Early Learning Schedule

I haven't really found a groove that works for us. But I take heart from the many homeschooling bloggers who mention that it took several years to get into the swing of things and to figure out their children's optimal learning styles. As I'm just at the beginning of our journey, I find this reassuring.

Below is my tentative schedule (more like suggestions really) for January 2012. I figure I'll try it out for a month, then tweek it as needed.

Sunday – plan Bible stories & verse for the week, evening church
Monday – home day, art/craft, music
Tuesday – home day, art/craft, language                              
Wednesday – playgroup, baking
Thursday – alternate special outings
Friday – family day
Saturday – home day, housework

In addition to the weekly activities, my monthly goal is one of each: museum, concert, field trip, and a visit to a family friend. Reading and math are always on my mind and I just casually (and briefly) work them into whatever we're doing.

Note to self: If I do end up homeschooling CM in a more formal way some day, I liked this idea for organizing assignments using a private blog."

Museum of the Month

October's museum: reptiles, mostly snakes.
      Highlight: we got to touch a boa constrictor.
November's museum: insects, with a special focus on beetles.
      Highlight: we got our picture taken with 3 Hercules beetles clinging to our clothing.

Today Raccoon and I went to visit a water museum. On our way out the door, he saw a friend of his playing in the park, so I asked him, "Park or museum?"
He yelled "Museum!" and ran to get in his car seat. My husband was impressed.

Our favorite exhibit was an upright peg board. When pushed on one side, the indented pegs stuck out on the other side. We did the typical handprints, then a staff person passing through suggested we try our faces. I tried it first and sure enough, there was a mask-like image of my face sticking out on the other side of the board. Surprisingly, Raccoon also wanted to try it. It was odd to see our faces in plastic pegs, almost like a robot clone. I'm not sure what the peg board had to do with water (something to illustrate cohesion I think?), but we enjoyed it.

Early Reading

A lot of the criticism around early learning is that the parents are drilling the kids to death. This quote by Dr. Richard Gentry pretty much sums up why I'm in favor, "But surprisingly, teaching babies and toddlers to read need only take little time—five or ten minutes a day along with routine story reading and book sharing. It’s really about brief lessons that are more like word games to the child, lessons that are fun to play with mom, dad or a care giver along with enjoying books together. All children should have these experiences as babies and toddlers. Experts who aren’t in favor of baby/toddler reading don’t get the concept. They usually think it’s forced, formal, or beyond the babies capacity to read. Of course, it isn’t."

Five minutes a day. I hope that some day all children will have access to early, quality stimulation for language, reading, math, and music.

Books

I am reading a Parents' Guide to Raising a Gifted Toddler: Recognizing and Developing the Potential of Your Child from Birth to Five Years by James Alvino. Despite the title and perhaps the first few chapters, I think it's applicable to parenting toddlers in general. It is a bit out-dated, with references to phonographs and cleaning blackboard erasers, but it has made me reflect on some issues I hadn't yet considered with Raccoon, like gender stereotyping in the arts. For me, most of the good stuff started in Chapter 9, "The Enriched Environment."

I'm also reading How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin. It makes me want to run right out and put Raccoon in a Montessori preschool, if I could find an excellent one where I live, and if he and I were different people. Ha. But I do love the ideas on organizing spaces, the need for beauty and reality, independence and involving the child in the family.

A Little Bit of Learning

Raccoon is constantly absorbing new information, of course, but today we actually did some intentional learning. We watched some Readeez on YouTube and did our dinosaur and horse breed flashcards on the computer (at Raccoon's request). We both enjoyed it.

I've seen the idea mentioned on several preschool blogs, but I like the simplicity of this one (third picture down). Raccoon likes knowing the day of the week because we do different activities depending on the day.

Hiding

I think it's symbolic that this post was actually the third that I started to write (on 10/18), but has been hanging out in my drafts because I haven't known exactly what to say, or been bold enough to say it. Most people who know me have no idea. But think I want to change this. I'm not sure. I'll let you know if I ever decide to actually post this.

