School goes on

Ah, education. I feel that the best educations come not while you're in chairs, but while you're in the thick of it. I've always tried to answer all of Christopher's questions about everything there is to be asked, and take opportunities to teach him about things when they come up. Doing "school" with him has therefore proved to be interesting. It can be 10 minutes of "Ok, I did it, I'm done now", or hours of "Mom, can you tell me about....".

Most of what I'm trying to do with him right now is round him out. With his love of numbers and distaste for letters, I mostly want to even the keel a bit. I don't really have to worry about doing what I think he'd be doing in Kindergarten because he's already beyond that. So what I try to do is each week is at least one of each of these things:

Read by sounding out words in a book
Memorize common words (the, and, for...)
Write words (to refresh ones he's learning and practice writing)
Do a page of math problems
Practice a song from Primary

How many lessons we do in a day depends a lot on him, how long his attention span lasts - and how long Alexander sleeps, which is when we do his school. But at the end of each week so far, I can see improvements, and I feel he's getting what he needs.

On reading, he's "helping" me read his books more, pointing out words he knows, or sounding out some he thinks he can get. When he writes his words, he's getting better about forming the letters and knowing which letter is which, which is great, since when we started he didn't know them all and he would write them in any direction and order and anywhere on the page that he liked. Now he's keeping them close together, facing them the right direction, moving left to right, and getting down the idea of making them all the same size.

On math... Sometimes I think I shouldn't talk about his math with other parents. I don't think they believe me. But I have the worksheets to prove it! Even Bryan shakes his head, and he's watched Christopher do it! The first week, I brought up the different kinds of basic math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I had NO IDEA what I was in for. He asked more about what each one was, and I explained that adding was putting things together, subtraction was taking things away, multiplication was putting together groups of things, and division was breaking things into groups. I illustrated one of each kind of problem. And we went on with our day.

The next day, I gave him a workset of addition and subtraction problems. When he was done, he asked if he could do some of the other kinds of math. "Sure, if you want to." I gave him some basic problems, showed him how to "read" it, and let him work them out.

"Ok Christopher, read these problems, and then figure them out."
4 x 2 = ("What is two fours, Christopher?") 8!
4 x 3 = ("What is three fours, Christopher?") 12!
5 X 3 = ("What is...") "That's fifteen!"
*Shake my head*

6 ÷ 2 = ("What number do you get if you chop six into two parts?") 3!
6 ÷ 3 = ("What number do you get if you chop six into three parts?") 2!
9 ÷ 3 = "Three threes!"

Since then, every day he wants some of each kind of problem, and I was planning to stay under 20, but I've had to change my mind because things like 20 - 7 = 13 are apparently "no grade", and 25 ÷ 5 gets an instant "That's five!" out of him. Somehow, conceptually, numbers make sense to him. Sometimes he pops out an answer I really thought he'd have to work on, and I ask him how he figured that out, and he just looks at me blankly and says, "I don't know, it just is."

Even though I know he'll get it with whatever process goes on in his head, I've also tried to show him other ways of thinking of numbers. We've worked off a number line, used our fingers, used batches of items, and someone gave him a calculator, which I let him use to check his answers just for fun when he's done.

A few days after getting the calculator, he asked me what the check mark was for. I said that was for square roots. He then went to Bryan and asked what a square root was! Bryan tried to explain, and Christopher apparently thought it was cool, but thankfully he hasn't asked for more of THAT!

All in all, I'm thankful that he's learning to read and write, and impressed with his mathematically-inclined mind. Lately I've been very grateful for the growing up steps he's taken. I don't have to worry about him using the bathroom by himself, he's learned to shower (and thereby relieved me of battling him into the bathtub), he brushes his own teeth, puts on his own clothes, uses his silverware at the table, and so many other things that as adults we take for granted.

Speaking of growing up, sometime this week Christopher will lose his first tooth. It's been loose for weeks, and it's just about to fall out now. There's another one on it's way out too, but not so soon. I'm sure we'll have lots of toothless grin pictures coming!

Beds!

It's quite refreshing to have enough time to actually sit down and write something from time to time. Right now Alexander is napping and Christopher is out back playing. It's really fabulous to have my own house where I can make places for my children to go that aren't under my feet!

