Training Your Child Part 4 - The Interview with Vicki Tillman, Part 2

Continuing my series on career exploration, here is the second part of the interview with Vicki Tillman.

Be sure to pop over to 7 Sisters Homeschooling's "Homeschool High School podcast" for my interview with Vicki about teaching Shakespeare. It's scheduled to air on 3rd April 2018 as episode 104.

It's never too early - nor too late - to think about teen careers.

Your website asks the question on your Career Bundles page about what to do with a child who loves everything: this describes me perfectly and I still feel adrift sometimes, so what advice would you have given “younger me”?

I know, right?! Some teens DO love everything, and what’s “worse”…they are good at just about everything. It is so much harder for those teens to feel settled in one career. That’s why providing lots of role models, experiences, service and prayer is important. AND a good Career Exploration course. AND maybe a mentor or coach. AND they may end up having several college majors/degrees and careers over the years (not so unusual with millennials- careers for them are a journey, not a destination!). I wouldn’t be surprised by the multi-career experience- God gave them much to do!

What part does faith play in career exploration?

A LOT! It is so good for teens and parents to know that they can roll their work on the Lord and he’ll direct them. Teens who are familiar with God’s character and leading through their experiences with prayer, Scripture knowledge and watching Godly role models and mentors generally are much more at peace with the Career Exploration process.

Follow up to that: How can you follow a faith-based exploration with a teen who’s not a believer?

For teens who are not believers, it’s not too useful to preach at them. On the other hand, allowing them to have the experience of learning from mentors and role models can take them a long way.

Is it easier to coach someone else (ie, other students) on their vocational goals than it is to guide your own children?

Well, to be honest, I might have enjoyed watching the process than a couple of my kids liked going through the process. I just LOVE the process of self-discovery…when you see the lightbulb turn on in a teen’s brain: “I UNDERSTAND the way God made me!”
But for a lot of kids, it’s a scary process. It is hard for them to believe that they are unique and loved and created on purpose for purpose by God. They might know it theologically, but it is hard to believe it for themselves. I’ve just been around long enough to know that, whether it is my teen or someone else’s teen, God’s got things in mind for them!

Should students go to college even if their vocational goal doesn’t require a degree?
The answer to that question is a conditional “no”. (Does that sound like equivocation?)

There are teens who are absolutely not called to go to college, whether this is due to ability or attitude or interest. For those teens, vocational training is perfect! Vocational training can occur through trade schools, community colleges, apprenticeships, military or other options.

However, there are more and more jobs that require certification or college degree of some kind in order to be able to advance. It is good to go to CareerOneStop.org and read the job descriptions to find out more about careers of interest and the training required.

Somewhat related to the previous question: How much do you think vocational goals need to dictate what one studies or even majors in for their college degree, if they’re going to college?
That’s an interesting question! There are a number of careers that require a bachelors degree but it can be in just about any field. What some career fields are finding out is that young professionals who have a strong Liberal Arts background have better thinking skills, communication skills and other soft skills that help create an atmosphere for success. (Liberal Arts schools require courses in literature, philosophy, mathematics, and social and physical sciences.) I’ve heard this most often from the corporate and technology world.

Thinking about it that way, a good degree with good internships from a Liberal Arts college may be a great open door for being hired or climbing the career ladder. So the answer to the question: Sometimes it is not the major that is important, it’s the Liberal Arts training that’s important.

Is there any mileage at all in advising girls differently from boys - I know on the one hand that I should think “no way - everyone should have equal chance”, but if we believe and hope that our daughters will become wives and mothers some day, and stay home with the kids (and homeschool them!), then do we really want them to spend ten years and $$$$$$ to become a doctor, only to leave it all for nurturing the next generation?

That’s a difficult question! Is education ever wasted? Is networking ever wasted? Is enriched life experience ever wasted?

To look at it another way: I personally know a couple of families that did not allow their college-capable girls to go to college because they wanted the girls to stay home, settle down and become wives and mothers. The only difficulty was that to be a wife and mother required a marriage, which required a healthy, willing and Godly young man. These families lived in small towns with small churches and no available males. Hard to achieve the goal if one of the necessities is missing.

