kimcroninmeltzer

Hi,
I've been on this list for two or three years, and my oldest is seven now. We have done various stages of unschooling. It has been a long process for me to deschool myself. My daughter has always been at home. When she was younger, I definitely tried the school at home approach, and it really made her hate schoolwork.
Fast forward to now. My husband and I are still slightly tentative with this approach, and worried that she won't learn how to do arithmetic. I really tried to spend 15 minutes a day of phonics to help her learn to read when she was younger. It didn't do anything except make her want to avoid me. I didn't want to sacrifice my relationship with her to the altar of education, so I let go of it for about six months, and she is now reading level 1 books. Yay! I started letting her watch Angelina Ballerina, (I only let her watch documentaries before), and then to encourage the reading, I got her the books that went with it (which I wouldn't have done before, because I don't like how companies prey on children with attractive marketing). She likes the books, and laughs over them, which makes me happy, because she is happy.

She loves audio books, and has listened to the unabridged versions of Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess, Secret Garden, the Little House on the Prairie series, and Misty of Chincoteague. She listened to Little Women for about 5-6 months straight. I tried to extend her learning by doing projects related to the stuff she was listening to: we made a telegraph machine, I took her to places civil war related, she planted a garden, she acted out many scenes with her brother, I took them horse back riding, etc.

Right now she is really into Liberty's Kids, a PBS animated series that dramatizes the times from the Boston Tea Party to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. She has watched the entire series (40 episodes, 30 minutes each) three times. I'm not used to letting her watch videos so much. I'm a little uncomfortable with it because she is not getting a lot of exercise because of it. I know she is really enjoying it, and that she is busy assimilating the information, but I still worry.

On the other hand, I'm glad that she likes it because we are in the process of moving, so it is helpful, plus it is hot and muggy here. Who wants to be outside anyway? Is watching this much tv harmful though?

Also, how can I present some fun math stuff to her? A couple of months ago, she was playing around with some of the math on starfall.com (they have interactive math games) but she is really into liberty's kids right now, not math.

Also, my almost five year old son doesn't really want to watch liberty's kids, but he also wants to be in front of the screen. This leads to him getting bored, and being annoying, (making noises so she can't hear, spinning his chair so it hits hers, on accident, etc, etc. etc. ) I got him some crafts from Michael's, which he really likes. He can do some of those in front of the screen, but that is going to run out soon. He won't do anything I suggest (color, draw, listen to a story in the other room, anything, ) so it's a bit difficult. I also have an almost 10 month old baby who is not supposed to watch screens (the board of pediatricians says babies shouldn't watch until age 2), so I have to monitor him, and it usually ends with me wearing him in the backpack ALL THE TIME.

In our old house, she was always upstairs (which I felt was too isolating for her) while I was downstairs always interacting with the four year old. I felt like she was missing out on all the fun we were having, and possibly getting neurotic about things. I had her signed up for a sport every day of the week, so I felt like she was at least visiting with her sporty friends, and getting exercise.

In our new house, we all are basically hanging out in the kitchen. I feel like that is good for her (less isolating), but also can be difficult sometimes, logistically. I set up two computers on the sideboard to create a computer lab type atmosphere for the kids, but one of the computers is not currently linked to the internet (which means four year old can't do starfall.com (his favorite).

Do people think that it's too much screen time for the kids?
Does anyone have any suggestions for the almost five year old who wants to be in front of screen, but is bored?

Thanks,
Kim

Sandra Dodd

-=-Is watching this much tv harmful though? -=-

No. Your worry is harmful, though.
http://sandradodd.com/tv

-=-Also, how can I present some fun math stuff to her? -=-

Don't. Learn (yourself) how to see the math that is all around you that doesn't look at all like school math.

http://sandradodd.com/math

-=-Also, my almost five year old son doesn't really want to watch liberty's kids, but he also wants to be in front of the screen. -=-

You were sitting in front of "the screen" to write your questions to the group.
Your use of the phrase "the screen" is much more harmful to your family's peace and to your understanding of natural learning than TV, computer, movies or video games could ever be.

When your daughter is reading a book, or the back of a cereal box, do you say she was wanting to be in front of **the paper**?
Do you limit the time they gaze toward the printed word, and measure and limit it?

Information and stimulation come in lots of forms, and if your goal is for your children to learn and be happy, use those principle to help you make your decisions.

http://sandradodd.com/rules

-=- I also have an almost 10 month old baby who is not supposed to watch screens (the board of pediatricians says babies shouldn't watch until age 2), so I have to monitor him-=-

http://sandradodd.com/haveto

You don't have to monitor him. The board of pediatricians are not unschoolers. They don't own your baby or your life.

