Well, it's like night (yesterday) and day (today).
The morning isn't over yet, but I'm still going to check it off as a plus. And I say this because the thing that worked the magic for the girls this morning was these two free printable lists from ChartJungle.com, thanks to this entry on Dy's blog:
Ready for school checklist
Learning checklist
The kids have just dived right in enthusiastically, checking off accomplishments left and right. We even baked our bread this morning -- well, Ella and I baked Teddy Bear Bread. Madison hovered with good grace, despite having lost bread-baking due to her behavior yesterday. They each get to rip off a hunk of warm, delicious bread after checking "done" on each subject on the learning checklist. It's working.
Peace and contentment reigns. Contrary to my post from the other day, maybe there is such a thing as magic.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Home schooling day from Hell
It must have been the sugar from Halloween. Or maybe the kids are coming down with something.
Whatever it was, Thursday was the home schooling day from Hell. Madison was beside herself with angst over everything. I made what seems to have been a mistake, letting her read for an hour and a half (finishing up Maida's Little House) first thing in the morning. Skipping from that right to breakfast, then to math, was a disaster. The worst always happens when I decide that enough is enough, I'm not going to LET her continue in the subject that's causing her grief that day, then we have a 20-minute tantrum because I'm not letting her do math. Good grief.
Even Handwriting Without Tears turned on the waterworks.
The only thing that didn't cause tears today was, oddly, her SRA cards that we use for reading/logic. I often get outright rebellion over those, though they're quite easy for her.
The worst thing for Madison is that I told her that if she got finished with her work by noon, she could bake bread in the afternoon after we got back from the gym, as long as there were no more tantrums. She finished the SRA work in record time. Then, so help me, as we *pull into the driveway* from gym/errands, the child has a squawking fit over something I can't even remember, and she lost bread baking. Good grief.
It may also be that we had a nice long weekend with David last weekend, and she's experiencing the loss of his being back in Rochester.
Proof that even those of us who have brilliant children who get on great rolls sometimes, have days of total failure. :-)
Well, maybe not total failure. We're studying American Indians during the month of November, and I'm reading from a nice series of kids books I got from the Southwest Indian Foundation almost a decade ago. The kids love to be read to during lunch, and today we did myths from the Navajos and the Eskimos. They sure love legends. There's even an Atlas parallel figure in the Eskimo legend we read, so it was a nice connection to the Greeks.
Whatever it was, Thursday was the home schooling day from Hell. Madison was beside herself with angst over everything. I made what seems to have been a mistake, letting her read for an hour and a half (finishing up Maida's Little House) first thing in the morning. Skipping from that right to breakfast, then to math, was a disaster. The worst always happens when I decide that enough is enough, I'm not going to LET her continue in the subject that's causing her grief that day, then we have a 20-minute tantrum because I'm not letting her do math. Good grief.
Even Handwriting Without Tears turned on the waterworks.
The only thing that didn't cause tears today was, oddly, her SRA cards that we use for reading/logic. I often get outright rebellion over those, though they're quite easy for her.
The worst thing for Madison is that I told her that if she got finished with her work by noon, she could bake bread in the afternoon after we got back from the gym, as long as there were no more tantrums. She finished the SRA work in record time. Then, so help me, as we *pull into the driveway* from gym/errands, the child has a squawking fit over something I can't even remember, and she lost bread baking. Good grief.
It may also be that we had a nice long weekend with David last weekend, and she's experiencing the loss of his being back in Rochester.
Proof that even those of us who have brilliant children who get on great rolls sometimes, have days of total failure. :-)
Well, maybe not total failure. We're studying American Indians during the month of November, and I'm reading from a nice series of kids books I got from the Southwest Indian Foundation almost a decade ago. The kids love to be read to during lunch, and today we did myths from the Navajos and the Eskimos. They sure love legends. There's even an Atlas parallel figure in the Eskimo legend we read, so it was a nice connection to the Greeks.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Ella reading progress
From Deb:
Watching Ella learn to read may be one of the most fascinating developmental milestones I've ever watched take place. Because she is on the younger end of kids who are doing this, the process is probably a little slower for her than for those who are a little older. There haven't yet been too many "magic" points at which she has suddenly switched from being a non-reader to being a reader. On the other hand, maybe some of this would be viewed by someone without my geeky way of picking it all apart as "magic." Not having home schooled Madison for kindergarten, it did seem quite a bit more magical.
Ella has been working her way through Set 3 of the EPS Phonics Books, which, as I have mentioned before, we did this spring as well. But this fall, when we started with Set 2, I had her read a whole book (16 pages) each day rather than half, as we had been doing. Doing so was really no problem for her, and it helped build up her confidence.
We started Set 3 just last week, after Tatiana sent me them back (I'm borrowing them back from her; Dario is finishing up Set 4, I think, and I'll get those back soon). She was reading one book per day. I noticed that she definitely has had a sense of momentum with Set 3 that she hadn't had before, in the following ways:
1) She is sounding words out faster, which is increasing her speed.
2) She is recognizing *many* more words on sight, which is increasing her speed.
3) Because she is increasing her speed and it takes less brain space to sound out a word, she is able almost simultaneously to eyeball a word and *also* check out the picture on the page to ensure that the word she is about to say works with the context. And she can use what she then sees in the picture as a clue to what the following word is. I see her doing this, now in a split second, almost unconsciously, where it used to be a much more deliberate process. And this further increases her speed.
Well, yesterday, she had four down and six more to go in the series. I said to her yesterday that if she put her mind to it she might be able to do *all six* in a day and therefore get the prize she always gets to choose at the end of a series. Well, that kid just went to town. She was able to finish four of the books, and then swiftly read the other two first thing this morning. My goodness, I was proud of her. She was proud of herself. And we went out after her acting class this morning and she chose a fluffy pink tutu. My princess.
I feel so privileged to be up-close-and-personal with this. The one down side of this is that by dissecting it so carefully and getting to know so well what she's doing, I'm probably taking a little of the sense of "magic" out of the whole process. Ah, well. I appreciate the "magic of childhood" as well as the next mom, but being witness to the minute details of this process is just so darned fulfilling for someone like me.
Watching Ella learn to read may be one of the most fascinating developmental milestones I've ever watched take place. Because she is on the younger end of kids who are doing this, the process is probably a little slower for her than for those who are a little older. There haven't yet been too many "magic" points at which she has suddenly switched from being a non-reader to being a reader. On the other hand, maybe some of this would be viewed by someone without my geeky way of picking it all apart as "magic." Not having home schooled Madison for kindergarten, it did seem quite a bit more magical.
Ella has been working her way through Set 3 of the EPS Phonics Books, which, as I have mentioned before, we did this spring as well. But this fall, when we started with Set 2, I had her read a whole book (16 pages) each day rather than half, as we had been doing. Doing so was really no problem for her, and it helped build up her confidence.
We started Set 3 just last week, after Tatiana sent me them back (I'm borrowing them back from her; Dario is finishing up Set 4, I think, and I'll get those back soon). She was reading one book per day. I noticed that she definitely has had a sense of momentum with Set 3 that she hadn't had before, in the following ways:
1) She is sounding words out faster, which is increasing her speed.