Somehow, hiding what I love to do has become a habit with me. Even here, if I write more than one post at a time, I wait and publish it on a different day so I do not seem too eager. Ever since I remember, I have loved to learn. In first grade, I got sick and was out of school for several days. I wanted to do the pages in my workbook that I'd missed, but my teacher told me, "It's fine, you don't need to make it up." That pretty much sums up school for me. I wanted more but was told I could do less since I already "got it." Or if I did get more in some form, I was supposed to figure things out on my own, like "Here's the math book, you can work ahead, maybe one or two of your classmates can figure it out with you."

As the years passed in school, eventually I just wanted to belong. By high school, I would only do my best if it was something totally private, like a test or an assignment only the teacher would see. Sometimes other students would "catch me" going way above and beyond what I needed to do and I would feel embarrased. I hated papers being read aloud "anonymously" in class and everyone trying to figure out who wrote it.

I love to learn. There. I'm out of the I'd-rather-learn-than-most-anything closet. I found another entry on another blog about being a Doman mom in hiding. Hopefully my nerdiness (and other things) can finally pay off for my son, and maybe other children, but often I am too shy or afraid of criticism to speak up.

This doesn't seem like much of a holiday post, but I finally feel ready to put it out there. Maybe.

Finding Your Tribe

The fact that I love doing early learning with Raccoon is not something I talk about much, so finding a community of like-minded mothers is an amazing feeling. I totally recommend creating an account at brillkids.com so you can join their forum. It is an amazing place for resources, ideas, links, and so much more. Being part of a community is so important and encouraging; it's been a long time since I've felt like I've belonged anywhere. So tonight, yeah for technology!

Time

When I started to read books on early learning, most of them mention the "window of opportunity," or some such thing, with various ages: 0-3, 0-6, even 0-1 before the brain starts pruning!! But on another blog (sorry I can't remember which one, I browse through so many and then the ideas simmer for awhile), the mom wrote something like, "If you take a month or even longer to get organized, your child can still have a wonderful and enriching life." This helps me when I start to feel pressured, like I have to do everything RIGHT NOW in order to take advantage of Raccoon's spongy years. This probably makes me seem like a psycho parent, I can just imagine the comments, "Stop pushing your child, let him just enjoy life." But that's not it at all, he's pushing me! If I don't have something stimulating to offer, he is not a happy camper.

But once again, I'm stepping back, breathing deeply, taking a look at where we're at, and trying to enjoy every minute. Now that I have the list of what's important to me, I plan to use this time to brainstorm about what I'd like his early learning program to include.

What's Important

Some of my clearest thinking I do lying in bed with my son, waiting for him to fall asleep, as long as I don't fall asleep as well. Tonight I realized that what matters to me, in the long run, is that I teach Raccoon about the important things. For me, this means:

Jesus
Reading
Math
Science
Music
Creativity
Physical Excellence

I like lists, and hopefully this one will help keep me focused as I rethink what I'm doing with Raccoon. In my blog reading of late, I've come across the "unschooling" concept. From what I can tell, it seems to be child-led homeschooling where they choose what to do, or not to do, depending on their current interests. I guess this is what I've been doing lately with Raccoon, although to me it just feels like I'm being lazy. He likes to have a movie in much of the time, even if he's not really watching it. His three current favorites are Mulan (he's really into swords and sticks right now), Winnie-the-Pooh, and a live concert collection of different orchestras.

I feel guilty letting him watch so much TV, since I feel like we should be doing something fun and "educational" instead of wasting his brain or - worse - damaging it. But surprisingly, his imaginary and independent play has really blossomed this last week or so that I've relaxed our TV rules. He likes to play out his favorite scenes using his toys (or whatever he can reach in the kitchen cupboards) as props. And although he likes to have me close, I get some me time (hmmm, what's that!?)

