Wedgewood, coal-burning fireplaces and scads of books. Our kind of home, for sure. No indoor plumbing, but I could work around that. After touring the inside of the home, we wandered around the outside for a bit.

Here is BaBa the sheep, taking a siesta:





Here is a shot of the gardens, maintained by a volunteer group of master gardeners:



Here is the kitchen, still separate from the main house:



Such a neat house with a fascinating history. It was great to finally be able to see inside and learn more about it. Even DD was impressed. She called it the beautiful house that she never wanted to leave. Amen, sister. Amen.

Is it nerdy to admit that you love the library?

Or is that more of a rhetorical question? Anyway, I am a proud lover of the library, especially when they celebrate the end of the summer reading program with cake. CAKE. Enough cake for everyone. Chocolate or white icing. Life is good.

We were at the main branch today, eating cake, playing carnival style games and watching Cinderella, the latest marionette show. We ended up watching it twice because DD enjoyed the first show so much. It was even better than Alice in Wonderland, which was my favorite heretofore. Bonus points for disco-ball usage.

We splurged on a special lunch in the cafe downstairs just because. I'm thinking of making "just because" my new mantra.

The Land of Oz

or, my favorite bookstore in all the land. We finally have an enormous, fantastic, unbelievable used bookstore in town. So far, we've only been twice, but each visit has revealed a treasure trove of homeschool necessities. Today we went in search of easy readers. I have a few upper level readers (step 2 and 3), but I wanted to have a good selection of simple stories that she can read with little or no help from me. DD has moved beyond the initial Bob books series, but she's not yet ready for the fifth set, I believe it is. She told me that the stories were too long.

So, off we went, with a stack of books and cds to magically transform into a different stack of books and cds. We found some great readers and some excellent math books that should be a big help to me in the coming year. I'm actually excited about the prospect of math, which feels strange. But I'm feeling strangely optimistic about this whole crazy adventure. It feels right.

Schedule, Shmedule

Well, I do want to be more organized. It's certainly been my #1 goal for the past four years. However, this sneaky streak of laissez-faire keeps rearing its ugly head and preventing me from channeling my inner Martha Stewart. Knowing this about myself, I am now admitting it about myself. That is the first step to recovery, right? So, no schedules for kindergarten. No formal curricula purchases. This year we will continue to fly by the seats of our pants. At least I will.

We are, however, setting a few goals. Gulp. Here goes.

• Fluent reading - This is, of course, a work-in-progress. Today, she surprised me by doing more incidental reading than ever before. For example, "Why does this box say new?" or reading the title of a book I'm reading and asking me what it means. Naturally, I'm very excited by all this, but refrained from pulling out good old Phonics Pathways for extended lessons on consonant digraphs.
• Basic numeracy - I want her to be able to count to 20 without dropping 15. We have a little issue with the number 15. We don't like it. We don't use it, except on rare occasions when DH offers an extra special treat for correctly counting to 20. So, we'll continue to work on that. Interestingly, she likes to count to 30 and 40, sometimes 50. DH explained the nifty concept of 10s to her using some ancient Math speak that was foreign to me, but it made sense to her. We also plan to work on counting backwards from 10 and counting by 2s.
• Basic writing - She has begun to write quite a bit on her own. We won't start working on handwriting until she is 6, but we'll definitely continue to give her access to copious amounts of paper and pencils.

Of course, we'll have time to explore numerous amusing tangents. She decided she wanted a human body book from the library, so we came home with about 5. She wanted to learn about eyes in particular. This afternoon she spent some time sketching the skeletal and musculature structures. Pretty neat.

All You Need is Love (with a dash of trust)

I'm fairly certain that I've mentioned this book before, but I think it bears repeating. Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld is probably one of the best "parenting" books I've read. Occasionally you meet with a book that dovetails so perfectly with your experience, it's as though it had been written for you. For so long, I've been ignoring some (thankfully not all) of my intuitions regarding DD; instead trying to adopt a more hardline approach that would, ideally, mold her into a strong and independent adult. Poor kid. It's a testament to her innate strength and independence that she has thrived in spite of our wobbly parenting skills. But I digress. This book encouraged me to trust my intuition and to keep DD's spirit in the forefront of my mind. It made me think about what I was doing and saying before I did it or said it. Am I nurturing our connection (Neufeld refers to it as attachment)? Does she know that I believe she is the greatest thing since sliced bread? If she doesn't jknow it today, she will tomorrow and all the rest of her days.

It was so easy to reject the "don't hold her too much, you'll spoil her" school of thought when she was a baby. I thought that was complete rubbish, for a baby. Looking back, I can see where I adopted that attitude somewhat once she began exhibiting her own personality. It's funny how we admire individuality as long as it's very like our own.

I'm so glad I stumbled across this book before we begin "officially" homeschooling. I'm working on deprogramming myself. I didn't realize how rigid I had become (perhaps I've always been rigid and I'm just now discovering it. What a disturbing thought. Ah well.) What I want to cultivate is a relaxed atmosphere where we all learn and grow together; sometimes pursuing individual interests, sometimes working together as a family, but always learning and growing. And laughing. Lots and lots of laughing.

Riddle Me This

I am soft and fluffy with a tail that can't wag like a dog. I have a corn on my head. What am I?

Do you give up? I sure did. After several WRONG guesses, I was informed that the answer is a unicorn.

DD is making up riddles, perhaps in response to the Word Girl episode I let her watch this afternoon. She probably loves being sick because that means more tv.

Here are a few more, verbatim.

Riddle: I am soft. I have a tail. And what am I?
Answer: a cat

Riddle: I am not fluffy. I have a big long tail. What am I?
A hint: It stands up.
Another hint: Sorry, no more hints.
Answer: a moose

Here is another verbatim post from the star of the show:

These are all the riddles. In the end. Because it is a defend. And budda leeda weeda. I know you because you are knowing me as well as you know me and together we know somebody else.

Untitled

I just couldn't think of a pithy title to describe today. DD has a cold, so we've been staying home these past few days. We've played all our our board and card games several times through, finished reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and started a new Nancy Drew, The Haunted Showboat, camped out, played dolls, listened to music and only ventured outside in the late afternoon to take advantage of this gorgeous weather we're having.

In spite of not feeling well, she wants to read. She read a few of the Dora readers that I picked up from a consignment sale. I was really impressed because they are longer stories with more difficult words than most of the other readers we have. Today, she hunted around for her Phonics Pathways book because she wanted to read to me. That was a great moment, as was my role in helping her fix me a surprise lunch. She led me to the pantry, told me to close my eyes and "feel around on the top shelf. I'll tell you when you touch it. Don't open your eyes!" Turns out she needed the peanut butter.