****Until a person stops doing the things that keep unschooling from working, unschooling cannot begin to work. It seems simple to me. If you're trying to listen for a sound, you have to stop talking and be still.
http://sandradodd.com/unschool/gettingit

-=In our new house, we all are basically hanging out in the kitchen. I feel like that is good for her (less isolating), but also can be difficult sometimes, logistically. I set up two computers on the sideboard to create a computer lab type atmosphere for the kids, but one of the computers is not currently linked to the internet (which means four year old can't do starfall.com (his favorite). -=-

Connect that computer to the internet. You have a modem. Buy a cord.
Don't try to create a "computer lab type atmosphere."
Create a rich home environment.

Your thinking is fearful and schoolish.

-=-I've been on this list for two or three years, and...-=-

Your questions would have made more sense to me if you had said "I've been on this list for two or three weeks, and...

Your daughter learned to read better when you weren't teaching her. You should look at her, not at what doctors write about school kids.

This might help you, if you subscribe and then read it every day. Nothing you join or subscribe to will help if you don't read a little, try a little, wait a while, and watch.

http://justaddlightandstir.blogspot.com/

Sandra






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Sandra Dodd

-=-I started letting her watch Angelina Ballerina, (I only let her watch documentaries before), and then to encourage the reading, I got her the books that went with it (which I wouldn't have done before, because I don't like how companies prey on children with attractive marketing). She likes the books, and laughs over them, which makes me happy, because she is happy. -=-

http://sandradodd.com/being
http://sandradodd.com/joy

You think of companies "preying" on your children? You would refuse to buy her a book (BOOK) she wanted because of your feelings about companies?
That's way too many levels of agitated thought between you and your direct observation of your children.

-=-She likes the books, and laughs over them, which makes me happy, because she is happy.-=-

If you can generalize that to all your decisions, your life will be better immediately, and your children's lives will be, too.

Attractive marketing is better than ugly marketing. If you see the world through fearful glasses, it's all ugly. It makes your children "prey," and wrong, and in danger.
If you can see the world through peaceful glasses, every single thing and every single thought will be different.

http://sandradodd.com/parentingpeacefully
http://sandradodd.com/life

Sandra




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Jenny Cyphers

Instead of going through your post piece by piece, I'll say this:  

I almost stopped breathing when I was reading.  Just reading this made me feel tense, like I was going downhill faster and faster and faster.  I got to the end and realized I needed to take a breath.  There is so much fear and worry and "what if" and and and and and....

Then at the end was this:

***Does anyone have any suggestions for the almost five year old who wants to be in front of screen, but is bored?***


This part clearly shows your frame of mind.  Does your child want to be in front of a screen, or does he want to watch something interesting, or do something interesting? 


Can he play starfall while his sister is watching the show she wants to watch?

If you can stop and breathe and see what is in the moment, moment by moment, you can find logistics to being with 3 kids, helping them each do things that they enjoy doing.  All those things you help them do happily, will be things they will learn from.  Once you can relax, you will be able to see the learning in all the things they do.

One of your fears is how your kids will learn math, it's a common one.

One of my children learned multiplication by playing with legos.  I'd never considered that it could happen until it did, but it made sense because each lego piece has a certain length, numbered by dots, repeat that and you have a pattern.  Building with legos is, to a large extent, building with patterns.  That happened when she was about 7/8.

My other child asked what multiplication was, I think she was about 10, I don't remember exactly.  I gave her a brief explanation and her response was something like "oh, is that all?  I thought it was something really hard."  

Neither of my kids had any math lessons.  Each one has found ways to do arithmetic and each one has asked hard questions and puzzled out answers.  Math is everywhere, all around us.  We measure and calculate, we examine structure and balance, we weigh things, sometimes literally.  We compare and contrast the world around us.

Right now, you guys hang out in the kitchen with 2 computers.  Try to connect the other one to the internet and if you can't, put some interesting movie on it, let the older 2 take turns playing games on the other one, and let the baby sit in a high chair with interesting things to touch.  What a blessing that you guys all are together in one location with the ability to be occupied and happy!  My kids are 7 yrs apart and when they were younger, having them in the same room was a great and rare occasion because they were busy doing totally different activities, which meant that I was going back and forth a lot.  

Pretend that you are on summer vacation right now and don't even think about school being in session.  Stop doing that completely and behave as if you were on vacation.  Do summer things and stop worrying so much about how much and too much.  Open up the doors and windows and spend your days going in and out, make sun tea, burn things with magnifying glasses, use side walk chalk, set up a wading pool, listen for the ice cream truck and keep piles of change on the ready.

In the back of your mind, way in the back, see the learning in each and every one of those activities, don't hyper focus on it, see it, recognize it and move on.  Let your focus be on happy fun!