On the other hand, I’ve known families whose daughters did not want to go to college but instead spend some years in missions, service or the military. All of these daughters had a few years of service and adventure, got “education” by living life- and met their future husbands as they were serving.

Many thanks to Vicki for taking the time to answer all my probing questions. If you want to avail yourself of Vicki's wisdom for your own child, then why not look at her careers curriculum that's available as an ebook on 7 Sisters Homeschooling: https://7sistershomeschool.com/products-page/career-exploration-for-high-school/

When You Meet Your Heroes - Part 2

Back in November 2014, I wrote a blog post about hosting my hero, Sally Clarkson, in my home in Oxford, England, for a lunch date. This is a follow-up post after I attended her Renew My Heart conference in Dallas, Texas, last weekend.

Meeting Sally for the third time in my life

First of all, if you don't know who Sally Clarkson is, I would suggest it's time to get acquainted. She and her husband wrote my all-time-favorite homeschooling book, Educating the Whole-Hearted Child. She also wrote my second-favorite homeschooling book, Seasons of a Mother's Heart.

These were some of her earlier titles, first published around the millennium but now updated and re-issued.

Basically, her books were (and are) a lovely blend of experience, wisdom, and well-told stories, all based on a Godly foundation. She has since moved into a more supportive role for Christian mothers everywhere, releasing titles like Mission of Motherhood, Ministry of Motherhood, and her latest, Different, which is about nurturing that difficult child through the "dark years" and emerging with a beautiful butterfly of a mature young adult.

I've come across Sally in person on two separate occasions: the first was in 2005 when she was visiting a homeschooling friend of mine near Oxford, England, and the second was the lunch date in 2014. Throughout all these years, I have been privileged to share Sally and her work with my sister-in-law Holly, long distance because she has lived in Dallas and, until June last year, I lived in England.

Holly has also drunk deep of Sally's wisdom through publications, but also, she has attended two conferences in the past. Yet, it has always been our dream to go to one together, so this past weekend, we were able to share our love for Sally and her guidance at the Renew My Heart conference.

Holly and I avoid the book stalls

Sally's conferences are amazing. Yes, there are hundreds of people there, but Sally is walking around the book stall, signing people's dog-eared and highlighted copies, swapping stories, and in my case, renewing our old acquaintance. No prima-donna, but accessible and making time for everyone.

"What are you doing here?!" was the first question she asked me. When I said I'd finally made the move I'd been seeking for so many years, she was quick to praise God for His goodness!

The conference itself seems to be one of the last ones she's planning to do, hotel rental being expensive when compared to the new social media outlets available. I found it a wonderful chance to meet new people since it was based around table groups, but there was also plenty of guidance and space to go off by ourselves and listen to God's heart.

My own quiet time could not have been more refreshing. I took off down the footpath around the man-made lake, thinking how great it would be if I could find some trees and, if possible, a fountain of some sort. I didn't really believe that would happen, but next thing I know, I'm at the head of the reservoir where the spillway is chucking down a sheet of flowing water. The sound was powerful enough to drown out the sound of the highway nearby - a reminder that God's Spirit can drown out the noise of life if we put ourselves in the right place.

Refreshing Water and Quiet Thoughts

Two more revelations came out during this time alone. One was that I needed to remember my calling - to home educate my children. If I was putting other things in the way, then I needed to re-calibrate. This led to my re-think of the schedule I've got for teaching English online to other homeschoolers. The fruit of that re-think has been announced for September 2017: no more classes during US morning time (except the day when one of my children already has an online morning class for Ancient History - I had to make at least one concession to my students in Dubai!).

With five minutes left of the quiet time, I lay back and look up into the trees. "God, tell me something. Give me a word. A picture ..." Yeah, yeah. In five minutes. Now .... go!

