Messes

Sometimes our desire for a certain level of neatness and cleanliness actually gets in the way of things that, in the long run, are perhaps more important.

As I say this, mind you, I am sitting in an office cluttered with old computer cables, writing projects, receipts, and wrapping paper used in the last-minute Christmas-wrap rush. Apparently I think a LOT of things are more important than a spic-and-span, neat-and-tidy house. But I think we all (even people who have a low tolerance for clutter) can endure a certain amount of arts-and-crafts mess—with a few tricks to keep things as clean as possible.

• Expect the kids to help clean up, even from a very early age.

• Clean as you go, when possible. Having a wet rag or a roll of paper towels right at hand can keep the Elmer's-glue hands from spreading to outfits and hair, and keep the purple-tempera fingers from spreading to tables and chairs.

• Buy some plastic placemats that are used only for playdough or other clay play. If you store the placemats with the dough/clay, the kids won't forget to use them.

• Get a large plastic divided picnic plate to use when painting. You can squeeze a small amount of paint onto the edge of each area, and still have room in that area to mix colors. Plastic pop-out ice cube trays can work, too, especially if you leave some of the holes empty so that kids can mix paint. Of course, plastic paint palettes with lots of divisions are available at arts-and-crafts supply stores.

• Use old men's T-shirts or reversed button-up shirts as smocks.

• You can buy special paint pots, complete with paint brushes and lids. Using clean concentrated juice containers and foil works fairly well, too.

• Glitter normally comes in shaker-bottles. Definitely save any empty bottles, and then you can save mixed-glitter residue from art projects. Make sure the kids are working on a table covered with newspapers or a plastic tablecloth. Put a “mat” of waxed paper in front of each child; when the glitter project is done, form a funnel from the waxed paper and carefully pour the excess glitter into the mixed-glitter shaker.

• Having a special school supply box (like the ones I gave the kids) or art supply box can help kids know where to put things, and can also motivate their cooperation. It's just so much more fun to put things in their special places! (Some parents draw outlines of toys, school supplies, or whatever on the bottom of storage boxes so that they kids have puzzle-like fun putting things away.)

• It won't do for everything, but you can call some of your kids' toys collections. When it's time to put these items away, you can say, “Let's arrange our beanie baby display,” or “Let's fix up the dinosaur exhibit.” (I never prevented my kids from playing with their toys for collectible value purposes, but arranging, say, stuffed animals in a wall-mounted toy hammock when they aren't being used in play keeps them up off the floor, helps the kids find them the next time they want them, AND looks mighty cute.)

• Play rock'n'roll music when it's clean-up time. Or the sprightly parts of the Nutcracker Suite. Or any music you enjoy! There are special clean-up songs (if you don't know one, Google “clean up song” or search for “clean up” on YouTube), or sing “A Spoonful of Sugar (Makes the Medicine Go Down)” from Mary Poppins.

Some messes may not be worth it (we once made confetti eggs for a sleepover, but I should have had the kids use them OUTside—we were still finding a few bits confetti a year later!), but hopefully the concept of messiness doesn't get in the way of arts and crafts.

Homeschooling and Television:

The Slippery Slope to Raising Boob-Tube Headed Couch Potatoes

I am surprised to see from my journals that, in the first three days of homeschooling-with-Camille, two of them included watching a video! I hope that the reason I gave in my journal-keeping—that the kids were sick—explains this, because I honestly don't recall having the television on very often during weekdays....

As a young mom and homeschooler, I had read research conducted at the time, and all the findings seemed to point out that television watching is too passive to be included in the best learning environments. Kids need to move, play pretend, and interact, and if they are sitting still in front of a TV set for hours at a time, passively soaking up whatever is on, then they aren't learning nearly as much as they should be. (Not to mention, they aren't nearly as healthy and fit as they should be.)

There have been some research findings I've encountered since those early homeschool days that say some positive things about television as an educational tool, but at the time I basically felt at least a little bit guilty every time I let the girls watch TV.

Of course, even us concerned parents tend to take a moderate stance about things like TV, computers, and sugary foods rather than an extreme attitude of NO TV, ever, NO white sugar, ever, and so forth. I do remember that I always felt like I was trying to skate a fine line between too much TV (by definition of the words “too much,” a bad thing) and “too little” TV in which it becomes a wonderful-forbidden-enticing mystery (also a bad thing, in my book).

I also notice that, according to my journal, the kids were pretty active during the movie (especially the one girl who wasn't sick), and the girls used their play as an inspiration to watch the movie and used the movie as further inspiration to play pretend. They talked and sang, interacted with each other and the story, moved around, and did art.

Not passive.

