A walk to the pet store turns into an hour-long shoe tying session at Ross. (Page down fast and it's a flip book!)

On Monday afternoon Fiona really wanted to go and see the animals at the pet store.  Her warm weather hating mama sucked it up, put on sunscreen and a long sleeve shirt, and we headed out for our walk to Petco.  She especially liked the ferrets and we got to watch a couple of dogs being groomed.  We also did some wishful gazing at the brushes (me) and toys/beds (Fiona) we'd like to get for Tucker and Felix.

 On the way back we pass a Ross Dress for Less and Fiona asked if we could go in and look around. I said we could, but we couldn't spend money. (Our car won't start so who knows what will be happening around here financially.)   She agreed and we went in.  I believe this is the first time she's ever said "Let's go look at the clothes that are in my size."  So we looked at clothes for a while and then started looking at shoes.  I realized that she probably will need shoes in the next few months, almost certainly before winter sets in, so I looked with her for a bit.  There was one pair that was quite lovely and that had velcro but it seemed too small in a 12 and we couldn't find a 13.

Then Fiona found this pair and they seemed to fit quite well and were under $20.   However, Fiona has not yet learned to tie her own shoes.  In general, I don't think this is a big problem but I thought that having her main shoes have laces might be a bit frustrating for everyone involved, Fiona included.  

 So we spent quite a bit of time sitting on a padded leather coffee table, each with a pair of shoes, and practicing the many steps involved in tying one's own shoes.  We must have worked on this for at least half an hour, if not an hour.

She didn't quite get it today but she made lots of progress and she said that she would like to keep practicing and, when she has it down, go back and get that pair of shoes. 

 Learning a new skill isn't always easy or fun and I was proud of how hard Fiona worked.  It was a good day to be a mama.

Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide to Homeschooling by Marty Layne --Take IV -- Learning Environment

So I wrote several long posts about this book at the beginning of May.  I'm now returning to see if I have more to say (you'd think one would know such things, wouldn't you?).   Sadly, I've lost a page of notes in the interim.  So vamos a ver.

I left off at the end of most of the more philosophical part of the book -- the rest is more concrete -- environment, curriculum, resource kinds of stuff.  The notes I lost were largely a list of books, supplies, games, etc, that I wanted to keep in mind.  Some bullet points:

• Play is the work of childhood.

• How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban -- I've got this picture book on hold at the library -- Layne says it "captures the essence of homeschooling" and, from her description, I would say unschooling even more so!  Supports the idea that children need time and opportunity to play and explore, to fool around with things -- and that there is just as much value in that, if not more, than more formalized learning.

• Talking of toys with small pieces (e.g. Lego) and siblings of varied ages she says, "It is important for a baby not to be endangered by small objects within his grasp.  It is equally important for older children to know that their creations will not be destroyed."

• "We cannot make our children's lives risk free.  As our children grow older, they will reach out to the world in all kinds of ways.  We cannot prevent hurt, anguish, betrayal, and/or pain.  We can be there beside our children when this occurs, validating their negative feelings as well as their positive ones and support them as they come to grips with less than ideal situations." p.57

• "Imagine for a moment that someone who is a friend of a friend of yours comes over to visit and starts using your kitchen cooking equipment or your sewing machine.  It would feel like an invasion of your privacy and boundaries.  Asking children to share their toys or belongings with other children is similar.  Children will learn generosity better by the ways in which their parents demonstrate generosity than by being told to share their toys." p. 66 -- I like this a lot, it's a concept I've encountered before and really believe in.  Sometimes when we have friends coming over, I ask Fiona what things she'd like to put away before people arrive.  Sometimes I think that this is somehow encouraging a "what do you want to not let your friends touch or look at" kind of attitude.  Whenever that thought crosses my mind, I remind myself that there are certainly things that *I* sometimes put things away when I know others are coming over as well -- including breakable things or items that are very special to me.  If I think about it that way then it seems like a wonderful thing for Fiona to learn -- what things to put away to avoid anger or disappointment or hurt feelings later on.

• I'll be listing some (I'll largely try to stick with those that seemed unique) of the concrete ideas of supplies/resources that Layne shares -- she lists lots, but stresses that things can be acquired over time, second-hand, and as gifts.

