Among the Night People

"Can we keep him?"
"Where's his mommy?  Maybe she'll come looking for him?"
"What if he's hurt?"
"Can we hold him?"
"Why can't we keep him?  We can make him some milk and feed him, till he gets a little bit bigger."
"Why can't we hold him?"

Yes, our daily random homeschooling moment continues.  Today's moment was brought to you by the knock on the door.

"Hi!  I'm new next door.  I found a baby raccoon on the sidewalk, and was wondering if it might be yours."

"Hmmm... let me check.  Pets...  Cat? Nope - severely allergic to them.  Dog? Not while we live in this tiny place.  Bum Lamb?  We almost ended up with one of those... Chickens?  I wish.  Fish.  Yes.  Fish.  The same reply I give the doctor every 2 months when we go in for a visit and he asks us if we still have our fish.  They're the perfect pet in my opinion.  Raccoon?  Not in this lifetime... (but we'll go ahead and let the kids call dad in about 30 minutes and see if they can convince him to let them keep it.)

 "Sorry. I can't say that I purposefully own a Raccoon."

That led to an immediate mass exodus of the house. So much for getting a lesson done or maybe we just need to change up the lesson.  The guy next door called the animal control unit to come and figure out what to do with it. The kids oooooed and awwwed while waiting for the "crazy guys" as Mirian was calling them. (I have no idea where she got that from.)

I have to admit, he was cute... and I even started flashing back to being a kid and day dreaming how awesome it would be to have a wild animal for a pet... but the realistic, party-crashing mom jerked back to reality and said no way.  A few other neighbors gathered round, picked it up and let the kids look at it up close.  Soon animal control pulled up all serious, adorned their gloves, grabbed the claw, walked up and then did a double take and said. "That's all it is?"  It wasn't too old.  Barely getting around and making lots of little noises trying to locate his mother I'm sure.  I went back inside to grab the burning waffles for lunch.

"Why did Sally ask them not to put it down? What does that mean?"

Here began the learning opportunities.  We ate lunch and discussed what it means to put an animal down and why sometimes it's more humane than letting it suffer.  "So they kill it?!"  I could see Fern in the back of my mind "up at the crack of dawn, ridding the world of injustice" as she saved Wilber from an untimely death.  I'm still not sure if they quite understood 'why' they would need to put it to sleep.

At that point their minds were not on fractions, or the Trojan wars. So I decided we might as well go with it.  We pulled out the book "Among the Night People." One of the books in a series about the various animals and their habitats and behaviors. It's a classic and a great read for kids as it's told from the animal's point of view, but shows them the way of life, behaviors and environment various animals live in. I pulled up the chapter on Raccoons.  We read about them having a party in the night and and their mom helping them learn to have good manners. After the story I asked the kid what we learned about Raccoons and their behaviors.

- The come out at night and sleep during the day.
- They can't run fast
- They can't dive in water although they like to play in it.
- They walk on their toes
- They use their paws like hands to pick up objects and to eat, and can stand on their back feet.
- They like to eat bugs, worms, crayfish, etc. (Bats too, Isaac said, because he learned that on the Krats
       brothers.)
- They like to get out and play with others and can be mischievousness
- Live often in wooded areas
- They tend to dip or wash their food in water before eating it

We pulled out their journals to have them write about their Raccoon adventures.  We try to write daily in our journals, even if it's just a little bit. I want them to get in the habit, and I want them to have a record of their own life and stories.

Savannah actually wanted to write about hers in newspaper format.  I've been trying to create a literacy center, with different options for them to use while writing.  It might have blank books, letter forms, blank lists, Mad libs etc. I'm not completely finished but have great plans for it. While creating it I made this generic  Newsletter form and keep several blank copies of it for them to use at their liking.  I saw a similar one from Martha Stewart for Mother's Day. I wanted mine to be very flexible as well as usable for a history.

Who knew that this is what we would be studying for the day.  That's alright though.  They will remember more about Raccoons now, because of the personal hands-on living experience, than they ever would have remembered by reading about them in a science lesson.

I wanted to share my blank copy of the newsletter. It's a great way to just get a  kid writing for fun. You can create realistic news stories or make up some wild tales. It's a fun way to get the kids writing just for the enjoyment and pleasure of telling a story.








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What It Really Looks Like

"Mom! Savannah dropped her book in the pond!"

Really?  The hard bound Newberry Honor book from the Library?  Arghh.  Is it not enough that I already single handedly donate large sums of money to our city library unintentionally.

It's been 3 weeks already?

No it's been more like 4 or 5 weeks since checkout. Ouch, that's going to cost me.

And how many books do I have out? 30?

78.

 Hmm. Maybe I'm not cut out to homeschool. I have obviously been unable to teach my children math, explicitly how to count to five. Five books everyone. That's all you can get. 5 books x 4 kids and one mom...plus a couple of extras. Thirty really should have been our max. Seventy-eight?  I guess I should be happy that I have raised kids that love to read. But really .... what could be a great literary quote?  You know the one that will be engraven above the door to the new library wing, created from our family's personal donations to the library.

Plus they'll now have another $20 my daughter will be paying after she's cleaned the car, scrubbed my toilets, picked up the lawn, cleaned the fridge, and babysat for a couple of hours.  That seems about fair, and doesn't seem like it would be overstepping child labor laws too much.

"There's nothing like a good lesson in responsibility." I stated, turning around to continue my conversation with the other homeschooling mother.  It was a play date at the park, our few hours to swap stories, ideas and get inspired from each other.  We leave realizing our children are normal and that we really aren't as crazy as we thought we were.

It's a good dose of medicine every few weeks. Plus the kids have the chance to play with each other, be in nature and wear themselves out.

"They're in the water!  All of them!"  If a book wasn't enough it was now all the kids. The other mom headed to the pond to be the bad guy.

