Creating "the environment"

As I try to pin down what I want to blog about this week, the thing that seems to be connecting all the different ideas is how to create the right kind of environment (home and learning) for my children.  I'm still reading "The Right Side of Normal" and also a book called "Simplicity Parenting" and if you've been reading this blog for a while you might have noticed the times when I've talked a lot about organizing or other school related posts.  I feel like those posts were how I was struggling with knowing what to do (generally they were about trying something that I thought would work or help) and perhaps that is always how this blog will be;  None of it has "the answer" but I feel like our life is slowly moving toward the dreams that my husband and I originally envisioned.  We always talked about wanting to be a "reading family" or that we wanted to play a lot of games together (my husband is really into games) I value creativity and want to have a lot of space for my girls and myself to create.

My girls watched a cartoon called "Lallaloopsy Land" (perhaps you've seen the button eyed toys in stores?) Lily said that she wanted to buy one of the dolls and I suggested she make one instead!  Renna made hers out of paper and glue.

Lily (7) drew the picture to show me what she wanted to sew and Renna (5) wrote her big sisters name under the picture to be helpful.  ;)

We used felt and embroidery floss and buttons for the Lollaloopsy kitty and Lily did a fine job of hand sewing!  We need to buy some more felt now to re-stock.

Finished project!  She's now working on a doll twice as tall as the kitty.

It's been difficult to find the room in our tiny town-home apartment to make these ideals happen and still keep my sanity (that last part is the key here.)  I find myself dreaming about a school room that looks like a Montessori or Waldorf type classroom, but in reality our main living area, where we spend the majority of our days, is only about 600 square ft.  That's our kitchen, dinning room, living room, and a tiny bathroom and where we do school and projects and play and read.  I'm quite thankful for a vaulted ceiling in part of it and the added windows that we have now compared to our old apartment that was the same layout as this one.

Living in a small space isn't all bad though.  Just the other day my husband and I were talking about how secure (from a break in) our house really is.  When the coat closet at the front door is open you can't open the front door (without breaking the closet door) so that's a good warning that we'd hear.  And if someone tried to come in through a window or the sliding door we'd hear them trip over the lego or marble works or slip on books, and since our room is a loft room and open to the rest of the house we'd hear any of that and my husband could call the police with the cell phone he uses for an alarm.  Another bonus of a tiny space is being able to plug the vacuum into one outlet and be able to vacuum both the downstairs AND the upstairs without replugging the cord into another outlet (I actually like vacuuming -- it drowns all sounds for a time and afterward everything looks nice again!)

My girls discovered that their "reading buddies" from Hallmark (GREAT gift from Gramma for Christmas!) will respond to some of the OTHER toys story book.  So when they were listening to the Scooby Doo story, Renna's Abigail bunny said a few things in response to his story.  It was pretty cute.  I wouldn't mind getting more of these books for them! 

Renna got a new lego figure to inspire her to play with the lego more.  While her older sister will build some simple houses, Renna mainly likes to play with the people and dress them differently and create imaginary stories with them.

I read part of a kindle book recently called "organizing small spaces" or something like that and was annoyed at most of the pictures they used of kitchens and dinning rooms that were at least TWICE as big as mine.  I've contemplated writing my own book about "organizing small spaces while homeschooling with a baby under foot and cooking healthy meals from scratch because of food allergies and dealing with limited outdoor space" (that is just a working title.)  Our apartment has a pool which is wonderful, but most outdoor activities require the Mommy or Daddy to be present for safety reasons.  I'm also VERY thankful for the tiny patio area that we have now that we are on a ground floor apartment so that my girls can have a little sand box to muck around in (and I can see them while doing dishes and what-not.)

Anyway, I'm mentioning all that simply to point out where I'm coming from.  I'm less in a complaining stage and much more in the "what do I do about it" stage.  So, about environment -- Ideally I'd want to live in the country or at least in a place where my kids could play outside more independently.  I'd wish for an actual "school/play room" to facilitate learning and building and not lose sanity points when absolutely no part of my house (ever) is tidy for longer than an hour.  But this is real life and it's not usually ideal.

The pile of books spread onto the floor more as the week wore on.  My two year old was having so much fun looking at stories!  I want to encourage that love of reading and some how organize our space so that I can easily put it back together so that my home is restful for my husband and myself.

As visual people as my children and I are, we tend to be the most inspired to create something or play with something when we see it.  But as the organizing pro talks about in her books and blog it's really important to have "white space" so that the eyes can rest.  Uncluttered living is a freeing way to live!  And indeed as the "Simplicity Parenting" book talks about how our culture is so bombarded with information and "stuff" in general that children especially can't process what they are taking in and it's making them more anxious and stressed out.  What we need to get back to is an environment where a child can play in the dirt or with a single toy for hours and use their imaginations.  How can I provide right-brain dominant style learning resources for my kids WHILE living in our tiny space AND keep our home as uncluttered as possible?  Honestly, the children get almost as stressed out as I do when a space is cluttered and messy and they also can't play as well and enjoy themselves as much either (Again, see "Simplicity Parenting" to understand this phenomenon.)

We put together a 200 piece cat puzzle this week.  I fondly remember my Mom teaching me how to put puzzles together -- start with the edge pieces, look at the picture on the box.. Not to mention how often the mother can nudge a piece toward the child to "try" so that she can figure it's position out on her own and feel victorious when it fits!

I've developed an intuitive understanding of how a room should be arranged to facilitate the best play time for little ones since having my own kids (you just get used to knowing what works and doesn't in this 24/7 job.)  Basically if you take all their toys and dump them in boxes it won't be as appealing as each "set" of things in it's own area or set up prettily as it might be in a store.  I'm convinced that one reason why children want so many new things is because it's all right there!  It's all pretty and together and inviting.  But I can create this same feeling with toys that they already have by going through it all and putting all the pieces of each thing together and getting rid of the things that are broken or not played with.  Changing batteries when need be and so forth is also very helpful.  Also if you stack toy containers up in piles and make it too hard for a little one to get to they won't play as well as if you'd positioned things in areas that they can reach by themselves.