2) She is recognizing *many* more words on sight, which is increasing her speed.
3) Because she is increasing her speed and it takes less brain space to sound out a word, she is able almost simultaneously to eyeball a word and *also* check out the picture on the page to ensure that the word she is about to say works with the context. And she can use what she then sees in the picture as a clue to what the following word is. I see her doing this, now in a split second, almost unconsciously, where it used to be a much more deliberate process. And this further increases her speed.
Well, yesterday, she had four down and six more to go in the series. I said to her yesterday that if she put her mind to it she might be able to do *all six* in a day and therefore get the prize she always gets to choose at the end of a series. Well, that kid just went to town. She was able to finish four of the books, and then swiftly read the other two first thing this morning. My goodness, I was proud of her. She was proud of herself. And we went out after her acting class this morning and she chose a fluffy pink tutu. My princess.
I feel so privileged to be up-close-and-personal with this. The one down side of this is that by dissecting it so carefully and getting to know so well what she's doing, I'm probably taking a little of the sense of "magic" out of the whole process. Ah, well. I appreciate the "magic of childhood" as well as the next mom, but being witness to the minute details of this process is just so darned fulfilling for someone like me.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
This counts as home schooling, right?
They sorted the candy, categorized it by type, and then we input the values into Excel and then made cool charts like this:
I'm sure this counts as math.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
What piano lessons have shown me about readiness
Madison took piano lessons during her kindergarten year. She really loved the lessons. She approached the piano like a mathematician; I can tell that (like her mother) she grasps math spatially, and this was very useful for piano. She liked the challenge of matching up the notes on the staff to the notes on the keyboard, and she liked the reward of the tune she made.
But getting her to practice was like pulling teeth. It was horrible for both of us. (In fact, I was so frustrated that I had her teacher write an article for KidsOutAndAbout.com, tips for getting kids to practice music. You'll see some really cute photos of Madison if you click on that link.) She liked being taught by Mrs. B, and she liked to show off, but doing so in the absence of an adult's bottom right there on the piano bench next to her was not rewarding for her. She learned, of course, but not as much as she would have had she been motivated to practice each day.
At the same time, I was fascinated to discover that when I sat down at the piano, I was instantly better than I was at any point in my youth. I took piano lessons from age 7-10, at which point I gave it up. I just couldn't get both hands to work together at the same time. But I have always considered myself to have learned music from the piano. In high school, I approached choral sight reading by visualizing the piano keys in the treble clef; somehow, I translated that spatial relationship into what my vocal chords were doing. Even as an adult, visualizing the piano keys while I'm singing is the only way I stay moderately in tune.
When we moved to Virginia last year, I decided to stop Madison's piano lessons for a while, because it had turned into something stressful for both of us. I figured we'd settle into life here first. I set up the keyboard, though, for anyone to play whenever she wanted. Well, as soon as we were settled enough for me to consider whether she was ready to resume lessons, there we were, making plans to leave again. So I decided to put it off again, until we are settled back in Rochester in December.
But interestingly enough, just recently Madison started sitting down at the keyboard for long stretches, picking out her own little tunes and just fooling around with the keys. (She has been doing this, I discovered, partly as a way of remembering the multiplication table, of all things -- she has made up little tiny tunes to help her remember certain equations.)
And today, she picked up her old American songbook, and actively started looking at the notes (well, she looks at the written-out letter-note below the staff to figure out what note it is, not actually at the staff itself, she never got far enough to know what a note was from sight), and picking out the songs.
I sat next to her and realized something remarkable: Even after not practicing for 16 months (other than "Happy Birthday"), her playing is dramatically superior to what it used to be. There are two dimensions on which she is better:
1) She hears the song in her head that she is playing, and is using her knowledge of the song -- whether the next note is higher in pitch or lower in pitch -- to guide whether the next keyboard note is to the left or to the right.
2) Hearing the song in her head guides her to how long to hold down the note. Before, there was no way to explain a quarter note or a whole note to her; actually, she understood it intellectually but she just couldn't translate that into holding down the note.
Before, I now realize, she wasn't playing a song, she was following the letters written on the page and figuring out how that translated into finger movement, and then hearing the song *after* the notes were played. Now, in her mind's ear, she is hearing what the note should be *before* she strikes the key, and this helps her know which one to strike. She is able to hold in her mind the overriding purpose of playing a song. It is, I think, an entirely new experience for her.
This provides marvelous evidence about how important it is to be sensitive to what kids are ready for, and not pushing or having expectations in advance of when they're ready.
Before, the exercise of learning piano was somewhat valuable as an intellectual exercise, and (moderately) as a lesson in how working hard at something can get results. But I can see that now, she's really ready. I honestly think that she would have been at this same point had she started just a month ago rather than two years ago.
There are several lessons to be learned from this:
1) There really are sensitive periods when a particular child's brain is ready for a certain kind of activity. There is nothing that we did, between when Madison stopped taking lessons and now, that can account for her dramatic advance. It is slightly possible that we primed her for this by having the lessons in the first place, but I attribute her readiness much more to how her brain has developed in the intervening 16 months.
2) More mundanely, I am certain that Ella, who is 5 1/2, is not ready for piano. A better way of saying it is that she'll get far more value out of lessons in a year or two rather than immediately upon our return to Rochester. I'm going to wait until she positively asks for lessons and shows that she's ready. I think she will.
3) This strengthens my conviction that there are certain times that kids are ready for certain academic pursuits, and that pushing them when they aren't ready or positively disinterested is time and energy better spent teaching them something else.
4) Interest follows ability. Madison is FAR more interested in working on the piano now, when she has this new, natural, more conceptually mature approach to music. So strong interest in something probably indicates a readiness for it.
5) Although figuring out when kids are ready for certain things does rely, to a large extent, on the child's self-report of their own interests and desires, it can't substitute for the parent's careful observation of the child. It's so important that we consider who she is, and where she is intellectually, before we push.
6) Even if a child rejects something early or says it's not for her, try it again later on if you think she'll find it valuable. She just may have developed enough, or have gathered enough information in the meantime, to be ready for it.
7) This has serious implications for teaching math, which should be obvious.
But getting her to practice was like pulling teeth. It was horrible for both of us. (In fact, I was so frustrated that I had her teacher write an article for KidsOutAndAbout.com, tips for getting kids to practice music. You'll see some really cute photos of Madison if you click on that link.) She liked being taught by Mrs. B, and she liked to show off, but doing so in the absence of an adult's bottom right there on the piano bench next to her was not rewarding for her. She learned, of course, but not as much as she would have had she been motivated to practice each day.
At the same time, I was fascinated to discover that when I sat down at the piano, I was instantly better than I was at any point in my youth. I took piano lessons from age 7-10, at which point I gave it up. I just couldn't get both hands to work together at the same time. But I have always considered myself to have learned music from the piano. In high school, I approached choral sight reading by visualizing the piano keys in the treble clef; somehow, I translated that spatial relationship into what my vocal chords were doing. Even as an adult, visualizing the piano keys while I'm singing is the only way I stay moderately in tune.