God rarely works that way, I know, but He was very good to me that day. He did give me a word. When Sally visited back in 2014, I always said I felt like Zacchaeus, hearing that Jesus was going to come to dine at his house that day. This time, God said to me, "Look at the tree ... it's empty. Zacchaeus is no longer having to work at seeing Jesus, but is now one of His intimate friends." The flood of acceptance for myself as a friend of Jesus was immediately clear. I returned to my table group so full of God-inspired refreshing - RENEWAL, just as the conference was aiming to achieve.

If you want to go to one of Sally's conferences, there are still two more planned for the year: South Carolina in March, and Oregon in May. She's also in London on March 18th. At our conference, people had traveled from California, Canada, New York, so if you have the time, you should get to one of these before she doesn't offer them anymore, even if it means a weekend of travel.

You won't regret it. She is a living hero of Christian homeschooling parents everywhere.

Planning for History in a CM way -- Texas History for High School

Let me take you on a journey - the way that I apply the Charlotte Mason method to a subject like history. In this case, it’s Texas History, a requirement for public-school children in this state at both 4th grade and 7th grade, and again, at university.

Of course, as homeschoolers, we didn't have to do this study -- ever. However, we decided that we would because my kids have grown up in England and only just moved to my home state in June 2016. It also would be a great way to invite along some other homeschoolers in a co-op, and widen our social circle.

In Texas - time to study Texas history!

The challenge was to map a well-documented study that's normally for ages 9/10 and 12/13, onto a more rigorous expectation for high schoolers. Further, to move away from the textbooks used at these years and even at college, and find some living books that would cover the sweeping timeline of the territory.

Just a reminder of what I mean by a living book — 

• A book that engages the reader and draws him or her into learning more about a subject; it is typically narrative in style and written by an authority on the material. Living books are written by someone with a passion for the material or by someone who has experienced the story first hand. - Sassafras Science

Textbooks are not living books, in general. There are some exceptions, such as the Exploring Creation books by Jeannie Fulbright from Apologia Science.

Another criteria for choosing books was avoiding twaddle. Twaddle means probably what you think it means — books that are silly, babyish, basic, usually bitty, full of pictures without extended text. Texas History has a lot of this rubbish on offer, probably because it’s a school subject and publishers can get away with quantity over quality.

Once I established the kind of book I was looking for, it was time to scour Amazon. I love Amazon because you can input a book title - for example, even the textbooks — and check out the related titles that come up in the search bar.

In some ways, though, I got to cheat on this step. I knew a living book that we used years ago, when I touched on the history of the Alamo with my children almost ten years ago. The book was called Journey to the Alamo by Melodie A Cuate. It’s one of those stories where modern-day children get whisked back in time by a magical trunk, and find themselves in the midst of the battle. Not especially strong for the high schoolers I was teaching, but a favorite for the middle-grade kids, and helpful for the search threads on offer when looking on Amazon.

I also googled Texas History and homeschooling, to get the way that other parents have navigated this subject before. No reason to reinvent the wheel, right?

Finally, I went to my library to expose myself to the bigger picture of Texas history than I remember from my own 7th grade education. I’m lucky that my local library has a very creditable collection, its shelves fairly full of Texas-related living books in the adult section. It was here that I hit on the best find: my spine book of the year.

“Good-bye to a River” is a memoir by John Graves. He wrote it in the 1950s after taking a canoeing trip down the Brazos, stopping by many of the homesteads of people whose family traced roots back to the 19th century. He picked up lore and legend, myth and hearsay, and as he floated down the river, camped on the shores, fished and hunted and tried to keep his puppy warm and dry, he took the experience and turned it into a repository of some of the last memories of people who had been there in Texas’s early days of settlement.

That is, settlement in the northwestern part of the state, a place that remained wild and dangerous until almost 1880, and rarely included much in the narratives of the southeastern portion and its famous six flags.

The only problem with the book is that it has its moments of gruesome raids and scalpings, so it’s in need of some editing and generous warnings about certain chapters that one should probably skip entirely.

My second book of choice was Sam Houston’s Republic. It came highly recommended on homeschooling sites, and the first pages seemed promising. Definitely a living book, but ever since buying it and trying to push through it, I’m backtracking. It’s not very well written, extremely digressive, and the kids literally groan whenever I open it.

Not a good sign.