Not boob-tube heads.

Not couch potatoes.

And, 20+ years later...
How do my kids interact with television now?

Nowadays, I can report that TV viewing never takes precedence, for my kids, over interesting activities with friends, but thanks to Tivo and Hulu, we can watch things that are important to us any time we wish. Lindsey chooses to live without a TV set but enjoys a wide range of international movies and sometimes gets sucked into watching a few shows when she visits television viewers. Mindy watches favorite shows, including dramas, comedies, non-fiction (mostly science) shows, and “reality” shows (such as cooking and dance contests), but she still multi-tasks while watching. Today, for example, she exercised in the morning and embroidered items to sell in her Etsy shop in the evening, both while catching up with her Playlist on Tivo.

Some of my kids may watch “too much” TV, at least at times. But they definitely aren't passive viewers. Not boob-tube heads. Not couch potatoes.

Journal Entry 3

Thursday, September 10, 1987

Lindsey and Camille are both still sick. So we have a fairly toned-down, quiet day.

Before Camille arrives, my two sculpt with play dough. As soon as Camille walks in the door, however, she asks me to read some books. We all cuddle together, and I read five picture books. (This would never happen on a normal day, because Lindsey is far too physical, usually, to sit still so long, but it was nice.)

None of the books are about dinosaurs, but when the girls finally get restive with storytime, and go off to answer the question, “What next?” they see the paper, pencils, glitter, glue, and dinosaur stencils I had put on a table. Glitter's a pretty rare thing in their lives, so they are drawn to it like iron filings to a magnet. The girls begin to make sparkly dinosaurs and then branch out to sparkly pictures of everything else in the world.

Yes, this does include a certain number of sparkly fingers, plus the very occasional daub of glitter on a cheek or in the hair. I deal with the latter as quickly as possible with warm, wet washcloths.

After each kid has made several pictures, they seem poised to move off to another activity. But I ask them to help clean up the mess. The bulk of the mess we just toss out with the newspapers that had protected the table. Then I bring out a surprise:

Dinosaur “school boxes”!

These inexpensive cardboard boxes are built along the lines of old-fashioned cigar boxes, and they're decorated with colorful, rather silly dinosaurs wearing clothes. The boxes are identical, but I've labeled them neatly, and the kids carefully put their pencils and glue bottles inside. Then they pore over those funny pictures. Soon the girls have brought the boxes into the realm of their imaginations—Lindsey (they claim) is Debbie Dimetrodon, Camille is Mary Louise Allosaurus, and Mindy is Muffie Parasaurolophus.

Soon these characters are ditched, however, as the girls soon decide to play wedding. (What? Like anthropomorphized dinos can't get married?) Each of the girls takes turns being a bride, and the other two layers are flower girls. After several marriage ceremonies, the play morphs into other sorts of pretend scenarios. I'm busy jotting down these notes as I realize that they are playing something completely different.

“You're Mary Poppins,” Camille says. She goes on to inform me that she is Jane Banks, the girl in the book and movie who has Mary Poppins as her nanny. I wonder which of my girls is playing Michael Banks, but it turns out that Mindy and Lindsey are playing Jane's friends, Emily and Kelly. The Banks family in the books (but not the movie) includes twins, Barbara and John, and two dolls have been chosen to play those parts.

I am wondering if we can get a good room cleaning out of this game, but the girls have something else in mind: they want to watch the movie. I put it on, figuring that at least the sick kids can get some rest—but Mindy and Lindsey sing and dance through most of the movie.

They also go in and out of the kitchen with some frequency, getting small snacks and drinks (just like during “Dumbo” two days ago). They go in and out of the art area, also, getting chalk and chalkboards so they can be like Bert the chimney sweep and draw chalk pictures. Mindy decides to really be like Bert and goes outside to make large chalk drawings on the sidewalk.

I am definitely having a problem with the kids wanting to eat constantly. Normally, with my own kids, I'd probably say, “No, sorry, kitchen's closed,” but I have two problems doing that right now:

1)Camille and Lindsey are sick, and “normal” just doesn't seem to apply.
2)Camille really doesn't eat at established “mealtimes” and “snack times,” so I am afraid I'll starve her if I don't accede to her wishes to eat at other times.

I decide that, when all the kids are well, I will try to lay down the law and have set times for morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack—then have the kitchen “closed” all other times.

I hope it works.

The movie is over, and the girls go out to see Mindy's pictures. On the way back inside, Lindsey finds a little folded bit of paper just inside the door. She opens it...

“It's a note!” she says.

“It's a note from the elves,” Mindy says with a huge grin.