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Joyce Fetteroll

On Jun 18, 2011, at 11:02 PM, kimcroninmeltzer wrote:

> I really tried to spend 15 minutes a day of phonics to help her
> learn to read when she was younger.

It's *hugely* important that people realize that kids can't learn to
read if they aren't developmentally ready. Reading lessons before
they're ready are as useless as walking and talking lessons before
they're ready. And they're just as unnecessary after.

I know that's counter to the message of school where it's "We need to
teach them even earlier!" But there are no public schools in the US
who are allowing kids to become developmentally ready to read without
lessons so educators (in general) have no idea that reading can happen
without lessons. The kids' brains are developing while the reading
lessons are happening. Not because of the reading lessons but because
they're growing older.

> It didn't do anything except make her want to avoid me. I didn't
> want to sacrifice my relationship with her to the altar of
> education, so I let go of it for about six months, and she is now
> reading level 1 books. Yay!

Become blind to levels. Don't even look at them. In fact unless *she*
is drawn to a book with a level label, I'd avoid them entirely.
They're designed for reading practice, not as real books to read.
Interest is what will draw her to read. :-) The first book Kathryn
read on her own was Harry Potter.

> started letting her watch Angelina Ballerina, (I only let her watch
> documentaries before), and then to encourage the reading, I got her
> the books that went with it (which I wouldn't have done before,

Where you're getting stuck, I think, is you're looking at the
information and skills you want to get into her and trying to find
ways to do that.

Feed her interests rather than skills. Don't worry about the skills! I
*know* that's hard to do! But read more about how other kids learned,
especially at Sandra's site: http://sandradodd.com/unschooling. Kids
pick up skills *as a side effect* in their quest to find out more
about what fascinates them.

It's how kids learn to talk. They get better at talking by talking for
real purposes, by using speech as a tool to get what they want. Kids
learn how to read, manipulate numbers, figure out where countries are,
tell time all by sucking that information in in their quest to know
more about the things that appeal to them.

Don't worry about the skills schooled kids are learning. Schooled kids
are in a waste land of interest. The most interesting thing in the
classroom may be the clock ;-) Unschooled kids are learning about what
interests them and picking up skills as they go along. If unschooled
kids were only quizzed on the skills, they'll look behind. But if
someone could quiz them on what they know -- pretty much impossible
since they aren't going in any kind of order! -- they'll run circles
around kids in school ;-)

Learning is like working a ginormous jigsaw puzzle. In school, they go
in order, working on the (supposedly) important parts of the important
sections, telling kids exactly what pieces to put where. And it's
dull. And it's hard *because* it's dull.

In real life, people plunge in doing whatever section of the puzzle
appeals to them, dropping one section to do something that catches
their interest, going back, working one section exclusively, working a
bit here and there and everywhere. It's messy and disorderly! But it's
fun and it works because that's how we're designed to learn.

Real learning is how kids learn to speak. And it works effortlessly
and wonderfully well. Artificial, hard learning in school is how kids
are taught foreign languages, focusing on the skills and the mechanics
and what can be tested. And it rarely achieves anything that lasts
beyond the classroom.

> because I don't like how companies prey on children with attractive
> marketing).

Kids aren't stupid! ;-) They don't enjoy programs and books and songs
because of advertising. They may be initially drawn to something by
advertising, but it if doesn't appeal to them, they'll drop it. Just
as adults do.

There's a pervasive idea that kids are easily captivated. Just throw
colorful cute characters at them and they'll follow those characters
anywhere. But that's a very low opinion of kids! All you have to do is
look at real kids. They're picky! They're discriminatory! But they
are kids and their tastes are different from adult tastes. They need
things that adults don't understand and therefore look down on and
dismiss as trivial.

Kids learn how to make choices by making real choices. By trying
things out. By finding what they like about what they try and what
they don't like. And in the process they learn more about who they are.

It's much easier -- much safer! -- for her to make choices now when
the choices are Angelina and Captain Underpants than when she's older
and faced with decisions about alcohol, driving and sex!

> She loves audio books, and has listened to the unabridged versions
> of Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Little Princess, Secret
> Garden, the Little House on the Prairie series, and Misty of
> Chincoteague. She listened to Little Women for about 5-6 months
> straight.
> I tried to extend her learning

Don't try to extend her learning. Expand her world into other things
she might think are interesting. Try -- for now! -- to avoid anything
you think would be good for her to learn. This will be hard! But look
at your daughter. Look at *everything* that appeals to her, not just
the parts you like that appeals to her. Help her explore what
interests her. Run things you think she would be interested in through
her life.

If she likes poop jokes, get her poop joke books. Look up poop jokes
on the internet. Find poop songs.