I'm not saying that this whole TV thing is going to be our new way of life, but perhaps there is some merit in the "unschooling" way after all. Maybe I'll build some into our new schedule. Three weeks on, one week off. This mother I read about said that they do homeschooling partly so that each family member (including parents!) has time to pursue personal interests. I like how this same mom describes her ideal as a "feast on learning without getting too schooly." What I'm really searching for is something that's good for Raccoon and has some "me" time built in... what a thought.

Schedules

Raccoon has never liked adhering to a schedule, even as a newborn he was all over the place with sleeping and eating. Recently I've been trying to do create some regular times for learning. Things go well for a week or so, then it stops working. My major discovery awhile ago was to connect our learning with a physical activity. The only problem is that as soon as Raccoon can do something, he completely loses interest in it and rages on to master the next skill. He really liked running for awhile, but now that he's got that down he wants to run up and down hills with some hopping and rolling thrown in. I love that he works at something until he gets it (even though at the beginning he gets really frustrated). But the constant changes in our routine makes it hard for me to be ready with what he wants to do at the exact moment he wants it. So I just gave up trying to do anything, but then he started asking me for our learning activities and I could tell he missed it. His behavior tends to deteriorate, seemingly from boredom, if I don't constantly introduce new things.

I need to figure out how to keep up. For the first week of the cycle, I have to come up with new ideas and materials. Then we have a good week or two before things stop working and I think, here we go again! So for the next few days I'm going to rethink my approach and see if I can figure out a way to anticipate his need for change and a new routine every few weeks. Hopefully this way I'll be able to stay ahead instead of constantly trying to catch up. We'll see how it goes.

Learning at Home

I really liked this article on homeschooling a preschooler and thought it had several useful ideas about how to individualize and make things work without being too heavy. Even though it's targeted at "gifted" I think it could apply to general early learning as well.

I am feeling swamped by life right now. Somehow I need to get ahead again. Raccoon often asks for his numbers or words, but I haven't been ready lately with new material, so I can feel him getting bored. I just can't keep up. I wish I had lots of money to invest in pre-made books and software so I could just spend my time having fun learning with him. Material preparation is definitely the hardest part, I think.

Museum of the Month

I decided to add a monthly field trip to our lives to spice things up a bit now that we spend most of our time at home. October's field trip was to a local reptile museum. At the end, we got to hold a boa constrictor and have our picture taken. Raccoon loved touching the snake.

Today he and I took a mini-field trip to the cementery up the hill from our house. It sounds odd, but today is All Saint's Day, or as we call it locally, "Day of the Dead," so most of the city goes out to visit their deceased relatives. The cementeries have a festive air, with flowers and new paint everywhere. Raccon enjoyed looking at some statues (Jesus as a shepherd holding a baby sheep and a man on his knees praying). We have done some bits on famous statues so I wanted him to see some statues in real life. It was nice to spend all morning outside for a change, and he is now peacefully napping.

Educating Oneself

"The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives."
Robert M. Hutchins

Shopping for Materials

I squeaked a little bit of extra money out of our budget this month to spend on some learning products for Raccoon, so now I'm just trying to decide which ones. After spending an afternoon browsing online (gotta love naptime), I have narrowed it down to:

Actually purchased
Memory Lifter 199 Chinese Verbs (haven't used yet)
Emotional Intensity in Gifted Children (not as helpful for a toddler as I hoped, the solution is mostly "talking about it" in certain ways)
How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way (gorgeous pictures, some interesting ideas)
Parents' Guide to Raising a Gifted Toddler: Recognizing and Developing the Potential of Your Child from Birth to Five Years by James Alvino (pretty outdated but has a few chapters I found helfpul)

What I plan to get Raccoon for Christmas (Lord willing!!)
a trampoline (yes we did)
swimming pass for the two of us at a local pool (no, the chlorine seems to make him sick)*

Wish List for Later
Wink to Learn Read & Speak Chinese
Baby Learns Chinese
Tweedlewink
Readeez


Disclosure: I don't profit from any of these products, I'm just sharing about my search for materials in case it's helpful for someone else.

