A Slew of Classics and a Handful of New Discoveries

So, I have this little problem with acquiring children's books:

Aside from the obvious space issues (this is one wall in the playroom/office) I really don't feel guilty about this because I bought the vast majority of them used (and back to the used book recycling system they will go when we are done).  One of my favorite sources for used books is the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Library Children's Book Sale (not to be confused with their general used book sale, whose children's book selection pales in comparison.)  Most years, early on some Saturday morning in January, I am on the library steps with two or three totebags waiting for the doors to open.  At a dollar a pound, the book sale is like an all you can eat buffet for bibliophiles.  My book acquisition priorities have changed over the years, but my strategy is always to go the sections in order of my greatest desire, grabbing first, weeding later.  In the early years, this meant going straight for the picture book section in the back of the room and grabbing any softcover book that was a medal winner, by an author or illustrator I loved, or that just plain looked interesting.  Baboon falls into the last category and it leads off the latest round of picture books from the The New York Times Book Project

Baboon

Written by Kate Banks and Illustrated by Georg Hallensleben

This is my favorite kind of kid's book: it's simple text and illustrations manage to convey deeper meaning that even young children can understand.  A baby baboon's mother introduces him to the ways of the world while on a walk in the savannah.  The tale appeals to all ages (toddler, big kid, and mom) and can be used to introduce toddlers to a range of African animals in their native habitats. For older kids it makes a great jumping off point for philosophical discussions about our place in the world and our relationships to the people and things around us.

Blackboard Bear

Written and Illustrated by Martha Alexander

Since I didn't read this, here is Bean's review: This is a cute book for older siblings to read to their younger siblings.  A little boy tries to play with the older boys but when they don't let him, he makes a bear on a blackboard and the bear only let's the boy play with him, ride him or feed him.  The moral of the story is that if you don't let someone play with you or your toys, they won't let you play with them or their toys.

Blueberries For Sal

Written and Illustrated by Robert McCloskey

About ten years ago, I convinced Dr. Yap to take a detour on our way home from Southern California and stop in Solvang, a cheesy faux-Danish town, that's only a little less cheesy and a little less faux than Helen, Georgia.  Besides the bakery, the only place of interest was a bookstore where I picked up Blueberries for Sal and another childhood favorite.  I knew I'd be reading them to someone at some point in the future.  If you've already read this a hundred times, look for another McCloskey classic, One Morning in Maine.  It's not exactly a sequel, but Sal appears as a big sister about to lose her first tooth.

Homeschool Connection: You could google Blueberries for Sal lesson plans and get at least a dozen suggestions for early elementary students, or you could spend the same amount of time thinking about Maine, black bears, and blueberries and come up with a week's worth of activities on your own.

The Boy Who Ate Around

Written and Illustrated by Henrik Drescher

This tale of a boy who eats doesn't his dinner so instead eats around it and ends up eating everything including his best friend, his parents, and the earth just didn't appeal to Bean and I.  The illustrations didn't redeem the unpleasant text and we were glad we read it at the library and didn't have to bother putting it in the bag.

Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain: A Nandi Tale

Written by Verna Aardema and Illustrated by Beatriz Vidal

We've had this book in our home library for years, so I'll let Bean do the reviewing honors again: It's a great book for Africa-lovers like me and it's very catchy.

Homeschool Connection: This a great literature companion for a unit on Africa.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Written by Bill Martin, Jr. and Illustrated by Eric Carle

Another Bean review: This is great for learning your colors, the words are fun to say, and because the illustrations are by Eric Carle, they are really beautiful.  Boo also likes it.

Caps For Sale

Written and Illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina

If you typically tell your child the name of an author before you read a book, this one is a lot of fun and demands as a grandiose an Eastern European accent at you can muster.  The story itself - of a peddler, his caps, and some mischievous monkeys - is great fun for kids to act out.  If you've already read this a hundred times, check out  Circus Caps for Sale.

The Carrot Seed

Written by Ruth Krauss and Illustrated by Crockett Johnson

Bean says this book is for kids with big dreams and teaches that something big can come from something small.  I would also add The Carrot Seed preaches the importance of believing in oneself and one's work, despite what anyone else says.  Crockett Johnson's drawing style is a perfect match for the spare text.

Cat Up A Tree

Written by Ann Hassett and Illustrated by John Hassett

The fun illustrations in this tale of Mrs. Quimby, multiplying cats, and a local community unwilling to help until there is a mouse problem feature many things to count - especially cats.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Written by Bill Martin, Jr. and Illustrated by Lois Ehlert

This fun alphabet book is really aimed at Boo's age group, but Bean and I like to experiment with the rhythm of the words: singing them like a reggae song, speaking them in syncopation, adding movements to the story.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

Written by Judith Barrett and Illustrated by Ron Barrett

If you have only ever seen the movie, you must immediately acquire a copy of the book and expunge the memory of the movie from your children's minds.  Pickles to Pittsburgh isn't quite as good as its progenitor, but get that one too.  I always like to read Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord with these books and I think it's a travesty that it wasn't included in the Guide.

Corduroy

Written and Illustrated by Don Freeman

Really, who doesn't love this charming tale of a teddy bear with one missing button on a mission to find both himself and a home?  Well, Bean doesn't.  She thinks it's one of the weirdest books she's ever read- or had read to her - and thinks his eyes are creepy to boot.  To her, Corduroy is the literary equivalent of a clown.  It's the only childhood favorite of mine that was a total strikeout with her.  Boo and I remain fans of the teddy bear in green overalls.

Curious George

Written and Illustrated by H.A. Rey

Um, Bean also hates Curious George.  She was always (I think appropriately) horrified that he was stolen from his jungle home and appropriated by a man with no name, a man known only by his ubiquitous accessory.  Okay, fair enough, these things always bothered me a bit too, but even though I wouldn't count the monkey or his "friend" as favorites, I always liked his adventures to the hospital and the moon.  And Boo?  Curious George is his absolute favorite.  

Dance

Written by Bill T. Jones and Susan Kuklin and Illustrated by Susan Kuklin

Dance is one of the rare children's books illustrated entirely with photographs.  That alone makes it worthy of inclusion in the Best Books for Children.  Though short on words, both it's text and pictures easily convey the poetry and rhythm of dance.  Even kids who don't love dance as much as Bean will like this one.  

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate The Wash

Written by Trinka Hakes Noble and Illustrated by Steven Kellogg

Bean and Boo loved this farcical tale of Jimmy's wayward pet boa constrictor so much that they immediately demanded we check out every silly sequel.  Steven Kellogg is a prolific children's book illustrator and author and you will probably recognize his fun, colorful drawings.  As with the best picture books, the illustrations in Jimmy's Boa support and extend the story of the day Jimmy took his boa on a field trip or the day he went to school, or the day he showed up - surprise!- at a birthday party.  

Drummer Hoff

Written by Barbara Emberley and Illustrated by Ed Emberley

We've been fans of Ed Emberley's drawing instruction books for a while now, but never new that he also illustrated children's books.  This odd little gem fits my description of a perfect children's book: it's short, but both the graphic illustrations and the text pack a punch; it's a bit weird, and it's the kind of book that both an eight-year-old and a two-year-old want to pick up again and again on their own, going through each page.  Without reading the two-year-old knows exactly what is happening.  Despite the fact that all the action centers around a Revolutionary War cannon, Drummer Hoff and his compatriots are more unabashedly, amusingly, bungling than war-mongering. (And the illustrations are so late 60's - a hit, with my just-turned 40, nostalgic self).

Ernest and Celestine

Written and Illustrated by Gabrielle Vincent

Once again, Bean and Boo were split evenly along lines of age and personality when it came to these books about a former circus Bear raising a mouseling.  I agree with Bean that the storylines are a little thin and the ambiguous relationship between the adult bear Ernest and the childlike Celestine seems a bit, dare-I-say-it-I-know-this-is-a-children's-book, contrived.  I also agree with Boo, who thinks the illustrations are pretty and stories sweet.

