homeschooling

Fall leaves?

August 24, 2009

Every week, I do a nature walk with my preschool kids. We stroll around the block in as much silence as a group of 2-5 years olds can muster while awake, and pay attention with our eyes and our ears and our noses and our skin to what’s happening in nature. The highlight of the [...]

Tagged as: homeschooling, nature

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The long pause in learning

July 26, 2009

A few months ago, Rio seemed to be right on the cusp of learning to read. She was practicing writing every day, for hours. She began copying whole sentences out of books, writing out words like “amazing” along with her standards – Rio, Mama, love. And then she stopped. I wasn’t surprised. She’s done this [...]

Tagged as: education, reading, rio

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Extraterrestrial Circus Experiment this Friday

July 8, 2009

Two of my kids are participating in Somerville’s Open Air Circus this summer, a local circus produced by and for kids. My teenage stepson is taking a leadership intensive and teaching classes in everything from unicycling to juggling, while the five-year-old in my life has become an instant expert at balance beams, tumbling and running [...]

Tagged as: circus, education, ian, rio

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Strawberry Jam!

June 17, 2009

The kids and I made half our haul of strawberries into a tasty jam this afternoon. Rio and Serena were both great helpers, as was the morning preschool gang. They washed the berries, cut the tops off them with a safety knife, and put them into bowls for mashing. Rio even helped stir the sugar [...]

Tagged as: food, homeschooling

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Strawberry Picking!

June 16, 2009

Today the girls and I went to Red Fire Farm, the organic farm that provides our vegetable CSA. The bulk of the CSA comes to us in the form of a weekly drop-off at the Growing Center, but we also have an open invitation to go pick some crops at the farm. It’s a long [...]

Tagged as: food, green, homeschooling

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Kindergarten, here we come

June 8, 2009

Sitting at the table one day, about ten days ago, Rio and I were doing a math project. She seemed to have come to the end of her interest in it. It was a simple game with paper, pen and a box of smooth round stones. (In spite of everything I am about to say, [...]

Tagged as: education, eliot-pearson, homeschooling, rio, school, tufts

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Alphabetical Objects

May 30, 2009

I ran across this page of interesting alphabets the other day. It’s not exactly for kids. One of the alphabets was made by clothespinning flesh into letter shapes. I personally do not want to put that idea in my five-year-old’s head. But a lot of the alphabets are charming, and very kid friendly. There are [...]

Tagged as: art, education

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Talking to kids about sex

May 29, 2009

If you’re at all like me, you don’t enjoy talking to kids about sex. I love talking to kids, and I love talking about sex, but the two together can get pretty awkward pretty fast. With my little ones, this is mostly “funny” awkward. It’s my four-year-old asking every adult who sets foot in the [...]

Tagged as: education, sex

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Is this a clock?

May 21, 2009

IMG_3894.JPG, originally uploaded by MzMuze. This is a photograph of the clock on top of my kids’ puppet theater. The hands only move at the urging of human hands to set the time. There’s no battery or clockwork behind the face, so normally it does not keep time. We use it as a learning toy [...]

Tagged as: homeschooling

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Peanut Butter Dough

May 14, 2009

When I was a child, one of my favorite snacks was Peanut Butter Balls. The recipe for these is delightfully simple: Wash all the hands that might go in the mixture. This includes your own, any child helpers, and any children who claim they do not want to help but might get drawn in once [...]