These two books are working as our spine - the books that I use to take information from and discuss in our meetings. We also lapbook/scrapbook our sessions, building up a picture of regime change as we journey from Indian ranges, to Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French territory, Mexican colony, independent Republic, and the difficult years of unity and war. The overall idea is to vist the six flags of Texas while acknowledging the ever-present danger of the Comanche peoples to the north.

Six flags of Texas - with a Seventh!

We also have a bank of books that we’re reading and enjoying as bedtime reading or independent reading.

These include the remaining titles of Cuate’s Mr Barrington’s Trunk series, of which Journey to the Alamo was first. She followed this by San Jacinto, Goliad, Gonzales, Galveston, Plum Creek and La Salle’s Settlement. If you have middle schoolers, you could do your whole year of Texas history by reading this series. The only problem is that it’s expensive to buy, so make your library do it for you!

Another series that we’re using is written by Janice Shefelman. Titles include Comanche Song, Spirit of Iron, and Willow Creek Home. She also writes a book about German immigrants who arrived in Galveston (A Paradise Called Texas), one of the most important eras of Texas history when it comes to my own family! 

The Cuate and Shefelman books are great for 5th-7th grade, but not really great for high schoolers. We read them anyway as a family for fun, but sometimes the way to push the older students is to turn them loose and make them discover their own info. We’ve completed one sub-section of our study when, over Christmas, they had a bird-watching project to complete.

Big Boys do Scrapbooks

Next, because we’re entering the era of the Republic, we’ll be exploring origins of our Republic luminaries like Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Houston, and Fannin, each high schooler responsible for researching one of them. We’ll also be combining the middle schoolers and high schoolers for a salt dough recreation of the Alamo.

A trip to San Antonio is de rigueur as the weather improves, too!

I hope this blog post has accomplished two things: first, given you insight and perhaps encouragement that you can choose your own era of history and make it part of a Charlotte Mason education, particularly with its emphasis on living books. I should say here that I’m not saying that this alone is “the Charlotte Mason method”, but part of a whole philosophy that includes all the other subjects and various hallmarks like copywork, dictation, nature study, etc.

However, people often ask on social media about how to design their own CM-style history curriculum, so this post will probably give you an idea of the process.

Second, if you need ideas for Texas History, this should give you, at worst, a head start!

Bicycling with Teens -- Why is Homeschooling Them so Hard?

When it comes to homeschooling teens, I’ve come to think it’s the same as riding a bicycle. However, I don’t mean that in terms of never forgetting how to do it. 

Instead, it’s like those pivotal moments in a child’s life at 6 or 7 or 8 when the training wheels come off but the rider is still unsteady.  Do you hold on? Do you let go?

Sometimes, I just don’t know.

What should I do???

I’ve been homeschooling four children for nearly thirteen years, but it’s just now that I realize that homeschooling teenagers is hard.

I don’t mean hard because the level of work is hard. After all, I’m an experienced secondary teacher, so I’ve educated teenagers before. I’ve run more than four different youth groups in the past twenty years, so I’ve mentored teens before.

I mean, for goodness’ sake, I even WAS a teenager, once upon a time! I know they can be hormonal and fickle, over-tired and grumpy.

So why am I finding it so hard as my own daughter creeps toward 16 1/2 years old? Because it has just hit me: 

SHE … IS … NEARLY … GROWN … UP.

Arghghgh! 

Blooming before my eyes!

Yes, yes, yes … I know that we never stop learning, we never stop growing, and that even when she leaves home for college or work or whatever, we’ll still be connected. My own mom and I are closer than we’ve ever been, so I’m not afraid of losing her once she packs that bag and heads out the door.

But it is hard. The time frame, for example.  In just a few years, she will be DONE with homeschool. My chance to guide her and share her studies and explore what she explores is nearly over.

It is hard. The choices — OH, the choices!!! Whether SATs, or AP classes, CLEP or honors courses, online MOOCs or dual-enrollment, or bog-standard curriculum and our beloved Charlotte Mason approach to our studies. I’m sure I haven’t even touched on all the options, so I’m trying to stay true to our family mission: love to learn and learn to love.