Synching Up

I am a listmaker.  I love writing and revising lists and crossing things off and writing new lists.  Book lists, task lists, grocery lists, I love them all.  I especially love when, as this week, one of the items on my To Do list is to make a list.  After six weeks of time off from school for traveling and appointments and pneumonia (me) and a tonsillectomy (Boo), my big task for the week is to plan out the next few months of homeschooling - roughly through the end of summer.  As I get out my favorite list-making notebooks and say hi to Rebecca Rupp again, I keep receiving lists on Facebook and in my email and feedreaders that are meant for the rest of the country. And by "the rest of the country" I mean non-homeschoolers.  You know, normal people who do things at the same time and on the same schedule as everyone else.

When the first list of Cool-Things-To-Do-With-Your-Kids-This-Summer-So-You-Don't-Drive-Each-Other-Crazy popped up on my screen two things went through my head.  The first was, "It's summer?" (living on the central coast of California we are never in the same season as 95% of the rest of the country.)  The second was the theme song to "Phineas & Ferb."  [Google it- it's a Disney Channel cartoon and the kid's are right, it's actually pretty good.] By the second and third list, I started to get twitchy, like there was something I should be doing but wasn't.  I mean these were lists, right?  They were inviting me to make my own lists of indoor and outdoor fun and ways to maximize the family togetherness and minimize the screen time.  How could I keep trashing these lists and booting them off my feedreader unread?

I had this same feeling of dissonance last September when we had already been "doing school" for several weeks and all of a sudden every media outlet was crackling with school supply sales and and lists of how to survive every aspect of "school" from making lunch and the container in which it should be carried to how to manage homework and your kids' teachers. It took me a week of needling Bean about her handwriting and her refusal to do fifty versions of the same math problem (and I'm sorry to say more than one threat to march her over to the local public elementary school) before I realized I was borrowing angst from fifty million other parents.  Really, angst is not something that's in short supply around here so there's no need to suffer it vicariously.

As in September, the solution to making peace with our summer-time asynchronicity is to knuckle down and get my head around the next few months of homeschooling.  Once we are settled back into our own routine, it won't matter so much that the rest of the world thinks it's summer vacation.

Except that it kind of does matter what the rest of the world is doing in both positive and inconvenient ways.  On the positive side, there are many more daytime camps and workshops available during the summer, and Bean has kids her own age to play with (or around as the case may be) no matter what time we show up at the park.  For Boo, he gets a little more one on one time with me while Bean is off at her various summer-only activities.  On the inconvenient side, we have to share some places that we might normally have to ourselves during the school year, like the beach or the library, with so many people it's a different experience.  And as clever as we think we are to travel when most other kids are in school, this can backfire, as it did when we showed up in DC for one day with several thousand junior high kids having their turn at the annual pilgrimage for the entitled.  Or when we showed up at the La Brea Tar Pits in LA during the first week in June, which this homeschooling mom had forgotten is designated school field trip week.

As I continue to plow through my list ("Homeschool Lesson Plan Summer 2011") and try to ignore everyone else's summer plans, a post titled "Getting Organized for an Intentional Summer" came across my feed reader.  The contents may be aimed at the "rest of the country," but the title spoke to me.  That's exactly what my current list and the schedules it will drive are all about.  I may not be intentionally planning carefree days or intentionally planning to cross items off a summer bucket list, but I am regrouping with intention for the next few months of home learning.

In our first year and a half of homeschooling I have found that periods of downtime followed by a renewed focus seem to come naturally, often after a period of travel or through the completion of educational goals or change in educational focus.  We already changed our educational focus several months ago, going back to an eclectic approach - based on the afore-linked book by Rebecca Rupp -  after a trial run with a packaged curriculum.  But after six weeks off, it's time to look again at what we're doing and make tweaks where necessary.

One of the first changes I am making is to shift our reading time to the beginning of the day.  It just hasn't been happening for us at the end of the day lately and that's something I don't want to lose.  Although Bean reads on her own, I want to make sure there is diversity and continued challenge in her reading selections, so we will take turns reading books from the New York Times Children's Book list.  With most other subjects, it's just a matter of reminding myself of where we are and making lists (Yes!) for the library.  All our recent museum visits while traveling have renewed my desire to include trips to local museums in our "curriculum."  This isn't the first time I have set this as a goal, but it often seems to lose the extracurricular activity competition.  I am writing it into our schedule this time to see if that helps.  Every week seems too ambitious and likely to lead to museum ennui.  We'll try every other week on a designated day.

As I finish up my list and turn it into our summer schedule, it matters less that we are out of sync with everyone else and more that we are in sync with our family's intentions and what works for us.  And that  is pretty much my one-line homeschooling manifesto.

Break Schooling

We have spent most of May either preparing to travel, travelling, or recovering from travel - not a lot of schooling going on here.  But that's okay, that's why we more or less homeschool year round, it takes the pressure off.  If we blow off the month of November to go to Hawaii, or oops, don't get anything done in May, it's okay.  Bean doesn't have to worry about making up any homework when she's sick and I don't have to sweat days that are more about appointments than academics.

This was our big spring family trip, a birthday trip since Bean and I both celebrated ours while abroad.  We flew in and out of Dulles, with brief forays to DC and Baltimore and a longer stint in Williamsburg, Virginia.  I know many homeschoolers would have turned the itinerary into curriculum, but that's just not how Dr. Yap and I do things on vacation.  As it was, we had a much busier trip than we normally do and it was chock full of educational opportunities, both intentional and serendipitous.

Flying from right to left across the country means that the first day was dedicated to travel.  The only thing we learned - besides the limits of parental sanity when traveling with a two-year-old, an eight-year-old, and a grandmother - is that Virgin America is a very civilized airline.  Everyone and everything was so pleasant, we didn't mind paying for all checked bags and anything beyond the first drink.

It also helped that after years of trial and error, I think I actually perfected the on-board entertainment for each kid.  I bought each of them a legal-size flat plastic pouch with a zipper at our local art supply store for $1.99.  Each one was stocked with age and personality appropriate art supplies and activities and both bags fit nicely in a ziptop tote bought from Target for less than $20.  These art pouches were pulled out over and over again during down time at each hotel.  For the way home, I streamlined each pouch, putting things that hadn't been touched during the trip in the suitcase and adding in a few new things we picked up along the way.

We spent our first two nights on the fringes of Old Town Alexnadria, on the Virginia side of DC, and took one day in DC to see what we thought would be most interesting to Bean and Boo.  Of course, two-year-olds and eight-year-olds have different ideas about what is worthy of their attention, but we had Oma in tow so we figured between the three of us, we'd work it out.

Dr. Yap and I are both city girls at heart, but for one reason and another, we have spent the last decade in a town that has many monikers, but compared to any metropolis I like to refer to it as Hicksville-by-the-Sea.  We thrilled for the chance to ride a proper subway - a clean, well-lit subway with good signage to boot.  The last time either one of us rode the Metro (though not together) was during the 1993 March on Washington for GLTBQandeverothersexualother.  So even though we had to figure out the complex fee structure instead of riding for free and even though the drag queens in all their colorful regalia were replaced by Queen Bean in all her colorful regalia (and Oma wearing the first of what I think were 10 separate coral colored t-shirts - I'm not complaining, it made her easy to find) - we made a point of taking the Metro.  Fun was had by all.

After a brief foray into the Smithsonian "Castle" to get our bearings we made a beeline for the cafeteria at the Natural History Museum (eating at odd hours is the most inconvenient part of traveling from coast to coast.) After fueling up and making a presumably unavoidable stop in the obligatory cafeside museum shop, we headed straight for the second floor Insect Zoo.  Bean loved trying to suss out all the creepy crawlies in their cages and Boo just thought it was creepy.  He had a similar sentiment about the forensic anthropology exhibit titled "Bones."  After about twenty minutes he declared himself finished with this dark, "yucky" museum and Dr. Yap left with him, heading towards the Air and Space Museum.

