math for my daughter
jwaller222@...
Greetings! I am new to the group and would like someday to share all of the wonderful changes in my home as a result of coming in contact with this way of life. However, time constraints bring me here with a more direct purpose.
My daughter is almost six and participated in her older brother's math studies until about a year ago when I allowed him to quit. We were using the Saxon Math Series and were in the middle of the first grade unit. My daughter, who joined in for fun, loved the work and recently asked if I would pick it back up with her.
I am glad to do so, yet would like to branch out in my own research because I found the Saxon series to be a bit mundane. I had used it because I had little faith in my ability to lead in the exploration mathematics and felt comforted by the script. This time around I would like to increase my own joy of the subject so I can take our exploration to a more inspired place, if the need should arise. I was wondering if anyone here might have some ideas on how I can increase my own interest in mathematics so that whatever we do end up doing will be filled with authentic enthusiasm on my part.
Because she wants to go back to the script, I will begin there. It may be that she simply misses us sitting together and doing the exercises and flash cards. However, she did seem more excited by the subject than my son and seemed to take joy in the discoveries we made, despite the scripted nature of the presentation. We could make more joyful discoveries together if I were to brush up on the subject.
Anyone out there know any good sources to kindle my interest? Books, movies, documentaries? It seems that when it comes to Math, it's hard to research without running into an awful lot of schoolish nonsense.
To all of you, whose words I have been following, thank you for taking the time. My life, and my family have greatly benefited. My three year old said recently, "We always have the happy Fun!" He does not realize how much of that happy fun we owe to you all.
I will leave with this Einstein quotation I read yesterday, "I believe that love is a better teacher than a sense of duty, at least for me." ( I like that he added, "at least for me.")
All the Best,
Jennifer
Sandra Dodd
-=- My daughter, who joined in for fun, loved the work-=-
It shouldn’t be work. You chose that word.
This is an indicator that you haven’t separated yourself from schoolishness.
If she wants to PLAY with those lessons, do it in a playful way.
-=- We could make more joyful discoveries together if I were to brush up on the subject. -=-
If you continue to think of it as “a subject,” you not discover what it looks like wild in the world.
-=-Anyone out there know any good sources to kindle my interest? Books, movies, documentaries? It seems that when it comes to Math, it's hard to research without running into an awful lot of schoolish nonsense. -=-
You said “research” and “hard” in that last sentence.
Step away from anything that looks like math to you. Turn away and look at other things. Let time pass. There is no short cut for deschooling, but it is possible to think you’ve deschooled while still talking about hard work and research and “the subject.”
Read a little (Not all of it), and then relax. Read little more, maybe, and then try not to think about it. If you DO see math, don’t say so. Practice not saying so. :-)
That’s a lot. It’s what you asked for, but it’s not really what you need. What you need is to look at everything else, for a year or two, until you start to see math where you never could have seen it before.
Sandra
janine davies
>>>>What you need is to look at everything else, for a year or two, until you start to see math where you never could have seen it before.<<<<
>>>If you continue to think of it as “a subject,” you will not discover what it looks like wild in the world.<<<
My son left school at 10 (now 12) thinking he would never get a job if he didn't know his times tables....he was told this by his last teacher, and a girl in his class (teachers pet) who was 'helping' him with his tables at the teachers request. But of course instead she spent the time putting my son down and telling him he was dumb, and repeating what the teacher had said.
I myself had a particularly damaging time at school with maths, including being hit over the head by the teacher with a book if I couldn't get what we were doing "even after he had explained it so well". And having to stand up to answer times table questions in a 'game' and not able to sit down until I got one right...I was often the last one standing in this 'game' and of course got laughed at. I went to ballet school at 13 where it was cool to be crap at maths, so I had reverse status then, which I enjoyed, but the scars were there, and were for a long time...
So when he left school my son hated any mention of maths! Or any sight of schooly maths. But at the same time (and for quite a while) panicking that he wasn't 'doing' any and that he would never get a job.....
I think my deschooling of maths in particular was the trickiest fuelled by my phobia and experiences and fear. But when I did start to get it , and could feel relief flooding in, I found myself really torn between pointing out the maths I could see in his play and activities ,I got excited and wanted to tell him! 'Look at you doing maths' but I didn't thankfully and continued reading Sandra's links and gradually I really started to understand what 'wild' maths is , and that it is in everything, and as I really started to 'see' it clearly, so my understanding deepened, and my own fear started to drop away. And I really understood that if I had of pointed it out he might have stopped playing and discovering the games he loves so much...
So basically I shut up and trusted, and continued my deschooling. Now I enjoy most of all seeing my son, and hearing my son, using, applying and enjoying maths naturally and joyfully. It really reminds me of the deep healing that has happened for him, and myself.