Earlier that day we had read a book called I Don't Believe in Elves, by Jane Thayer. The elf in the book had left secret notes and surprises for the girl he lived with, trying to convince her that he existed. Although everyone can recognize Mindy's hand in the careful letters and flower picture on the note, we all agree that it must have been left by an elf.

Lindsey and Camille are quite delighted.

I go into the family room, where the girls had been watching the movie, to get the chalkboards and chalk so I can put them away. Then I have a brainstorm—what if I leave a note, too?

I carefully write a message on the chalkboard and sign it, “from the elf.” Then I pick up some cups and napkins and go back into the kitchen. “You guys left the chalkboards out,” I say. “Mindy and Camille, can you bring in the chalkboards? Lindsey, you pick up the chalk, please.”

Mindy is the only one to immediately comply, but she shrieks, “Look! Another note!” and the other two girls go running to see.

“It must have been an elf,” Lindsey says.

They need some help from me to read the note. They seem ecstatic over these secret messages and talk about elves as if they were real--but I am dead certain that all of them, even Lindsey, really knows we're just playing and that I wrote that note.

They know—but they still find it really, really fun.

The rest of the day, all of us continue to write and draw notes, fold them up, and leave them here or there for the others to find. A little routine happens each time we find a new note: each of us says, “I didn't write it!” and after we've all denied authoring the note, one of us says, “It must have been an elf.”

In between notes from elves, the girls bang and plink and plunk our musical instruments, ask me to read more stories, and play with Jeannie, a neighbor who is home from school. During the reading session, I read another wonderful dinosaur book by Aliki (My Visit to the Dinosaurs), plus a book called Do Not Open, by Brinton Turke.

Camille gets picked up early (because she is sick), but the neighbor, Jeannie, is still here. Mindy asks if I can read Do Not Open again.

So I do. This is the story of an old woman and her cat. They find a bottle washed up on the beach. The bottle says, “Do not open.” But the woman opens it, and unleashes an evil genie...Now she and her cat have to trick the genie back into the bottle. It's an exciting book!

Then Mindy asks if they can use the dinosaur stencils again.

“Okay,' I say, “but no glitter this time.” (I'm a pretty nice mom, but I'm not a martyr!) I get out the stencils, and the kids get out their special dinosaur school boxes. While Mindy directs Jeannie to Camille's box and pencil, I bring out the kind of colored pencils that can be blended with water. As the girls begin to show Jeannie how to use the stencils, I get a bowl of water and some paintbrushes. The three girls love experimenting with the new medium. When someone gets a good result, the others immediately try to copy that technique.

Lindsey gets tired of drawing first, and she gets out the play dough again. She starts to make play dough “cookies.” Soon Jeannie and Mindy join in.

When Jeannie goes home, Mindy goes back to drawing with the colored pencils and water. She is really enjoying this!

Then Mindy remembers that she wanted to water the plants out in back.

“But you have to come with me, Mom,” she says.

“Why?” I ask, surprised.

“I'm scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“That scary book Do Not Open.”

Leave it to my daughter to ask me to re-read a book she found frightening! I scoop up Lindsey and follow Mindy out the door, realizing that I am learning as much as they are, every day.

Electric Matching Game

It's difficult to describe well the dinosaur matching game I made for the girls (mentioned in my second journal entry), and I didn't take any pictures of it, worse luck. However, I was able to find a similar electric matching game at the Bill Peet Book Project, and there are step-by-step instructions and photos!

By the way, I had a small collection of materials in a special science cupboard available to the kids whenever they wanted to play with it. As the years passed, of course, my collection grew and grew, but I started with a few good magnets, a magnifying glass and microscope viewer, a kaleidoscope—and also the tiny bulb-in-socket and wires that I used for this game. Once I took the game apart, the kids could continue to experiment with making circuits with these and other materials. Once in a while I made a new electric matching game, with new subject matter, and Mindy made one, too.

John Holt...one of my heroes...

In my second journal entry, I casually mentioned John Holt, who was at the time (a couple of decades ago) still well known and influential. He was one of the heroes of the modern homeschooling movement and certainly one of my personal heroes. However, it's been so long since he's been gone (he died of cancer in 1985), that I'm sure the name is vague-bordering-on-meaningless to many homeschooling parents today.

John Holt was a teacher who really cared about teaching—that is, he really cared about communicating with kids, watching kids, imparting knowledge to kids, learning from and with kids. His early books, particularly How Children Fail (1964) and How Children Learn (1967), helped motivate an education reform movement that urged open, multi-grade classrooms, portfolios and written evaluations rather than “objective” tests and letter grades, and cross-curricular, hands-on learning centers rather than sterile worksheets. Free schools and alternative schools such as Summerhill were tried by some; schools-within-a-school were developed by others.

