Entries Tagged 'Gamma' ↓

It’s been slow going around here lately.  We’ve started a couple new books — The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and The Marvelous Land of Oz by Baum — but Gamma couldn’t get into either of them.  I don’t think it’s the reading material that’s the issue.  Both are books I think he’d normally really enjoy.  But right now, his mind is 100% focused on…?  Yes, you got it!  Bionicles.  He can’t stop talking about them, from first waking til saying goodnight.  He doesn’t want to read books, or play games, or go exploring, or or or… If he’s not playing with his Bionicles, he’s looking at homemade videos about them on YouTube.  Either that or playing the game on the Wii.

I am being driven slowly insane.

Today, Gamma and I played Mario Kart Wii until I thought my eyeballs would bleed.  Or maybe just during Epsilon’s nap.  But still, for a long, LONG time.  (I should add that I am a FAR better driver in real life than I am on the Wii.  Truly.  I’ve yet to drive off a cliff, or over a banana, or smash repeatedly into a guard-rail in an effort to turn around and move in the right direction.) Gamma has played this much more than I have, and loves to impart special tips that I have yet to discover.

So… there we are, laughing, having a great time (although I may or may not have swore at the ink blobs, and Gamma may or may not have repeated what I said), and Gamma pauses the game and says, “Know what?”  You’re playing and having fun,” here he leans over and taps me repeatedly on the temple, “and you’re learning at the same time.  And didn’t even know it!”  then he resumes the game.

Huh… wonder where he learned that?  Surely I’m not that pedantic?!

We waved goodbye to Alpha, who was heading off to work, then Gamma matter-of-factly explained to me, “You know some numbers are perfect numbers and some numbers aren’t.  4 is a perfect number.  So is 2. So are 8 and 6.  But 1, and 3, and 5, and 7 aren’t.”

Aha… I asked him what he meant by “perfect,” and he explained that you could double some other number and come up with them.  Aha…  I explained that those were even numbers, and the “not perfect” numbers were odd.  I didn’t get into what perfect numbers really are, as my math memories are somewhat sketchy and mixed up.

But it impressed me greatly to see him stumble across this on his own.  No pushing from me, no contrived games to make him “get it.”  He’s gone around for the last couple days, labeling every number he comes to as either odd or even.  Playing games in which, whatever he does, he must do it an even number of steps.  Counting the bites in his lunch to assure he takes an even number of bites.  This reminded me of one of Rollfe Schmidt’s posts, and it was very gratifying to see happen in my own child.

I’ve read somewhere that you will see it when you believe it.  I’m starting to see the truth of that statement.

…I have many thoughts, most not fully developed, rambling about in my head right now.  I think the end result, should I ever reason it out, will be an epiphany (for me, at least).  So forgive me for pouring my ramblings out here…

I often read accounts of home/unschooling projects in which everyone is involved, learning is happening on multiple levels, connections are being made, and there’s just a warm fuzzy glow encompassing everyone.  But somehow, I didn’t see that as being real.  Not that I thought learning and projects would necessitate a “chore” mentality — just that I couldn’t see it working for and involving every one of us.  For example, I figured that if we decided to… say, learn to play chess, I would read about it before hand, find some good sites, and then impart my knowledge to Gamma.  He’d be suitably grateful and enthralled with the knowledge, and we’d both become expert chess players as a result.  So yes, we’d all be learning, but I’d be learning in advance, and then teaching.

Gamma has a long-standing obsession with Bionicles.  He loves to put them together.  He scours the Lego site for information on them.  He has discovered the wonders of YouTube and homemade movies starring Bionicles.  He plays the game on the Wii, and he watches the movie as often as we allow can stand to listen to it.  He asks me what Bionicles I would like for my birthday, and which action figure I like best, and who I want to be when we play make-believe games together.  It doesn’t stop.  Ever.  All…day…long.

(this has a point… I swear it… at least I think it does… I’m not sure where this will end up…)

I really don’t like Bionicles very much.  The storyline has too much fighting for my taste.  But knowing how infatuated he is with these right now, I tried to look at them objectively and figure out how we could use this as a learning experience.  Not turning it into schoolwork, but extracting learning from it, if you follow me.

But I couldn’t see it.  Sure, he was following sometimes 20- or 30-step instructions, intended for kids three-to-five years older than he is.  But he’s just playing. Sure, he’s correctly typing in words like “Mata Nui” and “Rahkshi” and “Vahki,” and finding videos and instruction manuals.  But these aren’t “real” words and he’s just fooling around. Sure, he’s reading things like “do you want to purchase this hint for 500?”  But this isn’t a phonics program, it’s just a video game.

I kept looking for how I could connect this to history, or literature, or something I saw as meaningful.  I just couldn’t see it.

