Tag Archives: tao of pooh

The Twenty-Fifth Week

Do you ever feel like you are being watched? I’m sure Lillia does…

DSC_0824

Lillia’s Adventures

This week we continued to read chapters from the Tao of Pooh. I think Lillia’s favorite chapter was “Bisy Backson,” in which we learned all about how living like Rabbit (constantly on the go) causes a lot of undue stress. I think I can fully appreciate this now that our lives have really slowed down. I was already working on cutting out the “Bisyness,” but choosing to homeschool was really the tipping point. One of my ongoing projects is to create a home that allows my children to live their lives at their own pace, without always being rushed, and most of the time I’m pretty successful (except Saturday mornings when it’s time to leave for ballet lessons…).

In Life of Fred we learned more about sets — domains and codomains and how they are used in relation to functions. For example:

A function: A rule that assigns to each member of the domain exactly one image in the codomain.
A constant function: A rule that assigns to each member of the domain exactly one image in the codomain, and it is always the same image.

The coolest thing about the Fred books is that I end up learning things right along with Lillia. I think that any adult suffering from math phobia would really benefit from doing this series.

As usual, Lillia spent many hours this week drawing and being creative. When she was little I thought that her love of animals would lead her into a science-oriented career like zoology or veterinary science. Now that she is older and becoming more of an individual I can see that her real talents and passions lie in the realm of the arts.

Here she is doodling on the floor of the garage with chalk.

DSC_0827

She also created a magazine for me. She got mad when I tried to photograph her making it because, as she exclaimed, “It’s a surprise!”

DSC_0822

Here’s my favorite page:

Zane’s Adventures

This week Zane experienced a kitchen remodel…on a small scale. Our friend gave us an awesome piece of play kitchen furniture a while back but it was just too big for Wee Little Zane to use. I switched it out with a little bookshelf we already owned, and now he has a just-the-right-size kitchen.

DSC_0980

DSC_0950

He spent a lot of time playing outside. I’ve been trying really hard to work outdoor time into our daily schedule, so we definitely got out more than usual (the warm weather helped).

DSC_0887

And, as usual, Zane spent a lot of time playing with is sister. Yep, it’s true — two kids do fit on a rocking horse. They had to prove it to me.

DSC_0814

Mama’s Adventures

This week I did a lot of soul-searching and thinking about the rhythm of our home life. We didn’t really have much of a rhythm this year and I think that was a big contributor to some of the stress we experienced, in regards to homeschooling. My first order of business in tackling this issue was creating a snack/meal chart that we can use every week. The snacks and lunches will be the same each week so it’s a no-brainer when it’s time to shop and, more importantly, the kids will know what to expect. I’ve taken many early childhood classes, as well a year-long professional development course about caring for children ages 0-3, and time and again my instructors emphasized the importance of rhythm and routine for little ones (and all children from about birth to seven). I’m embarrassed to say that I’m just now putting that knowledge into practice in my own home but sometimes we have to spend some time doing the wrong thing in order to figure out how to do it right. Lillia is more independent and her food needs are somewhat particular. She has a lot of sensory issues and this manifests itself strongly in her dislike of most foods. Still, the rhythm is there for her, even if she doesn’t eat the snacks. I’m still tweaking my chart but when I feel like it’s pretty much done I will post it here.

My next order of business is developing a schedule for our special activities. I’m thinking of painting on Monday, seasonal craft on Tuesday, playdough or modeling clay on Wednesday, baking on Thursday, and trip to the library on Friday.

Do you have a structured rhythm? If so, what aspects of your home life do you include?

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2013, Weekly Update

The Twenty-Fourth Week

This week was interesting, but not as productive as past weeks. I blame myself for this (see “Mama’s Adventures” below). In any case, I’ll start with…

Lillia’s Adventures

life in ancient china coverHaving done a fast sweep of the Indus Valley civilization last week, we moved ahead into our study of Ancient China. We are using Life in Ancient China, by Paul Challen as our spine for this unit. My one complaint about both this and the book we used for the Indus Valley civilization is that the author’s definition of “ancient” often encompasses what I consider the medieval period, which I plan to cover next year. I don’t know if that is a by-product of some sort of Western bias or Euro-centric way of thinking, or if there just isn’t enough information about these ancient civilizations to make the book interesting. My guess is that it’s probably the former. We haven’t read the whole book yet because I plan to study the Ancient Far East for at least another week or so.

tao of pooh coverThis week we also started reading The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff. This is a wonderful introduction to the philosophy of Taoism (pronounced DOW-ISM, in case you were wondering). I chose this as our “primary source,” although it is actually a secondary source, because I think it is a really clever way to study the Tao Te Ching (pronounced DOW-DE-JEENG), an ancient Chinese text written around the 6th century BCE. In this week’s chapters we learned about the concept of the “Uncarved Block” (or P’u). As Benjamin Hoff observed, Winnie-the-Pooh is the epitome of the “uncarved block.” He is always in his natural state, not encumbered by cleverness or knowledge. Things work out for him because he does not fight his own inner nature. Having read all of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, Lillia can really understand what Hoff is trying to say, philosophically, through the various characters in the stories.