However, the bulk of the school system barely swerved in the direction of the much-discussed reforms, and indeed rather quickly spun off into a backlash of sorts—more testing, under the guise of more “accountability;” more homework, under the guise of keeping up with Japanese students; and “fundamental schools” that emphasized reading, writing, and arithmetic rather than what was seen as either hippie classes or frills (you know, things like art and music, Women's Studies and Ecology).

John Holt gave up on trying to change schools and instead began to suggest that parents who want alternative education teach their own children. He began a very non-slick newsletter called Growing Without Schooling in 1977, and he continued to write books as well. Feeling that the public schools were fundamentally flawed, Holt did not recommend recreating a classroom at home, but rather unschooling.

John Holt's clear thinking and transparent writing influenced me greatly. I had my first taste of his ideas at age 13, when I read How Children Fail. I read each new book as he wrote it, and I studied in college to be a teacher partly because of the exciting education reforms Holt and others suggested. I could see that the best ideas weren't getting wide acceptance, but I wanted to help make it happen. However, by the time Holt had decided to drop the idea of changing the system from within, I had my first teaching job and, like Holt, had decided that the system was too broken to work with. Career-wise, I switched from teaching in a public school to writing and editing educational materials. On a personal level, I decided that, if I ever had kids, I would homeschool them—or, rather, I would UNschool them.

You can see that John Holt was a true hero to me.

Meeting my hero I was lucky enough to meet John Holt. I didn't have children at the time (circa 1980), and therefore I wasn't a homeschooler of any sort, but I'd heard about a homeschooling conference in Redlands, and I decided to go. I was lucky enough to be one of three women who picked up Holt at the airport and drove him to the house where he would be hosted for the weekend. What a thrill, to get to actually interact with this man who had wielded such a great influence over my own ideas and educational philosophy (and even my career and life)! It was reeeallly interesting!

First, John Holt was terribly unassuming (even shy, perhaps), and he quite refused to be an object of hero worship.
The other two women on the airport run did a certain amount of fawning over him, but his brief answers to their compliments short-circuited the conversation long enough for me to ask if he had read Douglas Hofstadter's book Godel, Escher, Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid. (His answer: no, but he'd heard about it. Did I recommend it? We had a nice discussion.) When we got to the house where he was to stay, there was an enthusiastic group of people waiting to chat up the guest of honor. He smiled, said hello, thanked them for the reception, but begged exhaustion and the need to practice his beloved cello and almost immediately retired for the night. At the conference, more people lined up to fawn over him. They had read all his books. They had adopted all his ideas. They had named their homeschool after him, one couple said. (He looked pretty alarmed by that.) Instead of reveling in the discussion of his own wonderfulness, Holt spent most of the potluck dinner with a university student who also played cello.

Second, he loved kids.
At the airport, while we were waiting for Holt's luggage to appear, and while the women were beginning the adulation-and-adoration session, Holt was playing a game-at-a-distance with a toddler. Peek-a-boo stuff. I wouldn't say that Holt was being rude, exactly, to the adults, but he saw that the adoration squad could carry on without him, and his attention was very naturally captured by the alert sparkle in a little kid's eyes. Later, as he was speaking at the conference, Holt was interrupted by a crying baby. He carried on for perhaps 15 seconds, but as the baby continued to scream, he stopped his speech and looked around for the source of disturbance. I imagine that many of us felt that he didn't like being interrupted, but he expressed, instead, a mild hope that everything was okay and that someone could help the child. He just seemed a lot more interested in the child's well-being than anything else at that moment. John Holt never married and had no children of his own, although apparently he was a very good uncle.

Third, he reminded me just a bit of my father.
One of my favorite moments at the conference had to do with the potluck dinner we all participated in. I had made an enchilada casserole that didn't last long enough for me (somewhere in the mid-back section of the line) to taste. By the time I got to my casserole dish, all that was left was a few sauce-and-cheese-encrusted bits of tortilla that had stuck to it. John Holt, as the #1 VIP of the conference, had been very first in line, of course, and as I was getting my food, I was surprised to see him get up from his table with his empty plate and make a beeline for MY casserole dish. He said something to the effect of, “Oh, it's gone. Well, it was good.” I was busy being totally thrilled that my hero had not only eaten something I had made, but had enjoyed it, when he picked up the serving spoon and worked hard to scrape those little crusty bits onto his plate. I don't know if anyone thought that was a bit gauche, or not—but I was struck by the fact that this was just exactly what my dad did every time I made that casserole! All I can say is, I was doubly, triply thrilled!