*I added in some (feedback) afterwards as follow-up.

The "G" Word

It seems like there should be a different label for "gifted" kids, because that one seems to imply "more special or better" (based on the criticism it gets), which isn't the case. I think "talented" is even worse, since I believe that God has given each of us something unique to contribute to the world. Some children get called exceptional, but this could confusingly refer to either end of the learning spectrum. Although in some cases gifted children also have learning disabilities (therefore they are called twice exceptional - 2e). But I feel that gifted kids do need a label in order to access specialized educational services, just like kids with other labels who have different learning styles as well.

In my random blog surfing, I came across an author who wrote a book called "Emotional Intensity in Gifted Children." I don't know if Raccoon is gifted or not, but if I had to pick one word to describe him, it would definitely be INTENSE. My husband and I have used that word since he was a baby. We didn't want to be negative about our beloved son, but we also needed a way to describe our sleepless, demand for constant stimulation, fussy, no routine, and incredible child. My husband blamed our son's behavior on too much early stimulation, but I refused to believe that. I think it is something inherent in him that just makes everything he wants, needs, and does a BIG deal. The rest of the book's title is, "Helping Kid's Cope with Explosive Feelings," and that fits too. Frustration, rage, aggressiveness, a strong-will... I feel like we've seen it all. His emotions seemed off the charts for one so small and we hit the "terrible twos" around one year old. Although I've only read the first few pages, I hope to read the whole book soon.

For some reason I was thinking about all of this as I lay in bed the other night, waiting for Raccoon to fall asleep. It would be nice if there was a label that wasn't so controversial, so that one could talk about a child possibly being "______" without the negative reactions, just like one might discuss autism or diabetes. I thought of calling them "alternate learners" (too vague), "accelerated learners" (also seems to imply superiority), intense learners, and I can't remember the other ideas, but none worked. This is probably why the name "gifted" has stuck; no one has been able to come up with a better alternative.

Ideas That Help Me

The most important thing I did during our break was just to play with Raccoon. I spent a couple of weeks seeing what he liked to do, what games made him laugh, and what he asked to do most often. For Raccoon, it's still physical play that he likes best. As soon as he could crawl, there was no getting him to look at flashcards or bits anymore, no matter how much energy I put into it. What works for us now are variations of his favorite games (tag, hide-and-seek) that include word cards or other learning elements. He loves this and is now handing me the word cards he wants, or reminding me when I forget. Even my husband (a total skeptic) has noticed how much he loves doing "numbers" (dot equations) and how much fun we have.

I also spent a lot of time searching for the perfect blog about how to make it all work in our lives. I never found it, but I did read lots of amazing blogs. I can't remember where I found these quotes (sorry there aren't any links), but they stuck in my brain. One mother from a tropical island said something like, "No matter how great an idea sounds, it just may not work with your family's flow." This was a freeing thought that enabled me to let go of many things and to focus on what worked for me and Raccoon. Before, I thought that if I tried hard enough or was creative enough, I could make everything work. I felt frustrated if it didn't, figuring that I was somehow inadequate. Now, I look more at how I can fit an idea into our lives, modifying or discarding it as necessary. I don't need to, and can't, do everything. In one of Raccoon's movies, Santa tells his elves, "Choose the best gifts from each list for the sleigh." That's my priority, to make the best things - for us - fit and leave the rest.

"A little is better than nothing." I have used this thoughout my life, and it is also expressed in Doman's books. Since I tend to be a perfectionist, I feel like things are never done, that I could always do better if I just had more time. It's hard for me to do less than my best, or to not succeed at something. I remind myself that sometimes, things just need to be "good enough." I also tell myself that the most important thing for Raccoon is to do whatever I can right now, instead of waiting to do something better later, or maybe never.