A week or so ago, Alpha bid on and won a huge lot of Bionicle sets and spare pieces.  When he called me from work and told me about it, I admit I was less than thrilled.  Gamma had just been digging in his heels and ignoring some of the “organic” learning I was trying to make him joyously discover.  Instead, he wanted to be playing with his stinking Bionicles.  I was ready to ban them from the house!  But despite my opposition to the war-mentality, and despite the education battles, I really just want my kids to have fun and be happy, and so, when Alpha came home Friday afternoon with a load of Bionicles, I was grinning along with him while we watched Gamma’s ever-increasing joy as he discovered each new set.

Thus began a two day marathon Bionicle session.  For all of us.  Gamma was the lead builder, as he knew the most about the sets.  Some did not have instructions — Alpha and Gamma figured those out together.  Then came the huge bag of assorted parts.  A strange helmet, an unusual weapon or disk or shield.  I’d  use these clues to look them up on the internet, find the correct name/species (???) of Bionicle, and locate a scanned instruction booklet so they could piece them together.  Epsilon… he is the only two year old on earth, I’d dare say, that can say “Bionicle”, let alone name individual characters.

And it was an absolutely awesome, warm-fuzzy-glow weekend.  Alpha is almost as infatuated with Bionicles as Gamma now.  He loves to build and construct, and figure things out with no blueprint, only to find a blueprint later and realize he was dead-on balls accurate (it’s an industry term).  Gamma was in his element, and I think being the resident expert gave him a level of confidence and assured-ness about himself he’d not realized before.  I loved finding that I’m a valued part of the team — that being research assistant/librarian is just as valuable  (if not more)  as being hands on/go-to-girl.  Epsilon enjoyed getting to play with spare parts and simply not being brushed aside in the interest of real learning, as opposed to play.  And both kids got to see that both Dad’s and Mom’s skills (although vastly different) have great value.

Sigh… if I’d taken the time to write this all out in the midst of the epiphany, it might have made so much more sense… but then I’d have missed most of the moments…

I can’t equate all learning to the Bionicle universe.  I still can’t fathom how our history can be traced through this alternative universe.  Or how most math, or history, or science, can spring from this.  But I am beginning to get the picture of how the learning can happen, and the possibilities are enticing.  I still have a long way to go, but I think I’m becoming more open to the possibilities.

And I think that – getting how the learning can happen – will be the most important step of all.

Can you find a familiar face amongst the legion?

Just a brief note to say that, apparently, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the best book that’s ever been written, and needs to go to the top of Gamma’s Lit Picks.  After a two hour marathon reading session this afternoon, we finished, and Gamma wanted to immediately begin again!  Gamma has also declared the book superior to the movie, and questions why they made the changes they did.  Why aren’t the slippers silver, like in the story?  Did you know the Tin Woodman used to be a real man? So many details left out that would have added to the story.  No answers here, but apparently a life-long love of fantasy borne in a single book…

You know those “homeschoolers” who always laugh at the ill-fitting moniker?  You know, the ones that are never actually home, and are always out exploring nature, frequenting museums, and taking more classes than your average college freshman?  Yeah… that’s not us.

We’re homebodies.  At least, I should say, Alpha and I are homebodies.  Gamma seems to follow suit, although whether that’s due to nature or nurture is debatable.  Epsilon has yet to make his preferences known.

So, most of our time, we actually ARE at home.  And I think that’s fine.  But I’m also trying to get out and do more with the kids, to expose them to what our area has to offer.  This week, we ventured out to the PASS, a science adventure park a mere ten-minute drive from our house.  It’s a former colliery, turned into a great hands-on museum.  Although, obviously, all the info and audio-bits are in French and Dutch, the areas of the museum geared for the younger set were relatively easy for me to translate on the fly.  Not that the kids cared about the text.  They were more concerned with trying out absolutely everything.

There’s lots more to explore, including a weather observatory that Gamma’s excited about, so I think this was a good find and we’ll be back frequently.    Where to venture next?

Gamma has been dutifully bringing me one of the BOB Books every morning as of late, to read to me.  Not because I’ve asked him too, because I’d long ago written them off as uninteresting to him and resolved that there must be a better way.  (My attempts to find that “better way” hadn’t been terribly successful, and as you know, I’ve since taken a more relaxed approach to the subject.) And not because he enjoys them, because he does not.  But he’s suddenly decided he wants to learn how to read, and I must have at some point told him that these were books that would help teach him.

A couple months ago, I would have rejoiced at this.  And I do, in part.  I’m so glad he’s suddenly got this desire to read for himself.  I find him flipping through books, reading cereal boxes, store ads, etc.  But seeing his emotionless face as he slogs through these early readers, as if they are the dues he has to pay before he can move on to “real” books, saddens my heart.

He has a few Bionicles books, just beyond his reading level, that he’s been skimming through.  I pointed out that he could just as easily hone his reading skills on books like these, as there is nothing magical in the BOB Books.  He looked hopeful, and I think he’s chewing on that idea.  I’m hopeful, too.

My head is still spinning.