Bean, Oma, and I took advantage of the toddler's absence and meandered slowly through this fantastic Bones exhibit, a good portion of which relied on the local Chesapeake Bay area to provide historical forensics cases.  Bean, of course, was most interested in any part of the exhibit showing teeth, and their were plenty.  The whole thing culminated with a visit to the forensic anthropology lab, where Bean had an education specialist, a bunch of jaws, and lots of dental x-rays all to herself for at least half and hour.  After those two exhibits we felt like we had gotten our monies worth (admission to many Smithsonian museums is free) and meandered toward the Air and Space Museum.

We were waylaid for an exceedingly pleasant half an hour in the Sculpture Garden outside the Hirshhorn  Museum.  For a while, Oma and I did nothing more than contemplate the wonderfully odd, but sublime architecture of the Hirshhorn and watch Bean run barefoot laps around the central fountain and in and out of the Sculpture Garden.  Then Bean discovered not one, but two birds who met a sad fate at the hands of the Hirshhorn windows and asked Oma to film her made-up-on-the-spot nature series.  Once she started poking the poor creatures with leaves to compare their anatomies and injuries, it was time to continue our sojourn to the Air and Space Museum.  (We found out later that Dr. Yap and Boo had taken a short break in Hirshhorn garden as well.  It really is a wonderful oasis right off the Mall.)

I wish I had seen Boo's joy in the Air and Space museum firsthand, but by the time we arrived, he and Dr. Yap were already in the museum shop and Bean had as much interest in the air and space craft as Boo had in the Natural History Museum treasures.  I know he loved going in the airplanes and spaceships (as he put it) because we heard a lot about both for the next few days.  The museum as a whole looks like it's getting about as much funding as NASA is these days, despite the heavy foot traffic. It was exactly the same as I remembered it from my last visit more than 25 years ago.

We didn't spend much time in Old Town Alexandria, other than to sample the local seafood for dinner, but we happened to be there on a Friday evening when the Torpedo Factory Art Center was having an opening and Bean discovered her new favorite contemporary artist, Leslie Blackmon.  Her Baa-America!  show featured crocheted 3-D sheep in the guise of famous artists and celebrities.  Bean's favorites were Jackson Baa-Ollock and Martha St-ewe-art.

The next day, we drove to Baltimore, which is home to the world's oldest dental college and that dental college, now part of the University of Maryland, is home to the National Museum of Dentistry.  Yes, that's right, my tooth-obsessed Bean discovered that one of her favorite kid-oriented dentistry websites, MotherPower Online, was the online home of the National Museum of Dentistry.  We'd been trying for a while to organize a trip to Williamsburg and when we found out about the museum, we knew this would be a perfect addition to the birthday voyage.  As we started trying to figure out how we were going to make all these different locations fit into one trip, we discovered that Baltimore has a little more going for it than the dentistry museum.

We stayed right on the Inner Harbor, and only had a chance to explore a fraction of this redeveloped waterfront, filled with a mall, restaurants, museums, decommissioned Naval and Coast Guard vessels and a Revolutionary War era fort.  The first stop, before even checking into our hotel, was the National Dentistry Museum.  The Museum is on two partial floors of the original College of Dentistry, which itself is right in the middle of the University of Maryland medical complex. We had the whole place to ourselves and it was obviously well-funded and the exhibits were very up-to-date (one was about DNA and genetic link to oral health.) We spent about an hour-and-a-half there and although I think Bean enjoyed finally being there, I think she was disappointed that we were the only ones there and I think that she was actually far more engaged in the forensic anthropology exhibit at the Natural History Museum in DC.  She wanted to go back the next day, hoping there would be other kids who share her unique enthusiasm.  Dr. Yap and I were a little relieved when the kids decided they were too worn out from the excellent children's museum, Port Discovery.  We don't mind indulging her passion at all, and truly hope she will find someone with whom to share her interest, but we aren't eager to see her get hurt if her chosen audience rebuffs her willingness to disgorge all she knows about dentistry and orthodontia.

Since it was right there across the street from our hotel, we also visited the National Aquarium.  I don't know if we were tainted by our many experiences at our local Monterey Bay Aquarium, or if our assessment was truly fair, but no one was impressed.  Boo thought it was too dark (this is a theme with him, and being two, it's a big criteria for him - that and how much freedom he has to run around.) Bean thought both the individual exhibits and the museum as a whole were poorly laid out and difficult to navigate.  Dr. Yap thought there was too much concrete and too many large photographs of fish were there should have been actual fish.  My two favorite aquariums, the aforementioned Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga both focus almost exclusively on local water life and I really think the National Aquarium missed the boat in neither focusing mostly on the rich Chesapeake Bay nor clearly curating exhibits of American water life region by region.  The curation was all over the place regionally and lacked focus.  Oma thought it was just too much darn walking.

After two nights in Baltimore, we headed south to Williamsburg, stopping outside Richmond to see some of my relatives whom we have always seen far too infrequently.  We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, a water park resort, which is an experience itself.  The water park was a blast but the main attraction was proximity to the Colonial Triangle of Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown.

Dr. Yap has never visited the patriotic trifecta (and please don't ask her to rate her interest in these sights on a scale from one to ten, her answer is probably not on the scale and probably not an integer) but I've been twice before and have wanted to take Bean ever since she became interested in the American Colonial era a year ago.  The first time I visited Williamsburg, I was six and it was the summer after the Bicentennial (please don't feel the need to do the math).  I don't know if was because Williamsburg was still awash in the glow of the Bicentennial celebration or if my memory is wonky, but I remember having a blast with the historical interpretations and with hands-on demonstrations of making marbled paper and dipped candles.

For whatever reason - it was too hot for my family of Coastal California weather wimps, it was too early in the season for everything to kick into high gear, we took the wrong advice about where to park and ignored the right advice about attending an orientation - this was not the same experience.  Bean did love the wigmaker, who was properly and humorously in character, and found the blacksmith shop fascinating; and Boo took full advantage of access to dozens of doors that he was allowed to march up to and try opening.  Much of the rest of Williamsburg seemed lacking and after two half-days trying to make it the historical experience extraordinaire, we decided to pack it in and head to Jamestown and Yorktown, which we had initially planned to overlook.

And we would have been so wrong had we overlooked the amazing state parks at Jamestown and Yorktown.  That's right, state parks.  If you want to see what's left of the actual settlement at Jamestown or the actual Revolutionary war battle site at Yorktown, by all means visit the federal parks in those locations.  If you want to have a historical experience extraordinaire, buy a combined ticket for the two state parks (the tickets are good for an entire year), Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center.  The parks are about 15 miles apart and each sit near their federal counterparts.  The facilities are so nicely done, with museums inside and vast interpretive areas outside, that I just couldn't get over that these were state parks.  We can't even keep all of our state parks open in California, let alone provide them with enough funding to offer visitors such a complete experience.

We visited the Jamestown Settlement first and spent about 2.5 hours there.  The site has three separate outdoor interpretive areas: a Powhatan Native American village, life-size models of the three ships which brought the first English settlers to the area in the early 17th century, and the Jamestown fort.  All three sites were fully staffed with people in period costume who fully embodied their characters.  I didn't hear any questions they couldn't answer with gusto.  We were allowed to fully interact with the interpretive environment in each area (except they prudently disallowed Boo from firing a musket during the quarter-hourly demonstrations.) We wandered in and out of Powhatan homes, and up and down the three ships, and Bean even tried a straw mattress in the Fort.  In the Native American village, we noticed four staff members in traditional clothing, each taking part in one of the daily tasks that would have been commonplace in such a village at the time.  A fifth staff member was demonstrating how to shape a needle out of deer bone that had been generously provided by registered hunters in present-day Virginia and she invited Bean to try her hand at running the bone splinter along the sharp edge of a rock.  We noticed this staff member was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and had an ID badge.  It turns out, she was new and hadn't yet made her deer skin dress.  In addition to doing extensive research in primary sources and the most trusted historical research, staff at Jamestown learn hands on how their character would have lived.  As Bean and I were invited to use an oyster shell to help the new staff member scrape the hair off one of the three hides stretched on frames around the village, it became obvious why the interpretive team was able to provide such thorough answers.  There were a few anomalies, such as a female blacksmith in the fort and a woman among one of the ship's crew, but they were so good at what they did who were we to quibble?