When we moved to Virginia last year, I decided to stop Madison's piano lessons for a while, because it had turned into something stressful for both of us. I figured we'd settle into life here first. I set up the keyboard, though, for anyone to play whenever she wanted. Well, as soon as we were settled enough for me to consider whether she was ready to resume lessons, there we were, making plans to leave again. So I decided to put it off again, until we are settled back in Rochester in December.
But interestingly enough, just recently Madison started sitting down at the keyboard for long stretches, picking out her own little tunes and just fooling around with the keys. (She has been doing this, I discovered, partly as a way of remembering the multiplication table, of all things -- she has made up little tiny tunes to help her remember certain equations.)
And today, she picked up her old American songbook, and actively started looking at the notes (well, she looks at the written-out letter-note below the staff to figure out what note it is, not actually at the staff itself, she never got far enough to know what a note was from sight), and picking out the songs.
I sat next to her and realized something remarkable: Even after not practicing for 16 months (other than "Happy Birthday"), her playing is dramatically superior to what it used to be. There are two dimensions on which she is better:
1) She hears the song in her head that she is playing, and is using her knowledge of the song -- whether the next note is higher in pitch or lower in pitch -- to guide whether the next keyboard note is to the left or to the right.
2) Hearing the song in her head guides her to how long to hold down the note. Before, there was no way to explain a quarter note or a whole note to her; actually, she understood it intellectually but she just couldn't translate that into holding down the note.
Before, I now realize, she wasn't playing a song, she was following the letters written on the page and figuring out how that translated into finger movement, and then hearing the song *after* the notes were played. Now, in her mind's ear, she is hearing what the note should be *before* she strikes the key, and this helps her know which one to strike. She is able to hold in her mind the overriding purpose of playing a song. It is, I think, an entirely new experience for her.
This provides marvelous evidence about how important it is to be sensitive to what kids are ready for, and not pushing or having expectations in advance of when they're ready.
Before, the exercise of learning piano was somewhat valuable as an intellectual exercise, and (moderately) as a lesson in how working hard at something can get results. But I can see that now, she's really ready. I honestly think that she would have been at this same point had she started just a month ago rather than two years ago.
There are several lessons to be learned from this:
1) There really are sensitive periods when a particular child's brain is ready for a certain kind of activity. There is nothing that we did, between when Madison stopped taking lessons and now, that can account for her dramatic advance. It is slightly possible that we primed her for this by having the lessons in the first place, but I attribute her readiness much more to how her brain has developed in the intervening 16 months.
2) More mundanely, I am certain that Ella, who is 5 1/2, is not ready for piano. A better way of saying it is that she'll get far more value out of lessons in a year or two rather than immediately upon our return to Rochester. I'm going to wait until she positively asks for lessons and shows that she's ready. I think she will.
3) This strengthens my conviction that there are certain times that kids are ready for certain academic pursuits, and that pushing them when they aren't ready or positively disinterested is time and energy better spent teaching them something else.
4) Interest follows ability. Madison is FAR more interested in working on the piano now, when she has this new, natural, more conceptually mature approach to music. So strong interest in something probably indicates a readiness for it.
5) Although figuring out when kids are ready for certain things does rely, to a large extent, on the child's self-report of their own interests and desires, it can't substitute for the parent's careful observation of the child. It's so important that we consider who she is, and where she is intellectually, before we push.
6) Even if a child rejects something early or says it's not for her, try it again later on if you think she'll find it valuable. She just may have developed enough, or have gathered enough information in the meantime, to be ready for it.
7) This has serious implications for teaching math, which should be obvious.
Ella
Ella has just been going gangbusters on the schoolwork lately. She takes to everything with such enthusiasm, except her reading of the Phonics series. Even that, though, has been done much more readily lately. She reads a whole book now each day (16 pages) rather than half, and she's quite impressed with herself (lots of "hey, I'm already on page 11!"), so in some ways the thing she likes to do least is having the strongest effect. But yesterday, she listened with enthusiasm to the geography section of What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know, which lead to me getting down the globe, and then we have two map puzzles that she just had to do. Then she got into the directions: North, South, East, and West, and started looking at maps to find where the compass is printed, and how ornately. I've got to find a web resource to download color-in map printables. And I've got to hunt down Madison's old compass that we used to have in the car.
Ella loves Handwriting without Tears. She's always been justly proud of her handwriting, focusing on it as she does.
And she also likes the Ancient Greeks, even Greek culture stuff other than the myths. She doesn't get the philosophy or politics parts at all, but that's ok with me.
It takes Ella much less time to do schoolwork than Madison, not simply because I give her slightly less (she's technically only in kindergarten, you know) but she really gets down to business and gets done what she needs to get done.
I'm very proud of her.
Ella loves Handwriting without Tears. She's always been justly proud of her handwriting, focusing on it as she does.
And she also likes the Ancient Greeks, even Greek culture stuff other than the myths. She doesn't get the philosophy or politics parts at all, but that's ok with me.
It takes Ella much less time to do schoolwork than Madison, not simply because I give her slightly less (she's technically only in kindergarten, you know) but she really gets down to business and gets done what she needs to get done.
I'm very proud of her.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Three Cheers for Handwriting Without Tears!
We got the Handwriting Without Tears program yesterday, and the Madison and Ella started it this morning.
I know it's a little premature to say it, but so far the kids love it, Madison especially. One thing that Madison particularly likes about it is that there is a definite method, starting letters and numbers from the top. The other thing that they both like about it is that I'm learning right along with them...I got the parent/teacher guide for the various programs, and I was calling out little tidbits that I learned along the way, such as
Madison only has 17 equations left to learn her multiplication to 10 x 10. When I asked her her method today, she let me in on the little songs she's been making up to remember them, two at a time. She's up at the piano right now, trying to match her little tunes to keyed notes. (She can't wait to start piano again when we get back to Rochester.) Today was 7 x 6 is 42 and 7 x 7 is 49.
In math, Ella worked on equalities yesterday, and today is back to odds and evens.
We watched a video from the library about the digestive and excretory systems this morning.
I know it's a little premature to say it, but so far the kids love it, Madison especially. One thing that Madison particularly likes about it is that there is a definite method, starting letters and numbers from the top. The other thing that they both like about it is that I'm learning right along with them...I got the parent/teacher guide for the various programs, and I was calling out little tidbits that I learned along the way, such as
The top to bottom habit is the key to printing quickly and neatly. Children who start letters at the top don't have to think about making letters. They print automatically and are able to print quickly without becoming sloppy. Starting at the bottom causes difficulty because it is impossible to write with speed without becoming sloppy.
Madison only has 17 equations left to learn her multiplication to 10 x 10. When I asked her her method today, she let me in on the little songs she's been making up to remember them, two at a time. She's up at the piano right now, trying to match her little tunes to keyed notes. (She can't wait to start piano again when we get back to Rochester.) Today was 7 x 6 is 42 and 7 x 7 is 49.
In math, Ella worked on equalities yesterday, and today is back to odds and evens.
