~insecurity~

The difference between our math and language arts blocks was striking. Here we sat, in first grade, laughing and relaxed, as gnomes cartwheeled and crystals were sorted into even piles. Numbers were savored in individual lessons, and she felt proud of herself for noticing that not only was "8" for a spider, but that it also looked like a spider! As we refreshed our minds in second grade, and dusted off our computational skills, math was play.

But the language arts blocks. Oh.

She loved the fairy tales of first grade, and the sages and trickster stories of second grade. She recalled them in vivid physical and emotional details, sometimes down to the exact phrasing. She so obviously had a clear picture in her head.

And then we move to the academic portion. Oh.

In first grade, writing a few words could take an hour. Handwriting, something I pride myself on, was careless. I would fret and pressure more writing. At the beginning of second grade, I was surprised at how much progress she'd made from a summer of doing "nothing." She could write and copy several sentences, with much improved penmanship, and sometimes even construct the sentences from her own head. She no longer was paralyzed by spelling mistakes. Her writing was complex and creative and spontaneous.

Her ability to read, something I hadn't yet taught overtly, had jumped over the summer, too. But I certainly couldn't credit my incessant quizzing. She was reading in spite of me. And she was reading fine - comprehending, processing - but she didn't LOVE reading.

Somehow, the fact that my 7 1/2 year old wasn't reading more than reader books and Dr. Seuss, and was certainly not reading for pleasure and relaxation like I do, I translated as "my child isn't a reader". And it worried me that she hadn't shown an interest in picking up The Hobbit or Harry Potter from my nightstand.

My child, who sings, harmonizes, and naturally finds chords on the piano.
My child, who knows birds by song, sight and flight pattern.
My child, who rides a skateboard and has been on two-wheels since age 4.
My child, who climbs trees like a squirrel.
My child, who sews independently on the machine, and creates her own patterns and templates.
My child, who just this morning was walking through the grocery store with me and knitting.
My child, who helps her sisters.
My child, who cooks scrambled eggs by herself.
My child, who feels concerned that she cannot invite all her friends to her birthday party, because their feelings may be hurt.
My child, who has been crafting and knitting and drawing pictures for her yet-unborn twin cousins.
My child, who I can trust to not cross the street without permission.
My child, who dances around the kitchen to Tchaikovsky or Grateful Dead.

So this is the child I'm concerned about?
Because she's not reading long chapter books?
Even though she loves looking at books and listening to me read?
And even though I've heard her read to her sisters?

(I won't even go into how I feel when I hear about friends' younger children reading.)

Today I'm gently laughing at myself, at my insecurities.
Today I'm enjoying my completely normal, average child.

~ a good week ~

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A week full of playing outside,

sand castles and swinging high.

Finding crocuses and beetles.

Listening for frogs and spying hawks with binoculars. 

Finally finishing our second consonant block

with a funny story that everyone loved.

Getting into a rhythm of all three sitting 'round the table.

Rhythm has been hard to come by for a while, 

but I believe I'm finding what works.

Lots of windows open,

gnomes and faeries playing in the backyard.

Climbing trees and discovering mischievous letters.

We're coasting into a very special weekend,

with my big girl turning seven.

Seven?

How did that happen?

~carrie~

~ more from our lessons..... ~

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We've really been sinking into our new home-learning rhythm.  

Having work to accomplish each day has helped keep me accountable.

We've developed a pretty good rhythm for our morning, too:

breakfast

free play

morning Circle (now with a kindergarten story, Pebble from Donsy of Gnomes)

short free play

snack at the craft table

lesson immediately after snack

After this is accomplished, I feel pretty good about the rest of the day.

The house is no more or less messy than it ever is, 

laundry is no more or less piled up to the ceiling.  

And now, some pictures of our lesson work from the last few weeks!  

We're currently in our 3rd week of our first block.

Our second story of our first week was Jumping Mouse.

The next day, Lela found the hidden letter.

Can you?

Our first story of week 2 was Vasily and the Dragon.

 ~ lela was really, really proud of her dragon! ~

I just adore how Lela adds decorations to her letters!

At first I was quite uptight, trying to get her to stop, and I have to say it bothered me.

But I could tell that it would quickly become a point of contention,

and as isn't this whole home-learning thing about process, not product?  

The second story of week 2 was The Search for the Magic Lake.

I took a few picture so you can see what our lesson time usually looks like.

Oops, forgot to remove the water cups before the lesson started!

Today the table was a bit messier than it usually is,

but there are almost always two little girls watching intently.

Right now I'm letting them watch, but not participate,

though they do say the verses along with us.  

It seemed really important for this to be "Lela's time".

I'm thinking that some sort of simple activity (sorting? beading?) is necessary to keep them a bit more engaged.

 You can see how our drawing for this day was progressing.

Not visible are the light yellow halos around the girl and sparrow.

Lela begins to darken her lines, and add in more background colors.

We usually pause before adding a lot of detail to our main focus points,

but this time she was really excited about her drawing and wanted to continue.

It's never a problem getting her to finish her picture!

 Our drawings are finished!

Can you see the "S" for the sparrow, and the "F" for the feather fan?

The third day of our rhythm was for finding those hidden letters,

and writing them in our lesson book.

Lela chose to write "sparrows" and "feathers" for her words.

I'm still curious about letter formation.  

Is my main concern getting her to make the letter 'look' proper, or getting the flow of the way it is written?

I'm thinking for a letter like "d".  

Is it a circle, then a stick on the side? Or is it a single movement, as I would write it?

I'm thinking the latter, but if you look at our letters for 'D',

you can see that I did it as a circle, then a stick.  

For our letters today, I had her write them as I would.  