We finished the day by giving ourselves a self-guided driving tour of the federal area at Jamestown and headed to the Yorktown Victory Center the next day to experience live on an early farm and life among the soldiers encamped at Yorktown during the Revolutionary War.  The kids weren't quit as impressed with this one, but the adults were pleased.

When were weren't soaking up science and history, we tested the strength of our stomachs on the waterslides at Great Wolf.  The next time, we take a trip like this, I will try to remember to take more photographs of edumacational stuff for our homeschool consultant (I apparently started and stopped taking photos at the poorly-lit dentistry museum.)  I'd also try to encourage Bean to use her art materials and journal a little more along the way to document the experience, not just as hotel-room and airplane entertainment.

Now, to try getting back to regularly scheduled homeschool "programming."

Cranberries and Cheese

Pretty much everyday, Bean and I have a salad with our lunch.  It's a simple salad: washed baby greens and olive oil with a generous helping of dried cranberries and goat cheese, blue cheese, or feta cheese on top.  The greens are the important part, just that alone would be sufficient, but the cranberries and cheese give it added flavor and nutritional punch.

That's exactly how I view music and art in our curriculum.  We could do without either one and we'd still be meeting the state requirements and the kids would be learning a sufficient amount of academics to get along in the world.  Life and learning are much richer for Bean and Boo when they have music and art, and not just what they absorb in the world around them, but when we intentionally introduce them to artists, composers, movements, and the vocabulary of art and music.

With both art and music, the instruction possibilities can be divided into three areas: practical (hands-on production of art and music), theory (composition, vocabulary, themes), and appreciation/history.  Typically, as far as I can tell from my experience, schools focus on a limited combination of practical and theory for both art and music, until kids reach the point where orchestra and band are offered. I remember only having art in early elementary school, about fourth grade, then it disappeared entirely for students on strictly academic, college-bound track.  Kids who were encouraged to go a more vocational route, may have taken art and/or drafting in junior high and high school.  Unless a student was in band, orchestra, or one of the choirs, music was over at about fourth grade too.  Since I am the teacher, principal, superintendent and school board (not to mention the comptroller), I get to decide what kind and how much music and art instruction my kids get.

One of the many things that enamores me to the curriculum laid out by Rebecca Rupp in Home Learning Year by Year, is that she outlines a very thorough program for music and art, giving them almost as much real estate as the "academic" subjects.  Actually, she treats them as academic subjects, giving them serious heft.

We have tried over the years to introduce music lessons to Bean and whether she was too young or the teachers were not a good fit is open to debate, but so far nothing has stuck.  I am determined to keep this idea alive and keep offering the possibilities whenever they arise or whenever we are at a curriculum turning point (otherwise known as new grade levels).  She insists that she only wants me to teach her, so in September, I ordered the first level of the Alfred Piano Course for Beginners, figuring I could at least get us started with my four years of forgotten piano lessons and that I would be learning too.  It was going okay at the beginning, but Bean soon complained bitterly about the illustrations in the books and the names and content of songs.  I promised myself that I would keep going with the lessons myself so she would absorb something and hopefully join in eventually, but that soon fell by the wayside.  Recently we have been talking about looking for another piano course with a different format - maybe a course intended for adults.

I don't dwell too much on music theory since Bean isn't doing an instrument at the moment.  I do go over the Music section in each grade's edition of What Your ...Grader Should Know: notes, rests, measures, time signatures, etc.

For me, the real fun is the music appreciation.  I see great irony in this. Neither of my parents were at all in tune with popular music when I was a kid (this made the musical predilections of my adolescence all the more alarming to them, delicious to me).  My mother in particular was emphatically interested in classical music and classical music only.  I remembered the on-going negotiations over the requirements for my attendance at the small symphony in my hometown.  The first concession was getting to wear jeans, then bringing a book (and being allowed to read it), the final coup de grace was getting to bring my WalkMan (and getting listen to Tears For Fears instead of Tchaikovsky).

During the fall, we went through The Story of Orchestra  (a Costco purchase from years ago) and listened to the accompanying selections.  We also read about the composers listed in What Your Third Grader Should Know and delved into our iTunes library for the featured pieces.  Currently, we are using a library copy of Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times, and What the Neighbors Thought to learn about different composers.  This book features short, slightly irreverent biographies of about twenty composers both famous and not so well-known, with descriptions of several of their compositions at the end of each bio.

I love these little interludes in our school week and although Bean's interest level ranges somewhere between indifferent and mildly intrigued, the closest she has come to negotiating her way out of it is insisting that she get to pick the composer each week.  I readily concede because I'm always curious who she'll pick and why.  Recently, she picked Clara Schumann because she had never heard of a woman composer before (alas, the only recordings we were able to come up with where her husband's.)

We follow a similar trajectory for art, though the hands-on part pretty much takes care of itself.  Bean has always been a prolific artist.  I have always made all art supplies readily available except the printmaking  tools and the acrylic paints.  These are the only two things on a high shelf because I like to know before my kids use supplies that could cause permanent damage to themselves or others.  Very often, Bean and Boo are working on art projects while I am reading history, science, or fiction aloud to them.  I may pull out something new or little used once in a while, but mostly I stay out of the way and try to remember to save samples for our public school consultant.

As with music, the only theory we cover is the lessons in What You're...Grader Should Know.  I figure it won't hurt her to learn the technical vocabulary of art, though I have yet to see her explore the finer points of composition on her own.  (Though she is a mean color mixer.)

No matter.  The real fun is inflicting art history upon her - um, I mean exposing her to artists past and present.  Despite growing up in proximity to the Art Institute of Chicago, I didn't know of any artists but Monet and Georgia O'Keefe until college so I feel like this is a gift to Bean and Boo, rather than education.  Bean genuinely enjoys this, but either loves an artist or is indifferent.  She's been drawn to Van Gogh since she was young, and her current favorite is Frida Kahlo.  (I'm really hoping there's a Frida Halloween costume in my future.)  By coincidence, we are using Lives of the Artists, from the same series as the music volume.  Bean picks an artist, we read about him or her then look up their work on the internet and in The Art Book, which we have at home.  She picked Andy Warhol after seeing an Arthur episode with a Warhol character and Hokusai after seeing an exhibit of an artist who used trash to recreate Hokusai works at our local marine science center.

She may not be impressed by art theory, but she often creates art in the style of an artist who's made an impression on her, and that's enough applied theory for me.

Of course, actually experiencing live music and art in person is the best education there is, and we do that as much as we can, but between having a toddler and Bean's aversions to noise and crowds, we don't do that as much as I'd like.  For now, I just settle for cranberries and cheese to inject a little calm and beauty into a haphazard or rancorous homeschool day.

In the Beginning There Were Picture Books

Okay, so it's not the absolute beginning of the The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children, but the Picture Book section is close enough and whether anointed by some list or merely a parent's childhood favorite, picture books are the beginning of many a childhood milestone: first book at laptime, naptime, and bedtime; first book read on one's own after many readings by a parent; the first time a parent is rewarded with hearing that their childhood favorite is their child's too; the first time a parent realizes their childhood favorite is completely and almost unredeemably politically incorrect.

Except for a handful of stragglers, and a few we just couldn't find, we have made our way through most of the 230+ books in this section.  Among them were some truly sublime treasures, some books that were fine but would not have made our family Best Of list, and some real stinkers that maybe we are either too immature or too high-fallutin' to appreciate.  According to the Guide, picture books "have simple texts, and for the most part, a very young child can study them and understand what they are about...Picture books are principally for preschool-age children, but school-age children often continue to enjoy them." (Lipson, p. 11.)  Having an eight-year-old and a two-and-a-half year old, I can attest to the accuracy of that definition.