We watched a video from the library about the digestive and excretory systems this morning.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The medicine goes down in a most delightful way -- peristalsis through the esophagus
It was a rainy, rainy day yesterday. We played Mommy and Baby Birdies in the morning, didn't start school until noon. Ah, well. We all did math (half of Lesson 8 in Saxon for Madison, addition problems for Ella), reading, Ella did vowel combinations of O (OW, OU, OA), and then we all did the Digestive System. I traced the girls out on brown paper, and drew in the various organs in the digestive system, all the while talking about what goes on. For some reason, the villi in the small intestine were especially interesting, and Madison loves the appendix (she likes the hypothesis that pre-humans used them to digest grass in an earlier stage of evolution). The girls colored in the organs.
Not bad on the outlines of the intestines, no? I'll take credit for those.
After we finished our lessons, we went to Michael's to get paint and little wooden boxes. When we got home, the girls painted their boxes, and glued the shells to them from yesterday's trip to Lake Anna.
Tomorrow, Ella and I will review "time" again and greater than/less than symbols. We'll label the various organs on their figures, and we'll watch the Magic School Bus "For Lunch."
Not bad on the outlines of the intestines, no? I'll take credit for those.
After we finished our lessons, we went to Michael's to get paint and little wooden boxes. When we got home, the girls painted their boxes, and glued the shells to them from yesterday's trip to Lake Anna.
Tomorrow, Ella and I will review "time" again and greater than/less than symbols. We'll label the various organs on their figures, and we'll watch the Magic School Bus "For Lunch."
Monday, October 16, 2006
Lake Anna
We went to Lake Anna today, probably for the last time, so the girls could gather shells and hike and wade a little.
I just had to post this photo of Madison, this IS Madison.
I just had to post this photo of Madison, this IS Madison.
Friday, October 13, 2006
An E.B. White kind of day
I'll always remember Virginia October as a sunny-mellow day when the air was fresh and the clover patches still warm, when Madison's hair was the color of ripe hay and Ella's the color of ripe straw, and my golden girls jumped from bale to bale, silhouetted against the Blue Ridge Mountains and an even bluer sky.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Handwriting
I have an email in to a mail-order home school supplies client to see if I can get a deal on Handwriting Without Tears, but in the meantime I decided to take Laura's advice in hand immediately and focus on handwriting exercises with Madison.
I decided that the path of least resistance would be to have her trace *my* writing, and I used it today to combine "math," spelling, and handwriting, by writing (neatly) a page of number-words (four hundred forty-four, etc) and having Madison *trace* them, just writing over my pencil lines (while memorizing the spelling). And low and behold, she traced them just great. Really. I had her trace the words three times, in three different colors, and they looked beautiful. Kind of indistinguishable from my handwriting. And she didn't mind the whole thing at all. No tears.
Laura, any insight? Any criticism if I continue on this track? You're the expert in The Writing Road to Reading, so I need your advice. Maybe you have some objection to this that I haven't thought of.
I decided that the path of least resistance would be to have her trace *my* writing, and I used it today to combine "math," spelling, and handwriting, by writing (neatly) a page of number-words (four hundred forty-four, etc) and having Madison *trace* them, just writing over my pencil lines (while memorizing the spelling). And low and behold, she traced them just great. Really. I had her trace the words three times, in three different colors, and they looked beautiful. Kind of indistinguishable from my handwriting. And she didn't mind the whole thing at all. No tears.
Laura, any insight? Any criticism if I continue on this track? You're the expert in The Writing Road to Reading, so I need your advice. Maybe you have some objection to this that I haven't thought of.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Wailing & gnashing of teeth over math
I'm going to give this Saxon Math another month or so before I give up and move to Math-U-See. That child loves math, and she's hating it lately.
Saxon seems to be fine for her as long as it's problems to solve. But Lesson 7 had to do with writing out the word-numbers properly. Madison is so bad and slow and handwriting, and hates it so much, that the three problems in which she had to write "three hundred one," "three hundred twenty," "three hundred twelve" took her (literally!) 25 minutes of fidgeting and fussing.
That got her on a really bad track, and the following problems which were writing the next three numbers in a series (e.g., 12, 18, 24, ___, ___, ___), which she can usually do just fine, generated a real meltdown and whining fest even though *I* was writing the answers to the problems.
I had made the mistake (didn't think it was a mistake at the time) of letting her read all morning and then we had an interesting Child Study experiment with Ella at UVa, so we didn't get to math until late afternoon. I'm sure doing it at a different time of day had to do with what happened. But this is distressing me because this child of mathematician really does love math, and I don't want her to get in a rut.
Saxon seems to be fine for her as long as it's problems to solve. But Lesson 7 had to do with writing out the word-numbers properly. Madison is so bad and slow and handwriting, and hates it so much, that the three problems in which she had to write "three hundred one," "three hundred twenty," "three hundred twelve" took her (literally!) 25 minutes of fidgeting and fussing.
That got her on a really bad track, and the following problems which were writing the next three numbers in a series (e.g., 12, 18, 24, ___, ___, ___), which she can usually do just fine, generated a real meltdown and whining fest even though *I* was writing the answers to the problems.
I had made the mistake (didn't think it was a mistake at the time) of letting her read all morning and then we had an interesting Child Study experiment with Ella at UVa, so we didn't get to math until late afternoon. I'm sure doing it at a different time of day had to do with what happened. But this is distressing me because this child of mathematician really does love math, and I don't want her to get in a rut.
Oral reports on Ancient Greece
For the last few days, Madison has been enjoying giving little oral reports on Ancient Greece. She has been using the book How Would You Survive as an Ancient Greek. She enjoys the format, which is chock-full of illustrations and nice compact little sidebars. Madison reads a couple of pages, and then gives us a report on the subject. She resisted the idea at first, but I knew she'd like it. That girl likes to talk so much.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Being alone was the problem
I'm pretty sure that being on her own was the problem with Madison and Saxon Math. Today, she did Lesson 5 with me writing down her answers for the first half and her writing the answers for the second half, while I was beside her to keep her focused. She even wrote very neatly, without too much getting distracted. And, voila, only 20 minutes for the whole deal. She was very encouraged. I think I'll do this for a while to wean her slowly from me.
Ella has been zipping through lessons, anything I give her. She's now great at the addition problems for facts up to 20, and doesn't mind writing them out in workbooks. She did 40 problems this morning without even blinking. And her handwriting continues to be great.
We did snuggle school for an hour this morning in bed, with me reading the Greek myths while the open window let in the fresh crisp air and the sound of the rain.
We did logic. Madison and I read and discussed economics. Ella did reading with some three-part cards you put together to make words. They played outside in the rain with some warm clothes.
In addition, Madison read a couple of pages from my Dick Francis book To the Hilt, because we're going to a Dick Francis book signing tonight in Warrenton, VA, which is about 70 miles north of Charlottesville. I can't wait to shake his hand! As he's 85, I never thought I'd get the opportunity.
And all in about 2 hours. Good thing, because I'm now off to get my hair cut. Have to look good in front of the Master, you know.
Ella has been zipping through lessons, anything I give her. She's now great at the addition problems for facts up to 20, and doesn't mind writing them out in workbooks. She did 40 problems this morning without even blinking. And her handwriting continues to be great.
We did snuggle school for an hour this morning in bed, with me reading the Greek myths while the open window let in the fresh crisp air and the sound of the rain.