I have read more about educational theory and philosophies in the past week or two than you can imagine.  I’ve run into a multitude of choices I didn’t even know we had.  Reggio?  Steiner?  Project-based?  Problem-based?  I find it very telling that the choices that appeal to me most are the ones that most closely line up with unschooling. But let me assure you, if we’re applying labels, Alpha will be much more comfortable with the term inquiry-based learning.

The Camp Creek blog has been just a wealth of information and inspiration.  THIS is an approach I think could actually work in our house.  For EVERYONE.  However….

I find it rather ironic that, when I first set up this blog, I made a point on our about page of saying “we don’t label our children.”  So why am I so insistent upon labeling our children’s education?  Searching for an identity in the homeschool blogging community, maybe?  (as if being a secular/atheist homeschooling family isn’t identity enough!!)  I don’t want to be fenced in by a label three years from now, when Gamma decides he wants to, I don’t know, tackle math in a textbook.  Or when Epsilon is a little older and loves phonics and workbooks and lots and lots of structure.  (ha ha ha)

So I have decided to abstain from the worksheets, and the phonics program, and the checklist.  Instead I’m going to more actively track his interests and his questions, and encourage him to pursue them.  And document everything, for my own sanity.  I’m finding that, when I do that, the other things get accomplished along the way.  Let’s see if it continues.

I’ve done some editing as of late around here, to reflect our slightly less-schooly mentality (haven’t gone all the way, sorry JJ!).  Note the change from “teaching them to think for themselves” to “thinking for ourselves… all day, in every way.”    The reading seems to be rolling along just fine, despite my interference.  So, for the time being, I’m letting go of that.   I think Gamma’s getting more out of reading the instructions for video games, et al, than he was getting out of our phonics program.  Recently, he seems to be quite intrigued by maths, so we’re working on that more.  Funny to me, he still gets the numerals 6,7,8, and 9 confused, but he can add and subtract, and even multiply numbers much higher.  The concept is there, just not the notation.

Also, Gamma’s Lit Picks in the sidebar will no longer contain just our current reads.  Rather, it will hold only the cream of the crop — books Gamma personally recommends for other adventure-loving, thrill-seeking, irrepressible five year old boys!  As you can all ready see, we’ve been on a bit of a Roald Dahl kick, as of late.  We’ve also read Winnie the Pooh and attempted The Wind in the Willows, but neither of them have passed the 5-year old boy test!  Hopefully, someday, this list will help other starting-out homeschooling mums, desperate for good literature for their young sons — sons who are left cold by the current “recommended” reads for this age group!

In a comment from my most recent cry for help, JJ quotes from one of her own past posts (a quote of a quote of a quote of a quote, I think!):

Some students as children were taught to color inside the lines, watch Barney the purple dinosaur, and always ask permission.  We need students who found out what Crayons tasted like, loved reading “The Cat in the Hat” and paid little attention to rules — students whose parents encouraged their children’s curiosity.

Have I mentioned in the past that Gamma has gone to school here?  It’s called maternelle, and most children start at the age of 2 1/2. We sent Gamma briefly at the age of 2 1/2, believing it was the only way he would meet local kids and make friends.  (that’s a topic for another post, but let me just briefly say, there are no kids running about around here, even in the heart of the summer.  all the parents seem to work, and all kids seem to be in special all-day programs, even during vacation.)  He cried every single time I took him, so eventually we brought him home.  We tried again just last September, at 4 1/2.  At this point we’d been back and forth on the homeschool question half a dozen times.  What tipped the scales into “real” school’s favor?  Simply put: French.  I can teach him French, but fluency will be a stretch.  It seemed extremely important at the time.

Still some tears, but he was older and adjusted better.  His teacher was firm but kind.  Most of the other kids were fine.  He brought home some behaviors we didn’t care for, but we took that as par for the course.  Regardless, it was during that year that we decided his need for close family ties and an individualized education outweighed his need for French.  He didn’t go back after spring vacation.

His last day of school, his teacher gave me a packet with his papers and schoolwork from the year.  She said she had loved having Gamma for a student, and we could stop by anytime.  I left feeling a wee bit nostalgic.

In the car, I glanced through the paperwork.  On several pages, I saw a sad face with tears dripping from the eyes.  Why?  Because he had scribbled instead of colored in neatly.  He had followed the key correctly, coloring all the N spots black (noire), all the R spots red (rouge), all the J spots yellow (jaune).  But the coloring in had been done half-heartedly, because it’s not something he enjoys doing yet.

The message those sad faces sent (to me, at least) was that understanding the concept behind your task wasn’t important.  What was important was delivering a pretty package.  I was stunned.  Does a kid at 4 1/2 really need to be made to feel like they failed?  At coloring?  At that point, whatever doubts I’d been feeling about the should we/shouldn’t we issue disappeared.

Thanks, JJ.  I’m glad to have been reminded of that moment.