An analogy
I would definitely recommend John Holt's books to anyone who hasn't tried them. I will leave you with an analogy he made that is one of my favorites:

We know the things that people need in order to learn, and they do not include constant tests and evaluation. Testing and grading retards rather than enhances learning.

In the same way, we know what carrots need in order to grow. A gardener spends his time preparing and enriching the soil, planting the carrot seeds properly, weeding the area, and most of all providing water and sunshine. A gardener does not spend time digging up all the tiny carrot plants and measuring the teeny roots (and then of course replanting them) each day! A gardener who feels terribly insecure about whether or not the carrots are growing—instead of trusting that what has always worked in the past with carrots will, in fact, work again—and who digs up his or her carrots every week, every day, or even multiple times a day, will NOT grow better, healthier, straighter carrots. Instead, the insecure gardener will weaken or damage his or her crop.

Basically, Holt's message was that humans are learning “machines.” We should of course supply interesting environments and our own support, but we should trust our little learners to learn.

Unit Studies – Pros and Cons, for Pros and Amateurs

First, the Pros: A couple of decades ago, “unit studies” were highly promoted for classroom instruction. Education publications informed teachers that, by exploring one interesting topic—such as dinosaurs—reading about them, painting them, measuring them, writing about them, and counting them—they could tap into genuine interests of their students while still teaching readin', writin', and 'rithmetic. Teachers were encouraged to pull together all sorts of resources and activities about the unit study theme into one section of the room, often called a learning center.

When I started homeschooling, I thought that unit studies would fit even better in a home than in a classroom. Interest-based learning, after all, is easier when we only have to consider a few children's interests rather than the desires of 30 kids! Also, the whole family can learn about a particular topic together, each person bringing to the exploration his or her own level of maturity and skill. It goes without saying that the fluidity of “cross-curricular” units fits most of our lives better than separate lessons on math, science, reading, etc. Homeschooling typically has no “periods,” no bells, no rigid external structure.

Created by Amateurs: Two decades ago homeschooling was rarely acknowledged by society, let alone by educational publishers, and the World Wide Web was barely beginning to be spun. “Unit studies” weren't products sold by “experts” to homeschooling parents. Instead, they were a way of thinking about homeschooling. As I mentioned earlier, Mindy and Camille wanted to mark the change from pre-school age to school age by “studying” something—and they decided that something would be dinosaurs. We were motivated to plan a couple of special events—a visit to a museum to see dinosaur bones, and a fun end-of-the-unit dinosaur party—partly because we had an “end.” The week after our dinosaur party, I asked the three girls what they wanted to study next, and we had a giant discussion and a quick, unanimous vote—and we were soon off on another unit study.

All New! Unit Studies Brought to you by Pros: Nowadays, homeschooling apparently provides a thriving market for educational publishing. When I googled “unit studies,” not a single standard-education resource popped up (in the thirty or so websites on the first few pages, at least—at that point, I stopped looking); instead, a flood of homeschooling resources flowed across my screen. Most of what I saw were ads for products that can be purchased, but there were also several sites promoting free unit studies. Web pages that describe unit “lapbooks” and how to do “notebooking” indicate that some homeschool parents today are keeping their kids' art, scribblings, and photos in scrapbooks, just as I did 20+ years ago.

I don't know if the unit studies one can purchase today are expensive or cheap, worth the cost or a waste of money—but I do encourage those interested in unit studies to at least consider gathering resources on their own (the amateur route) rather than always purchasing published kits (the “pro” route). Lavishly illustrated books available in the library will be better than black-and-white worksheets downloaded from the internet, and less expensive than books in a purchased unit studies kit. DVDs are available for inexpensive rental (especially with a service such as NetFlix), and many videos are free on YouTube. Homemade games and hands-on activities may well be better suited to a family's particular interests, ages, and abilities. Finally, gathering resources can be lots of fun and perhaps even more educational than using them!

Now for the “Cons” Although unit studies suited our family for a while, when my kids got older, they no longer wanted to use them. Instead, each child took her own path and developed her own projects. I am sure that some children and families prefer this sort of individualized learning all through homeschooling. Of course parents should use strategies that work for them and their kids!

I have heard some criticisms of the underlying philosophy of unit studies. Some have suggested that, by having a beginning and an end to a particular “study,” we somehow shut the door on further learning. By being so structured, some have said, we squelch the more natural flow from topic to subject to interest. Sandra Dodd once expressed this concern in her signature pithy style: “Yeah, my kids are doing a unit study on dolphins. Because they know dolphins exist, and my kids aren't dead yet.”

In other words, her kids (along with everyone else) will continue to learn about dolphins (at some level) all their lives.