So, here we go with the first round of picture books.  (I am using the same reviewing conventions as with the Wordless Books.)


10 Minutes Till Bedtime
Written and Illustrated by Peggy Rathman
This was an unexpected pleasure.  It's by the author of Goodnight Gorilla, so I knew Boo would probably like it, but was prepared to grit my teeth and just get through it.  I didn't think Bean would pay much attention.  I was wrong on all counts.  Everybody had fun with this book, following an unruly group of hamsters through a boy's bedtime routine and shouting out the countdown to bedtime on each page.  (This is the only text and I would therefore have put it in the Wordless Book section, but alas, I do not work for the Times and no one asked me). The illustrations are fun and include a visual reference to Goodnight, Gorilla, which delighted everyone when we found it.

101 Things To Do With A Baby
Written and Illustrated by Jan Ormerod
As soon as this book about a 6-year-old girl's relationship with her baby brother came home, Bean commandeered it.  She read it aloud to whomever happened to be in the room, punctuating every few entries in the list of things to do with a baby (diaper changes, feedings, playing, etc.) with exclamations that she wished she had had this book when Boo was a baby.  That all stopped somewhere about 83 on the list when the girl was mean to the baby.  Instead of reading on to see how this was handled and whether or not the girl mended her ways, Bean instantly declared the child unfit for big sisterhood and closed the book.  Back in the library bag it went, never again to see the light of day in our house.

17 Kings and 42 Elephants
Written by Margaret Mahy
I wish I had more to say about this book, but even though Patricia's McCarthy's illustrations were beautiful, the text just didn't grab our attention.  A fine library check-out, but not on our grand list.

A Firefly Named Torchy
Written and Illustrated by Bernard Waber
The illustrations in this 1970 book about a firefly who's light is just too bright in the country are, well, exactly like the art that assaulted me during my early-70's childhood.  Nevertheless, Bean and I liked the story of the misfit firefly who headed to the bright lights of the big city.


A Teeny, Tiny Baby
Written and Illustrated by Amy Schwartz
This quiet book has a little something for everyone: the illustrations are pretty with just enough detail, Boo described the story as "thweet," and I could relate to the dazed by happy sleep deprivation portrayed by the infant's parents.  Funny, the kids didn't pick up on that part.

Aardvarks, Disembark
Written and Illustrated by Ann Jonas
We are big fans of Ann Jonas' books.  Her simple, graphical style betrays her background as a graphic designer and her spare text aims to convey the biggest amount of information with the least amount of text.  (Her Color Dance was in constant rotation when Bean was a toddler.) In Aardvarks, Noah lists the names of exotic animals (many extinct) as they leave the boat.  This book definitely passed the all ages test as both the toddler and the big kid enjoyed it, but for different reasons.  Bean liked the vocabulary and Boo loved looking at the different animals. (Ann Jonas is married to Donald Crews, another great children's book author with graphic style: Harbor, Freight Train, and Trucks are all favorites of Boo and will get their due when we reach their sections of the alphabet.)
Homeschool Connection: This is an excellent introduction to zoology, extinction and evolution for younger kids and would contribute nicely to larger units of study of any of those subjects for older kids.


Alphabet City
Written and Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson
This is the quintessential photographic abecedarian. It immediately received Boo's stamp of approval (I IKE that book!) and even Bean leaned over to take a peek while she was reading something of a more narrative nature.

Amos & Boris
Written and illustrated by William Steig
From my point of view, this was the first really big treasure we found and exemplifies the raison d'etre of this project.  The illustrations are simple, but the tale of friendship and diversity is superbly, sublimely told.  It was the first of many books that I wondered why I had never read or even heard of - a puzzlement really.

Angelina Ballerina
Written by Katharine Holabird and Illustrated by Helen Craig
We've had six of the books in this series for a number of years, so one afternoon I slipped the original tale of the mouse who loves ballet into our reading stack.  The illustrations are gorgeous, the stories are engaging and well-told, but Bean asked the question she has been asking ever since we first read Angelina Ballerina: Why do mice get to wear toe shoes earlier than humans? (And the corollary questions: Could mice really wear toe shoes?  Wouldn't that hurt their ankles?)

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing
Written by Judi Barrett and Illustrated by Ron Barrett
Another book that we took off our own shelf and a good companion piece when pondering the sense of mice wearing ballet slippers.  The Barretts (who also wrote Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh) produce absurd children's literature that is better and more absurd than anyone else.  Check out Animals Should Definitely Not Act Like People at the same time and read them back to back.  (I must caution you against purchasing Judi Barret's recent title The Marshmallow Incident.  Borrow it from the library instead and decide for yourself whether it's a worthy follow-up to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Pickles to Pittsburgh.  Personally, I think it was ill-conceived and choose to pretend that someone with a less deft hand wrote this in her name.)

Applebet
Written by Clyde Watson and Illustrated by Wendy Watson
What you get when you mix apples, the alphabet, and sweet, old-fashioned illustrations.
Homeschool Connection: Put this and Alphabet City (above) in a big stack of alphabet books for pre-schoolers.  This would be great in the fall if you go the thematic route of organizing your curriculum.

A Bible for Secular Homeschoolers

I wasn't just raised Unitarian Universalist, I was dedicated in a Unitarian Church at a few months old.  And my parents, refugees only of stifling Protestantism, raised us a staunch Unitarians, just this side of secular humanism: God is love; God is nature; there is no such thing as a messiah; Jesus was a nice guy, even a prophet, but so was Martin Luther King Jr.; the Bible is a work of literature, the Christian mythology.  I bought it all, even after the obligatory late-adolescence existential crisis.

Despite all this I like the idea of a bible.  A guidebook.  A compass, moral or otherwise.  I read parts of the Old and New Testament as literature in high school and college and know for sure that is not my bible.  But still, I like the idea of a bible.  Something printed on paper that you can thumb through looking for the answers when you are lost and aren't sure where to begin or where to go next when you've already begun. I am embarrassed to admit how long I looked at the Official Preppy Handbook when I was 11, or how many Daily Thought books I looked at each day in my early 20s, but they were my bibles at the time.

So I went looking for a bible when I first started homeschooling in February of 2010.  But first I had to find a prophet.  I stumbled into the (now sadly departed) Educational Resource Center in Santa Cruz with a vague notion that I might be homeschooling soon and an equally vague notion that Heddi Craft, who ran the Center, might be able to help me.  Heddi's oldest daughter is the same age as Bean so even though I didn't know her well, I had run into her over the years at parks, Mothersong, ballet class and I knew she was a homeschooler.  I had already polled the four homeschoolers I knew about curriculum and how they did and everyone had a different answer: one did Calvert "school-in-a-box", another loosely followed the classical style of Susan Wise Bauer and The Well-Trained Mind, one had an eclectic style and still another was an unschooler.

I told Heddi, probably all in one breath, that I thought homeschooling would be the best option for my daughter, and that I didn't know where to start or what I should be covering, but I had heard of The Well-Trained Mind and thought that might be what I needed to get started.  Heddi gave me enough free advice to figure out how to legally go about homeschooling and a pile of books from the lending library, including TWTM.  Also in the stack was The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child, Fundamentals of Homeschooling, and Home Learning Year by Year.  

At home I skimmed through all the books, decided that TWTM offered exactly the kind of education I thought schools should be providing but probably wouldn't suit Bean, and read through all the Week in the Life descriptions of different homeschooling styles in The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child.  In Rebecca Rupp's Home Learning Year by Year, though, I found my bible.  Long before I had to return  the Education Resource Center copy, I had bought my own.