Our Motto: Love to Learn and Learn to Love

But you know what makes it hardest? She is starting down the path of being dogged and determined about the vision she has for her own life. She is wanting to put her stamp on things - create her own narrative - and it’s causing friction between us that’s never been there before.

It’s not altogether a bad place to be. Standing back and watching her, I know that it’s the start of a really good phase. Like riding a bike, she has told me to take off the training wheels and give her a push. But if I let go and she falls, then I’ll be blamed for letting go, even if she asked me to do so.

So homeschooling teens is like riding a bike. I provided her with the best one I can afford in terms of time and money, and now I have to let her ride away on it under her own power, on her own path, steering her own course.

A Path of Her Choosing

And I’ll watch her from the side lines, with tears of pride in my eyes.

How I Homeschool 4 Children at the same time, Part 1

We have come back to our school this week and are trying out our new-and-improved schedule based on Ambleside Online.

My eldest is tackling Year 7.

My younger ones are doing versions of Year 2, with my 9-year-old boy wanting to have the Year 5 reading list.

I say "whatever".  AO is a tool and not a prescription, so I've always juggled things to make it work for me (being ever-so-grateful that the Advisory has offered this foundation from which I can build).

First, I'm looking in this post about my basic building-block, the three segments to our morning school time.

You will notice I have only a 4-day schedule.  We meet every-other week with a group families for a history co-op, and we have morning swimming one day a week, so Mondays and Fridays have to blend into each other to form a single day.  Having a 4-day schedule also lets me do things like skip a whole day for an amazing homeschoolers' discount at Legoland, or go on amazing field trips to places like Stonehenge or St Albans cathedral.

Basically, I build in margin because I know I need it!

You will see from the schedule below that Blocks 1 and 2 are pretty much the same for all of them.  Block 3, the individual work varies to allow me to work with children in turn.

Here is the the basic schedule with Block 3 showing what my Yr 7 does:

General schedule for all four kids, plus Block 3 work for Year 7

Compare the Block 3 above with my 9-year-old's Block 3 in this one:

Block 3 work for Yr 4-ish

Just for comparison's sake, here is the morning 3 blocks for "Busy Timmy", my 5-year-old. Note that his Block 2 also includes piano practice, since his math should take a shorter time.  Also, he is finished with his school day once the foreign language is finished in Block 3 for the morning (I will blog later about what he does in the afternoon).

Blocks 2 and 3 for Kindergarten

In my next post, I will show you what I do for the afternoons.

Do I follow my own schedules exactly?  Well, I try to.  They work really nicely when everything goes to plan, but there will be times where we have to miss, alter, ignore, or other such things. Or, times when one of the kids gets so excited about one of their books that they stay up all night to finish it on the first day, and then I have to come up with a new title for that slot.

(I love it when that happens, by the way!)

Charlotte Mason famously wrote that education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.  I think by grouping the kids together sometimes, having them do individual work at others, and having a schedule to keep us all on track (and start fostering independence), this is one way that our family manages to live out this learning credo.

Thinking about Next Year

This is a blog topic that deserves more attention than the 5 minutes I'm about to give it, but I've just got to get the thoughts off my chest right now (at 12:30 am!).

What I should be doing now instead of blogging!!

I've been home-educating for seven years, many of which were with a baby or a toddler and, as anyone with aforementioned personnel in their home-ed environment knows, they make for very challenging times.

Now my youngest is 4 and a pretty good reader, plus well-focused and enjoys being at the school table with the others.

Meanwhile, my 8-year-old boy, whom caused me many-a-problem with behaviour until we went to a cranial osteopath a couple of years ago, is turning into a really top-notch narrator a-la-Charlotte Mason method, showing me he actually can listen to my reading aloud, and can indeed tell back to me what I've been reading, including our latest nightly story of the Shakespeare play, "Merchant of Venice".

So the long and the short of it is that I'm planning this next September to do something I've always wanted to do, but didn't really have -- or so I felt -- the right situation to go for it wholeheartedly.  Namely, I'm going to implement the Ambleside Online curriculum with my children.