I did once casually mention to him that I run by own business (my second very successful dance based business in fact) and I reminded him that I have no maths qualifications at all, or in business studies. Just twenty years of dancing! I joked with him that the 'business' police have so far NOT come knocking at my door demanding that I stop running my business due to having no qualifications. 
(In fact I read a book at the back of the class room during my maths o level exam. I wrote my name on the paper and that was all )
He also finds it interesting to discover, and tell me excitedly about, successful business people who were home schooled or dropped out of school with no qualifications and have become incredibly successful like Richard Branson and others, I think this must be helping him with his healing.
So for two years now he has played - he has played lots of popular games like Assassins creed and Call of Duty, but he also excitedly found games like Game Dev Tycoon and Roller coaster tycoon. Sim city was another. HE discovered these games himself and that is important here, and each of those games is full to the brim with wild maths!
Wage distribution, losses and gains, sales percentages, marketing and advertising distribution and on....in game dev particularly if your 'game' flops you become bankrupt and start from scratch....Prison Architect is another - riots break out if you don't run your prison well enough, and its all about dividing up and planning and dividing resources and money, while keeping the wellbeing of the people high, and maintaining the most cost effective running of your prison.
We went to Lots of theme parks this year and he excitedly noticed that on the map of the park, by each coaster drawing, it had info on the dimensions of each ride - length, height, speed reached, and even how many nuts and bolts on each one!. Which he excitedly pointed out to me and then went off to create his own as soon as he got home - on the computer, and I found a build your own roller coaster kit in the charity shop! Which works a treat, but did require cutting lengths of tube ,measuring and lining up with the 'lift' and release mechanism - tricky stuff and full of wild maths.
At no point, and never have I , pointed out the maths to him. He now adds up his money joyfully and we have named him the "Bank of Sam' as he avidly counts up birthday, xmas, easter money, and the odd £10 or 20 that generous relatives send his way, and he spends a long time working out what he needs for a new game or pokemon cards etc...
He also has been offered a job!!! This was such a moment for us all as you can imagine! I actually haven't said 'look you got a job without knowing your times tables' but boy was I tempted! I have no idea if he could recite the tables now, and frankly I don't care, but I know he uses multiplication all the time, it just looks very different than it does at school, or in schooly ways, when it is 'wild' and fun!
His Job will start soon in the New year and is at a Computer repair store called 'PC DOCTOR' and the best news of all is that the owner has bought the next door (now closed down barbers) and is turning it into a gaming centre! My son got offered the job because of trips to the store for repairs and the guy was/is blown away by my sons computer knowledge and told him if he could he would offer him a job full time! My son said he will let the info that he technically COULD work in the week for him slip out gradually when he has been there a while...Wise move I think.
My son has also very recently looked at the clock on our wall and said "I still can't tell the time by that 'normal' clock....But I think it's ok, and anyway I don't need to do, I have my phone or computer to tell the time..." ( he did have an humiliating time with this 'lesson' at school too).
But if he does ask me what the time is and I look at the kitchen clock out of habit, and he does too, I just tell him what time it is. He may get it one day, he may not, but he can find out the time from the many digital sources around. And he has a digital watch that he wears when out and about.
I hope by sharing a part of my sons story so far that it will help with the deschooling process, of course along side the very same links from Sandra that helped me. And for you and others to see how a big maths phobics like me and my son, are doing just fine.
And in fact my son is flying now, AND he did get a job....And at only 12 years old! Something he really truly believed back then would not happen unless he could recite his times tables....
Janine x
PS. Amy Childs has a 'Maths' page on her website www.unschoolingsupport.com and in fact I am one of the speakers on the maths one, and tell some of the above experiences.
It also has other incredibly experienced and wonderfully inspiring unschoolers speaking on it, and some VERY revealing insights.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 19:34:23 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] math for my daughter
-=- My daughter, who joined in for fun, loved the work-=-
It shouldn’t be work. You chose that word.
This is an indicator that you haven’t separated yourself from schoolishness.
If she wants to PLAY with those lessons, do it in a playful way.
-=- We could make more joyful discoveries together if I were to brush up on the subject. -=-
If you continue to think of it as “a subject,” you not discover what it looks like wild in the world.
-=-Anyone out there know any good sources to kindle my interest? Books, movies, documentaries? It seems that when it comes to Math, it's hard to research without running into an awful lot of schoolish nonsense. -=-
You said “research” and “hard” in that last sentence.
Step away from anything that looks like math to you. Turn away and look at other things. Let time pass. There is no short cut for deschooling, but it is possible to think you’ve deschooled while still talking about hard work and research and “the subject.”