Later this week we made one at least twice this tall using almost ALL the pieces.  It was very impressive.

Now to creating "the environment" which is to say creating the home environment that my husband and I value (this will be slightly different for each family) and creating the homeschooling environment that I'd like (again different with each family) so as I talk about what I'm trying to do or what I think is best, please realize that it might not be best for you and it's a continual process of re-thinking and re-working to make it fit the time since the kids change so quickly as they grow.  "The Right Side of Normal" talks a little bit about unschooling (though I think it is quite valuable to any parent homeschooling or not) but I'm reluctant to embrace that definition for what we do.  Partly because what we do does not feel like "unschooling" so much as "always learning."  The "unschooling" title sounds easy but living and learning this purposefully feels anything but "easy" yet for our family it feels like we are going to a more natural way of learning.  I have discovered in this past year especially that my favorite way of doing our school is to not really follow a curriculum but to just have a stack of books that we read a little bit out of each day and when we've finished a book we move onto the next.  I'm learning with them as we read about parts of a plant or watch a dvd from the library about flight.  I feel like I'm naturally really good at sensing what my children "get" and don't get and how I can teach them in the moment by grabbing this or that and seizing the opportunity.  I'm really terrible at planning too far ahead.  I need to plan a little ahead, but in a lose enough way to be able to go with the flow of the moment.  Perhaps an unschooler would see this and say that's what it means to be unschooling.  I don't know, but I don't think it matters what we call it.  Montessori, Waldorf, Charlotte Mason, Literature based something or other this or that philosophy -- I'm going to just keep doing whatever my kids and my family needs and that might sway from one style to the next depending on the year or moment.

We had some extra boxes from the new school stuff I ordered and the girls spent several hours over a few days working on their box cars.  My oldest was super proud of hers and kept saying "doesn't it look like a real car?"  I could see her imagination flying as she cut this and taped that.  She made locks for the doors with tape.  Over all it was just nice to see her mucking about on her own project.  As the resident adult in this tiny space I got a little stressed with all the cardboard on the floor and had to come up with a solution (pictures at the end of this post.)

Back to avoiding clutter.  I wanted to come up with a system to have a visual way of looking for something to do or work on since I don't have a large Montessori type room with friendly baskets and shelves all around waiting to be discovered.  I've got to put the stuff away or I'd go mad!  So, last week I took pictures of all the school type resources and games and project stuff that we have right now.  There were 70 some pictures (and many things I'd doubled up on if they seemed to be related some how, like story telling games or math manipulative resources.)   The plan is to put these pictures in a little album under general headings just to help me not forget about what they have and help guide them to a nice variety of subject material.  Obviously if they are super excited to work on the math manipulative stuff every day I won't discourage it, but if they are ho-hum about everything (you know, when they get "bored" and just don't know what to do) I can give them a few options to choose from that they will enjoy but still be making sure they are growing and stretching themselves in their school time.  My girls do want to have a regular school time in the day and it's helpful for me to have a specific time set aside to help direct them and read to them.  Even though they tend to groan at the mention of it being time to start school they act upset at the end of the day if we did another sort of school time that was less formal.  I should explain, by formal I mean sitting around the table while they draw and I read to them and talk about the subject for the week and perhaps show them a new song or short youtube video relating to the weeks subject (we also might have something to memorize or something short for them to write.)  Text book type work is almost non-existent anymore as it seems more detrimental than helpful (my oldest would start out being really good at whatever it was and then after working in a tedious textbook way would slowly lose the ability to do any of it.)  I'm impressed at how much the hundreds chart that we've been adding to on most school days has taught them.  They've learned to count by tens and they take turns counting the even or odd numbers (note: we haven't been "working" hard at learning these things.  They've just picked it up naturally as they see the chart and as we add numbers.)  We add a number to the chart and a popsicle craft stick goes into the "ones" jar and the bunches of tens are bundled together with rubber bands in another container.  Very visual and right-brain dominant and now that I know more of how that works I can do right-brain dominant things on purpose!

Check this out Magnetic cubes to make designs with.  Even I thought that making these was a challenge!  My 7 year old was so thrilled about getting these and playing with them.  She's changing some of the colors from the pattern on purpose, but that is totally great because she can use her imagination and creativity while working with this.  It reminded me some of putting squares on a water-color quilt together.  You've got to be pretty visual/spacial to do this.

Too often I feel like my life is just responding to my children's needs or a problem that comes up and that I'm always behind and catching up but not able to prevent the spill by moving the glass because I didn't notice the glass because I was too busy cleaning up the previous spill (so to speak.)  While I'm always struggling with this tension I also see our days going in the right direction.  My two year old asks "Mommy read to me?" and holds out one of her favorite books for the 10th time that day and I'll read to her right after I get the clothes in the dryer (or whatever I'm doing that can be finished quickly, if not finished quickly then I'll drop it and read to her right then.)  My older girls have been learning some money sense of how to save and how to spend money recently.  I'm planning on doing some pretend play shopping times with them so they can learn some money skills and math all in one.

This was a great find for Lily's new "cat school" that is a puzzle type game utilizing visual/spacial skills and logic.

Another new game for her "cat school" theme - it's simple addition and subtraction problems but in a memory game style.  I'm always impressed at how well my children can add and subtract when we've hardly done any real "book work" sheets for learning this.  We count and we play games and we do real life math.  While I want to be more purposeful about teaching them some concepts in a right-brain dominant way I'm glad that they are picking things up on their own.  If you are looking for some great math teaching ideas check out my Math Board on Pinterest.