This is a concept that I can totally get behind! Still, Mindy, Camille, Lindsey, Maria and I did have fun focusing on particular interests (chosen by nobody but us) for particular chunks of time (set by nobody but us). We especially loved having an “endpoint” of sorts—can you say “party”?

Naturally, none of the three girls were actually “done” learning about dinosaurs—and they still aren't. Of course they are lifelong learners-about-dinosaurs!

Just the other day, Mindy was reading that paleontologists have decided that what had been considered different species of dinosaurs is now being considered different stages of life of one species of dinosaur. Also, she recently wrote a blog entry about the early (and, we now know, largely erroneous) models of dinosaurs created for England's Sydenham Park in 1854. These two tiny anecdotes confirm the fact that unit studies—while not necessary to homeschooling or education in general—neither squelch interest nor preclude lifelong learning.

And they can be great fun!

Invoking a Substitute

When our young children are too tired to finish an academic task or chore, too shy to give an oral report, or too upset to make peace with their siblings, we can sometimes help them by suggesting that a substitute do the job.

A substitute?

Of course, we can't call up a substitute kid to do the task, but dolls, stuffed animals, and even costumes and masks can provide, through the power of make-believe, a substitute ready and willing to do stuff.

I noticed that the second day of my homeschool journal tells an anecdote about Lindsey, age 3, being too tired to play the entire piano keyboard/alphabet. But when I asked if her doll wanted to finish, Lindsey rallied and used her doll to do the task much more energetically, even, than she had done the first half as herself.

Naturally. After all, the doll wasn't tired. And, unlike Lindsey, she didn't have a virus.

By pretending to be her doll, Lindsey seemed to tap into reserves of energy.

I remember many times when donning a costume or mask, or manipulating a doll or stuffed animal—or even just pretending to be something or someone else—made my kids braver or more confident or more capable. Even the simple act of holding a stick puppet, for example, allowed Mindy to do a presentation to a group that she was otherwise to shy to speak to. Having dolls negotiate a peace treaty helped my kids distance themselves from the action and gain a more reasonable perspective. Pretending to be Mary-Poppins-style magic as we cleaned the room—singing “A Spoonful of Sugar” at the top of our lungs—made the chore much more fun.

So when the going gets tough, consider calling on a substitute.

Musically Speaking

Reading through my journal, written more than 20 years ago, I find myself thinking about music education.

I always knew that I wanted to expose my kids to making music as well as to listening to music. All through homeschooling, I had on hand my old childhood piano along with a small assortment of other instruments, including a balalaika my beloved sister brought me from Russia, a sturdy set of rhythm instruments I bought from an educational supplies catalog, a recorder, and two guitars. With my children tagging along (and sometimes egging me on), I occasionally bought a new instrument to add to the mix: a couple of ocarinas, castanets, more recorders and drums. When Lindsey and Mindy were teens, one got a drum kit and the other an electric bass guitar.

As long as little kids have strings to pluck, drums to pound, and keys to plink-plunk, they will make music (or at least sounds!). However, research conducted since Maria and I started homeschooling has suggested that learning to make music—and by this I mean actual musical training, not just exposure here and there—helps improve intelligence and learning. My kids did have some formal musical training in the form of several years of piano lessons. Later, as a teen, Lindsey had drum lessons. We also continued with some informal self-teaching.

Another important aspect to musical exposure is modeling. Kids who grow up in an environment in which everybody makes music will usually quite naturally want to make music. In our case, the modeling has been at a higher level of sporadic enthusiasm than of dedication or proficiency. I've picked out songs I love on the piano and learned a few favorites by Bach and Pachelbel, and Jim has belted out “Solitary Man” and Simon and Garfunkel songs on the guitar—but we have both indulged our music-making in on-again-off-again fashion. Months of playing daily, then months of ignoring our instruments.

After quite a bit of exposure to music, plus some formal training and some parental modeling, how did this “all turn out”? Certainly my kids are not professional musicians or even dedicated amateurs, but they love music, and Mindy at least has copied my husband and me: she makes music, but sporadically, as an on-again-off-again hobby, on both piano and guitar.

How about Camille?

Camille took formal piano lessons and enjoyed playing from age 6 to 18. She added the Celtic harp to her music making at age 12, and continued to play it most of the way through high school. Obviously, once she went to college, Camille's music lessons and practice routines were interrupted, but she did continue to enjoy playing piano when she was home from college, during the summer. She received an electronic keyboard as a college graduation gift and was well positioned to play the rest of her life--until she was afflicted with Repetitive Strain Syndrome in her wrists. Since RSS is a chronic condition, she basically hasn't played since then.