Read a little (Not all of it), and then relax. Read little more, maybe, and then try not to think about it. If you DO see math, don’t say so. Practice not saying so. :-)
That’s a lot. It’s what you asked for, but it’s not really what you need. What you need is to look at everything else, for a year or two, until you start to see math where you never could have seen it before.
Sandra
Robyn Coburn
I bought this book, Help Your Kids With Math, when I saw it at Costco because I thought it looked like fun - for me. It is fun, well laid out, colorful and enjoyable to browse. It includes useful information about compound interest and calculating credit card debt. I also grabbed the Science and the Code books in the same series. For me - especially the Code one.
When Jayn expressed an interest in math worksheets, I printed about half a dozen free ones off the internet and left them with her. She was about 12 that time I think. She may have done them, but she didn't want me to help her with the task, just to provide the resource. She does her math on World of Warcraft, determining the cost of new items, or points scores and so on.
Jayn has a friend who loves numbers - loves them, loves math. Her face lights up when she talks about the college level math stuff she is doing in her extra curricular (they are fairly relaxed, eclectic school-at-homers) classes at UCLA. It's just about the only time she does become animated, in my presence anyway. She is now 15, but this number passion was clearly verbalized the first time I met her when she and Jayn were about three, at the park day, on the swings. She was counting and doing addition for fun.
If she were unschooling, her mom wouldn't be making her stop doing math to do other school subjects in the cause of whatever, a "well-rounded education" or something. She wouldn't make her take a break over the summer vacation either. But the girl loves the math.
Let it be fun. Play together. Bring in games and toys that involve all the abstract concepts of math - building toys, geometry toys, board games - have fun together. Maybe your son will rediscover an interest in numbers when it starts looking like fun and relevant to his life, instead of classes.
Honestly, flash cards are so schooly, and such a fad. Someone thought they could make money creating these teaching tools, and probably have. But the things didn't exist when I was a kid. Cusinaire rods did - they were fun like miniature blocks. Do flash cards really help any kid actually understand how numbers work? Or are they more for memorization? I don't think I have ever had any in the house.
Robyn C.
jwaller222@...
Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I have a great deal of deschooling to do. Your comments, suggestions and links are gratefully received.
---In [email protected], <daviesj69@...> wrote :
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 19:34:23 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] math for my daughter
Now it has occurred to me that there was something else underlying my post, and I did not see it until I read in Janine's post:
<< But at the same time (and for quite a while) panicking that he wasn't 'doing' any and that he would never get a job..... >>
I think the rule-worshiping part of my brain assumed that because Violet had never officially been to school, that she would not go through a deschooling period. Yet if I take the time to see things through her eyes, I can see that right around the time I quit "doing school" with Abbott, she was about to "enter Kindergarden". I think in a way, she might feel cheated.
I used the word "work" in regards to the Saxon program because that is what it felt like to my son and I. We had a couple good times here and there, but for the most part it was a struggle.
Violet, on the other hand, stood witness to all of the bustle and fuss I made about Abbott's "education". I was "researching" and buying stuff, and spending one on one time every day with Abbott. This, without a doubt, elevated his learning above hers, which is a definite regret seen in light of what I know now. She was allowed to sit with us and participate, but I believe that the implication was that it wasn't "her turn" yet. Yikes.
What prompted me to post in the first place was that she came to me with tears in her eyes asking that I "do school" with her. I asked her what that looked like in her mind, and she said she wanted to do "math stuff". She said she didn't care about reading. Prior to this, my plan had been to quiet down and listen up while I deschooled and got reacquainted with my children. It had been going really well until Vi came to me with the tears in her eyes wanting to know about math. I am not sure if it is the math or the school or me that she wants.
Can I honor her request without misleading her? How can I fuel her desire to know while moving her away from seeing school as her key?
I got very little help with my interests as a child. It was an uphill battle with most things. I remember I kept thinking that school was going to have it's "big reveal" one day and all the understanding that was promised would fill me up if I buckled down and paid enough attention. On my final day of college I couldn't get away fast enough. It felt like the biggest sham of my life. I wanted to know so much, and everyone kept getting in my way saying, "Look this way! See the teacher! See the fancy building! It's all there if you are smart enough!" So eventually I gave it my attention in hopes that it would all come together as promised. You all know how that ended...
I feel ridiculous that I sold the same story to my kids.
I want to help Violet know anything she wants to know. The first step, I guess, is getting her to believe me when I say that. Then maybe she will trust me when I tell her she doesn't need the schooling. Since trust of that sort takes time, what can I do in the meantime to soothe her anxiety over not having the same experience as her brother?