We did logic. Madison and I read and discussed economics. Ella did reading with some three-part cards you put together to make words. They played outside in the rain with some warm clothes.
In addition, Madison read a couple of pages from my Dick Francis book To the Hilt, because we're going to a Dick Francis book signing tonight in Warrenton, VA, which is about 70 miles north of Charlottesville. I can't wait to shake his hand! As he's 85, I never thought I'd get the opportunity.
And all in about 2 hours. Good thing, because I'm now off to get my hair cut. Have to look good in front of the Master, you know.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Ella-Bunny's story about Ella and the Bunny
I'm having so much fun with Ella starting to tell stories. Ella's nickname is Baby Bunny (or Ella-Bunny) because she was born near Easter, and consequently she loves bunnies. The last two weeks in her art class, she made a bunny sculpture and today she painted it gray and white. She called it Snowy. And so her story today is about Snowy.
I always take down her stories verbatim. I have realized that there are two ways that she tells stories: concept by concept or word by word. When she does it concept by concept, she thinks, then talks for a few sentences, then thinks some more, and then says some sentences while I type fast. When she does it word by word, she pauses after each word so I can type it, then back-reconstructs the sentence in her mind so she can go on to the next word after a pause.
Earlier on, she did it concept by concept. Now, she's taken to telling the stories more word by word, watching as I type each individual word. I can't tell whether she is doing it word by word with the express purpose of watching me type the word, or for another reason. In any case, she's watching me type.
Today, when she was doing the story word by word (with the occasional phrase thrown in), she was dictating:
"That's right!" she said. "How did you know I was going to say that?"
Note: The child was READING what I was typing, and she knew that I was typing ahead of what she had actually said.
Actually reading what I was typing. I wanted to pat myself on the back.
After she wrote her story, we went out on the web and found a photo of a bunny and a cat and pasted it into the story. Here, in case you're interested, is the story:
SNOWY AND ELLA
Snowy is a cute, cuddly bunny. She likes to play in the snow. Once, when it was winter, Snowy went on a walk with Ella. They walked through the forest in the winter because Snowy liked the winter. They came to a part of the forest where a cat was in their way. The cat was attached to a leash. It was her sister Madison’s cat. Then they walked through the forest with their animals. And then they walked home.
They played with their animals. Madison rolled some yarn for her cat. And Ella threw a ball for her bunny. The bunny and the cat had lots of fun with their owners Madison and Ella. And at bedtime, they read stories with books, and the animals hopped into bed with them.
Then, in the morning, it was time for the animal club that could do the greatest sports. They brought their animals to camp so they could do it. Madison brought her cat. Ella brought her bunny. They jumped, they twirled, they hopped around, they did everything that was great. And surprise, they both won the contest. They went home.
The End
I always take down her stories verbatim. I have realized that there are two ways that she tells stories: concept by concept or word by word. When she does it concept by concept, she thinks, then talks for a few sentences, then thinks some more, and then says some sentences while I type fast. When she does it word by word, she pauses after each word so I can type it, then back-reconstructs the sentence in her mind so she can go on to the next word after a pause.
Earlier on, she did it concept by concept. Now, she's taken to telling the stories more word by word, watching as I type each individual word. I can't tell whether she is doing it word by word with the express purpose of watching me type the word, or for another reason. In any case, she's watching me type.
Today, when she was doing the story word by word (with the occasional phrase thrown in), she was dictating:
Madison brought her cat. Ella brought...and then she watched in amazement as I typed "her bunny."
"That's right!" she said. "How did you know I was going to say that?"
Note: The child was READING what I was typing, and she knew that I was typing ahead of what she had actually said.
Actually reading what I was typing. I wanted to pat myself on the back.
After she wrote her story, we went out on the web and found a photo of a bunny and a cat and pasted it into the story. Here, in case you're interested, is the story:
SNOWY AND ELLA
Snowy is a cute, cuddly bunny. She likes to play in the snow. Once, when it was winter, Snowy went on a walk with Ella. They walked through the forest in the winter because Snowy liked the winter. They came to a part of the forest where a cat was in their way. The cat was attached to a leash. It was her sister Madison’s cat. Then they walked through the forest with their animals. And then they walked home.
They played with their animals. Madison rolled some yarn for her cat. And Ella threw a ball for her bunny. The bunny and the cat had lots of fun with their owners Madison and Ella. And at bedtime, they read stories with books, and the animals hopped into bed with them.
Then, in the morning, it was time for the animal club that could do the greatest sports. They brought their animals to camp so they could do it. Madison brought her cat. Ella brought her bunny. They jumped, they twirled, they hopped around, they did everything that was great. And surprise, they both won the contest. They went home.
The End
Math update - hope I'm doing the right thing
From Deb:
Yesterday brought another tantrum about Saxon Math. As Ella pointed out (her sense of time is growing much better...she has a much more accurate sense about when various things have happened), that made three days in a row of Madison fussing over math.
In Laura's comment from yesterday's entry, she pointed out how daunting it can be for a child to be placed in front of this big math book and be told to learn independently from it. She only does half a lesson per day with Raymond.
We may get to half a lesson per day when we are actually learning new stuff, but this is all review, review, review.
So yesterday Madison had done about 1/2 the 29 math problems (have I mentioned they are REVIEW?!?) in about 90 minutes. Whining the whole way, fidgeting, staring off into space, etc. Then a tantrum.
I realized she was just creating all this angst for herself, erecting her own barriers to the whole thing. I wanted to prove to her that it didn't have to be this way. So a little later, I brought her over to me, took her answer page from her, and sat her down next to me.
"Number 13. What is the answer?"
She focused for a moment, and gave the correct answer. I wrote it down.
"Number 14. What is the answer?"
Again, no problem.
We did 13-29 in this fashion, taking less than 10 minutes. She was rather amazed.
Today, I sat her down next to me for the 29 problems in Lesson 4. I made out the answer sheet while she read the lesson.
"Number 1. What is the answer?"
Just like yesterday. We had the whole thing done in under 20 minutes.
I wonder, really, if the problem is more the fact that felt so much on her own for this, or the fact that she has to *write* the stuff on her own.
So tomorrow, I'll test which of these might be true. The strategy is the following (she knows this): For half of them, we'll do it just like today. The second half, she will write the answer herself, but I'll still be next to her, guiding the process. We'll see whether her having to physically write the answers herself makes a difference.
See, I had envisioned that we'd start at the beginning of Saxon Math, and that more of the lesson would be about the discipline of Madison starting to work on her own than about the math itself, which she already knows how to do. We saw how THAT worked out. Maybe she is just not ready for the independent work. Maybe I should do Math-U-See instead. But I'm really cheap about it, I guess. I figure that I should be able to teach my brainy little math kids math without spending money on a program that has them watching a video of someone *else* teaching them math.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a softie about switching the program when she had a tantrum or three. Maybe that will teach her to throw tantrums, although over the last six months or so that has decreased enormously.
I think I was right, though. I think it was just too abrupt, plunking her down in front of the book on Monday morning.
Chalk this one up to an experiment.