Not a week goes by that I don't gush about this book to someone and my already well-worn copy gets used at least weekly.  Rupp, a scientist, children's book author and mom of three grown homeschooled boys, lays out each year from Pre-K to 12th grade, providing a standards-based blueprint and many resources.  For most grades the book provides suggestions for Language Arts, Mathematics, History and Geography, Science, Foreign Language, Art, Music, and Health and Physical Education.

Rupp wrote her book in Vermont, before the advent of No Child Left Behind.  Instead of following any specific state or national standard strictly, Rupp's "curriculum was compiled from a synthesis of the public school curricula of all fifty states, as well as curriculum proposals from private sources and innovative educators" (Rupp, 6). I appreciate this, because what I am really looking for are suggestions for what to cover; I am not interested in honing too closely to any particular standard.  Rupp's curriculum is far more expansive than what is required by most states (foreign language is suggested at every grade level for example) so as long as I am roughly following her guidelines, we are doing more than enough to satisfy our consulting teacher (and thereby the State of California).

Another big plus - especially for a new homeschooler trying to figure out which resources will work for them is that Rupp's book is secular, and pro-scientific method.  She gives you a heads up if a resource is Christian-oriented and lists evolution and the Big Bang as topics to cover in science.

The book was written in 2000 so some of the books are out-of-print (that's what libraries are for though, right?) and many of the websites are defunct.  I have found that this doesn't matter for the most part because what Rupp is really providing is guidelines that allow ordinary parents to figure out what their kid needs to learn and some direction so you know what kinds of resources to find.  If one of her resources is unavailable, I look for similar books at the library or see what else comes up when I do an Amazon search.

I use this book as a jumping off point, not always following her suggestions exactly, but adding or omitting things that will work for us.  For example, this year we have added Critical Thinking as a subject and use various kinds of logic puzzles for this.  Also, since we opt out of standardized testing and are not attempting to recreate the school experience at home, I omitted any Study Skills from my lesson planning.  We also decided not to do a formal reading program for now and I count Bean's dance and gymnastics classes as PE.  I was briefly enthusiastic about doing theater and improv lessons at home, but quickly acknowledged that no amount of enthusiasm would make up for the lack of classmates and decided that the drama class at her homeschool program would suffice. As you read the book, you find that Rupp didn't always follow her outline either - she admits they never did formal spelling practice and that she thinks memorizing the state capitals is unnecessary as long as kids know how to find the information (here, here.) She also suggests having kids memorize poems but says the only thing her youngest child had any interest in memorizing is computer manuals.  Home Learning Year by Year gives me a blueprint along with the flexibility to do what works for us.

Whenever I am lost with any piece of our curriculum, when something isn't working or Bean is resisting something, I go back to the foundation of Home Learning Year by Year and look for a clue.  Maybe there's a resource I haven't used yet, or a concept that we haven't covered, or maybe I was focusing on the wrong thing.  Sometimes, I realize that we've already covered what is necessary.  Sometimes I look back to a previous grade or ahead to the next grade for a particular subject.  Whatever I need, I usually put down the book feeling calmer and with new resolve.   See, even secular humanist elitist evolutionist ho-mo-sexu-als get a bible to call their own.  If you are a homeschooler.

  

Homeschooling and the "S" Word

I have been trying to write a post about Socialization for two weeks and finally decided that I didn't have any new deep thoughts or big ideas to add to this great debate.  All I have is my family's own experience and the vague notion that the "S" word is really a cipher - a stand-in for all of our collective fears about our children, our decision-making capacities as parents, and the capacity of ourselves, our schools, and society to produce happy, healthy, functioning human-beings.

At dinner the other night, Bean said, apropos of nothing except the common themes on tv shows and in school age books, "You know what I like about AFE [her homeschool program]? There are no school yard bullies." I asked her if there had been bullies at her old school, unsure of what her answer might be.  She said, "No, but I wasn't very school-y, you know? The other kids just had this different ...thing, edge...to them."

Yes, I do know.  She wasn't very school-y.  She doesn't have a need to fit in, be a part of a group, pair off with another girl for social protection.  It's not that she doesn't want these things, but she doesn't need them and she was quite willing to hang on the sidelines and do her own thing, only joining in if the game was particularly interesting.  But once there was conflict, she moved on.  In kindergarten and first-grade, this wasn't a particularly big deal, but of course I fretted about it.  That was also the reason I wasn't particularly worried about socialization before we started homeschooling.

It turns out, this was one of the first things I worried about.  In the first weeks, it seemed like Bean decided that she no longer had to follow all of the social niceties that had been required at school.  She was rude to a neighbor who stopped by and asked our home school consultant how old she was.  I don't remember some of the other examples of poor social skills anymore because this behavior seemed to be a phase probably related to adjusting mid-school-year to her new circumstances.  At first we tried the "you know better" lecture but quickly switched to directly, but kindly, reminding her what was and was not okay.

Bean has never liked playdates, either with or without one of her moms.  It doesn't matter where she is or how much she likes the other kid, after about an hour, she's done - and says so.  I've gone back and forth between giving up on playdates unless she asks for one directly (she almost never has) and giving it another try.  Typically, impromptu playdates that arise when we happen to see friends or friendly strangers (of the child-variety) at the park or out and about tend to work best.  What she would really like is a handful of kids in the neighborhood who could just pop in and out of each other's houses and yards at will.  We don't have that.  We might if she went to the local public school and she knew the kids down the block and around the corner better, but our neighborhood is oddly constructed and not really conducive to the kind of itinerant kid-wandering that is romanticized in children's literature.  I remember these neighborhood ramblings myself.

Right now, I think we have settled into a good balance that works for Bean.  Once a week, she attends a 2.5 hour enrichment class at the public school homeschool program with 15 other kids aged 7-10.  She is  the only 7 year old and has been all year, but despite any worries I had (and you know I had them) it seems to be fine.  Academically she is on the same level and there have't been any social issues. Some of the other kids have clear social issues, but the teacher is experienced and there are always parents and other adults on hand so it seems to work out.  In all my observation, Bean has had no problem getting along with the other kids, and following direction from the teacher.  This short class time is plenty for her, though she could probably handle more.

She takes a few lessons throughout the week - dance, sewing, and drama - some with other kids, some one-on-one with the teacher.  I think time with adults who are not her parents is just as valid from a socialization point of view as time with other kids.  We try to get out as much as possible to parks, the library, and running errands.  I encourage Bean to talk to adults and other kids in the environments and make the most of that time out in the world.

Bean and Boo used to play together more, but as she approaches 8 I have noticed that playing with a 2 and a half year old is more of a chore for her and she would just rather do her own thing.  This is natural I think and part of the sibling dance that will change over the years.

My current favorite article on the subject, from the homeschooler's point of view is from Dianne Flynn Keith.  It turns out, she didn't have any of the difficulty I did getting out her thoughts on the subject - maybe because her kids are grown. 

Parenting By Difference

For two weeks, I have been painstakingly (emphasis on the first syllable) working on a blog post about...well, nevermind, I'll come back to that.  Then the tics started again and now my thoughts on parenting and homeschooling are focused on Bean's blinks and head bobs and shoulder jerks.

From the time Bean was about two, it became clear to us and to other adults around her that if we were to seek out any number of diagnoses, we would probably find them.  Teachers and school administrators have suggested occupational therapy, speech therapy and IQ testing.  Take your pick of acronyms or diagnostic labels - many of them beginning with "A" - and it would not be a stretch to picture Bean.  Well, some of the time.  Her periods of equilibrium and disequilibrium have always been extreme.  After eight years as her parents, we know that we will spend half of any given age wondering what's wrong and the other half wondering why we ever thought anything was wrong at all.

This is part of the reason we have never sought out professional help beyond our pediatrician.  By the time we decide that Yes, this time we are really making that call, she - and we- have turned a corner and worked through things.  We come back to our grounding philosophy for parenting her: she is who she is and when we remember Bean 101, we usually work through things pretty smoothly.