This past week I've been thinking a lot about all the great stuff my Mom did with my brother and me when we were homeschooled:  The times when she'd kick us outside or tell us to turn off the TV when we didn't want to for starters, and I remember feeling annoyed at the time but underneath was actually glad that she made me do something that was good for me.  I keep trying to figure out with my own kids what those things are.  What things do I need to insist that they do or don't do as their parent and what things do I need to listen to their reluctance about?  I vividly remember a friend of mine when I was 7 or so (she was a year older than me) who loved to read and thought it was fun to get together with a friend and sit up in a tree with a book and read silently.  I thought it was about the most boring thing ever to do with a friend, but I went along with it.  She was surprised that I'd finished the chapter so soon (I'd skimmed as quickly as possible so that I could go play) and she made me read out loud because I don't think she believed that I could read.  I could read out loud, but hated it and was embarrassed that I couldn't read more smoothly.  I remember her mom talking to my Mom and sounding concerned and my Mom just brushed it off.  It wasn't a big deal.  Of course Lynne' wants to go play more than read.. she's a little kid!  When I was 9 or so my Mom made me read a little bit each day and I'd complain about doing it, but hit upon an interesting book and actually started to enjoy reading!  Then when I was about 14 I decided that I should practice reading out loud so that I could read like my Mom could.  She pushed a little at the right time to get me to read more, but over all she just enjoyed reading to us and inspired me to learn to read out loud well because she was just so good at it!  Now I love to read out loud especially to my kids with special voices when the story requires it.  ;]

The baby likes to look like mommy and daddy with her laptop to "work on".. it's pretty cute.

 So again, back to the environment and organizing and this simplifying thing and tie that in with having to insist about something that my kids weren't too thrilled with.  A few months ago the girls wanted to take their bunk beds apart so that they were side by side.  I really hated to do that as it left so little free space in the room, but they were having trouble sleeping and missing family since we live so far away and I hoped it would help to change their room around for a while.  I don't know if it helped a lot, but I did have to insist this week that we change it back.

As you can see they were having a blast in the open space!  Their room is the only other place besides our living room where you can actually lay down on the floor or spin around pretty comfortably.  I now feel comfortable up there enough to play lego or games with them and use it somewhat like a school room so that not EVERYTHING has to be in our main living space.  It's pretty amazing to be able to send them to a room that actually is out of the main area.  My husband even said what a difference it made "I'm starting to feel like a human again" I think were his words as he began to rest from the noise and business of the children from this morning.

Their closet is easy to get to but closeable to keep that "white space" of no clutter and rest for the eyes.  Their clothes are always a challenge as they like to change their outfits so much throughout the day.  I finally came up with this system with the basket on top and hooks and see through drawers.  It still takes some work to keep the clothes off the floor but it's better than it has been in the past.

Little fabric dollar store containers help to organize as well as adding to the eyes resting place to lessen the cluttery feeling of toys and stuff.  (Note: my closet is to the left of the open door and it's SO nice that I can finally get into it!)

All of their American girl stuff is tidy and easily accessible.  The lego bin is visible under the bunk bed.  Both girls at different times told me that they wanted their beds to be the way they were before instead of stacked (They told me this when they were trying to go to sleep), but I needed to insist on this one and keep the open space in their room available.  We played a few games at their little kids table tonight and I have to say again that it was so refreshing to NOT be in the same room that we are always in for everything else that we ever do every day (for the past 3 years.)  

 Now that their room is more open it actually feels worth it to have given up the master bedroom for the tiny loft room that barely fits our queen bed.  I keep sensing that if I can get a better handle on the flow and order of our home, then I will be more free to learn with the girls and engage with them rather than constantly feeling overwhelmed and behind.  So far so good!

End of the first week of our Right (brain) school

A fun part of this week has been the new TAG reader book and Leapster Game that I got for the girls -"Brave" on Monday.  The former is pictured with Grace SO thrilled about getting to touch everything and hearing something!  Lily has used it too and I'm seeing her develop a better relationship with words and reading just in this one week alone.  "Brave" the leapster game is about science and nature and it was pretty fun to hear Renna explain how a lady bug larva turns into a lady bug and how excited she was about that!   (Note:  She explained it all to the guy at the nature exchange at the zoo who was teaching her about the bean pod that we brought in to him to exchange.)

So, how has it looked this week?  Compared to the rather intense list of do's and checking off boxes of things to do each day as it has been before, this week has felt .. well.. pretty amazing!  This week has been unwinding from what we have been doing as well as starting some new habits of what to slowly add in the more right-brain dominant way.  I'm actually much more comfortable with winging it each day for the most part, and of seizing those teachable moments.  In general we'll have a time of reading together at least once in the day, but this can be in the morning or just fun stories at night.  Teachable opportunities are so much easier for me to run with because they inspire me when I see where my kids are already wanting to learn!

My oldest has started to enjoy going outside to play rather than escape the house and school like she had been doing the last few weeks. 

Speaking of spontaneous learning-- One morning we were outside for a bit after breakfast to play and the girls found a couple lady-bugs and one flew off but the other one we put on our basil plant that really did need some help.  This led to my reading them the "Grouchy ladybug" by Eric Carl while we watched the ladybug enjoy the bugs on my basil plant (which Lily reminded us was actually a lady BEETLE because the guy at the nature exchange at the zoo said it was really a beetle and not a bug technically.  I was impressed that she remembered!)  Reading that book led to talking about time and size and imagination.  Renna (the five year old middle child) has such a great imagination and said that the one that flew away (that we'd found) must have been the grouchy ladybug and we get to keep the nice friendly one.

On Tuesday we met some friends at the Dallas zoo and Lily and Renna had so much fun spinning in the nest with one of their best friends, Josie and exploring the zoo and all their little spots together.  It was fun to see Lily and Renna so happy.  Times with friends is never long enough.

Get ready to spin!

I gave Lily my old camera as I think I mentioned in my last post, but guess who thought the camera was the best thing ever since chocolate milk with straws?  Yep, my little 2 year old!  She sat in her stroller and took picture after picture.  Delighted the whole time.  Later Lily and I laughed at how many pictures of her own feet and the back of the front seat in the double stroller there were that Gracie took, BUT she actually took a few good ones!

 I can see Grace with her shyness being someone who naturally would gravitate to being behind a camera instead of in front of it.

I've been pleasantly surprised this week at not only how much more happy my oldest has been and seeing her play more and being droopy less, but my middle child and even my 2 year old have been just blossoming!  In just one week!  I want this trend to continue.  I'm less stressed and all three girls are growing and learning on their own initiative and using their imaginations and creativity.  It's lovely to see.