------------------------------
If indeed it's the handwriting that's getting her way, I'll have to (ugh) work more with Madison on handwriting. This morning, though, she did it herself. Even before we started school, she spontaneously decided to write a list of the Christmas carols that she knew, down on a piece of paper. Then she asked me if I had a list of carols so that she could pick out which ones she knew, and I pulled one up on the web. She took 15 minutes or so to write them out, and then we were treated to a little concert. She was thrilled when I told her it could count as handwriting for school.
Yesterday brought another tantrum about Saxon Math. As Ella pointed out (her sense of time is growing much better...she has a much more accurate sense about when various things have happened), that made three days in a row of Madison fussing over math.
In Laura's comment from yesterday's entry, she pointed out how daunting it can be for a child to be placed in front of this big math book and be told to learn independently from it. She only does half a lesson per day with Raymond.
We may get to half a lesson per day when we are actually learning new stuff, but this is all review, review, review.
So yesterday Madison had done about 1/2 the 29 math problems (have I mentioned they are REVIEW?!?) in about 90 minutes. Whining the whole way, fidgeting, staring off into space, etc. Then a tantrum.
I realized she was just creating all this angst for herself, erecting her own barriers to the whole thing. I wanted to prove to her that it didn't have to be this way. So a little later, I brought her over to me, took her answer page from her, and sat her down next to me.
"Number 13. What is the answer?"
She focused for a moment, and gave the correct answer. I wrote it down.
"Number 14. What is the answer?"
Again, no problem.
We did 13-29 in this fashion, taking less than 10 minutes. She was rather amazed.
Today, I sat her down next to me for the 29 problems in Lesson 4. I made out the answer sheet while she read the lesson.
"Number 1. What is the answer?"
Just like yesterday. We had the whole thing done in under 20 minutes.
I wonder, really, if the problem is more the fact that felt so much on her own for this, or the fact that she has to *write* the stuff on her own.
So tomorrow, I'll test which of these might be true. The strategy is the following (she knows this): For half of them, we'll do it just like today. The second half, she will write the answer herself, but I'll still be next to her, guiding the process. We'll see whether her having to physically write the answers herself makes a difference.
See, I had envisioned that we'd start at the beginning of Saxon Math, and that more of the lesson would be about the discipline of Madison starting to work on her own than about the math itself, which she already knows how to do. We saw how THAT worked out. Maybe she is just not ready for the independent work. Maybe I should do Math-U-See instead. But I'm really cheap about it, I guess. I figure that I should be able to teach my brainy little math kids math without spending money on a program that has them watching a video of someone *else* teaching them math.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have been such a softie about switching the program when she had a tantrum or three. Maybe that will teach her to throw tantrums, although over the last six months or so that has decreased enormously.
I think I was right, though. I think it was just too abrupt, plunking her down in front of the book on Monday morning.
Chalk this one up to an experiment.
------------------------------
If indeed it's the handwriting that's getting her way, I'll have to (ugh) work more with Madison on handwriting. This morning, though, she did it herself. Even before we started school, she spontaneously decided to write a list of the Christmas carols that she knew, down on a piece of paper. Then she asked me if I had a list of carols so that she could pick out which ones she knew, and I pulled one up on the web. She took 15 minutes or so to write them out, and then we were treated to a little concert. She was thrilled when I told her it could count as handwriting for school.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Beware of Greeks Doing Saxon Math
From Deb (Laura, I know how insanely busy you've been lately but I miss you!):
Madison has been going along steadily, about two per day, on her multiplication tables. It only takes her between 5-10 minutes of study, and I'm actually unaware of what method she's using to remember the equations.
So I decided officially to start her on the Saxon Math 54 book yesterday. She didn't even have to write out the problems herself, she only had to provide the answers in the numbered spaces I provided. And it's easy, easy, easy. Addition. Along the lines of 5 + 4 + N + 6 + 15 = 35, what is N?
All hell broke loose. She had weird tantrum upon tantrum, apologizing after each one, then taking up the whine again, and it took the child two hours to do 27 problems. Plus, two were wrong and 12 had numbers written backwards. She knows she could have done these in 15 minutes tops, if she had put her mind to it. She even joked: two-hours-for-27-problems, can you imagine? -- at dinner last night with our across-the-street neighbors whom I'd invited over for a pork roast. I figured it was just an anomaly, and didn't worry about it.
Today, I sat her down again in front of it, without comment about yesterday's fiasco. 29 problems today. And again, not entirely to my surprise because she'd awoken in a kind of "testing" mood: fidgeting, tears, weird whining. All for stuff that is easy for her! I figured she'd just decided to test me about what I would do. About 20 minutes into it, I picked the book up and put it back on the shelf, saying it was clear that she couldn't do it. And then, of course, for the next 45 minutes she threw a fit, begging to do it now that I'd taken it away from her. I had to lock her out of the schoolroom for a bit so I could work with Ella.
Then she calmed down and asked to do it.
"Sure, go ahead and take it off the shelf and do it, if you think you can," I told her. "I just think maybe you're not ready for it!"
She wanted ME to take it off the shelf and open up her notebook again. Yeah, right.
Eventually, she took it off the shelf and did it, actually very neatly. But it took up 1 1/2 hours total today, and because someone was coming to see the house and we had to leave in the early afternoon, we consequently didn't have time to work together on The Frontier Team book. She didn't like that. Maybe tomorrow the book will be more of an incentive, I'll make it clear that if we have time to work on it, we will.
But in more positive news...
We started a unit on Ancient Greece, for both kids. Yesterday I read to them some of the history as it is written in What Your Second Grader Needs to Know, and today we did the Greek myths from a separate section in the same book.
And guess what...Ella is now on fire about the Greek myths! Go figure! So we went to the library when the house was being shown this afternoon, and got out a bunch of books: four about Ancient Greece and two about Greek mythology (one the Usborne Greek Myths for Young Readers, another a more sophisticated one). We read Greek myths at the library, then for another hour when we went out to a late lunch (the Red Lobster people were amused), then for another half hour back at home, then for another 45 minutes before bed. (We did Heracle's Tasks before bed...the fact that he was doing these out of penitence for killing his children grabbed the girls' attention, as you might imagine. Madison was in Lawyer Mode -- it wasn't fair, she pointed out, that he had to do penance for something that was really Hera's fault, as she had magically caused his fit of rage.)
Madison really likes the stories, too -- she even chose the more sophisticated mythology book as her "read-before-bedtime" book -- but Ella is absolutely captivated. I'm going to get some toga material and dress them up as goddesses, maybe next week as a carrot for getting through some more of the history. I wouldn't be surprised if Ella turns from devising roles for herself as female superheroes (all the rage here on Berwick Court) to devising powers for herself as a Greek goddess. Wait until we get to Helen of Troy and she realizes that the names "Ella" and "Helen" are from the same root.
This is the first intellectual thing that has really captured and held Ella's attention. I think she's in a real transitional period; I posted a week or two ago about how Ella has never liked to be read the more sophisticated things, preferring picture books. Well, these books have stories that are a lot more sophisticated; the word-to-picture ratio is far higher than what she is accustomed to. I think the fact that there are some pictures (actually very nice ones) helps to hold that part of her attention, and she is really following along with the stories.