Thanks again. I know this is horrible timing with the Holidays and all. The emotional nature of her request gave me a sense of urgency.
Best Wishes,
Jennifer
---In [email protected], <daviesj69@...> wrote :
>>>>What you need is to look at everything else, for a year or two, until you start to see math where you never could have seen it before.<<<<
>>>If you continue to think of it as “a subject,” you will not discover what it looks like wild in the world.<<<
My son left school at 10 (now 12) thinking he would never get a job if he didn't know his times tables....he was told this by his last teacher, and a girl in his class (teachers pet) who was 'helping' him with his tables at the teachers request. But of course instead she spent the time putting my son down and telling him he was dumb, and repeating what the teacher had said.
I myself had a particularly damaging time at school with maths, including being hit over the head by the teacher with a book if I couldn't get what we were doing "even after he had explained it so well". And having to stand up to answer times table questions in a 'game' and not able to sit down until I got one right...I was often the last one standing in this 'game' and of course got laughed at. I went to ballet school at 13 where it was cool to be crap at maths, so I had reverse status then, which I enjoyed, but the scars were there, and were for a long time...
So when he left school my son hated any mention of maths! Or any sight of schooly maths. But at the same time (and for quite a while) panicking that he wasn't 'doing' any and that he would never get a job.....
I think my deschooling of maths in particular was the trickiest fuelled by my phobia and experiences and fear. But when I did start to get it , and could feel relief flooding in, I found myself really torn between pointing out the maths I could see in his play and activities ,I got excited and wanted to tell him! 'Look at you doing maths' but I didn't thankfully and continued reading Sandra's links and gradually I really started to understand what 'wild' maths is , and that it is in everything, and as I really started to 'see' it clearly, so my understanding deepened, and my own fear started to drop away. And I really understood that if I had of pointed it out he might have stopped playing and discovering the games he loves so much...
So basically I shut up and trusted, and continued my deschooling. Now I enjoy most of all seeing my son, and hearing my son, using, applying and enjoying maths naturally and joyfully. It really reminds me of the deep healing that has happened for him, and myself.
I did once casually mention to him that I run by own business (my second very successful dance based business in fact) and I reminded him that I have no maths qualifications at all, or in business studies. Just twenty years of dancing! I joked with him that the 'business' police have so far NOT come knocking at my door demanding that I stop running my business due to having no qualifications. 
(In fact I read a book at the back of the class room during my maths o level exam. I wrote my name on the paper and that was all )
He also finds it interesting to discover, and tell me excitedly about, successful business people who were home schooled or dropped out of school with no qualifications and have become incredibly successful like Richard Branson and others, I think this must be helping him with his healing.
So for two years now he has played - he has played lots of popular games like Assassins creed and Call of Duty, but he also excitedly found games like Game Dev Tycoon and Roller coaster tycoon. Sim city was another. HE discovered these games himself and that is important here, and each of those games is full to the brim with wild maths!
Wage distribution, losses and gains, sales percentages, marketing and advertising distribution and on....in game dev particularly if your 'game' flops you become bankrupt and start from scratch....Prison Architect is another - riots break out if you don't run your prison well enough, and its all about dividing up and planning and dividing resources and money, while keeping the wellbeing of the people high, and maintaining the most cost effective running of your prison.
We went to Lots of theme parks this year and he excitedly noticed that on the map of the park, by each coaster drawing, it had info on the dimensions of each ride - length, height, speed reached, and even how many nuts and bolts on each one!. Which he excitedly pointed out to me and then went off to create his own as soon as he got home - on the computer, and I found a build your own roller coaster kit in the charity shop! Which works a treat, but did require cutting lengths of tube ,measuring and lining up with the 'lift' and release mechanism - tricky stuff and full of wild maths.
At no point, and never have I , pointed out the maths to him. He now adds up his money joyfully and we have named him the "Bank of Sam' as he avidly counts up birthday, xmas, easter money, and the odd £10 or 20 that generous relatives send his way, and he spends a long time working out what he needs for a new game or pokemon cards etc...
He also has been offered a job!!! This was such a moment for us all as you can imagine! I actually haven't said 'look you got a job without knowing your times tables' but boy was I tempted! I have no idea if he could recite the tables now, and frankly I don't care, but I know he uses multiplication all the time, it just looks very different than it does at school, or in schooly ways, when it is 'wild' and fun!
His Job will start soon in the New year and is at a Computer repair store called 'PC DOCTOR' and the best news of all is that the owner has bought the next door (now closed down barbers) and is turning it into a gaming centre! My son got offered the job because of trips to the store for repairs and the guy was/is blown away by my sons computer knowledge and told him if he could he would offer him a job full time! My son said he will let the info that he technically COULD work in the week for him slip out gradually when he has been there a while...Wise move I think.