• colored pencils
• beads, fabric scraps, ribbons, buttons
• glue sticks --tend to be easier for young children to use
• beeswax for modeling (I've been wanting some of this for a while now!)
• Sculpey (she likes it better than Fimo)
• good quality blank paper -- she suggests asking printers for offcuts -- I'd like to do this but haven't yet
• lots of different kinds of balls
• bicycle & helmet
• wooden spools & beads make good additions to a block set
• jigsaw puzzles -- start simple and increase the number of pieces -- for the author's family, 250 piece puzzles were nice because they are fairly quick but still challenging
• plastic animals -- my daughter especially likes small figurines that she can play with at home and take with her easily
• tools, kitchen tools, sewing machine

• "Recognizing the importance of play, encouraging children to play by creating an environment in which play can take place means trusting that children are inherently good and want to become competent in the world.  It means trusting the natural progression of their abilities and their desire for more understanding and knowledge."  With this quote, I've finished with Chapter Two.

All quotes from Learning at Home used with author's permission:   www.martylayne.com

Learning at Home: A Mother's Guide to Homeschooling Take II (negative interpetations and making mistakes)

On pages 31-34 Layne talks about learning from mistakes, allowing children to make mistakes, repentance (she says “repentance really means . . . to change your way of thinking and to act differently” – easier said than done, eh?  Seems like another good thing to keep in the front of one's consciousness), interpreting children’s intentions/inferring children’s motives and children’s need to be taught to express anger, rage, frustration in an appropriate way.  I’m truly trying to not just type out the whole book for you, but it’s just such good stuff that it’s hard to rein myself in! 

She says that, if you are homeschooling, the way that you view mistakes (and react to them) becomes a part of your child’s learning environment (clearly this is true to some extent even if your child attends school outside of the home, but it makes sense to me that this is even more true in a homeschooling family). 

Attributing “bad” motives or intentions to a child’s (spouse’s, friend’s) behavior is such an easy pitfall for humans, isn’t it?  “It has taken me years of thinking this through, and observing my children to see how often I infer a motive for an action that says more about myself than about my child” (p. 35).  Can I get an “Amen!”?  I just think this is such a spot-on observation. 

My confession of the day, related to negative interpretations –  Recently Fiona and I were getting ready to walk to the grocery store with our little wire mesh cart.  When I walked into the living room, she had just finished placing Felix, one of the two cats we are fostering, into the cart. It looked like he was scared -- the spaces in between the metal are larger than a cat’s foot and it looked like he was trying to climb out but couldn’t quite do it.  I reacted much more out of sympathy to Felix than a desire to understand Fiona’s point of view.  My inner dialogue was probably something along the lines of “Ack!  My child is hurting an animal!  Ack!  I want her to be gentle with them!  Why would she put Felix in the cart when it is so obviously not a good/safe place for him and she knew it would freak him out?!”  I got Felix out  and was talking to Fiona about how it “wasn’t okay” to put him in the cart and how it wasn’t a funny joke, how I wanted her to be gentle to the cats, etc., etc., etc.  In retrospect, I wish I had focused on helping Felix feel safe and saying something along the lines of “I wonder if you were interested to see what Felix would do in the cart – We don’t have it out very much and it probably seemed like such a perfect little place for Felix to hang out.  I bet you didn’t notice how big those holes in the cart were, huh?  Were you surprised when he didn’t like it in there?”  I could also have asked her if she wanted to help Felix get back out.  I think part of the irony is that it’s not like me reacting the way I did soothed Felix’s nerves or helped him in any way – in fact, my tone of voice while talking to Fiona probably just made him more stressed out!  This is something I think about often when one child hurts another – so often it seems like the focus is on making sure the child who did the hurting gets chastised – what are we modeling when we do that?  It certainly isn’t helping the hurt child to feel better and, in my opinion, the “hurt-er” isn’t really learning anything other than that perhaps the next time s/he’ll slug someone where there aren’t adults around to watch! 

A final quote from this section on page 35:

Perhaps . . . our children don’t understand our language and we need to find a way to communicate in their language.  We need to trust in their ability to achieve mastery and allow them to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes just as they did when they were learning to walk.  We need to trust in our development and learn from our mistakes.

All quotes from Learning at Home used with author's permission:   www.martylayne.com