My little kitchen helper making Kale chips with me.  These never last long in our house.  :)  Because of our gluten intolerance and because I just naturally want to eat healthy real foods I talk to the girls about what things are good or not good to eat.  This is such a great life lesson really because I could see all of my girls decide on their own when they'd had enough cupcakes for breakfast yesterday morning. 

Something that I changed in our house this week was putting the box of lego in our living room instead of in their bed room.  I played with them the first day building a car and sorting some of the colors and people parts.  Ever since then they've spent so much time building and imagining together!  It's been so great to see after these last weeks of wilting.

As I've observed Renna this last week I'm not sure that she actually is a left brain learner like I'd thought.  She is so imaginative and it's coming out more and more.  She made up this whole little soap opera with these lego figures.  It was such a great conversation too with her when she talked about them and what they were doing.  I'd talked to my girls at one point about abortion because it is such a big deal in our culture now and we were learning about creation and how we are all made in God's image.  Well, these two she said were bad guys (they had scary faces) but they didn't want to get married, they just loved each other she said, but since they didn't want to get married they killed their baby.  It's pretty amazing how much a 5 year old can pick up from our culture when we don't have regular tv (only Netflix shows) and they are homeschooled and always with me.  But what was great though is how I was able to talk with her about how that was wrong (not in a condemning way, but just so she'd understand by saying how sad that was) and later she changed the guys face so that he was "good."  And she explained how he'd chased the girl and hurt her and so the baby had died, but now he was good.  How do you know?  I asked, and we were able to talk about Jesus and how the bad guy was made new in Christ.  At least 3 times this week I've been able to talk about the gospel with Renna... from when she did something wrong to little things like this.  This is my favorite reason of why I homeschool my kids.  When one of them acts out (usually Renna) and sins (like lying) I can gently tell her that Jesus died for that sin and that He loves her so much even though He knew that she would sin, but that He loves us so much that he doesn't want us to have the yucky sin in our hearts and He wants to make us new.  I'm privileged to see my little one who was acting defiant and hard hearted melt into repentance and hug me knowing that she is unconditionally loved.  It's the biggest deal of all and I don't miss those precious opportunities with them near me so much. 

 As I said, Lily had been (in a sense) trying to escape the house and life for the last month or so.  She kept just acting droopy and not knowing what to do with herself and would ask to go outside to scooter around a bit.  ... Like she was searching for something but she didn't know what. As if she wasn't fully living.  This week I haven't seen much of that.  I haven't tried to control any tv time as I had before.  As in, by telling them to turn it off.  Rather, when she wanted to watch the new Smurfs movie from the library (which is pretty stupid, but whatever) instead of telling her not to watch it I encouraged her to make some clay smurfs at the same time.  Which she did!  After that I haven't seen her watching tv too much.  Definitely not like before where it was just that vegging and hardly any activity or creativity.  The lego is a great diversion from vegging and this week as a family we started doing more Wii sports games together that she's continued on her own with her sister.  Here in the picture they are playing Tennis I think.  They boxed in the Wii sports too and boy does that work out your arms!  This is so great because I have more time to focus on the littlest one that really does need more direction.  I even finally got to the small mountain of clothes that I needed to alter (I was getting tired of my sewing machine and the pile cluttering the living room) and I'm hoping some of my own creative projects will start getting more attention too, what with the older girls becoming more independent in their learning and projects.

Grace always asks to do "school" and her school is cutting things with scissors, writing tiny circles on her white board, and scooping beans or rice or tapioca pearls from one bowl to the next.  My house has felt messier this week, but everyone seems so much happier.  :)

We went to the library today and I found a bunch of great graphic novels for them.  My littlest was excited about the TinkerBell ones and the other two each found an interesting one that they actually kept looking at in line!  Note: normally they'd be bugging each other and trying to wrestle while we checked out the books, and today they were wanting to look at them on their own!  (And yes they are wearing their swimsuits... they wanted to increase their chances of swimming tonight after dinner...)

We stopped at a grocery store and they were still wanting to look at their books.

And STILL after checking out Lily is into the book (Note: She sounded out one of the words outloud and I also heard her talking about what she thought was going on in the pictures.)  Renna got distracted from her book because someone mentioned the chocolate that I bought.

And still on the way home she looked at her library b

ook

.

 So about Dominant Right-brain learners-- these people will want to know WHY.   Why do I need to learn to read?  Why do I need this math skill?  For them, instead of starting with facts and learning rules and classic rote skills they need context to motivate them to learn.  The idea of cooking a cake for instance would be a great motivation for realizing the need for math skills.  In Lily's case, seeing these interesting pictures is a great motivation for wanting to practice reading so that she knows what the story behind the pictures is talking about.

Lily asked, "Why are you taking our picture again?"

After swimming and quick showers tonight I read the girls 6 or so stories and even though they seemed tired they actually ASKED to look at books before going to sleep on their own!  I'm so excited about this new approach and way of doing our life.  It's exactly what I needed and I just got "The Right Side of Normal" in the mail tonight so I can read the whole book!  I also got a book about mentoring the self directed learner which had some great reviews and is really what I truly want to be for my kids.  I want to inspire them and learn with them!

And the helper helping to mix our gluten free bread.
She has some amazing circular moving muscle skills for her age.

For many of us, the classical style of learning and teaching we've heard so often about is said to be the "best."  Anything less, we've been reminded in one way or another, is insufficient or only for the weaker minded, but check out this quote from "The right side of normal" website--

A well-known education philosophy called classical education, popularized in the homeschooling circles by the book, The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, advocates and follows this model of learning. About the elementary ages, Susan Wise Bauer states, “In the elementary school years…the mind is ready to absorb information. Children at this age actually find memorization fun. So during this period, education involves not self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts.” She goes on to say about the middle school years, “Middle-school students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking ‘Why?’” And her overall assessment of the focus of this educational model: “Classical education is language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).”