In Glen Doman's books, he recommends 9 to 15 one minute sessions daily in reading, math, and encyclopedic knowledge with breaks in between each session. This doesn't work for us. Raccoon let me know with his behavior that it was way too much. And there was no way I could keep myself organized like that and have the materials in the right place when he was in the right mood. So Raccoon and I do only two or three activity times (morning, afternoon, and evening for about 10-20 min each) or sometimes none at all. Now that we have a semi-routine going and I know that there will be good days, I don't feel so bad anymore about the crazy days. Also, now that we've been doing our semi-routine for about a month, he's begun asking for "numbers" and "words," so I think we have found a balance that we both enjoy. I read a reassuring blog entry about flashcards from "Right Brain Kids" that echoes some of these thoughts (that fewer sessions are also effective and more can be over-stimulating) along with presenting an interesting perspective on Einstein.

I do try follow most of Doman's golden rules as best I can, especially "Stop before your baby wants to stop." In the beginning, I would get carried away and want to do more than Raccoon was ready for. Lately though, it's gotten trickier because he often asks for more, especially math. At first I tried to make him wait as Doman suggests, but then he'd get mad and not want to see anything else. So now I do more the first three or four times he says it (or as long as my prepared material lasts), then we often wrestle-play at the end and I praise his effort (paying attention, listening, whatever was particularly good). If he asks for more after playing, then I run with it. Because of this, I try to have extra words, equations, and bits ready in case he's particularly interested that day. And if he's not, then I'm ready for the next time.

Since my ultimate goal is for Raccoon to love learning and for it to be fun, I design his program content around his interests. Although I'd prefer to spend our time on things he might see in school, he'd rather learn about construction machines, monsters, and clowns. I also now know far more about insects, spiders, and tools than I ever wanted to know. But the other day we saw a spider in its web at a friend's house, and Raccoon knew that it was a thorn spider. That was amazing to me, and he gets so excited when he can name things he sees in the real world (probably why he loves construction machines, we see them all the time in our city). Sometimes I try subjects I like, but if he's not interested we quickly abandon them for other pursuits. One note about this, before babies can move, you have a captive audience, so then is the time (0-7 months or so) when you can do whatever subjects you want for bits, as long as you go quickly and happily, and they'll probably enjoy it.

Another mother who went to the week long course, How to Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence (so jealous!) and blogged about it (but then never updated how she used the info at home!?), said something like, "What they taught us was not a recipe, but a lifestyle." I have also begun to think of my Christianity in a similar way - not a recipe for certain behavior, but a relationship with Jesus. So to broaden things out a little, this whole adventure is about a lifestyle of learning and my family's relationships with Jesus, each other, and the world.

Little Reader

Raccoon and I tried the trial version of Little Reader and he LOVED it. Our trial expired and he's been asking me for more, so here's hoping we win the LR giveaway!

Check out Down Syndrome - Up Up and Away, a great blog for more info about the giveaway, and much more.

My Motivation

Since I had done a lot of reading before Raccoon was born, I felt like there was so much more that I should be doing to enrich Raccoon's crucial early years. I imagined other mothers being able to do these amazing programs with their children that I could not, due to trouble with nursing and sleeping, colic, several major moves, and other upheavals during Raccoon's first two years. I did the best that I could, incorporating as many things from the Doman books as possible. But as he grew and became increasingly mobile, almost everything that we were doing, and enjoying up to that point, stopped working. I got stressed trying to find new ways to make things work, and then it wasn't fun anymore for Raccoon or for me. I took a break for awhile from intentional early stimulation, and I stepped back to examine why I was so frustrated that things weren't working. So what if we didn't do any structured learning? One of the common criticisms of early learning is that the parents are forcing the children. I wondered, if I was really honest, did I have any hidden motivation or agenda?