Despite warnings to the contrary, I think my older two can do Year 4 together, and my younger two can do Year 1 together, with some minor adjustments for the younger in the pair.

My kids are used to doing things together!

If you don't know about Ambleside Online, let me tell you that you're missing a treat.  It's a complete, detailed, and absolutely free curriculum for ages about 5 to 18, using the Charlotte Mason method and as many free on-line books as possible.

Check it out here: http://www.amblesideonline.org/

Which Math Curriculum Should You Choose?

People often ask about math curriculum -- which one is best, which one do I use, which would I recommend, which would be a good change from "x".

Mathematics can be learned without a textbook

When it comes to boys and math, I think there are three things to keep in mind: first, young boys especially are spatial learners, so a curriculum using manipulatives will probably be better; second, boys will probably prefer math to other subjects because there's not as much writing, so a curriculum that they could sometimes do independently will be useful so they can spend a lot of time doing it as and when they feel like it; finally, boys are not all the same, so what suits one, may not suit another.

And likewise, girls.  But that's another story ....

Probably the biggest surprise, however, is that research has shown that it's not so much which curriculum you choose and use, but whether or not you, the teacher, are excited by it.

Homeschoolers in the US and UK tend to choose different programs from each other: partly, it's availability; partly, it's price (it almost always costs more in the UK); and partly, it's measurements and money which Brits, rightly, want to focus on metric and pounds stirling, and not imperial and dollars.  (As a dual citizen, I'm quite happy either way.)

While the UK has access to programs like Singapore maths, Miquon maths, Galore Park, and even the free program known as MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme from the Centre for Innovations in Mathematics Teaching at the University of Plymouth, UK), all these options are text-based, or even workbook-based.

Another option open to both markets -- and gaining in popularity lately -- is the literary based concept of Living Math.  This is basically a good dose of reading books with mathematical concepts to explore.  My own children have dabbled in it since discovering the Murderous Maths series, but there's much more to it than I can do justice to here.  So, check out the website by Julie Brennan here.

But back to the US and curriculum choices with manipulatives.  Below, I list the four main competitors when it comes to manipulative-based math (if I forgot another major one, just give me a nudge and I'll add it in).  I think they're probably listed in order of popularity, but as you will see, certainly not in order of preference!

• Math-U-See: 

K-12 program using colorful rods, also comes with video instruction.  Primary school levels are called by Greek alphabet names (Alpha, Beta, etc.). Plus side seems to be how it explains concepts and ensures a child understands it rather than just memorizing it. One downside of this program is that, by using colored rods, a child has to make a symbolic leap that one size rod is more or less than another size rod -- autistic children apparently struggle with this.  As do children with color-differentiation issues. Cost per year: $40 instruction kit, $25 students kit, plus one-off purchase of manipulative blocks $35.

• RightStart Mathematics: 

K-5 program using an "AL abacus" (where colored beads are grouped in 5s and 10s).  It is unique by not starting with counting, but with visualizing quantities as children are taught in Japan.  People who use it note that it is teacher-dependent, and though it isn't onerous or difficult, it does require teacher input rather than a child working independently.  Finally, because its scope and sequence is different from most other curricula, some people say it's important to stick with it for at least two years -- by then, the child will have grasped the important basics of conceptual maths (rather than memorization), because otherwise, the transition to a more traditional program will be difficult.  Cost per year: many options to choose from, but roughly $150 initial outlay, then about $100 per year afterwards.

• Making Math Meaningful: 

K-6, plus algebra and geometry. Manipulatives include colored links, counting chips, and unifix cubes. This program, from a Christian publisher, sets out to ensure a child has full, logical understanding of concepts, and not just a skill in parroting or memorizing. As an example, it teaches that a thorough understanding of mulitiplication up to 5 will allow a child to understand that 8 x 7 is the same as 8 x 2 plus 8 x 5.  Re-arranging computation like this is an effective skill. Cost: $45 for both teacher's and student's book, plus a one-off purchase of manipulatives for $15.

