Getting Salty

TODAY'S ACTIVITIES:

• Cutting
• Pouring
• Attribute Blocks
• Tracing
• The Phonetic Alphabet

Happy Monday. My son and I enjoyed a quiet weekend at home--well, except for the extremely fun birthday party we attended Saturday night. Our Jeep Cherokee is still away at rehab, so we stayed at the house, homeschooling in the morning and doing "snow day stuff" (those things you do when you're stuck at home) in the afternoons. For nameless reasons, I've been thinking (albeit indirectly) about Schrödinger and his notorious cat; wondering whether by "measuring"--closely observing, photographing and then blogging about--our homeschool sessions, I've been in some way influencing (negatively?) my son's learning. For the sake of sanity, I've chosen not to (try to) definitively answer the question. Instead, I decided that it'd probably be a good thing to periodically let homeschool happen away from the scientist's prying eye. This is all to say that, new computer aside, I won't be blogging everyday, about every single homeschool session. I'm pretty positive you'd get bored (and, oh so much more importantly, I'd get bored) if I did.

OK, having said that, I did put on my scientist's hat this morning. Maybe it's because he's a lefty, but Parker is still having trouble using scissors. (Despite the fact that he did, just this morning, while I was out walking and my husband was upstairs showering, climb onto the kitchen counter, grab a bag of organic quinoa out of the cupboard--the most expensive item he could have chosen, of course--use his scissors to open said bag and then pour oodles of quinoa onto his table so that he'd have a pile to push around with his miniature bulldozer.) Parker has been practicing cutting with some colorful strips of paper printed with various types of lines (straight, slanted, chevrons, curvy) which my sister-in-law (a teacher at a public Montessori school out in Colorado) sent me a while back. He hasn't really warmed to the idea that he should actually keep trying to cut along the lines; instead, he's happy just cutting the strips up willy-nilly. I've recently started reading other homeschooling moms' blogs (see my list to the right there?), and got an idea for an alternative scissor practice activity from Counting Coconuts. (You have to scroll down quite a bit to see the heart strips she made for her son. Do not get me started on how incredibly, insanely intimidating the productivity of this woman is. And she lives on an island, too! So I can't even tell myself, "Well, yeah, it's easy for her because she can go to Target and Michael's and stuff!" But she does have magnificent ideas, many of which I find motivating, so I can't help but appreciate all that she does.) The goody bag Parker received as we were leaving Saturday night's birthday party contained a sheet of little frog stickers, upon seeing which I thought, "Perfect! I will commandeer those for the new Counting Coconuts-inspired scissor activity." I cut up long strips of paper, then placed the stickers on the strips, leaving about a centimeter between each sticker. Instead of having to try to cut along a line, Parker just has to cut between the frogs. He sort of liked it. It seems as though he doesn't feel very confident about his scissor skills (notwithstanding this morning's quinoa episode).

We started work on the phonetic alphabet this morning, an activity I saved for last because it involves placing a pan of salt in front of my son--I just knew he'd be itching to get his miniature bulldozer (and other trucks) into that "sandbox" ASAP. The books tell you to introduce only two letters at a time, choosing letters that both sound different and look different. (In other words, don't present "b" and "d" at the same time.) I used an amalgam of two methods this morning, and it seemed to work well with my son, so I'll continue to do so as we slowly make our way through the alphabet. First, I presented the letter to Parker using a sandpaper letter, saying the sound of the letter and using my finger to trace the shape of the letter in the same way I would write it. I then gave him a turn with the sandpaper letter, asking him to repeat the sound of the letter, and then trace it with his finger the way I'd shown him. After he'd done that for a bit, and was reliably tracing the letter in the right direction, I slid the sandpaper letter aside and placed a cake pan--its bottom covered with table salt--in front of him. I repeated the phonetic sound of the letter, then used my finger to "write" the letter in the salt. I passed the pan to Parker, asking him to say the sound, then "write" the letter in the salt himself.

I was (understandably) both immensely excited and awfully nervous to embark on this letter endeavor today. Our homeschool thus far has been mostly fun; my son has been learning almost accidentally as he's worked with the Montessori materials I've prepared for him. Teaching him the phonetic alphabet seemed to me so much more like "real" instruction. "Will he be even remotely interested?" I asked myself. "Will I have to ceaselessly cajole him to sit down and learn his letters?" (If the answer to that first question had been no, then I'd have put the materials away and tried again in a month or so. At least, I'd like to think I'd have done that.) Well, while my son didn't exactly exude jubilance while learning the letters a and t this morning, he did act attentive and I could tell that he derived some pride from his efforts. Because Parker is left-handed, demonstrating how to trace/write the letters posed a bit of problem for me. In order to properly show him how to do it, I had to trace/write with my own left hand, and it was almost as if I was also learning how to write the letters a and t. I actually finally understood why all those ignorant educators way back when found it easier to just force left-handed children to use their right hands. It probably made teaching writing so much simpler (for the teachers, of course, not for the actual students). The only other (minor) issue I had this morning was the problem of working with salt in a tropical environment. It's just too humid here. The salt kept sticking to Parker's hands, and clumping up. But if that's the biggest hurdle we have to face while working our way through the phonetic alphabet, then I'll count myself lucky.

"I'm ready to just play now."

Parker working with his Aunt Mandi at Ross Montessori School last September.