In the end, I realized that my motives were a mixture of good and bad, like most things in life. Mostly, I wanted to share with Raccoon my love of learning. But if I was truly honest with myself, there was also some need to validate my capabilities as a mother by his achievements. "See, Raccoon can do this, so I'm not a total failure." After realizing this, I prayed a lot about whether I should continue or not. After a time, I felt peace about it and I set some new goals.

My new focus in every area is exposure and enjoyment, not mastery or performance. I don't need to know how much he knows, test him, or try to catch it on camera. Glen Doman says that the child will show the parent in time, and Maria Montessori said something like, "You don't dig up the seed to see if the plant is growing." As long as Raccoon and I are having fun, and the information that I provide is clear and of the highest quality that I can do in a reasonable amount of time, I am content. My focus is also on being more intentional about enriching the time that we spend together and to create more mutual respect in my relationship with Raccoon. (Love is already there and flourishing.) My ultimate hope and prayer is that if he learns that I listen to and respect him now while he's little, he'll still come to me and trust me to respect him when he's not so little anymore.

Praising Effort not Ability

Something very important that I learned is that it is better to praise his effort than just to say "You're so smart." Even as a baby, Raccoon had a low tolerance for failure and would get extremely frustrated if he couldn't do something the first time. Up until about a year and a half, I'd been praising him as the Doman books suggested, saying "You're a genius," etc. But after reading an article similar to this one, I began to praise him for trying again, being patience, persevering, working hard, and for practicing. I figured he was too little to notice the difference or understand the meaning of the words, but he surprised me. Within about a month I noticed a significant difference in his behavior, including a much higher tolerance of failure and more willingness to practice new skills, whereas before he would just give up and throw a rage-filled tantrum.

Early Learning Activities

I tend to do really well for a while, then get busy and slow down, then refocus again. It hasn't worked for us to try to have a timed schedule (X at 10 am), but I've found that if I combine the learning activities with certain repetitive elements of our day then I am much more successful. We have a semi-routine going which I hope to expand.

Things we are currently doing (in random order):

*Word cards - once or twice a day when we go to the park by our house, around 5-10 cards a day. Right now we're doing animal names, so we play a game where I am the animal on the card and I chase him around.

*Math - Doman's dot equations, we're currently on multiplication and I've begun introducing numerals. He likes the equations but doesn't like it if I just show him the cards and tell him the numbers, so we only did the individual dot cards up to fifty, several months ago. We play a game where he jumps on the bed while I show him the equation, then he gets to throw the answer card in the air.

*Encyclopedic Knowledge - we do this on the computer, mostly in the afternoons after naptime when he doesn't mind sitting for bits. The amount we do depends on him, but I try to get in at least 3 sets, and sometimes do up to 8. We often end up looking at one he likes several times. I use many different resources for this (Picture Dictionary from the IAHP, powerpoint presentations, Memory Lifter, and plain picture files I saved from Wikipedia.) I try to do ones that show the word then the picture, but sometimes we just do pictures. I have just started to introduce some Chinese characters with pronunciations (animals).

*Physical Activities - we usually go to the park by our house twice a day (morning and afternoon). I use the time to encourage him to run, climb up and slide down, swing, walk on a homemade balance beam (a door frame someone threw into the park that I propped up on some stones so we go around in a half rectangle), and imaginative free play.

*Music - when Raccoon was 19 months, I took him to a band concert because I wanted to go. I expected to leave before it was over because my son is VERY active and has wanted to be in constant motion since birth. I was shocked when he sat quietly through the whole thing (an hour and a half) and asked for more after each song was done. I think he has an ear for music because whenever I start to sing (with my out of tune voice), he looks at me with a pained expression and says, "No singing, Mama." He fell in love with the violin around the same time as the concert, then added the piano and the guitar as his favorite instruments. Right now, we listen to Baby Einstein CDs in the car and I just got some Suzuki violin CDs which he likes. "I like. This no weird music," was how he put it the first time he listened to the Suzuki CDs and he sat right down to play his imaginary piano. I'm currently looking for ways to expand this part of our program.