I had a good time telling them the Roman names of some of the Greek gods, and helping them make connections such as to the planets. They were particularly excited about the Poseidon-Nepture God of the Sea. Why? Well, in two months we will have our own personal Neptune in our new house on Penfield Road. The people who are leaving are planning to leave it behind -- Neptune -- ever-watchful as you can see -- is right on the edge of our own little woods, and you can apparently see him from the parlor window. I pointed out to Madison that if people ask whether she believes in God, she can always say "Of course!" and point to Neptune. She enjoyed the joke.
We've done Raphael's School of Athens before -- at least I have with Madison, and we'll do it again in the context of actual Athens when we do the history later this week. I've reviewed with her the general stuff about the difference in Plato vs. Aristotle, how Plato is pointing at the sky and the folks on his side are the religious philosophers, and how Aristotle is pointing at the ground and the folks on his side are scientists. Madison really does understand the basics. Ella didn't get it yet, and I think she won't get it this time around either, it will have to wait a year or two. I think we have time! :-)
Madison has been going along steadily, about two per day, on her multiplication tables. It only takes her between 5-10 minutes of study, and I'm actually unaware of what method she's using to remember the equations.
So I decided officially to start her on the Saxon Math 54 book yesterday. She didn't even have to write out the problems herself, she only had to provide the answers in the numbered spaces I provided. And it's easy, easy, easy. Addition. Along the lines of 5 + 4 + N + 6 + 15 = 35, what is N?
All hell broke loose. She had weird tantrum upon tantrum, apologizing after each one, then taking up the whine again, and it took the child two hours to do 27 problems. Plus, two were wrong and 12 had numbers written backwards. She knows she could have done these in 15 minutes tops, if she had put her mind to it. She even joked: two-hours-for-27-problems, can you imagine? -- at dinner last night with our across-the-street neighbors whom I'd invited over for a pork roast. I figured it was just an anomaly, and didn't worry about it.
Today, I sat her down again in front of it, without comment about yesterday's fiasco. 29 problems today. And again, not entirely to my surprise because she'd awoken in a kind of "testing" mood: fidgeting, tears, weird whining. All for stuff that is easy for her! I figured she'd just decided to test me about what I would do. About 20 minutes into it, I picked the book up and put it back on the shelf, saying it was clear that she couldn't do it. And then, of course, for the next 45 minutes she threw a fit, begging to do it now that I'd taken it away from her. I had to lock her out of the schoolroom for a bit so I could work with Ella.
Then she calmed down and asked to do it.
"Sure, go ahead and take it off the shelf and do it, if you think you can," I told her. "I just think maybe you're not ready for it!"
She wanted ME to take it off the shelf and open up her notebook again. Yeah, right.
Eventually, she took it off the shelf and did it, actually very neatly. But it took up 1 1/2 hours total today, and because someone was coming to see the house and we had to leave in the early afternoon, we consequently didn't have time to work together on The Frontier Team book. She didn't like that. Maybe tomorrow the book will be more of an incentive, I'll make it clear that if we have time to work on it, we will.
But in more positive news...
We started a unit on Ancient Greece, for both kids. Yesterday I read to them some of the history as it is written in What Your Second Grader Needs to Know, and today we did the Greek myths from a separate section in the same book.
And guess what...Ella is now on fire about the Greek myths! Go figure! So we went to the library when the house was being shown this afternoon, and got out a bunch of books: four about Ancient Greece and two about Greek mythology (one the Usborne Greek Myths for Young Readers, another a more sophisticated one). We read Greek myths at the library, then for another hour when we went out to a late lunch (the Red Lobster people were amused), then for another half hour back at home, then for another 45 minutes before bed. (We did Heracle's Tasks before bed...the fact that he was doing these out of penitence for killing his children grabbed the girls' attention, as you might imagine. Madison was in Lawyer Mode -- it wasn't fair, she pointed out, that he had to do penance for something that was really Hera's fault, as she had magically caused his fit of rage.)
Madison really likes the stories, too -- she even chose the more sophisticated mythology book as her "read-before-bedtime" book -- but Ella is absolutely captivated. I'm going to get some toga material and dress them up as goddesses, maybe next week as a carrot for getting through some more of the history. I wouldn't be surprised if Ella turns from devising roles for herself as female superheroes (all the rage here on Berwick Court) to devising powers for herself as a Greek goddess. Wait until we get to Helen of Troy and she realizes that the names "Ella" and "Helen" are from the same root.
This is the first intellectual thing that has really captured and held Ella's attention. I think she's in a real transitional period; I posted a week or two ago about how Ella has never liked to be read the more sophisticated things, preferring picture books. Well, these books have stories that are a lot more sophisticated; the word-to-picture ratio is far higher than what she is accustomed to. I think the fact that there are some pictures (actually very nice ones) helps to hold that part of her attention, and she is really following along with the stories.
I had a good time telling them the Roman names of some of the Greek gods, and helping them make connections such as to the planets. They were particularly excited about the Poseidon-Nepture God of the Sea. Why? Well, in two months we will have our own personal Neptune in our new house on Penfield Road. The people who are leaving are planning to leave it behind -- Neptune -- ever-watchful as you can see -- is right on the edge of our own little woods, and you can apparently see him from the parlor window. I pointed out to Madison that if people ask whether she believes in God, she can always say "Of course!" and point to Neptune. She enjoyed the joke.
We've done Raphael's School of Athens before -- at least I have with Madison, and we'll do it again in the context of actual Athens when we do the history later this week. I've reviewed with her the general stuff about the difference in Plato vs. Aristotle, how Plato is pointing at the sky and the folks on his side are the religious philosophers, and how Aristotle is pointing at the ground and the folks on his side are scientists. Madison really does understand the basics. Ella didn't get it yet, and I think she won't get it this time around either, it will have to wait a year or two. I think we have time! :-)
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Open House, Broken House
From Deb:
Our second Open House was at 1pm today.
During the four days curled up in bed this past week, my two creative children were, happily, all-too-eager to try their hand at making their own (cold, obviously!) breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and entertain themselves with crafts and schoolwork so I could lay around and gaze vacantly at the ceiling. So you can imagine what the house looked like.
Yesterday, feeling much better but with energy still ebbing rather low, I undertook to make it look as it should so that people should not run away screaming as soon as crossed the threshold this afternoon.
I took it slowly. For the first time, I damned whatever impulse had made me buy a 3200 s.f. house. Usually, the spread-out quality of the house means that there really CAN be a place for everything and everything in its place. It seemed to me yesterday, though, that it had morphed into an "every place for everything" house. So it took a while. But I timed myself well, drew up a list of things to accomplish and in what order, and set about it.
At 11:45 this morning, I had precisely an hour's left of work. The girls were actually "helping" at that point -- I had given them Windex and paper towels with the instructions to clean off the various white boards, and mirrors that they could reach.
I was vacuuming the family room when disaster struck.
"Um, Mom," said Ella, whom Madison had sent down to break the bad news, "The door to Madison's closet kind of...got broken."
Note the careful use of the passive voice.