I think that's what I'm going to continue with, but I'm curious to hear others' thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading about our lesson time!

I'm really happy with how it's been going,

and looking forward to adding in more kindergarten things for the little ones,

as well as crafts, projects and activties.

~carrie~

p.s.  I just added Intense Debate for the comments.  Won't you let me know how that works?  I normally reply to comments via email, but I think things would be easier if I did that here.  Thanks!

~ first grade ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to First Grade Lela!

We started our adventures in home learning on a rainy Labor Day,

with a simple and special ceremony for Lela.

Daddy set up the screen porch in the back with candles all around,

turned on our rainbow twinkle lights

and set the little table with a pretty cloth (a flat sheet) and more candles.

Meanwhile, I took Lela out onto the front porch,

and read her our first story of the year.  

We're using Enki curriculum as our guide,

and the story we chose is called Little Falcon.

~ golden oak gates rise up from the ground, guiding the child where gifts can be found ~

I gave Lela a beautiful pouch, just as Little Falcon received in the story from his mother,

and asked Lela to walk, alone, around the house, going through our big privacy fence gate,

to the screen porch at the back of the house.

She was greeted by cheering, clapping and hugs from her momma, daddy and her sisters.

I presented her with an arrowhead that I had found as a child,

and her very own ball of yarn, wound into a neat cake.

We feasted on warm bread with dipping oil,

and listened to the rain and smelled the cooler weather.

By the magic of the blog, 

I can make Lela's First Grade Basket,

with her pouch, yarn and beanbag,

appear to have been made ahead of time!

(In reality, I found the baskets and drew her butterfly symbol that evening after our supper.)

After our snack and relaxing, 

I led Lela upstairs to the hallway outside the bedrooms,

where I had setup a cozy space for her to hear the story.

I had wanted to tell the story from memory,

but in the end I read about 70% of the time, told about 30% of the time.

It was a story very appropriate for a first grader,

but it was designed to be told in two parts and so was long.

She listened quietly, staring into the candle.

But when I was finished, she immediately said,

"Loooooooong!" 

Haha!  It was a very humbling and humorous moment for me.

The next day, after having the night to digest the story,

and after enjoying time outside and having a short, fun movement circle (more details later!)

and after having a snack and some warm herbal tea,

we began to work with it artistically in the lesson books I created for us.

We also read the verse from the story,

which I had written out beautifully on a separate sheet of paper.

This story has two potential letters, G and M,

and I decided to bring out both.

I created this chalkboard drawing,

my first attempt at the Waldorf-style of drawing.

Even though it was beautiful,

it was distracting to Lela as we were working together on our drawing.

She kept looking over at it, and finally I asked her if it was bothering her,

and she said yes, and I suggested that we cover it up.  

Here is Lela's first drawing!

I was very impressed with how she took to this new style.

I have always worked with the girls to draw using little short, light strokes,

so they are used to drawing without outlining

(which they definitely do at times, particularly with an image they draw a lot).

But the Waldorf-style requires forethought, 

and gently shading in the backgrounds first,

applying layer over layer as you work towards more detail.

This was not new to me, since I paint watercolors in this way,

but it was my first experience with this as a crayon drawing.

My drawing didn't have as much detail as I'd done when I practiced the day before.

I felt like I needed to keep it more simple,

because I was worried about her somehow feeling inadequate about her drawing.

(We've experienced this before.)

But she really took to the concept, 

and was excited to work in the details and make the drawing her own.

We followed the lesson time with continued digestion of the story!

Some very messy, fun digestion!

That afternoon, I found that Lela had recreated, 

using the same background-to-detail technique,

her drawing on our chalkboard.

The third day we began to work academically with the story and images.

We read our verse, then I told her that a letter was hidden in the picture I had drawn.

(Lela already knows all of her letters, can write the uppercase versions, and knows some of their sounds.

We still are introducing each letter through story and art, because there's so much more here than academics!)

She immediately found the "G" and we traced it with our finger, made its sound and a 'G' word.

Then I provided a soft line for her to work with on her paper,

and after watching me first,

we drew the letter in uppercase and lowercase - 'big brother and little brother'.  

This was her first time making the lowercase letter, and she loved it!

She also really wanted to decorate her page,

and I really didn't have a good reason to stop her. :)

~ "G....guuuuuh.....gates" ~

The second letter in the story was a little more hidden, but she found it quickly.  

M is a letter that she knows well, as it was the first letter she ever learned.

We traced it, made its sound and then said an M-word - mountain.

She was once again excited to make the lowercase letter.

I tend to make things into kinesthetic and/or musical exercises,

so for the little 'm' we said:

"Make a straight line.

Then bump,

Bump-down."

We then wrote the title of the story, and a word for each letter.

Lela chose "Golden" and "magic".

Notice how the title is a little crooked, with a tad bit less 'care' - I forgot her line.

I remembered for her words, and it is evident that she took more time with them.

I particularly love how she wrote 'magic', with curving edges,

adding some yellow for beauty at the end.

By comparison, mine is more stilted and certainly less alive.

I was going slowly, as we were writing in a new way, 

and I was describing the letters as I went along.

After this lesson,

she was ready for some expanded play!

It took quite a while because she really wanted to decorate her pages,

and besides, having two letters took more time.

By the time we finished reading the verse and picking out the "G" and "M" words,

Lela was thoroughly done, though not discouraged and not resisting.

I could tell that she had reached the end of her ability to focus on such a contracted activity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We went on to read another story that day,

and did another letter in the 3-day rhythm that Waldorf/Enki employ.

This feels like enough to share for right now, 

though I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the week.

I would still like to share our 2nd story.

Thanks for reading! 

~carrie~