My son has also very recently looked at the clock on our wall and said "I still can't tell the time by that 'normal' clock....But I think it's ok, and anyway I don't need to do, I have my phone or computer to tell the time..." ( he did have an humiliating time with this 'lesson' at school too).
But if he does ask me what the time is and I look at the kitchen clock out of habit, and he does too, I just tell him what time it is. He may get it one day, he may not, but he can find out the time from the many digital sources around. And he has a digital watch that he wears when out and about.
I hope by sharing a part of my sons story so far that it will help with the deschooling process, of course along side the very same links from Sandra that helped me. And for you and others to see how a big maths phobics like me and my son, are doing just fine.
And in fact my son is flying now, AND he did get a job....And at only 12 years old! Something he really truly believed back then would not happen unless he could recite his times tables....
Janine x
PS. Amy Childs has a 'Maths' page on her website www.unschoolingsupport.com and in fact I am one of the speakers on the maths one, and tell some of the above experiences.
It also has other incredibly experienced and wonderfully inspiring unschoolers speaking on it, and some VERY revealing insights.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 19:34:23 -0700
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] math for my daughter
-=- My daughter, who joined in for fun, loved the work-=-
It shouldn’t be work. You chose that word.
This is an indicator that you haven’t separated yourself from schoolishness.
If she wants to PLAY with those lessons, do it in a playful way.
-=- We could make more joyful discoveries together if I were to brush up on the subject. -=-
If you continue to think of it as “a subject,” you not discover what it looks like wild in the world.
-=-Anyone out there know any good sources to kindle my interest? Books, movies, documentaries? It seems that when it comes to Math, it's hard to research without running into an awful lot of schoolish nonsense. -=-
You said “research” and “hard” in that last sentence.
Step away from anything that looks like math to you. Turn away and look at other things. Let time pass. There is no short cut for deschooling, but it is possible to think you’ve deschooled while still talking about hard work and research and “the subject.”
Read a little (Not all of it), and then relax. Read little more, maybe, and then try not to think about it. If you DO see math, don’t say so. Practice not saying so. :-)
That’s a lot. It’s what you asked for, but it’s not really what you need. What you need is to look at everything else, for a year or two, until you start to see math where you never could have seen it before.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-I think the rule-worshiping part of my brain assumed that because Violet had never officially been to school, that she would not go through a deschooling period. Yet if I take the time to see things through her eyes, I can see that right around the time I quit "doing school" with Abbott, she was about to "enter Kindergarden". I think in a way, she might feel cheated. -=-
It’s here: http://sandradodd.com/doit
Sandra
If she was in the house while schooling was going on, she will need to deschool from that. One month per year might not be long, but that count only starts after all the schooling stops completely. That hasn’t happened yet.
But you were in school for over 12 years, probably. Many adults were in school for 20 years. Some taught after that. The time you homeschooled counts on your schooly-schooling, too. So even if you kids were ready to learn in nicely unschooling ways, your own deschooling is going to take over a year. Maybe two years.
-=- I am not sure if it is the math or the school or me that she wants. -=-
In the very next paragraph you called it “her desire to know.”
Not only is it contradictory (in your mind), it’s a lot of words.
-=-Can I honor her request without misleading her? How can I fuel her desire to know while moving her away from seeing school as her key? -=-
How can we answer those questions without misleading you? :-)
-=-I got very little help with my interests as a child. It was an uphill battle with most things. -=-
Who were you battling? Anytime you use a word like “battle” or “struggling" (or “work”), don’t post it. Save it and think about it.
-=- I wanted to know so much, and everyone kept getting in my way saying, "Look this way! See the teacher! See the fancy building! It's all there if you are smart enough!" So eventually I gave it my attention in hopes that it would all come together as promised. You all know how that ended… -=-
We don’t know how it ended for you.
It sounds like you didn’t find ways to learn on the side, under the desk, despite school and schooling.
It sounds like you were waiting for them to teach you, instead of figuring out how to learn. That would be good to think about once in a while, as you’re deschooling.
I didn’t have that experience. I read on the side, wrote for fun, did lots of art and music outside of school. I liked most o the classes I took at the university and still use most of it in my everyday life. Not that they “taught me,” so much as I drew information in, and memories, and side activities. Thi sprobably helps me.
MAYBE maybe you were discouraged from being curious and from “coloring outside of the lines.” Maybe that’s what you could use as a model for deschooling, perhaps. Or maybe it doesn’t seem right and I’m guessing wrong.
-=-I feel ridiculous -=-
Don’t use that word. Try not even to think that word, but if you think it, don’t use it here, not even of yourself. It’s too damaging.