So did Camille's parents waste their money on all those lessons? Did Camille waste her time?

I never feel that music training is wasted, even if someone ends up dropping a hobby and no longer plays the instrument. When we study music, we learn to listen to music better, and often to enjoy it more. We learn more about learning itself, about coordinating our hands and eyes and feet and brain. We learn to let go, explore, improvise. We learn to memorize, practice, persevere. And hopefully we enjoy the hours and years we do all that learning and playing music.

Journal Entry 2

Tuesday, September 8, 1987

Camille has arrived for the day. She is dressed and brushed and looking good—whereas my two daughters are rocking the jammied-and-bed-head look. But one look at their friend, and they are suddenly motivated to get “homeschool ready,” too. Clothes are soon on, hair is soon brushed, and the girls begin—

Well, not anything that looks like school. Today our homeschooling starts with doll play.

The past few days, Mindy and Lindsey have been very involved with their Cabbage Patch dolls. Camille borrows a doll and joins in as they fiddle with clothes and talk about doll names. Soon the girls are setting up our coffee table with small chairs and a high chair. “Mom!” I hear. When I pop my head into the room, I see three girls and three dolls waiting for service.

I'm figuring they want breakfast, but it turns out they only want some apple juice. I serve three paper cups half-filled with real apple juice and three cups filled all the way up to the top with virtual juice. Everyone drinks (or pretends to) happily.

Her mom has told me that Camille is a bit sick (Lindsey is, too) and that she is leaving early today. So I decide to hold our planned piano lesson early in the day, when everyone is rested.

My kids had asked for piano lessons, and I thought I would try the lessons that John Holt recommended, Mrs. Stewart's Piano Lessons. The first lesson involves playing the musical alphabet (the A-B-C-D-E-F-G sequence of notes), finding all the C notes on the piano, and using a numbered strip of paper on keyboards to help kids play simple tunes.

Camille especially loves all of this. She loves going all the way up the piano keyboard, from the low-low A to the highest C. Mindy does well at the activity, too, but Lindsey poops out about halfway up the keyboard. (She is, after all, only 3!) I suggest that her Cabbage Patch doll might want to play some notes. Invigorated by this notion, Lindsey carefully uses her doll's hand to play the 40-some remaining notes, naming each one in a slightly higher doll-voice.

Camille easily finds all of the C notes. Mindy's turn next; she hesitates several times, either not finding the white-note/black-note pattern as easily as Camille did, or perhaps just wanting to be sure she's right before pressing the key, but she finds them all, too. I don't ask Lindsey to do this task (she is, after all, only 3), but instead I introduce the numbered paper keyboards and a new song: “Little Bird.” We sing the words, sing the numbers, and play our paper keyboards as we sing. (Most of the time, while Mindy, Camille and I sing and “play” the numbers, Lindsey continues to sing the words.)

“Now,” I say, “can you be little birds?”

The girls jump up. I tell them that, while I play the piano, they can fly around the room. But as soon as I play “Little Bird,” they should nestle into their nest (the sofa) and, as the song says, “go to sleep.”

Major enthusiasm from all three. I play some tunes, and the girls' arms start fluttering up and down as they stampede around and around the sofa (birds never made such thudding sounds!). Suddenly, I stop halfway through a song and shift to the “Little Bird” song. “Little bird, in your nest, goooooooooooooo tooooooooooo sleeeeeeeeeep,” Lindsey sings as the three girls jump up onto the sofa, curl up, and abruptly stop moving.

What a hit this game is! They want to play it over and over.

And over again.

I find it fascinating that the kids seem so wound up and excited as they fly around, and yet they still manage to instantly recognize the song that they hadn't known just a few minutes ago!

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When we stop the piano lesson, I notice that Camille is looking a bit bleary. Her nose is running, so I help her with that. As we all wash our hands, I try to think how I can help Camille and Lindsey get some rest today.

Well, there is always TV...

I ask, “Who wants to watch Dumbo?” The kids agree and sit down to watch.

While they are watching the movie, I give Mindy and Lindsey some breakfast. (I try to urge Camille to eat, too, but she doesn't want to.) They have some cereal. Soon Mindy asks for some cinnamon toast. Lindsey decides she wants some, too. So I give each a slice. Camille still turns down any and all food.

Lindsey asks for some more cinnamon toast. I'm surprised (hey, she's supposed to be sick!) but when Mindy chimes in, too, I make half a slice more for each girl. Before they can ask for more food, I say, “Now the kitchen is closed until lunchtime!”

Camille and Lindsey are resting nicely, with all of their attention on the movie, but Mindy seems to want refuge from something. (The movie? The other girls? The girls' colds?) She uses pillows to arrange a private corner to sit in. I watch her carefully, wondering if she is coming down with something, too.