Life of Fred continues to be challenging. This week we learned what to do when you need to borrow from a number to subtract, but the next number available is a zero. Although Lillia got frustrated at first, after a quick review she understood and was able to complete the problem easily. I really like that Life of Fred doesn’t rely on endless repetition to teach concepts, as Lillia often understands after the first try or, at the most, no more than one or two reviews.

Lillia has been very pedagogical this week. She was intent on teaching Zane to write his letters (developmentally inappropriate, I know, but they were bonding). She was so pleased when he made an “A.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that toddlers are really good at imitating us.

DSC_0458

DSC_0467

We’ve finally finished learning all of the cursive letters, and we’ll be moving on to practicing writing words!

Zane’s Adventures

This week, Zane has been doing a lot of “reading.” Of course, he’s just imitating what he sees. His family members read a lot.

Oops, it’s upside down!
DSC_0255

That’s better.
DSC_0257

Here he’s “reading” his sister’s math notebook.

DSC_0668

DSC_0673

He’s been an out-of-control climbing machine. This kid is a problem solver. If he wants to go up, he’ll find a way to get there.

DSC_0623

DSC_0641

He’s also been really interested in undressing himself (diaper included, much to his parents’ dismay). One would think overalls would be a deterrent but sadly, no.

DSC_0524

DSC_0545

In all seriousness, I’m pretty excited about his interest in doing things for himself. Lillia is a very parent-centered child, which is great…except when it’s not. I would love for her to get her own glass of water once in awhile. Still, every child is different, and I love them both equally despite, and for, their differences.

Mama’s Adventures

I make a lot of confessions on this blog and I try to be really honest about my shortcomings. Being an INFP personality type means I’m always striving for self-improvement. This week I am feeling a lot of self-doubt. I wonder — is homeschooling actually making a difference for Lillia? Is she learning anything? Does it even matter that I stay home, or would the family be better served by a second income? I can say with some degree of certainty that at least one of my children benefits from my being home (Zane) because he doesn’t have to spend the day in child care. Lillia is a trickier situation…

I started out this year thinking that I wanted to design my own curriculum from the ground up. I would do everything myself. But, the further along into the school year we got, the more I started to think that I must have been absolutely nuts to try and do that! I’m okay with most of what we do, but I feel like everything is very disjointed. There are no connections between the different subjects. Also, I had envisioned a much more hands-on experience for Lillia with lots of fun projects (something different than the pile of worksheets she did every day in public school). But, I haven’t been able to pull that off. I feel like she is not really engaged with the work. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is useless. I’m looking for something more along the lines of the misattributed Yeats quote, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” From what I can see, there’s not much of a fire happening at our house right now.

Sure, she does the work without complaint (most days), but I can tell she’s not really interested. She’d rather be doing something else. Such is the nature of kids, I know, but I didn’t pull her out of school to bore her to death. I wanted her to experience another way of learning. I wanted her to make discoveries and have epiphanies. I wanted her little light to shine so bright that the whole world would say, “There is a child who loves to learn!” Okay…maybe my hopes were a little unrealistic. But, I still want that for her, to whatever degree it’s actually possible.

To that end, I just spent $150 for used copies of Oak Meadow’s 3rd and 4th grade syllabi. I first heard of the “inspired by Waldorf education” homeschooling curriculum from Oak Meadow about four years ago, when Lillia was wrapping up her kindergarten year at our local Waldorf school. She had an amazing year, and I am a big fan of Waldorf education (though I run away screaming from dogma, and some Waldorfians can be a little too dogmatic for my taste). Rudolf Steiner may have been looking at child development through the lens of anthroposophy, but his observations were spot on. I trust his methods because I feel that he honestly understood children in a way that most people don’t. Looking ahead to fourth grade, Oak Meadow students study Native Americans, make dioramas of local flora, and research animal behavior. Those are topics that Lillia is already interested in, so I think she will enjoy it. I love that everything is integrated (except math — we will keep using Life of Fred because we love it so much). It seems very comprehensive. And, most of all, it sounds very creative and flexible. For every lesson there is a list of optional projects. We were going to study the Middle Ages next year, and we still can. There’s no one who loves to read more than Lillia, and what I had planned was mostly just reading a spine and supplementing with library books. Once I have a chance to look over the materials, I’ll write a more in-depth review. If my books arrive in time, I will try out the third trimester of the grade three syllabus this year during our last trimester.

I feel better just knowing that I’m trying to make improvements. I’m not afraid of change, and I am humble enough to admit when something isn’t working (at least not optimally). I try to embrace all of the possibilities, and I know I’m at my best when I am striving.

“I was taught to strive not because there were any guarantees of success but because the act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life.” — Madeleine Albright

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2013, Weekly Update