Bean 101 is our shorthand - in the absence of any diagnosis - for those things that make her uniquely her and uniquely challenging: loud noises disturb her (unless she is making them); change is hard for her - whether it is an emotion or a place or a person; she is intense at play and rest; she has an unusually strong inner compass; she is persistent, sensitive and has prodigious amounts of both mental and physical energy; sleep can be elusive for her; if she doesn't like the feel of something, it will be an uphill battle that may not be worth fighting to get her to try it once, let alone go back.  She is also very empathetic, intuitive, caring, and curious.  Many of these characteristics have mellowed as she has matured, but will come roaring back under stress (change, fatigue, illness, etc.) for a moment or longer.

One of the reasons we decided to homeschool rather than try the public school system or another private school is that we felt that in the school environment, sooner or later, we would be forced to have her tested for one thing or another.  We have always felt that if we had a diagnosis, we would parent to the diagnosis and not to her own uniqueness.  In our completely unprofessional, but dangerously over-read opinion, we think that if she is anything, it is borderline and we want to keep parenting on that border because, no matter how uncomfortable, it is real.  It would be easier to be in one camp or not: "normal" is far too relative a term, so I will say that the two camps are diagnosable and non-diagnosable (How's that for hedging my bets? I just made up a word.)

And then came an open house at a new gym on Saturday.  We had been talking with Bean for months about taking gymnastics again.  She has taken gymnastics off and on at various gyms since she was three but often didn't like the class environment.  Without a regular outlet for her acrobatic pursuits, our house feels like a Cirque du Soleil set.  Once she started taking private ballet lessons and realized this was an option for gymnastics, we started looking into it.  She was extremely excited about her first trial lesson with a coach at her previous gym, but the coach had her own ideas and it didn't go at all the way Bean or I had intended.  After that disappointment last week, I immediately began looking at the few other gyms in the immediate area and a few in nearby counties.  The newest incarnation of her first gym was having an open house in a new space so we all went.

As Dr. Yap and I stood in the cavernous space, watching from afar as she waited for her turn on the trampoline, Bean looking especially small and exposed in her shiny blue leortard, we realized at the same time that she wasn't merely fidgeting expectantly waiting for her turn: her shoulders were twitching, and her head was jerking forward.

This wasn't the first time we noticed her tic.  Several months ago, she started jerking her shoulders, usually in the evening and at bedtime.  At the time, I convinced Dr. Yap that this was nothing to worry about.  I thought it was just another manifestation of her energy and like earlier bouts of throat-clearing, sniffing, and lip-chewing, this would pass if we didn't say much.  Dr. Yap (who, it should be noted, has neither a medical degree or a PhD, we just all think she's brilliant and have thus bestowed upon her this honorary moniker - but don't tell her it's not legit) didn't like it but agreed to go along with it.  Soon, it passed, and so did her obsession with "catching the 59s" - her term for trying to see the last number of each hour on a digital clock wherever she was.  Just as this habit went from being maddening to worrisome, it passed.

Now, watching under fluorescent lights as two tics take hold of her slender frame, I know I will have a harder time convincing Dr. Yap that it's nothing.  I try anyway (because I am no stranger to persistence myself.)  The tics continued throughout the weekend and were soon joined by blinking.  This was a much more persistent, continuous phenomenon than anything she had experienced before.  We tried to ask non-chalantly if she was doing it on purpose or if she knew it was happening.  By Sunday evening, she was having a hard time talking and said at bedtime that she wished she could stop blinking because it was bothering her eyes.  Dr. Yap insisted that I take her to the doctor on Monday- no matter what any website said about tics being transient and unharmful in childhood.

On Monday, I made the appointment for that evening with her pediatrician and noticed fewer and less intense tics.  I asked her if she felt like it was less and if she was trying not to do it and she said yes.  Last night, her pediatrician agreed with me that the tics seemed in keeping with her intensity, energy, compulsive nature and likely (though unproven by any testing method) giftedness.  He prescribed nonchalance for Dr. Yap and I and suggested that Bean try to talk about things going on in her head.  The pediatrician agreed that she would probably outgrow some of her tendencies and that it was best to continue parenting the kid we have, without the guidance - or hindrance - of a diagnosis. I trust his assessment of Bean because besides being a good pediatrician and the father of three he has witnessed her intensity live and in person over the years.  For good measure, and because he knew Dr. Yap would appreciate it, he also gave us a referral to a pediatric neurologist in the same medical group who happens to specialize in movement disorders.

Tics are not uncommon in young children, and until they have persisted for at least a year, they are considered Transient Tic Disorder, rather than the more familiar Tourette's Syndrome.  Are we now heading down the road of giving a name and label to every aspect of our child, or are we simply being good parents, availing ourselves of good insurance and sound medical advice?

Wordless, But Not Silent

When we started our New York Times book project, I knew I better check as many of the Wordless Books out at one time as I could or I would lose my nerve - the literary version of ripping the bandaid off a wound or holding one's nose to take a bit of broccoli.  One night after dinner everybody piled on the big bed and I "read" books to Boo while Bean sprawled on the end of the bed looking at books from the stack on her own.  For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised (but I was glad there were only about 20 altogether.)

*Because I view this as a library project, all the links are to listings at the Santa Cruz Public Library.  Some of these books are simply good reads, while others are good sources for homeschool subjects.  I have highlighted this at the end of the entry, if necessary.  I will also note books that the 2 year old liked but the 8 year old didn't (and vice versa.)

Anno's Journey
Written and Illustrated by Mitsumasa Anno
I think all of Mitsumasa Anno's books are beautifully illustrated and lead the "reader" into a world that is both magical and real.  I highly recommend any and all you can find. Unfortunately, many of his books just don't grad my kids' attention.  The details in Anno's Journey, Anno's U.S.A and Anno's Fleamarket are so minute that it is hard to describe a story they can hold onto.  His math books are another story.  Boo loved Anno's Counting Book so much that I snapped up a used copy.  Bean spent an afternoon working out the math problem that makes up Anno's Magic Seeds in chalk on the patio.  She also enjoyed Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar.  Anno's Math Games I, II, and III can be hard to track down (we found I and II at our homeschool resource center and II and III at the library) but worth the effort.  Bean and I went over and over these until she finally worked through them all and had enough.
Homeschool Connection: Anno's math books are all great for lower elementary level math, especially for kids who don't like workbook computation. 

The Bear and the Fly
Written and Illustrated by Paula Winter
This wasn't available at our library and I haven't found it anywhere else.  If anyone knows of this book, please let me know and tell me what you think.

A Boy, a Dog and a Frog
Written and Illustrated by Mercer Mayer
This story is perfectly illustrated and needs almost no narration.  Really, the title says it all.  That said, Boo (2) loved it and it's charms were lost on Bean (closer to 8 than 7).

Building
Written and Illustrated by Elisha Cooper
We've had a used copy of this book for some time, but I don't know whether this book is mis-categorized, or whether we have a different version because it is definitely not wordless.  Cooper uses just enough words and just enough pictures to show how a building goes up.  Both my kids are drawn in as the book goes from empty lot to finished building. The words are few and written in synchronicity with the illustrations: words march around the outline of the page to describe how the building is framed; as the walls go up, so do the words.
Homeschool Connection: This would make an excellent companion to What it Feels Like to Be a Building to begin a unit on architecture. (I wish I'd been clever enough to think of that a year ago.)


Changes, Changes
Written and Illustrated by Pat Hutchins
I was actually excited to see this book because we've seen an animated version from the Scholastic Video Collection (we got many of them form Costco) and I just thought it was darn near the best use of wooden blocks I'd ever seen outside a nursery school classroom.  Both kids enjoyed the book version, but I missed the 70's music score that sounds like a marimba recorded in a coffee can.

Clown
Written and Illustrated by Quentin Blake
You can check this out for yourself, but Bean and I looked at it in the library and decided the titular clown was the kind that gives clowns a bad name among children and Blake's thin drawing style didn't give us enough else to work with - it didn't make it into the library bag.