I'm thinking you just want to fill her with quality ingredients. (It's
a common mom desire!) But she's not an empty vessel. She's a human
with different tastes than you. She's a child with different interests
than an adult. She has whatever interests she has for a reason. You
don't need to understand why. To support her and her interests you
just need to help her get more of what she's trying to reach. And then
run lots of other stuff you think might appeal through her life so she
has access to more potential interests.

> by doing projects related to the stuff she was listening to: we made
> a telegraph machine, I took her to places civil war related, she
> planted a garden, she acted out many scenes with her brother, I took
> them horse back riding, etc.

These are all cool things and I don't want to discourage you from
doing them! If they had fun, that's what counts :-)

I'd like to encourage you to expand your offerings. See the world
through kids eyes in addition to the "good for them" stuff.

> I'm a little uncomfortable with it because she is not getting a lot
> of exercise because of it.

And you'd probably have an even harder time if it was a show she loved
that you didn't! At least your daughter's helping you ease into this :-)

Rather than thinking in terms of taking away, think in terms of adding
to her life. Kids don't get much exercise from reading books but few
parents demonize books because of that. Some activities are more head
oriented. (Though you can get a mini trampoline for in front of the TV
if you've got kids who like to move around while they watch :-) Some
activities are more body oriented. Neither is bad because they're not
the other. Add some park days and trips to climb rocks and swim and so
on to their lives. Not instead of TV. In addition to TV.

> Also, how can I present some fun math stuff to her? A couple of
> months ago, she was playing around with some of the math on
> starfall.com (they have interactive math games) but she is really
> into liberty's kids right now, not math.

And maybe she always will be more drawn to language than numbers.

Be aware of the numbers in her life that are already there. Weigh
things at the supermarket. Ask her to see how close she can get to
exactly 2 pounds of apples. Put their heights on the wall. Give her an
allowance. Do this for real, not as lessons.

My daughter learned most of her math from video games. Games use
numbers for real, important (to the game) reasons. And kids *want* to
pull more information from the games in order to get better at them.
The numbers aren't there to make kids figure them out as they are in
educational math games. The numbers exist for real purposes to show
relative strengths, to show how much power is left, to keep score, to
keep track. There are maps. There are graphs. Real purposes.

There's quite a bit to read about real math and the poor substitute
that school math is down the left sidebar under Math at:

http://joyfullyrejoycing.com

> Also, my almost five year old son doesn't really want to watch
> liberty's kids, but he also wants to be in front of the screen. This
> leads to him getting bored, and being annoying, (making noises so
> she can't hear, spinning his chair so it hits hers, on accident,
> etc, etc. etc. ) I got him some crafts from Michael's, which he
> really likes. He can do some of those in front of the screen, but
> that is going to run out soon. He won't do anything I suggest
> (color, draw, listen to a story in the other room, anything, ) so
> it's a bit difficult.

It wouldn't be difficult if he had another TV to watch.

He's not trying to make your life more difficult. He's trying to meet
a need. The way he's trying to meet it isn't the best! It's annoying
and isn't getting him what he needs anyway.

Help him.

It will also help not to see unschooling as about finding ways to
occupy them. It's about helping them explore. Sometimes that will
involve you fully. Sometimes they'll need you to back off.

If you're moving and need to be doing things to get ready, perhaps
finding a homeschooled teen to come be with them will help. But do see
your unschooling role as being whatever they need you to be in their
quest for learning. Your goal isn't to get them set up so they can
learn on their own.

I'm not saying you're doing that all the time, or that's your whole
focus. But that view is in what you wrote and is probably coloring the
way you're approaching helping them learn.

> I also have an almost 10 month old baby who is not supposed to watch
> screens (the board of pediatricians says babies shouldn't watch
> until age 2),

I wouldn't put much credence into what they say. They really don't
know. You don't know what the studies are, or why they were done, or
who paid for them that has made the pediatrics association release
that blanket statement.

Better far than an anonymous herd of pediatricians who've never met
your unique child is your child.

Most 10 mos aren't interested in TV! If he is, let him watch what he
likes. (It's doubtful it will be for long!) Watching the other kids,
you, touching, listening, moving are all activities that a 10 mo is
likely to find more interesting than TV. If he loves the backpack,
that's the best place for him. It's a great solution. He gets to be
with the toy that's best for babies: their moms. He gets to see what's
going on in the world while you're doing real things.

If it needs to be most of the day, let it be most of the day.

It helps sanity greatly to let go of how you expect life to be. Work
towards better, yes! It won't help you or them be happy if you hold a
vision of how you expect your kids will be. They didn't sign up for
this gig ;-) They were dragged into the world because you choose to do
that to them. Looking at them and their needs will help you more than
your expectations of who you'd like them to be.

Joyce