Whole

I'm a bit of a hyper-organized person. This might sound awesome, but sometimes it really isn't. Instead of streamlining my life, it tends to get in the way of things. Take, for example, the fact that I love to write. I love to write about homeschooling, hooping, healthy living, gardening, attachment parenting, meditation, natural medicine, books, and all sorts of things. Problem is, the part of my brain obsessed with categorizing things to the point of insanity would lead me to believe that all of my interests need to be blogged about separately.

After a great deal of thought on this, I've come to realize that all of these things are about us, our life, our interests, and our activities. There is more to life than just homeschooling (though we love it and it is a big part of our lives), more than just exercise or hooping, healthy eating or natural remedies. Life is a whole, comprised of many parts. With that in mind, it seems much more reasonable to have a blog which reflects more parts of the whole. So, there will be some changes to my little blog. I'm kind of excited about this, especially with summer fast approaching basically here.

Speaking of whole, I've decided it is time to clear the garbage out of out cupboards and get back to the whole foods lifestyle I've recently (admittedly, somewhat shamefully, definitely regretfully) parted with in favor of quicker, sweeter, saltier, "convenience" foods. What's not so convenient is feeling like garbage all the time, which I do. My goal is to adopt a completely plant-based diet for myself and my children. My family has a long history of autoimmune diseases. I believe that how we eat is the defining factor in whether those switches get flipped. Since my children are already showing signs of autoimmune disease (my son developed psoriasis at age 4, and my daughter experiences weather-related joint pain), I believe this is not something that can wait.

I will have much more to say on these and many other topics as my blog develops into more of a whole picture of our interests and goals. I'm no expert on the whole foods, plant-based diet - but I'd like to be. Hopefully blogging through my journey will keep me on track, and maybe even help others who are also considering making similar healthy changes.

Thanks for reading along!

Homeschool Humor

Backyard Birding

With our summer vacation already in-progress, I admittedly found myself feeling a bit out of sorts with not having hours each day dedicated to learning with my children. I have them each doing 2 hours of some kind of language activity, be it reading or writing, daily to keep their minds sharp and their creativity skills strong. I get little resistance.

Reezle has been using her new free time to observe, take notes on, and read more about the local birds.

We're trying new seed varieties in the feeders to see which birds show up for each mix, and so far the only thing we've found is that the American Goldfinches love the mix with the sunflower in it (actually, they all do - you've never seen a feeder get emptied so fast) and have been noticeably absent since we switched.

Also, the Mourning Doves really like whatever the other birds are dropping on the ground from the current seed mix; they've been out there pecking at the ground almost constantly for the past few days, sometimes as many as four of them at once! The closest I'd previously seen one, other than in books and online, was on the power lines out front of our home. They're very cool.


Our most common visitors, at least for now, are House Finches (there is a male on the left of the feeder) and House Sparrows (right).

A couple of my personal favorite visitors to the feeder have to be the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and Northern Cardinal. They are gorgeous, their calls are beautiful, and they have such personality!

And I only recently (since Reezle's interest in birding was sparked) learned that female cardinals look quite a bit different in color than their male counterparts. Check this out:


That's Redfeather (top photo) and Ruby (bottom photo), two of our most common visitors. Yes, we name them. And no, we're not 100% certain we're not calling forty different cardinals by the same name. Oh well. But we do know Star for certain - he was the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak on the pole for the feeder a few photos up. He was named Star because all of the white spots on his otherwise stark black feathers make him look like the stars in the night sky. He's the only one we've seen like him, and he has a major attitude. We love him anyway.

My bird post wouldn't be complete if I didn't share this story. About 12 years ago while rollerblading on a park trail, I saw a black bird, which I thought at first was a baby crow, take flight. When it spread its wings, I saw the most beautiful red and yellow on its wings. I never saw one again until my daughter started birding and they began showing up regularly at the feeders. They are fairly common in our area, and are called Red-Winged Blackbirds. Cool, right?

Yes, I'll be blogging more about birds over the summer. I didn't include Yellow Warblers, Blue Jays, or even a Robin in this post! It seems my daughter's interest is now a shared one.

To Easter B From Little G

Little G handed me a card this morning and said, "Mom, please send this to the Easter Bunny. It's late, but I still need to send it." I agreed. The card is hilarious, and says the following:

Happy Easter Card! Made 5/27. Ready, set, go, AND READ!
From: G. To: Easter B.