-=-I want to help Violet know anything she wants to know. The first step, I guess, is getting her to believe me when I say that. -=-
No, that would be teaching. You won’t be helping her know anything she wants to know, when unschooling is working there.
The first step is NOT going to be to persuade her of anything like that.
If she wants to “do” math, do it lightly.
-=-Then maybe she will trust me when I tell her she doesn't need the schooling. Since trust of that sort takes time, what can I do in the meantime to soothe her anxiety over not having the same experience as her brother?-=-
Tell her you wish you hadn’t done it with her brother, and you’re glad you didn’t do it with her.
And it’s GOOD the holidays are coming. That might keep her from having time to want to do math.
Maybe you should give the Saxon math books away. Thrift store. Maybe even having them there is a problem.
If she wants to do things with you, how about board games, card games, iPod games? If you can play games for the sake of playing games, and if you can start to see patterns and logic without saying “That’s math!” then you can begin to see how your daughter will learn math without your help, and without your reassurances.
Play for the sake of playing. Step away from what you think math is. Step away for two years, and everything will be different.
I didn’t write this just now, but I wrote it:
Until a person stops doing the things that keep unschooling from working, unschooling can't 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.
Some people want to see unschooling while they're still teaching and putzing and assigning and requiring.
They have to stop that FIRST. And then they have to be still. And then they have to look at their child with new eyes.
If they don't, it won't happen.
Sandra Dodd
We had video games that were “math games,” but the kids played them for fun. They had nice music and art.
Holly sometimes wanted me to make her “a math page” because she had seen worksheets at the neighbors’ houses —some in school, some homeschooled with a Christian curriculum). I would throw some addition, or subtraction, or a combination, and would make a pattern of the answers, so it was like a puzzle to figure out what the overall pattern was.
Probably I made her five or six of those over a few years.
But at the same time, she was doing, playing, lots of things that involved measurements, folding, puzzles, all kinds of logic puzzles and games, board games like Bazaar and Master Mind Junior and Clue...
Holly sometimes wanted me to make her “a math page” because she had seen worksheets at the neighbors’ houses —some in school, some homeschooled with a Christian curriculum). I would throw some addition, or subtraction, or a combination, and would make a pattern of the answers, so it was like a puzzle to figure out what the overall pattern was.
Probably I made her five or six of those over a few years.
But at the same time, she was doing, playing, lots of things that involved measurements, folding, puzzles, all kinds of logic puzzles and games, board games like Bazaar and Master Mind Junior and Clue...
Joyce Fetteroll
> On Dec 18, 2014, at 6:34 PM, jwaller222@... wrote:Her asking for math is her solution to a still vague problem that she doesn't yet understand fully.
> Can I honor her request [to do math] without misleading her?
As with any problem, we grow to understand the problem better by trying out our guesses.
Give her what she thinks might work *and* other things to choose from. It does sound like she was longingly looking forward to the day she got to do the really connected attention you gave her brother. And she'd get to hear you say to her brother, "You can watch but don't interrupt. Right now this is more important than your needs."
So maybe spend one one one time with her on something other than math. Then make math one of several choices you're willing to give her your undivided attention on.
> How can I fuel her desire to know while moving her away fromFeeding a desire to know isn't hard. You offer something. If it doesn't spark, you sprinkle other things. If it sparks, focus on that. Offer more like that. Sprinkle in some different stuff that might be interesting.
> seeing school as her key?
What you want to be mindful of is not crushing a desire with your own school baggage. Worry less about what she believes. Worry less about what you want her to believe. Create an environment where she can safely explore lots of ideas so she can draw her own conclusions and find what's right for her.
> I want to help Violet know anything she wants to know.Forget about getting her to believe you. That's about changing her. Change yourself. *Be* believable. *Be* trustworthy. Be confident she can explore to discover more about herself and the world. Let your actions speak those.
> The first step, I guess, is getting her to believe me when I say that.
Then let her draw her own conclusions from your actions. Let her keep reassessing you. Let her trust grow naturally. Don't keep poking it to see if it's done. It won't ever be and your poking will warp its growth.
It's the same as creating an environment for walking then letting the child walk when she's ready. And creating an environment for reading then letting the child read when she's ready.
> Then maybe she will trust me when I tell her she doesn't need the schooling.That's about your needs, not about hers.
If you see the purpose of unschooling is to give her a safe environment to come to her own conclusions about what is right and true for her, then believing your truth as a truth for her isn't a useful tool.
"Just trust me. You don't need to figure that our for yourself," should be an idea you reach for rarely and mindfully. There will be times when trying something will be fraught with danger and more chaos than the learning needs. And in those cases by just waiting the child will grow an understanding.