The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher
Written and Illustrated by Molly Bang
The entry in the The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children described this as "eerie" and "startling" so I wanted to preview it at the library and give Bean the right of refusal.  I kind of regret this since she promptly pronounced it too creepy.  It didn't make it into the library bag that day, but I think I will give it another chance on the sly.

Look-Alikes
Written and Illustrated by Joan Steiner
This series of books, which is filed in the "Indoor Amusements" section of the Dewey Decimal System, creates two-page worlds made out of found objects.  I could imagine some kids spending hours looking at the pictures, but Boo paid no attention and Bean was only mildly interested.  I think it was hard for them to tell what some of the quaint objects were.  Still, I like this as a good quiet-time book to be pulled off the shelf occasionally for independent viewing and I would pick up a used copy if I stumbled upon it.

Paddy Pork
Written and Illustrated by John S. Goodall
The Guide actually listed Naughty Nancy, but since our library didn't have that, we checked out two Paddy Pork books, Creepy Castle and The Life of a Farm by Goodall.  They all have the same format: wordless pages with beautifully painted illustrations which tell the story on a series of pages and half-pages, which cleverly change the action.  The Paddy Pork books were mentioned in the Guide, and Boo liked those.  Bean and I especially liked The Life of the Farm, which takes place over several centuries on a pastoral piece of land somewhere in Europe.

Sector 7
Written and Illustrated by David Weisner
This book about a boy wandering into the cloud factory is kind of weird and kind of beautiful, but feels like it's missing something.  Bean kind of liked it and Boo kind of didn't.  Forget that though, and let this book lead you to the other wordless picture books by David Weisner in the the JEasy section of your library.  Flotsam is an especially wonderful visual fantasy.  I would even buy a new copy of it, just to have around for those times when children or adults need to get lost in something definitely weird and definitely beautiful.

Snowman
Written and Illustrated by Raymond Briggs
For the sake of the project, I made myself narrate this frame by frame to Boo one evening at bedtime.  And you know, this tale of a boy and his snowman was charming.

Will's Mammoth
Written by Rafe Martin and Illustrated by Stephen Gammel
Our library only has copies of this book about a boy and his wooly mammoth at outlying branches so it took us a while to get to it and by the time we read it we were deep into the Picture Book section of the Guide.  We were finding so many sublime treasures among the picture books that Will's Mammoth fell flat for us and failed to get anyone's attention.  Maybe if we had read it in that first night of wordless book bliss...

Zoom
Written and Illustrated by Istvan Banyai
This book and its sequel, Re-Zoom, are exactly what wordless picture books should be: beautifully illustrated, mind-stretching, and captivating.  Bean and I loved these, but Boo lost interest after the first perspective-jump.

Looking for the Tower of Babel

One of the things I like about homeschooling is that when there is an academic or behavior emergency, we can deal with it immediately, ourselves - without emails, phone calls and meetings with the teacher or principal.  Likewise, when something isn't quite working, we can decide ourselves whether it's an emergency or not.  If it's not an emergency, we can let it simmer until we come up with something new to try.  Right now, foreign language is bubbling on my back burner.

When we first started homeschooling, I had a vague notion that we would include a language in our curriculum - mostly because it was possible and because Rebbeca Rupp listed it as a subject for each grade in Home Learning Year by Year.  I had no clear goals for this subject and figured that whatever we did would probably be more than she had done in her private school and definitely more than she would have done in a public school. (The private school provided weeekly Spanish instruction for K-3, and several of the local public schools have popular Dual Spanish/English Immersion programs, but not at the public school Bean would have attended.)  I took six years of French between 7th grade and college and one, mostly-forgotten year of Mandarin in college.  I have always loved languages and want Bean and Boo to be exposed to other languages and learn at least one apiece, but I have never been fervent enough in this wish to instill a second language at home.

When we told Oma that we were homeschooling, she excitedly offered to buy the Rosetta Stone Home School versions for the first year of one or more languages.  (She was so quick and enthusiastic with this offer I had a sneaking suspicion that she knew this was coming and was just waiting to get news so she could buy the items in her Amazon cart.)  I wanted Bean to do either French or Mandarin, but I was undecided and my vision for foriegn language was ambiguous, so I asked her what she wanted to study and she said Dutch and Chinese.  This wasn't a huge surprise since she and Boo are half Chinese and the only eighth on my side that ever gets mentioned is Dutch.  (In real-life, Boo and Bean have both Dutch and Chinese names.)

At the beginning of the school year, we installed Rosetta Stone on Bean's laptop with anticipation and attempted to do two or three lessons from each language every week.  Bean raced through the first unit in about six weeks for each language, but lost steam around the holidays.  Right now, she's back to doing Dutch two or three times a week, but mostly avoids Chinese.

Despite Bean's flagging interest, we both like Rosetta Stone and I would buy it again - but I would probably skip the Homeschool version and would try not to buy the headset/microphone combo which as near as I can tell is useless.  (Or maybe the headset was just overridden by the computer's microphone, I didn't investigate since the program was understanding her for the spoken portions.)  Rosetta Stone's approach is to immerse the student in the language and to this end, there is not English instruction, but the student uses the pictures and repetition to learn the language.  With the Dutch, I can tell this approach is definitely working with Bean.  It helps that there are some similarities between Dutch and English vocabulary and syntax, since they are both Germanic languages.  Chinese is so different that it's definitely more of a struggle, especially if Bean doesn't keep up with it on a daily basis.

We are at the point in the year when we're starting to think about what's next and it's clear that my non-committal approach to foreign language has yielded predictable results.  I think that true mastery of a language will require both more effort and a broader approach.  I have not researched this, but I think if Bean is really to master a foreign language, we will need to add other elements to the curriculum, such as games, video tapes, hands-on materials, and a regular time to meet with a native speaker.  I have only just begun researching the options and would love suggestions if anyone has good resources.

Bean looked at Livemocha when she first asked about learning Arabic, but didn't like that it was interactive, but different from Rosetta Stone.  This could still be a good option at some point though, since the site also has games and gives you the opportunity to chat with native speakers and other students.  We have a children's language school in our town which offeres several languages for kids to learn in a small-group setting.  This could work well in combination with Rosetta Stone or some other instruction.  We know all about Muzzy, since I purchased the Mandarin version for Boo so he would  have Chinese "lessons" too.  We really regret buying this program because it's low production values just don't match the inflated price.  I am curious about the Little Pim series for Chinese, Arabic and French, but I'm wary about buying another video sight unseen.

Right now, I am wondering if we should just keep puttering along doing what we're doing until it becomes clear that Bean wants to focus on one language or another and then add the extra pieces.  Since foreign language is not required by the state of California for third graders, we can basically do whatever we want.  Besides puttering along, we could change or add languages - I want to add French and Bean wants to add Arabic. I am concerned that Rosetta Stone will be as challenging for Arabic as it is for Chinese.  I have been exploring other resources for Chinese, such as the courses offered by Cheng-Tsui and will probably need to do some research for Arabic.  I am also torn between indulging Bean's clear love of languages and giving her a chance to build confidence in one before adding more.  She really loves Dutch and it's connection to her heritage, but it's not the most useful language to learn - and maybe that doesn't matter.  Just the act of learning a foreign language must have intrinsic value: wiring new pathways in the brain, opening one up to other cultures, and teaching problem solving come to mind immediately.

The big question for me is how much to involve Bean in this decision.  That is always a delicate dance, and even more so when it comes to homeschool.  Bean is intense, sensitive, and strong-willed and one false step can lead to years of refusal to even consider a particular path.  When she is reluctant to do something, giving her choice can help her be engaged in the process and more enthusiastic.  On the other hand, giving her choice when she is already uncertain can be overwhelming.  Sometimes I can tell clearly which way the winds are blowing, but other times she keeps her feelings to herself enough that I don't know something is troubling her until I start trying to mess with the status quo.

Things to ponder...and did I mention that I want to add Latin at some point?