Dear Easter Bunny,
I am gonna point some things on this card. 3 is that Meow Meow Day Care picture. [He makes daycares and schools for cats all the time.] Thank you very much for the Reese's peanut butter eggs and Dewey [his new cat] and dresses [for Dewey] and the jelly beans. They were so good that I could explode! Yum yum in my tum tum. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love singing a little song I made up all by myself. It is a sign of yumminess.

Love you a lot and enjoy your card.

Love,
G

Congratulations to Our Girl

Miss Reezle had her end of year Aimsweb assessment yesterday afternoon. For reading fluency, the goal for the end of second grade is 90 words per minute. Reezle's reading fluency was already 142 words per minute at the beginning of the year, went to 158 words per minute at mid-year, and is now at 179 words per minute. For perspective, most adults read at about 175-180 words per minute. She is 8!

And it's not just her ability to read the material that quickly, she truly does understand what she is reading. Now, I love reading, but I am a very slow reader. Reezle appears to have my husband's ability to devour large chunks of text in very little time, with complete understanding of the material being read. It is not uncommon for either of them to finish a lengthy book in one sitting. I'm so pleased that she has this gift!

Reezle also did a math assessment. She scored perfect on the math at mid-year, so there was really nowhere to go since she was already at the ceiling. The problems were a bit more difficult this time around, and I was concerned when she shrugged and opted to do the test in her head without so much as scrap paper, but she scored perfect again. For a kid who isn't a huge fan of math, that's impressive.

Her K12 teacher and I discussed the coming year in depth, and we both agreed that picking up a language is a great idea. Reezle will be taking Spanish. We also discussed what happens if she chews right through the third grade curriculum, considering her progress thus far. Unless something changes, I stand by my decision to keep her at grade level so she does not become overwhelmed or frustrated. She has an incredible amount of interests outside of or in addition to the curriculum, and being able to master things quickly has provided her with many opportunities to really dig into what she loves. She's been reading biographies about interesting historical figures, watching many documentaries on various topics from history to science to sociology, and taking her interest in birdwatching and identification to the next level. I know I have mentioned this before, but her interest in birds has developed into something our whole family enjoys. We all delight in being able to identify a bird by their song.

We are so proud of Reezle for all she has accomplished this year. K12's curriculum is challenging and very rich, and independent learning requires self-discipline and commitment. Reezle has risen to the challenge in every way, surprising me at every turn. I could not be happier for her, and I know she feels a tremendous sense of accomplishment for all she as achieved.

Congratulations are in order, Miss Reezle! We love you and are so proud of you! And now, a special dinner of her favorite food, and a celebratory cake we will bake and decorate together!

Someone Special Has Completed 2nd Grade

Congratulations are in order, for Miss Reezle has completed 2nd Grade!


We are very excited for her, and extremely proud of her hard work, dedication, self-discipline, and achievements this year. Good job, Reezle girl! We love you!

Aimsweb and A Boy With Speech Disorders

At the beginning of the year, my children both participated in an Aimsweb assessment. At the time, I felt it was accurate; it assessed them both as "Well Above Average". They are. No problem.

I'm not one of those parents who demands that my children attain some specific standard, or who believes my children are somehow exceptionally gifted just because they're mine. However, they are academically advanced beyond grade level, and would like for testing to reflect that.

Mid-year, Little G's scores dipped somewhat. He was annoyed with the testing; he remembered he had been assessed using these same measures in the past and he is not one who likes to repeat. Getting him to cooperate was a feat of monumental proportions. So when he had to do it for a third time this spring, he just wasn't having it. Typically, before we sit down for our assessments, I have some time to briefly discuss what we will be doing and why. This time, I was experiencing technical issues with my computer (a Dell N5110, another topic; don't buy a Dell), and I didn't have the time to talk with Little G because I was busy trying to evoke some signs of life from my computer. The test is timed, and he spent the majority of that time shooting me dirty, disgruntled looks and throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling in silent protest. His autism and his enormous ego are sometimes a bit of a challenge.

At the conclusion of the testing, Little G scored Below Average. I was extremely annoyed, and having difficulty pretending I wasn't. I told the teacher assessing him as much, and said I should probably discuss the results at another time. She was extremely understanding and offered me some phone numbers of some people I could contact regarding my feelings on the matter and what I felt ought to be done differently. After all, I said in protest, they were assessing a child taking 1st grade curriculum as a Kindergartner. He certainly would have been less frustrated and the picture would have been more accurate had they assessed him based on where he was actually working. I realized I was launching into an epic rant once again, which I was trying to avoid since the issues I was facing were not the teacher's fault and she didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of my dissatisfaction. I accepted her offer of the contact info, and I decided to focus on anything other than Aimsweb.