Now perhaps you can understand why when this left-brain-dominant learning style is held up to be so "perfect" and when your child doesn't measure up to that left-brain yard-stick you can feel like a failure as a homeschooling parent.  Or just constantly be at your wits end as to how to change things.  You worry that there is something wrong with your child when in reality it's not your child that needs to change but the system and your own way of doing school and teaching.  While the classical method might be amazing for the naturally left-brain dominant learners, it's not the only right way to learn and to teach.


I loved the last paragraph of this particular article about the left-brain measuring stick.  She says--

Is there really only one right way to learn the various subjects? Why are we more concerned that our child know what a noun is first (learning by memorization) versus learning the names of countries and continents based on a child’s interest in various animals (learning by association)? Is it more important to know that 2+2=4 (facts) or that it actually isn’t always true (2 horses + 2 tractors does NOT equal 4 animals) (concepts)? And how many of your children could navigate the computer (picture-based) even before learning to read (word-based)? Mine did! Using the left-brained measuring stick to determine the path for learning for all children is narrow-minded, inaccurate, and even damaging. There are brilliant right-brained children waiting to thrive in a well-matched right-brained learning environment that requires its own measuring stick. There is a right side of normal!

Final observation about this past week.  My girls have demonstrated more knowledge and interest in learning in just this one week in this freer style then they ever did in the days was I was the most consistent about following our packaged lesson plan of checking boxes.  But now that I know what they need (and what I need) and I'm purposefully looking for those right-brain-dominant areas and interests and resources, it's all beginning to fall into place and I don't feel like I'm floundering with hitting and missing without realizing why something works and something else doesn't.

I hope some other mom's out there are being encouraged now as well!  Even if you don't homeschool you can use these ideas to encourage your child.  For instance, instead of the knee jerk reaction to not allow comic books (because they are thought to be of less quality reading then chapter books) go ahead and get them some good ones and see them get excited! 

The Revelation-- Right vs. Left brain dominant learners

This is the picture that I showed Lily (my right-brain dominant learner) when I explained how we were going to change her school.  When I described to her what school would look like from now on she got excited and said, "I love my school!"  This is so great because we've been plodding along for too long and I've been struggling with knowing what to do and how to teach her.  I don't want to force her through it all... I want her to be inspired to learn.  Is each day a bed of roses?  No, but everyday shouldn't be stressful and unhappy and tearful either.  I'm also realizing how I want to teach as a naturally right-brain dominant person!  It's all looking up.  :]

Last week I had a revelation of how to best teach my children at home.  I was doing my usual facebooking and opening up tabs and links from homeschooling communities and  blogs that I've "liked" and I don't know who first posted it, but I ran across this blog -- The Right Side of Normal

And everything she said about how right-brain dominate learners fit my 7 year old to a T.

Here's a quote from her website.
        In this same vein, right-brained dominant people are attracted to certain skills and subjects based on the two universal gifts of their brain processing preference: picture-based thinking and an extraordinary imagination. Think of the subjects or skills that would center on these traits. History and cultures use imagination to best understand these subjects. Same with mythology and science (which includes dinosaurs). All of these can be pictorially visualized as well, including nature, animals, and geography.  The creative outlets (art/drawing, theater/showmanship, cooking/gardening, dance/music, fashion/sewing, puzzles/mazes, math/numbers (concepts/spatial), building/electronics, video games/computers) utilize both of the right-brained universal gifts, also.

So my first born who has always been so visually oriented, amazing at puzzles and problem solving, she couldn't communicate as well as she could understand at a young age.  At 2 I could give her detailed instructions to follow and she could do it!  When I read to her she wants to take in all the pictures and understand what something looks like.  She falls in love with a book after seeing the film or cartoon version.  She could read and sound out words this year, but it was just so clearly something that she had to work so hard at, yet I can give her pattern block pieces and ask her to make a mirror image of what she just created and she can do it!  She's interested in photography and building things and crafting and art.  She plays with clay for an hour at least straight and makes rainbow haired mermaids and ponies (She literally will separate the colors to make this happen if they've gotten mixed a bit!)  I love all this about her!  I want to encourage that, but how do I do it and how do I still homeschool?  I'm torn because I don't want to just let her do anything all day.  She's 7.. she needs some direction, but I'm realizing that I need to refocus where I direct her and how much I'm involved in it.  I'm available, but not sitting over her shoulder.  For a lot of this I just have to think back to how I felt as a kid and what I would have liked.  I remember playing with a marble building run a bunch and having to figure out how to adjust each area to make the marbles go down just right. This is something she would work at for hours.

Her new school is pretty different than it was.  I'm no longer making her read outloud every day or doing spelling words each week.

Lily was watching "Monster's Inc" and created this Mike Wazouski character all by herself out of pipe cleaners.

Last week after reading about the Right-brain dominant learners and finding out how bad it is to start them with reading and spelling together and before they are old enough (you know when people say that they hated reading before they were a certain age and then it suddenly "clicked"?  Yeah, that's because they were physically old enough to get it.  Their brain was at the age to start bridging the gap between hemispheres.)  I decided that I could combine Lily's love of art and drawing and natural right-brain dominant ability to gather pictures and needing a visual association to a word/concept.  I wrote out her spelling words on little sheets of paper and told her what they were and asked her to color them in any way she'd like to remind her of what that word is.  For "Click" she excitedly tapped all over the letters because it made a clicking sound as she did so.  Next step is to do a fun word search for her "word arts" in books that she likes to look at.

Lily's school is the most drastically changed of the two of my girls.  Besides doing her "word arts" we got a note-book today with files of the alphabet so that she can have a place for her words and pictures.

The notebook is covered in cats because when I asked her what she wanted to learn about in school she said "All things cats!"  She looooves big cats and little cats, so besides these things to help her store and gather information I've ordered a bunch of books through Amazon all about cats.  The Natural geographic kids and many others.  Also some puzzles and games that are cat themed as well which she is super excited about

I wrote out the words that match the pictures we've been going through together (I turned MFW kindergarten alphabet learning into a unit study type thing.

And you can see them up on the wall.  Lily especially loves to look at the pictures and remind herself what the letter sounds are.