"And there are leaches in it!"  I'm not so sure about the leaches. I did see small fish or tadpoles swimming earlier when I had walked by.  But, who knows what else swims in there besides the ducks. (Who had already been fed our picnic sandwiches, which meant a melt down was soon to follow when everyone got tired, thirsty, and hungry later.)

"Tyson picked up a snake too!  He thought it was a twig but when he picked it up it wiggled and then his tail BROKE off!" She was telling the full story now.

"Well, there is homeschool for you... picking up real snakes." I had to laugh..and shudder at the thought.

"That's right.  In regular school they only show you pictures of snakes. Here you get the real thing." the Texan mom drawled.

The other mom returned.  "They were cleaning out trash from the pond. It was hard to get too mad at them."

This is what I love.  Air, sunshine, kids, other mothers in the trenches, laughter, real life experiences, the free schedule.  This is truly what I love about homeschooling.  How family life and school can so easily happen together in every day moments.

Real memories created with each other.  Memories that only happen in brief instances of time that can be so easily lost.

Moments like that first good snowfall, when the kids rush out excited, wanting to put their snow clothes on. The rest of the world, was hurrying their kids out the door, with breakfast in hand to make it to the school before the bell. Because of our flexible schedule, I recognized this was one of those few and rare occasions to enjoy God's beautiful creation of a white blanket of snow on a cool crisp morning.  Add to that the frosty breaths of air, laughter, the children's squeals and the pure delight for life. The excitement of showing their new little sister, only 6 months, old the beauty of snow, was worth setting the start of our schooling back an extra hour.

It's those random moments. Cuddling and reading books together. Making chef salad together (New York Style), which got all of the  kids excited about eating vegetables. 10 minutes earlier they would have been complaining about those uneatable veggies.  Watching your kids sit through an entire 2 hour play - The Suessical Musical, completely enthralled with kids their age, singing, dancing and acting. Seeing your daughter catch on to a math concept and exclaim, "Oh this is easy!"

It's starting out the day not completely sure how everything will pan out, but excited when lessons were learned that were not planned.  Just like that day at the park.  We came excited to talk and play and instead we left having learned a little bit more about:

- The Pond Life Ecosystem
- Snakes
- Taking care of the Environment - Littering
- Responsibility
- Ducks
- The lives of other people
- Physical Exercise
- Social Skills
- A list of some new books to check out

It has taken me some time to start looking for these everyday learning moments. It was hard to not assume that if it isn't happening at the table, with a workbook in hand, and everyone busy, that learning wasn't happening. In reality, it is happening. I just have to stop and re-adjust my perspective so I don't miss out on the joy and splendor found in learning from everyday life and experiences.  That is when it's the most satisfying.  That's when I can can look at another $20 donation to the public library as another learning moment. (I'm sure my husband will see it that way as well.)

Making Our Space Work

We have a very tiny home and when it comes to wall space there is even less.  Trying to figure out how to do school and where to do school is sometimes a challenge. Most of it happens in this tiny space right here. Our one room living room / dining room.  Nothing Fancy.  

Since our wall space is limited, I've had to come up with other creative means of having supplies right at our fingertips.  Here is one example - our world and US maps.  We just didn't have wall space for these, except in the kid's rooms, and I didn't want to have to go to the bedrooms every time we needed to look something up.  I saw a table in a photo from Delightful Learning, where she had maps on her table covered in clear vinyl.  I loved the idea.  So one day in Walmart I picked up a large chunk of it for less than $8. (I wanted it pretty thick so it would be durable.) Beau asked me what I was doing with it.  (He always has a certain look on his face that says, uh oh... now what.)  I told him not to worry, "You'll hate it." :)

So we laid the maps underneath, wrapped the plastic over top and stapled it with the staple gun underneath. I personally have loved it.  (You can ask Beau his opinion about it later.)  I love that they are easily accessible, which makes is possible to quickly locate our geographic area we are discussing in history.

I also love watching my kids do random things with it throughout the day. Out of the blue Savannah started to make her own little geography book.  She was locating countries throughout the world, drawing their flags, writing down their capitals, and then listing anyone she knew that served a mission there. I was often asked... do you know anyone that served in a mission in France? Australia? Israel?

They also came in handy when we were doing math and talking about coins.  We ended up finding the matching state for our quarters we were using in counting money. 

They have also make for great discussions and quizzes at dinner time.  We see who knows state capitals, countries or ask who can find a certain town. I am hoping at one point to also bring more current events to the meals, where we can find them on the map and know what is going on in the world.  They can also be used to draw on top of with dry erase markers to show explorers trade routes, the pioneer's trek from Illinois to Utah or other travels.

We also have some of the little animal safari tubes. They could be used to sort animals by climates, continents or countries. You could reenact battles or show where wars were fought with little army or civil war men. There are so many uses, and it makes it so much easier than unrolling the map and then putting it away every time you want to look at it.

Another way to be creative is how to find supplies, curriculum and other resources.  I like to check our local DI (Thrift Store) to see what kinds of gems I can get. One day I found a roll of 12-15 laminated maps of continents and countries around the world.  On the back of most of them has detailed facts. For example on the back of Brazil it had a whole bunch of facts on the Rain Forest. Pictures of the animals, the different layers of the rain forest and other related facts.  What a great resource for $2.50.  We ended up pulling it out last night and Beau asked me where I got them.  When I told him, his reply was "That's why I love you.. these are really cool!"  I also found some great activity books on the human body, some eye witness books on reptiles, and a large volume of stories from around the world. Savannah found it recently has been reading the 500 page book for the last week.  

So if your discouraged about lack of space or resources, be creative and frugal and you might be surprised at ideas you've never thought of before. I'm pretty excited about mine.