But the primary focus of unschooling should be on supporting them exploring to find out what is right for them, not telling them the right answers.
> Since trust of that sort takes time, what can I do in the meantimeDon't be anxious yourself about her anxiety. She needs someone who is calm, who trusts that she can figure out what she needs by trying things. The part you play is in trusting her and giving her lots to explore with.
> to soothe her anxiety over not having the same experience as her brother?
Joyce
jwaller222@...
I wanted to send thanks to everyone for their clear and helpful advice. I am floored by the amount of time you must spend on your responses. It is very generous. I also wanted to give you an update that Violet is well and that I am understanding her needs better every day. My confusion centered around wanting to say "Yes" to Vi, but also not wanting to go back to a program. I did end up getting rid of the Saxon stuff and told Vi that I had been mistaken to use the program. I told her that I liked how we worked together better without a script and timeline and I assured her that we could still use the pattern blocks, scales, etc. I also reminded her that she always has the option of trying out conventional school.
Interestingly, very soon after our talk, she decided to walk through the tutorial in Minecraft. We've had the game only several weeks and have mostly played in creative mode because, for the purposes of exploration, death can be a nuisance. But that day, Violet wanted a different flavor and went into the tutorial. After a while of messing around she got exasperated at the instruction boxes popping up in the corner and proclaimed, "God! It keeps saying I have to do THIS, and THIS, and THIS before I move on!" I told her later that the Saxon math lessons were set up that way. That instead of using math for a concrete purpose, it was broken into disconnected steps and she would have to complete certain steps before moving onto something else. It might have been one of those times that she didn't really care about what I was saying, but observing her during the tutorial reinforced to me that immersion is more conducive to learning than attempting to acheive mastery through steps.
In "the old way" (the kids have started referring to our previous way of doing things "the old way" and our unschooling as "the new way") I had placed too much emphasis on the formal. I think the kids got used to my attention coming through a formal filter. At one point I scheduled "mommytime" (when I had job outside the home) everyday, as if my kids could only have me in doses. ( I now know that "ridiculous" is off the table, so perhaps I should shift over to "humbled"? Instead of feeling "ridiculous", perhaps it's better to say that I am humbled when I look back on some of the decisions I have made.) So maybe Violet was feeling a hole where the formal attention dropped away. Things have been better. More eye contact, more smiles, more understanding of what she wants me to do. At the start of "the new ways" I had trouble responding to her needs appropriately; helping and interfering too much. I am getting better at knowing my place.
I am attempting to demonstrate that what she wants to do matters to me. She is very high energy and always has lots that she wants to do, which got put on the back burner when I was trying to move things along in a structured way. She probably wasn't getting into things as in depth as she wanted because the schedule mattered more than her flow. My conducting "school", even for a few hours a day, was a huge distraction. Putting out three scheduled meals a day and getting everyone in bed by 8 didn't help. Now we have so much more time to delve because I am not always thinking of the next item on the list. I don't think she was feeling the full benefit of this as of my last writing because "the new way" had only been rolling for about 10 weeks, and perhaps I had been pulling my attention away because of the holidays. At any rate, returning to the curriculum would not be the antidote to that, and hearing from you helped me stay on my path.
I want to apologize for the emotional turn my last email took. I did not edit that part and it showed. I got in a hurry. I will be more mindful from here on out. I was raised in a stifled environment, and my attempts to carve my own way were often thwarted. Clearly, I haven't completely moved on. Discovering this group has brought up many memories and made me very emotional at times. Growing up, I witnessed a lot of good judgment being clouded by emotions, and similarly I sometimes slide with my emotions off my path. I am working toward more clarity. I am very grateful for the sane voices in this group. I sincerely don't want to be the drunk guy ruining the party. Being a former hater of technology, this experience of writing online to strangers is new to me, so I sincerely want to know how things are done here.
Thanks again. It is a great relief to know that the world isn't as fearful a place as I once believed.
All the best,
Jennifer
Sandra@...
-=-My son has also very recently looked at the clock on our wall and said "I still can't tell the time by that 'normal' clock....But I think it's ok, and anyway I don't need to do, I have my phone or computer to tell the time..." ( he did have an humiliating time with this 'lesson' at school too). -=-
Janine wrote that.
This is an outdated story, because nobody had a mobile phone, but...
Once when Holly was maybe seven or eight, I think, she and her brothers went to an indoor mall (Coronado Mall, in Albuquerque). I believe they were about 8, 10 and 12 or a bit more. I was going to pick them up at a certain time.