Here is a book we already had about cheetahs.  Next step is to just have her flip through it and count how many times she can find the word "Cheetah" like her word art card.  I'll read the book to her as well of course.

Last year my husband was given a free camera that was worth at least twice as much as the old one I had, but the old one isn't junk either!  So, now that Lily is old enough, I gave her my camera with instructions on how to take care of it.  She enjoyed going all over the house taking pictures and most of them were quite good!  I bet she'd like to learn how to do some trick photography as well just for fun:  positioning things to look bigger or smaller and so on.  :}

And now for the left-brain dominant learner which I think describes my 5 year old a bit more closely.
     Left-brained dominant people are attracted to certain skills and subjects based on the two universal gift of their brain processing preference: word-based thinking and sequential processes. Reading, spelling, and writing are all word-based subjects. Each of these are also highly sequential in nature, including arithmetic. It makes sense that each of these types of learners will gravitate to the skills and subjects that enhance their natural strengths and skills.

 This chart was taken from "The Right Side of Normal" blog Post


 While my 7 year old Right-brain dominant girl delights me with her right brain strengths my 5 year old left-brain dominant girl delights me with her enthusiasm for words!  She speaks better than her older sister over all and loves to use big words.  She might not know what they mean, but she will still use them!  While my oldest can more easily create what she is picturing than describing it, my middle one will describe the people she's around within their hearing a bit too thoroughly sometimes.

When I told Renna that we were going to change her school a little bit to do more of what she wanted to do she said, "You mean I get to read my new book???!!!"  Yes, you can read as many books as you want!

See, I'd been trying to slow her down a bit (as in, not letting her go as fast through stuff as she wanted to) because I was afraid that I'd burned Lily out from doing too much too early.  As it turns out it wasn't too early, it was just what subject was too early.  Renna is left-learner dominant so she finds it easy to sound out and spell a word and did so more quickly than her older sister when I'd been working with the older one much longer and the little one had only been just overhearing what we talked about.  They are both talented of course and saying that one thing is easier now for one of them than the other doesn't mean the other one CAN'T or won't be able to be as good or better at whatever that subject or interest is when they are older, BUT the point is to understand the progression of how they learn.  Note the chart above again.

Renna will get some special new school things as well.  I got her some scratch and sniff pencils today for her school since she likes to do her handwriting and spelling.  After learning about the brain thing I tried to pay attention to what each girl was looking at when I was reading them a story.  When I pointed at the words that I was reading, Renna's eyes would follow along, but Lily's would not (she was too busy looking at the pictures.)

I'm really thrilled about this new discovery and can't wait to read more about the left and right brain dominant learners!  We've only been homeschooling for 3 years now, but that whole time I just felt off balance, like I knew that something didn't quite jive but I didn't know how to identify what needed to change.  My whole parenting and teaching philosophy has been to respect my children and their individuality.  Even when they are babies I don't want to brush off shyness for example or fear as "not a big deal" and leave them to cry with someone they don't know.  I know that some people do have to do this and yes I know that children adapt.  I'm not putting down other parents decisions, just trying to describe how I see things.  No matter what life style choices we make or have to make can't we continually work at making it fit our children's needs better?  If we can grow to understand how a child learns than we can more easily understand what they need and who they are and how we can encourage them whether we homeschool or not, we as parents or teachers, can encourage those things that they are naturally great at and keep them from being labeled at a young age.

If your child doesn't fit the system perhaps there isn't anything wrong with your child.. perhaps the system is the thing that isn't the right fit.

My 7 year old sitting my the 2 year old.  I can't tell yet what my littlest will need in the right or left-brain dominant areas.  Right now she loves to be read to and is pretty amazing verbally for her age, but she will sit for long periods of time playing with clay and using scissors to cut stuff up.  Right now she's experiencing it all and we'll just wait and see what she wants to dive into.  I've been surprised recently how well she will sit through longer picture books and point at things and ask, "What dat?"

Being a mom is hard enough what with trying to teach the kids to clean up after themselves or the other household chores and "life skills" necessary for them to learn to grow up into responsible adults, but adding a homeschooling plan that is draining and difficult is just not worth it.  I not only learned what my children need from me I realized how I actually want to teach them and how I can use my own strengths.  Instead of getting bored following a lesson plan, I like to play it by ear.  Read a lot to them and just notice everything we come into contact with.  The snail in the grass, the lizard on the rocks, the butterflies in the air, the clouds in the sky, seeing their excitement as they show me something they've discovered.  That's what I love.  I want to focus more on those things and delighting in this time right now.

The big "little" move

I need to write myself some “tips” for next time because I'm sure I'll forget what I've learned in this move.

• Get a bazillion boxes and pack everything and tape them closed (because the kids will pull stuff out if you don't) Don't leave any basket unpacked because the kids will get into it.  If you can though pack the stuff already organized.
• Pre-make gf foods so that meals are easy and/or buy convenience foods and easy snacks.
• Take down the pictures and wall hangings as one of the FIRST things instead of the last and wrap them in towels and blankets and tape it all down so they are protected and now the walls are ready to be cleaned and nail holes fixed.  Don't let other people help you pack unless you know them really really well.
• Do a deep “spring cleaning” in the weeks BEFORE you move so that when you go to clean it at the very end it won't take as long!
• It's hard to know what to leave out and what to pack so think of it in a reverse way... “Pack” as if you are going somewhere.. what are the basics of what you need for a week or two? Now really pack everything else and leave that bit out.
• Tape colored paper onto the boxes and have a “key” that shows which color goes into which room (green for kitchen, blue for bedroom, pink for girls room, etc.)  Writing doesn't work as well because you can't see it as clearly.
• Plan to have people come and move all the boxes in one big go instead of trying to do the layer moving.... because that's what your husband would rather do.
   Also, don't keep any sharp-edged furniture near a place where the kids play!
  