But I couldn't. A few days passed. The teacher (she's awesome, I'm pretty sure I have mentioned this) agreed to allow Little G to take the assessment again on a day when we were not experiencing massive technical issues and he could truly focus. As it turned out, we still had some technical issues (did I mention Dell sucks?) but she came up with ways to work around it. And when all was said and done, Little G scored in the Average to Above Average categories across the board. I felt better. Little G felt better.



But during the testing, something occurred to me. My son is not typical. My son is autistic and has a speech disorder which affects his expressive and receptive communication. Even if he had truly scored in the below average range for letter sounds, would it have been because of a lack of understanding or learning? No! His speech disorder complicates matters extensively, and the fact that he is able to compensate as well as he does is highly impressive. Here I was spending all of my time focused on the fact that this standardized test failed in an epic way at assessing my son's actual abilities and progress, to the point that I forgot an extremely important variable: my son's language disability.

Little G knew his alphabet and numbers 1-10 by his second birthday, despite his inability to speak (ah, the wonders of computers). He is anything but below average. I bristled at the scores on the latest assessment, an assessment of the boy who has been tutoring his similarly gifted sister since he was just a preschooler. How could he be able to correct Reezle's spelling and grammar errors and he is scoring Below Average on Aimsweb!? Actually, for nonsense word reading, he scored Well Above Average; it was only the things directly related to how he processes speech sounds which became an issue. Duh. Sometimes I fail to think. And yet, standard tests fail to really assess his knowledge and ability because they do not take his disability into account.

Standardized tests are just a part of the story.

A Disturbing Trend

Back in April, an Ohio mother made headlines when she publicly humiliated her daughter on Facebook, supposedly because the girl had been disrespectful. More recently, another mom decided to humiliate her own daughter in a similar manner. I fear a trend is starting here.

With suicide being a leading cause of death among young people and at least half of those being attributed to bullying, I don't think parents need to give bullies any fodder by participating in the public humiliation of their own children. There are better ways to parent. I also think that children should be talked to in depth about what it means to participate in social media, with the mantra "don't put anything online that you are not okay with everyone in the entire world seeing", before children are ever allowed to create an online account. My children are only 6 and 8, but this is a conversation we've already been having for a while. I want to make sure that they are very aware of the huge responsibility that comes with participating in social media.

Children make mistakes. This is a very normal part of growing up. These mistakes should be teachable moments when they happen, not opportunities to break a child's spirit. Humiliation might seem like a great deterrent, but the only thing this teaches is shame and fear. Any apparent positive results from this are based in fear, not self-respect or a true desire to make good choices. Humiliation is not loving parenting, and it is not necessary.


Parenting and raising children is not about scaring, beating, shaming, and humiliating children into submission - or at least it shouldn't be. Compassion, respect, and keeping an open dialogue going about issues which are important will yield results that everyone can appreciate. Children of parents who have humiliated and shamed them about any issue are unlikely to come to their parents when other issues arise, whether related or not, particularly if they already feel any embarrassment about the new topic. Building their self-esteem in health ways, not tearing it down because they've made a mistake, is a way to ensure that the good choices children make will be more as a result of their own self-respect and a healthy (not fearful) desire to please their family.

Parental bullying is emotional abuse. We do not get adults to do what we want by terrifying them into submission, so why should we do this to our children who depend on us for their validation, love, security, comfort, and the building blocks of their self-esteem? An honest, ongoing dialogue about important issues between parents and their children are the best way to deal with these issues before they become issues. Being a parent isn't easy. Being a dictator is, because it requires no effort to bully someone over whom you have complete physical and legal control. But hammering a child into submission by way of shame and fear is not parenting.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

A Big Milestone for Little G

It's a very big day for Little G today...


He completed Kindergarten! That's including the 1st grade math, 1st grade phonics, and 1st grade language arts classes he took after finishing all of the Kindergarten ones! Our last day of 'school' is officially June 8th, so my little guy has worked very hard this year and done a wonderful job. He will be starting 1st grade in the fall as a 2nd grade math and language arts student. We are SO excited and incredibly proud of him! And Little G? Well, he's pretty proud of himself, too. He's jumping for joy!

We will be celebrating with his favorite dinner and a special gift. I'm not sure what the gift will be yet, but it does include a book store gift card so he will have plenty to read over the summer. I have a feeling he'll be devoruing piles of books at the rate he's already going!

Congratulations, my awesome little dude!