On that note, I bought Christopher a bed this week. His having a bed has been an issue since we moved out of our house on 24th Street. It was an uphill battle to get him to sleep in a bed at my grandparents, so he slept on the couch a lot, and once we moved in here I tried to get him into a bed, but he preferred to sleep in a chair! And honestly, I can't be awake all night being sure he sleeps where I want him to, so I just let him sleep in the chair. Bryan's been worried that sleeping curled up will ruin his posture or make him not sleep as well, so I've been hunting for a bed he'll really love, at a price we can handle, for a while.

I did buy what I thought was a neat little kids bed, and I made Christopher at least try it for a night. He obediently did so, but he was so tall (or the bed was so short?) that his head touched the top and his toes touched the bottom. That was the end of that idea. But Alexander loved it! So I got rid of the crib, and Alexander is sleeping in his own bed, and doing a great job!

I stumbled across a great bed a while back, but it was sold before I could get it. And then this week, on Craigslist, I found THE bed. Christopher saw one of these when he was three, and he LOVED it. But we couldn't pay hundreds of dollars for it then, nor did we have room for it. And now, years later, here is the bed again!

Here's the stock picture of it, and it really looks like this!


He's thrilled. He begged to help me clean it up and put it together. I started putting it together today - with his help - and the slide is a BIG hit with both boys. I'm almost certain that the ladder will be unnecessary since they both use the slide to go up as well as down. I love that it's very sturdy. They can swing and slide on it to their heart's content and I won't have to worry about it collapsing. It's a great bed. I'm really happy to have found it. Now I just have to hope he sleeps in it.... But seeing as how I'm banishing the chair, I have high hopes! =)

Starting school!

Christopher has been fantastically excited about starting school. Last week I ordered some 'learning games', and he was so excited about it! Every time we got one in the mail he did a little happy dance.

We started 'school' on Monday. The first thing he wanted to do was one of the learning games. He picked the math one (of course). The first game he picked, it started by asking him "How many of ___ are there?" Christopher raised an eyebrow and deftly clicked the right answer. Again. And again.

"This is kinda easy for you, isn't it Christopher?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Well, it's supposed to be for first through third grade, so maybe the other stuff is harder."
"Mom, this is like no grade."

HAHA! Just because YOU'RE smart you smartypants doesn't make it no grade! I laughed. Thankfully, we found the little ladder in the lower edge of the screen that lets you ramp up the difficulty. Although it was my turn to raise a questioning eyebrow when he ramped it up to fractions and he still wasn't flinching. And then in another of the games he thought pennies, nickles, and dimes just weren't enough, so he turned up the difficulty to include quarters and dollars, and still was bored with the ease of it. I'm a little pleased and a little nervous that I'll probably have to get the 4th-6th grade software...

On the other hand, Christopher has never liked letters, and man oh man, he still doesn't. The first day we had a bit of a tiff because he really would not cooperate with me on reading and writing. I set him in time out (he NEVER gets time outs), cooled myself off, and came back. I explained that if he refused to learn at home, he would have to go to regular school like all the other kids, and that would mean from 8-3 five days a week. He burst into tears. He absolutely hates to be away from me, and doesn't even like to leave the house if he can help it. (I blame Bryan for this tendency.) He was thereafter very agreeable. I know he doesn't like it, but at least he is obviously trying to work with it.

Today was much better. I have a few basic words (things like: the, or, and, so) that he's supposed to memorize by sight. Instead of refusing to even look at them, he tried a lot harder today, and I used pictures to build sentences for him, which seemed to help his comprehension a LOT. And he did better on his writing, which is another thing he's always hated. But I'm glad to see him trying, and we were both happy with his success (we made it to O!).

Now, of course, this is three days in, and there's still hundreds of days to go. And obviously, this is kindergarten; it's not like I'm planning for him to go to college next year. So of course these are just little things to be happy about, but I'm hopeful that they are good omens of lots of good learning to come. I know that we'll both bumble along together, seeing what works for him, and hopefully enjoying the process of learning together. I'm glad I have the opportunity to be home with him, and that he has the opportunity to learn at his own pace.