Teacher Notes

It’s been a good week, school-wise.

I am noticing a pattern in myself, every April/May when it’s time to wrap up some school year things, and I’ve already received the fall curriculum in the mail to review over summer, and I say, “Oh why not?!?” and start next year’s curriculum.

I haven’t done that yet.  I’ve already started toying with the idea, though.  It’s not that this year’s is done.  I wouldn’t say that.  It’s just even though we use a box set for curriculum, I’m gradually turning into a pull stuff together myself sort of teacher.  I like the box curriculum because it gives us stuff to do when I don’t pull it all together.  I give Silje a book to read.  I have her write a paper on it, and we talk about what she got right and wrong, and we discuss the book.  This last week she read and we discussed Number the Stars because she’s already read through this year’s readers and I don’t want to just tell her, “OK, you’re done for the year for reading.”  So I’m picking out some of my favorites from when I was her age.  She loved Number the Stars so much and that gave me lots of joy.  She was in so much suspense she did not put it down until it was ready cover to cover…twice.  We’ll start getting into WWII next year, so that was a good introduction to some subjects we’ll be discussing.

I’ve noticed at our library trips, she picks out the really pretty books, and I pick out my old favorites from my childhood that she would normally have never considered.  However, she likes the books I pick out most, so I’ve noticed when we get home from the library she digs into my pile first.  I feel so blessed that we both share an obsession with books.

It’s not that I’m taking on anything else, it’s that I’m becoming more comfortable in knowing where my kids are academically, and where they need to go next.  We just follow that path.

I’m really getting excited to dig into the things I got for next year.  I already let Silje start on the science.  She loves biology above all things.  She just started studying sea creatures, and is giving us random facts throughout the day.

She’s been acting bored, so we’ve stepped her up a bit to keep her challenged.  I don’t mind my kids spending their time reading or studying or playing or even staring at a plant outside, but I hate seeing their time wasted.  This often shows up when it takes them 30 minutes to do a 5 minute job, or asking me every 5 minutes if they can play on the computer.  So when they start showing a pattern of being wasteful with time, we started filling their time with better things.

We’ve switched her 30 minute piano practice a day to 45 minutes.  She was really upset about that.  It wasn’t a punishment, we just thought she’d get over a few humps with the extra time.  The funny thing is, she used to practice in the morning, and then play on the piano for fun in the afternoon for 15 minutes or so for fun.  Now that we’ve switched her to 45 minute practices in the morning, she plays for fun for 30-40 minutes in the afternoon during her free time.  I think she’s just enjoying the delight of doing something well.

I showed her this clip about a homeschooling family that all sent their kids to college early…just because they qualified.  Silje looked at me and said “can I do that?”

I should first clarify that I didn’t show it to her because I want her to go to college when she’s 12.  Far from it.  I wanted her to see kids…genuine kids doing things with their lives.  I wanted her to see that God has called us to prepare, yes, but adulthood can be something to grow into, not just arrive on some magical date.  I want her to see kids who do big things.  She wants to be a vet, so I told her she should probably plan get a degree in biology and then go onto grad school to be a vet.  So she started reading every biology book she can get her hands on.  Like I said, she’s studying ocean biology right now, which might be her favorite.

Anyway, I was trying to tell her that math is important for vets to know well.  She didn’t believe me so I talked about calculating weight and medication.  That’s the only application that I could think of, but I’m certain there’s more.  At any rate, it made sense to her.  She asked if she could take the college entrance exams early like the other kids in the video.

I told her not to grow up too fast

but…

if she wanted to be on the path to early college, she would need to start paying more attention to her writing and not rush through it so much, and she could do 2 math lessons a day instead of 1.  All the other subjects she’s far ahead with, and those 2 subjects she drags a bit.

“That’s easy.”

So that’s what she’s doing now.  She’s still fighting me a bit on the writing, but I’ve looked ahead to her program next year and she’s going to get plenty of work done then…or next week, I haven’t decided.  She has the tendency now to fill half the page of a 1 page writing assignment with the words written large: THE END.  Next year’s program looks so fun, I may just start it…like I’ve done every other spring. But as far as math goes, she faithfully does 2 lessons of work a day.  She’s about 1/2 a year ahead, making it one of her lesser subjects, but she just doesn’t like it.  I think it requires her to exercise her brain than her other subjects, and it takes her a long time to think about answers she thinks should be easy.  It frustrates her when she has to work for an answer instead of wait for it to pop in her head.  I like that she has to learn how to work about as much as I like her learning math.

I asked her yesterday when I was pulling our her math textbook, “so are you going to do one or two lessons today?”

“Two…you make me do two.” (with eyes rolling and lots of sighing.)
“Silje.  I make you do one.  That’s all I require.  One lesson a day.  However, if you decide to work harder and take that initiative, I won’t stop you from doing two a day.  I think you’re old enough to make that decision.”
I paused.
She smiled.
“I’m doing two.”

“Silje, this is your education, not mine.  You own it.  If there is something out there you want to study, don’t wait for someone to hand it to you.  If you want to get ahead, do the work.  Don’t give me the credit of pushing you towards it.  That’s all you.”

“Does that mean I get to study whatever I want now?”
“No, that means when you’re done with everything I say you must study, you can study extra of whatever you want.”

She smiled, and got to work.
It’s been a good week.

Since Silje got the focus of this week in this post, maybe I’ll switch back to another kid next week.