• ShillerMath: 

K-3 (Kit 1) and 4-6 (Kit 2).  This Montessori-based curriculum uses a spiral approach, scripted lesson plans (where the teacher reads the script, or as children get more independent, they read it for themselves), and a stable full of manipulatives, much like RightStart.  However, one of its unique selling points is its dedication to the four different learning styles of children, and each concept will be approached using all four styles (including CDs with songs), to ensure complete understanding.  Cost: $399.95 per kit, plus free consumables downloads for 5 years. (See Cathy Duffy's review for a more thorough description).

Now here's where I show my hand.  I moved from Singapore math to ShillerMath two years ago, and am thoroughly astounded by the clarity, the depth, the explanations, and everything covered in it.  Apparently, there's a junior high kit in the making, and I just can't wait!

Going Boy-Friendly in September

Since re-reading Michael Gurian's book The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life, I've been thinking about my provision for my sons in a whole new light.   My 3-year-old is still supposedly in non-school mode -- a bit of Montessori practical life here, a bit of reading or writing there, and a lot of playing cars with his 5-year-old sister. My 7-year-old, however, has had a mixed bag over the past year of success and stress, and it's for him that I need to make some changes

Here's what definitely worked: having a daily checklist for him to tick off his accomplishments; getting a chance to work on the computer once he had finished his work for the day; map skills (by both Carson-Dellosa and School Specialty Publishing); the new handwriting program called Write from the Start; playing active games before we started school such as "The Giant Says" (ie, Simon Says but with a gobbling-up bit when you do it wrong); and making Lego stop-action animation films about Bible stories.

Here's what sort of worked: ShillerMath (when I worked alongside him and made him slow down); Draw Write Now  for art; writing stories on the computer; Thinking Skills workbook until it went into overdrive about alphabetizing, and our co-op on poetry, art, and drama.

What didn't really work at all: I Can Do All Things art curriculum (he begged me for this, having seen his big sister complete her copy -- I don't quite understand his problem with it), open-ended project work, foreign languages (even hiring a tutor).



Here are some thoughts in a nutshell based on Gurian's observations and on hard science about boys' brains:

• Boys can be extremely distracted and stressed by a messy, disordered room, so I must de-clutter.  (No, I mean it -- really!  I must, I must, I must ... higher priority than painting the study ... remember!)
• Boys apparently need more space to study than girls.  They tend to want to spread out when they work, which has something to do with their reliance on the visual/spatial senses.  That means the table I currently intend for both him and his sister to work on is w-a-y too small for two.
• Boys tend to need brighter light to work in than girls, so I need to be careful about siting his table and perhaps provide him with a desk lamp.  
• Boys like displaying and arranging their work, so a large cork board would seem a good investment.
• Boys respond better to diagrams and lists written down rather than lots of talk. Sounds like it's time to get out the ol' easel and employ a bit of "chalk" and not much "talk"
• Boys can be frustrated by switching too often between topics.  This puts me slightly in a quandary: the Charlotte Mason method I tend to follow is a big advocate of short, sharp lessons, so that a child maintains concentration over a period of time, and learns not to dawdle.  The other method I incorporate into my eclectic mix is Montessori, who argued that switching too often was actually more tiring than just leaving a child alone.  That's perhaps why the checklist-idea worked well for him last  year -- it scooted him along through a variety of subjects, but he chose the pace of it.
• Boys seem to want to move while someone is reading aloud to them.  We do a lot of reading aloud, and it's very difficult to get him to retain anything, whether he's lying down and fidgeting and interrupting, or, as Gurian suggests, playing Lego.  I need to find a balance between his movement and his remembering what I'm reading.  Therefore, I may try something like a stress ball for him to squeeze, or play-dough (if he can stand to get his hands dirty -- depends on his mood that day), or even -- gasp -- letting him chew gum.

That's a lot of changes to consider, and I'm only 1/3 of the way through Gurian's book!

Well, if I can just get through the de-cluttering before September, I will have taken a major step toward removing stressors in "Killer's" environment, and hopefully, put him on a firmer foundation for next year's learning experience.

Are there any of these suggestions that you have implemented recently?