In that mall there's a giant clock, outside the artsy elevator in the middle, so it can be seen from upstairs or downstairs in that part. Only thing is... it's an analog clock, and Kirby and Marty only knew how to read digital time. I hadn't known that, or thought to give them a watch or a little clock. It hadn't come up in discussions, because I knew all the kids could tell time and use the information, so there was no good reason to know, but it turned out that Holly could read the analog clock.
When I picked them home, the boys were excited to tell me that if it hadn't been for Holly, they would have needed to ask strangers for the time. And Holly seemed glad (and maybe surprised) to have been so important.
Before Holly was even born, there was a "teaching" clock in the boys' bedroom, with minutes marked in their own circle and some sort of count-toward notes like five til and ten till or something.
WORSE (but kinda fun) is that what Americans say about time might not make sense in the UK, and vice versa. "Half seven" meant nothing to me when I heard it. 3:30? 6:30? 7:30?
But we say "quarter til" and it's informational. :-)
It was better for my kids to learn to read clocks the way they did, happily and gradually. I'm still learning the range of clock reading in English (and it changes in other languages, a bit, I'm sure).
kirkpatrick clare
We have a learning to tell the time poster underneath our analogue clock in the living room. One of the children wanted to learn how to tell the time so we got it and it's still there, years later, helping the younger ones learn :) I like how the analogue clock means you can *see* the time, but then I see the years and months in a more visual sense too. I also like how using old fashioned balance scales can help to make sense of what 'weight' means and how using an analogue kitchen timer can give a visual idea of how long you have left. But I'd never restrict my children to learning in that way - there are digital clocks on our cooker, in our car and we have digital scales for weighing my yarn and my parents use digital scales in their kitchen. It all jumbles together in a very non-linear and fascinating way with one child suddenly being able to tell the time and another in a very active process of learning and needing to tell/check the time with me every five minutes. In fact, their process of learning to tell the time has really illustrated so well for me how children learn what they need when they need it in the way they need it - it's been a real joy not to worry about them learning it. I'm here to tell them the time and when they need or want to learn to be able to do it independently of me, they do :)
On 16 January 2015 at 15:34, Sandra@... [AlwaysLearning] <[email protected]> wrote:-=-My son has also very recently looked at the clock on our wall and said "I still can't tell the time by that 'normal' clock....But I think it's ok, and anyway I don't need to do, I have my phone or computer to tell the time..." ( he did have an humiliating time with this 'lesson' at school too). -=-
Janine wrote that.This is an outdated story, because nobody had a mobile phone, but...Once when Holly was maybe seven or eight, I think, she and her brothers went to an indoor mall (Coronado Mall, in Albuquerque). I believe they were about 8, 10 and 12 or a bit more. I was going to pick them up at a certain time.In that mall there's a giant clock, outside the artsy elevator in the middle, so it can be seen from upstairs or downstairs in that part. Only thing is... it's an analog clock, and Kirby and Marty only knew how to read digital time. I hadn't known that, or thought to give them a watch or a little clock. It hadn't come up in discussions, because I knew all the kids could tell time and use the information, so there was no good reason to know, but it turned out that Holly could read the analog clock.When I picked them home, the boys were excited to tell me that if it hadn't been for Holly, they would have needed to ask strangers for the time. And Holly seemed glad (and maybe surprised) to have been so important.Before Holly was even born, there was a "teaching" clock in the boys' bedroom, with minutes marked in their own circle and some sort of count-toward notes like five til and ten till or something.WORSE (but kinda fun) is that what Americans say about time might not make sense in the UK, and vice versa. "Half seven" meant nothing to me when I heard it. 3:30? 6:30? 7:30?But we say "quarter til" and it's informational. :-)It was better for my kids to learn to read clocks the way they did, happily and gradually. I'm still learning the range of clock reading in English (and it changes in other languages, a bit, I'm sure).
Sandra@...
-=-. ( I now know that "ridiculous" is off the table, so perhaps I should shift over to "humbled"? Instead of feeling "ridiculous", perhaps it's better to say that I am humbled when I look back on some of the decisions I have made.)-=-
It's better LOTS of ways to prefer humility to buffoonery or foolishness.
I hope "ridiculous" will not be something you only avoid in this discussion. I hope you'll come to see why I object to it in any thoughts that involve one's children, or personal reflection, or analysis of the actions or thoughts of others.
Sandra Dodd
Here's a photo of my kids in the days they went to the mall and Holly could read the clock: http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/kids/zoombinis.jpg
(There are other photos of them in that folder, if one were to feel like poking around there. :-) Keith's mom when Holly was a baby, Valley of the Fires in southern New Mexico, this and that.)
(There are other photos of them in that folder, if one were to feel like poking around there. :-) Keith's mom when Holly was a baby, Valley of the Fires in southern New Mexico, this and that.)