*Art - we used to take an art class at Gymboree, but his last one was just before his birthday and I decided not to re-enroll him. We did Gymboree from 7 months until he was 23 months old and we mostly enjoyed it (Play and Learn, then Music, then Art). But for now I feel like he really needs more time at home and less time out-and-about, so I plan to do more art things at home. We periodically do painting, glue and glitter, play dough, and scribbling with crayons, marker, or a pen.

*Reading Aloud - Raccoon takes a nap after lunch. I used to let him fall asleep watching a video, but after reading about how television actually disrupts sleep (we've had a lot of sleep troubles), I decided to change this habit. Now I read to him until he falls asleep. The only book I had handy the first day was the Fellowship of the Ring, and he seemed to like it so we've continued. Now he asks for Frodo and Elbow (Bilbo). I usually read about 4 pages before he's nodded off. We also read his books together, usually about 4-5 a day.

*TV - for several months we fell into the trap of watching too much TV. Raccoon has a lot of food sensitivities and struggles with stomach issues, so he was still nursing heavily up until recently. Every time we nursed, I would turn on a video for him and use it for computer time for me, but by 22 months or so, it felt like all we were doing all day was nursing and watching TV. I decided we needed a radical change, so we rearranged the bedroom, taking out the nursing chair and the TV. Now if he wants to nurse, we lie down on the bed (a victory for me since before that he would only nurse in his chair, even at night). It didn't take long for him to cut back to nursing just twice a day, naptime and nighttime, since it was pretty boring if he wasn't falling asleep. I have to admit that I missed my computer time, but overall it's better for us. I tried to cut out TV altogether, but he tolerates sitting and eating better if he's distracted, so we compromised and he gets to watch 30 minutes at mealtimes, and sometimes more if I really need/want to get something done. Right now he watches children's movies (we started with Baby Einstein and moved on to other things like A Bug's Life, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, etc). My goal is to eventually switch most of his TV time over to documentaries or educational DVDs, but it depends a lot on having money to purchase new ones.

*Bible Verses & Memorization - I hope to start this soon but am waiting until I can purchase a color cartridge for my printer. I made up pages to put in plastic covers in a binder.

Looking it all written down it may seem like a lot, but not everything happens every day, although I wish I was that organized. We usually have one or two really good days a week where everything goes really well and we do almost all of the activities, another three days where we do about half, and the rest are often busy with other things.

Welcome!



photo by J.M. Garg (Wikipedia)

Celosia School

Say what?! I picked the first letters from the 9 words that most describe my son (curious, energetic, likable/loving, observant, strong-willed/spirited, intense, active, bright) and using my handy anagram solver, came up with "sociable" or "celosia." Turns out that a celosia is a pretty amazing plant.

This fits us in so many ways:

* The name is derived from the Greek word κηλος (kelos), meaning "burned." As a follower of Jesus, I am being "refined by fire."

* It is versatile (medicine, nutrition, beauty), well-travelled, very productive, resistant to disease, thrives wherever it's planted, and it has the potential to change the world.

I also like that "celosia" looks a bit like "celestial." I'll probably say it see-LOW-sha to avoid sounding like "celoso" (jealous) in Spanish.

My son turned two years old today, but I have some questions about whether traditional school will ever be a good fit for him. So I added "For the Spirited" to our school's name, since any learning we do is going to be done on the go!


The picture behind the blog banner is by Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams (Wikipedia).

ETA: The title originally said Celosia School for the Spirited, then today, ten-ish years later (3/4/2021), I tried Celosia School for the Sociable since that describes Raccoon to a T. Neither one was as good as just Celosia School, so that is how I would like it to stand for posterity. I have changed anything else that I wrote that day... yet.  :)