  
  
  
  And now the long version of our move for those people that like too much detail.  ;)
  
  
  It was a beautiful Thursday, sunny and not to hot or cold. The manager at our apartments thought she'd be able to get us the keys that night instead of the next morning. Yay! I'd finally get to see the new place and do some prep-work to get it ready for us to move in (you know, putting in shelf paper in the kitchen and cleaning those spots that they missed.) The kids were abnormally clingy that day and the baby wouldn't let me do anything without holding her, but I managed to pack more stuff from the upstairs and bring it down to the dinning room so it would be ready to move to the car. That night comes and I'm totally worn out and an emotional wreck (not exactly sure why... pms? Just the usual depression of missing my home and family? Not enough sleep? Or all three?) Anyway, when they said they couldn't give me the keys early it was a little disappointing, but then it wasn't just that they couldn't give them to me early, they were now going to have to give the keys to me at the END of Friday. We were having some guys come that Friday night to move the super heavy stuff (like my piano and wardrobe) because it was the only day they could make it work. So, any prep-time I had to move things and clean and all was gone. On Friday afternoon (while the baby slept) I was able to get the landrover cleaned out and the seats all down (car-seats and boosters out of the way) and got it half loaded. Then (while the babe was still sleeping) somehow the girls went from quietly watching a show to playing (aka pushing) and then Lily is screaming with her head down on the side of the coffee table with her legs on the couch and Renna looking guilty. Note to self-- never leave wood furniture with square edges by the couch.. or bed... or really any place in the house where the kids might fall and gash their head open. Yeah, she had a cut above her eye and it was bleeding a little too much and it was a little too open to not need stitches. My car was incapacitated at the moment (I would have had to unload it by quite a bit and then put the seats back in.) Plus the baby woke up because she heard Lily's very loud crying (so she was cranky and wanted help going back to sleep.) So, there we were. Lily laying on the couch patched up as best as I could do. Renna feeling sensitive because she'd gotten in trouble for pushing her sister. Me holding the sleeping baby and it was about 4 pm. The guys were coming at about 6 and then the manager called to tell us that she had the keys for us. … yay...
  
  
  I was texting Youssef who came home early to take Lily to the hospital for me and he was getting more and more anxious and stressed every second. I managed to finish packing the Landrover (which was pretty necessary as all the stuff was blocking the furniture that the guys were going to move!) And then went over to the new apartment to see it for the first time. On the way there, the guys that were supposed to set up our internet (that Youssef was so “on the ball” about getting scheduled as soon as possible) said that they'd been waiting for quite a while. So, Renna and Grace and I had to hang out at the new place while they tried to set up the internet. I did a few bits of cleaning while I was there and just got a feel for what was different about it (same layout, but 10 square ft bigger) and was pleasantly surprised to see a few extra shelves here and a few extra inches there. Getting to see the place was helpful in knowing where I wanted to put stuff. The internet couldn't be set up though because they thought the cable must have broken somewhere between the outside box and the connection inside. So, internet was off until the next Thursday when someone could come and fix that.
  
  
  At this point, Youssef is still gone with Lily as she gets 5 stitches and I am having to make dinner for the two little ones and myself (I was SO thankful that I'd gotten gluten free mac&cheese!) It was getting close to the time when the three guys were going to show up and I hadn't heard from Youssef yet and didn't know when he'd be home. My piano HAD to have at least four guys to move it and I didn't know who else to call or ask to come over. I did end up calling a friend to see if her husband could make it, but they were on their way to a meeting and couldn't send him. They gave me the number of another friend (I didn't have internet so couldn't find some of these connections myself since I don't normally call these people.) But I was able to get a hold of Youssef and found out that they were on their way back home so I didn't need to call anyone else. The guys showed up before Youssef did, but they were able to take my wardrobe out with just the three of them and Youssef and Lily showed up before they'd gotten it all the way down the stairs. Lily was a trooper, but it was NOT fun for her of course to get the stitches! And we had a time keeping her less active (no running, no pushing!) so she wouldn't bonk it and open it up again.
  
  
  Anyway, by the end of Friday the large furniture was over there and Youssef spent a few more hours moving “his own” stuff. He didn't think my method of filling up the Landrover and then driving it over was as efficient as walking armloads back and forth, so that's what he did. He got a good leg workout and said he was thankful that he didn't have a job in manual labor.
  
  
  Saturday morning arrived and we got up early to move the large stuff over first before it was going to rain! Yeah, it was now cold and windy and rain was threatening to come. Mattresses and the other large stuff that had to be walked over needed to go first. I'd built the bunk bed IN the girls room and didn't want to take it all apart so we hoisted it over the half wall in their loft room and lowered it down. This completely freaked Youssef out for some reason, though it worked perfectly well and we didn't drop or scrape anything. It was much faster then trying to take it down the stairs (and actually it wouldn't have fit down the stairs anyway.) When we got to the new place we hoisted it back up the same way (that was a little trickier but we were able to do it with just the two of us.) After that and doing the girls mattresses and taking other two person things over the last thing I had to help with was the queen mattress and I'll tell you what.. my arms weren't working so great at that point. BUT we made it through and none of those things got wet. We were now to the stage were Youssef could unload the Landrover and I could put those things away quickly so that we could go back and pack more and load and unpack (you get the idea.) Youssef called the unpacking/putting away part “digesting”... My job was to “digest” the stuff he brought in. At some point I had to stop to feed the kids, but Youssef didn't stop then and even though we'd had a few offers (from neighbors) to help us move we'd talked about how that wouldn't help because we hadn't finished packing. See, we were packing things at one location and taking it to the new place and unpacking in virtually the same location since the floor plans are almost identical. Takes longer than it would to just move boxes of course, but if you look at the time it takes to organize afterward with the unpacking this was saving me time later. The problem of course is that you have to do most of it yourself since no one can really help pack and organize your own things. We'd talked about it several times though and I thought I'd explained this “layer” way of moving.
  