I figured that it had just slid off its track. "I'm sure I can get it back on the track, Ella," I said.
"Well, um, I think the wood kind of...cracked...and there is...well...another piece on the floor."
An hour to go with an hour left to do. I simply didn't have time to figure in a destroyed closet door. As it happened, the girls had abandoned the Windex in favor of one of them careening the other wildly around Madison's room in her desk chair on wheels, and at one point they crashed into the open door. But at that point, I didn't know this and I didn't care how it had happened, I only knew that it hadn't happened without intervention. I am glad that at some point in the distant past I had resolved never to lose control in front of young children, because if this had not been firmly ingrained in every fiber of my being, I would have lost it. I am not beyond getting really ticked off, though (I just never appear to have lost control), and this was one of those times because the kids know that they shouldn't be hanging or yanking on doors. We've had to bend back the hinges on the tv cabinet too many times, and they've heard the lecture. At that point, I imagined that they had been using the closet door as a sliding apparatus such as on playgrounds.
"WHAT!" I brushed past Ella on my way up the stairs. Madison was obviously apprehensive as I rushed into her room. There, indeed, was the offending door, sagging off the track as Ella had described. The bottom left part was still held in place by the metal fitting on the bottom track. But in place of what would have been the upper left-hand corner fitting to the top track was a thick, triangular splinter of wood. As I watched, the metal peg inside it gave way, and the splinter crashed to the floor. The rest of the door sagged forward, threatening to break on the bottom if I didn't remove it immediately, which I did.
I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. The idea of showing the house with a broken left closet door was unthinkable. So I sent the kids out of the room (they were glad to go) and fetched the toolbox. Thank goodness, it was a fairly clean break, so that when I put the bit of door back where it belonged, the front part, at least, didn't have extra bits missing; it just looked like a crack. I was able to get it nailed and screwed together back to the main part of the door, solidly enough to hold its weight on the peg.
I tried to put the door back in place, but I needed a second person to help me fit the peg on the floor into the correct hole in the bottom of the door. So, I drafted a child by shouting sternly down the stairs:
"Whoever it was that did this, and only that person, come on up here!"
Madison appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"I need your help to fix this."
"But I'm not going to be able to do anything, I'm only a little ki--"
"So help me, Madison, if you whine at me right now, there will be repercussions. I can't even THINK of what repercussions right now, but believe me, they will be bad."
That actually shut her up.
She was able to help me guide the bottom part in place, and then fetch me the hammer and a screwdriver so I could jimmy the top peg back into the mechanism.
And it was done, in 15 minutes. I was able to do the rest of the hour's work in 45 minutes, at a frantic pace. The girls wisely skedaddled and barricaded themselves in the (very clean) family room with Scooby Doo.
Thank goodness I was able to fix it, because I have no idea what I would have done had I not.
Frankly, I don't know whether I would have done it so well had I not been under the stress. Later, when the girls and I were at the Indian restaurant and we were talking about it, I used the episode as an example of the saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention."
They agreed, though, that today, Deb was the mother of invention.
Our second Open House was at 1pm today.
During the four days curled up in bed this past week, my two creative children were, happily, all-too-eager to try their hand at making their own (cold, obviously!) breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and entertain themselves with crafts and schoolwork so I could lay around and gaze vacantly at the ceiling. So you can imagine what the house looked like.
Yesterday, feeling much better but with energy still ebbing rather low, I undertook to make it look as it should so that people should not run away screaming as soon as crossed the threshold this afternoon.
I took it slowly. For the first time, I damned whatever impulse had made me buy a 3200 s.f. house. Usually, the spread-out quality of the house means that there really CAN be a place for everything and everything in its place. It seemed to me yesterday, though, that it had morphed into an "every place for everything" house. So it took a while. But I timed myself well, drew up a list of things to accomplish and in what order, and set about it.
At 11:45 this morning, I had precisely an hour's left of work. The girls were actually "helping" at that point -- I had given them Windex and paper towels with the instructions to clean off the various white boards, and mirrors that they could reach.
I was vacuuming the family room when disaster struck.
"Um, Mom," said Ella, whom Madison had sent down to break the bad news, "The door to Madison's closet kind of...got broken."
Note the careful use of the passive voice.
I figured that it had just slid off its track. "I'm sure I can get it back on the track, Ella," I said.
"Well, um, I think the wood kind of...cracked...and there is...well...another piece on the floor."
An hour to go with an hour left to do. I simply didn't have time to figure in a destroyed closet door. As it happened, the girls had abandoned the Windex in favor of one of them careening the other wildly around Madison's room in her desk chair on wheels, and at one point they crashed into the open door. But at that point, I didn't know this and I didn't care how it had happened, I only knew that it hadn't happened without intervention. I am glad that at some point in the distant past I had resolved never to lose control in front of young children, because if this had not been firmly ingrained in every fiber of my being, I would have lost it. I am not beyond getting really ticked off, though (I just never appear to have lost control), and this was one of those times because the kids know that they shouldn't be hanging or yanking on doors. We've had to bend back the hinges on the tv cabinet too many times, and they've heard the lecture. At that point, I imagined that they had been using the closet door as a sliding apparatus such as on playgrounds.
"WHAT!" I brushed past Ella on my way up the stairs. Madison was obviously apprehensive as I rushed into her room. There, indeed, was the offending door, sagging off the track as Ella had described. The bottom left part was still held in place by the metal fitting on the bottom track. But in place of what would have been the upper left-hand corner fitting to the top track was a thick, triangular splinter of wood. As I watched, the metal peg inside it gave way, and the splinter crashed to the floor. The rest of the door sagged forward, threatening to break on the bottom if I didn't remove it immediately, which I did.
I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. The idea of showing the house with a broken left closet door was unthinkable. So I sent the kids out of the room (they were glad to go) and fetched the toolbox. Thank goodness, it was a fairly clean break, so that when I put the bit of door back where it belonged, the front part, at least, didn't have extra bits missing; it just looked like a crack. I was able to get it nailed and screwed together back to the main part of the door, solidly enough to hold its weight on the peg.
I tried to put the door back in place, but I needed a second person to help me fit the peg on the floor into the correct hole in the bottom of the door. So, I drafted a child by shouting sternly down the stairs:
"Whoever it was that did this, and only that person, come on up here!"
Madison appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"I need your help to fix this."
"But I'm not going to be able to do anything, I'm only a little ki--"
"So help me, Madison, if you whine at me right now, there will be repercussions. I can't even THINK of what repercussions right now, but believe me, they will be bad."
That actually shut her up.
She was able to help me guide the bottom part in place, and then fetch me the hammer and a screwdriver so I could jimmy the top peg back into the mechanism.
And it was done, in 15 minutes. I was able to do the rest of the hour's work in 45 minutes, at a frantic pace. The girls wisely skedaddled and barricaded themselves in the (very clean) family room with Scooby Doo.
Thank goodness I was able to fix it, because I have no idea what I would have done had I not.
Frankly, I don't know whether I would have done it so well had I not been under the stress. Later, when the girls and I were at the Indian restaurant and we were talking about it, I used the episode as an example of the saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention."
They agreed, though, that today, Deb was the mother of invention.
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