  
  Then to my surprise Youssef comes in with a neighbor (not just any neighbor, but the one that is a little too intense and a little TOO friendly and we find out later she has some boundary issues) and Youssef said that she was helping us move. She was unloading as he spoke so I couldn't really say “oh no thanks we've got it covered” … yeah, so I'm in the new house needing to go to the dollar store to get shelf paper and a stranger is in my old house “packing” by doing things like, pulling out a little scrapbook present that I'd made (that was in a GIFT bag already) and jamming it into a plastic grocery back with my ratty recipe books. She did things like taking my spice rack and dumping it upside down into a bag. Actually, everything that was in a basket (that I'd organized in my kitchen) she turned upside down into bags. See, the layering way of moving is actually easier if you DON'T do stuff like that! I was planning on just taking stuff out of one closet or cupboard and putting it all in the same box or basket and taking it over so that I could just put it right away. As it was I found all of my silverware and utensils and every tiny thing that was in the drawers in my kitchen all jumbled together in a box. So, I had to wash even more things than I'd have needed to. Talk about a full load of dishes with just all the silverware and servings spoons and all? Yeah, not so helpful. I worked on some of that while putting the shelf paper in. At some point during my trying to get the kitchen actually ready to receive the mess that I was being given, the lady's husband came over to “help” too. He was probably more of a help as he seemed to be getting the big stuff instead of trying to pack all the tiny things. We'd talked about another friend coming and probably would have been ready (with boxes and things actually ready to go) but with the two neighbors helping we really had too much “help” but Youssef decided that we needed more help and instead of canceling with this friend he asked him to come over.
  
  
  It was pretty clear that the two guys were a bit miffed at how we were moving (I would have been if I were them!) and I was embarrassed about the old apartments condition and not sure how to stop the train wreck. I'd planned on throwing things away and cleaning appliances and stuff before moving them, but the way things were going I found my good gf chocolate in a bag with a thing of white flour (that was given to us for Youssef way back in the day that I never used because of the allergy thing and was going to throw away) .. That was a bit discouraging (both were open because I nibble on the chocolate for a long time.) I'd planned on organizing while packing (by throwing at least all the girls toys into their own boxes and all things that go in the same room in the same boxes.) Youssef was running like a mad man trying to move everything before the rain got worse (when everyone left the sun came out for a while, so my plan would have even worked better with the weather.) So, yes.. I think everyone was relieved when the extra people left (especially them I'm sure!)  I was probably dehydrated too because all the water that I had in a water dispenser for drinking (the tap makes me feel a little ill) was dumped out by the “helpful” neighbor. But I was more worn out from trying to deal with the train wreck then if we hadn't had so much “help.” Actually, when Youssef and I talked about moving in the weeks before I'd always said how I was more worried about too many people helping than not having enough people. We needed people for a few specific jobs, but other then that it was better with just us. What with all the stuff going on I think we finally actually finished dinner at almost 8 or something. Needless to say, the girls got to sleep pretty late. The baby finally went to sleep around 11 or something, and we'd pretty much untangled the stuff dumped everywhere. I was just turning off lights when the neighbor that had helped us knocked on the door. Hmm.. yeah, boundary issues? 11 pm or so and the kids are finally asleep and me in my pjs and she's asking if she could clean the old apartment for us because she'd offered to do it with me on Sunday and they were going to be gone on Sunday. I told her that we hadn't finished packing and moving everything. “Oh, I can do that for you.” She says. Yeah, I must have looked a little panicked when I tried to politely refuse by saying that I wanted to organize it while packing. So she offers to clean it up Sunday night because she's a night owl anyway. And I couldn't go to sleep till 2am because I was fretting and overly tired. I was actually worried that I wouldn't have it all cleaned before she came to “help” …..
  
  
  The next morning was “spring forward” so we were behind according to the clock, but we actually made pretty good time moving all the last of it out of the apartment. I went and had the girls help pack things and tried to make it fun for them (by sounding more enthusiastic then I felt.) We worked for a few hours and then had to break for lunch, but we got the landrover full again and the only things left were stuff we had to carry over (like all of my art) because it would have been more of a pain to package it all up for transport than to just carry a few over at a time and make several trips. Another neighbor (a nice sane one) offered to help and it actually did help because I had to nurse the baby to sleep and that way Youssef didn't need to take so many trips by himself. They chatted and it sounded like we could be friends with her and her husband.
  
  
  Around 5 or so that night we'd gotten everything out of the apartment and had to break for dinner. I was pretty tired and dragging my feet about going to clean it, but once I got over there I started to feel better in all the quiet. It got dark pretty fast though and I couldn't see what I was doing. It took so long just to take all the thumb tacks down and do other little things to get it ready for cleaning that by the time I was ready to clean it was almost 9. Youssef came over with me then to help with some of the stuff (washing marks off the walls and cleaning the blinds and so on) but when I had to leave to put the kids to sleep that was right about when the crazy neighbor came to “help.” I didn't know at the time if it would help or not, but lets just say that I had to re-clean everything that she cleaned. When I came back with the little one after putting the older ones to sleep she was convincing Youssef about all the places we didn't need to worry about cleaning. “Oh you don't have to clean the blinds.... Oh you don't have to worry about that or this because I've been here so many years and so-and-so didn't get in trouble for not doing that.” Well, I was determined to leave the place in better shape than when we came to it, so I just ignored her and said that I'd rather do too much than too little and it actually did say on the cleaning list from the management to clean the blinds and wipe everything down and so on. It was 11 something when we left the place. It still wasn't totally done and she'd offered to stay behind and finish, but I wanted to just wait and do it in the morning. It actually took me ALL the next day to finish the deep cleaning, but I think it was worth it. I left it in a condition that I would be comfortable moving into! Obviously they will paint and so on, but it was cleaned up better than the one we've moved into.
  
  
  I'm NOT ready to do a deep cleaning here yet though. I will of course, but only after I do all the organizing. It all turned out fine I suppose. Youssef was going to take the library dvds back on Saturday since they were due that day, but we missed that window and I was afraid we'd owe some late fees. No internet for several days so I couldn't renew online or even check what was due so that was frustrating. There was only the one case of major accident with stitches and all the cleaning and moving DID get done in the time amount that I thought it would... except we were given the keys a day late so it bumped the completion to the end of Monday instead of Sunday.  Still though, it's all done and I'm thankful to be here.  I needed to write this all out for myself so that I could know what to do next time.  I hate moving.