After the movie, the kids seem filled with purpose and ambition. Mindy suggests using a computer program we have on loan—Kermit's Electronic Storymaker. Each child makes a grand story—exactly one sentence long!

All this story stuff has reminded the girls that they're in “school” now, and they're “studying” dinosaurs. “Let's play the dinosaur game, Mom,” Mindy says.

“Dinosaur game?” Camille asks.

The day before, Mindy and I had made something new for our “unit study” on dinosaurs. I had suggested making a dinosaur game. Mindy wanted a track on which they could move game pieces, “like Candyland.” So I drew a big loopy track divided up into squares, and Mindy found our smallest plastic dinosaurs for game pieces. I scrounged a die from another game, but Mindy wanted game cards, too. (Candyland has game cards! Must keep up with Candyland!) So I cut up some three-by-five cards and wrote things like “Forward 2” and “Back 3.” Mindy carefully wrote “START” at one end of the gameboard track, and I wrote “END” at the finish line. While I colored a few spaces on the gameboard (the cue to take a card), Mindy colored the backs of the game cards. For the final decorative touch, Mindy went to town putting dinosaur stickers along the sides of the track. Now she is practically dancing in her excitement to show off our new game.

Camille says, “I'm first!” and apparently that's fine with the others. As the girls play, Mindy and Camille take turns well, follow the rules (such as they are), and have great attitudes. Lindsey is less capable today of playing in this big-girl way (being sick and all, plus she is only 3!). She really wants to be with us, though, and to be a part of what we're doing, so I help her cope as well as she can.

I notice that all three girls are in slightly different places as far as ease of use of the die. One dot is easy for all of them. If Lindsey rolls anything other than one, however, she lets me announce the number, and then she carefully counts aloud as she moves that number of squares. When Camille rolls any number higher than one, she points to each dot on the die and counts. This point-and-count behavior is called pecking. For example, Camille rolls a two, pecks, “One, two,” and then picks up her dinosaur and counts as she moves, “One, two.” Mindy is already somewhat used to using a die. She is able to glance it and immediately announce the number (although the first time she rolls a five, she does peck like Camille). I know that she has played games with a die before and suppose that perhaps Camille has not. Mindy also seems to be reading the cards, but I think she probably merely remembers that the long word that starts with “F” means go forward, and the short word that starts with “B” means go back. Camille is happy to let me read the cards for her.

The girls seem so actively interested in playing games that I wonder if they want to try a matching game, too.

I had some electrical equipment from a science class Mindy took—some covered wires, a battery, and a tiny little bulb fixture. I got a file folder and inserted brass fasteners, evenly spaced, on each side of the fold. Next to each of the fasteners on the left side , I had glued a picture of a dinosaur. On the other side, in a mixed-up order, I had written the names of the dinosaurs. I connected the brass fasteners of the matching items with wires (first carefully stripping about half an inch at each end) and taped the wires firmly to the file folder. The girls could hold the covered wires that were attached to the light fixture and battery and then touch each metal end to a brass fastener. They would only complete the circuit and see the light go on when they matched the correct name to a dinosaur.

Now I bring out this homemade marvel and ask if they want to play. They do! I read the names of the dinosaurs to the girls, and each takes a delighted turn in being the one to touch the wires to the fasteners. Camille seems to know half of the dinosaur's names from the very start (Tyrannosaurus rex, of course, being one). But all three quickly figure out the matches using this little gizmo.

Mindy keeps turning the folder over to look at the back side. I assume she is wondering how it works, but she doesn't ask, and I don't interrupt their excited play.

I expect the kids to run off and play on their own after they tire of the matching game, but instead they decide to draw. Camille starts off tracing around her hand and making a turkey. Mindy and Lindsey each have a circle template and color various sizes of circles on their papers. Then Camille decides to make her own new gameboard. She draws a large heart- shaped track and then divides it into spaces. She is numbering the spaces when Mindy asks if she wants to make a really BIG gameboard with her. They start the project in grand style, using one of my pieces of posterboard, but Camille soon gets bored, and eventually Mindy drops the project as well. Lindsey has persevered with her circles all this time.

It's finally lunchtime. Camille, who has had nothing all day long, except half of a small cup of apple juice, eats half a pancake and drinks two glasses of milk. My girls eat a fair bit more in variety and quantity.

After eating, the three girls go off on their own. Every time I pop my head into the kids' bedrooms, they are playing “make believe” and, by the way, making a gigantic mess! A few times I notice that they have a disagreement as to how the pretend play should proceed...but each time they work things out with compromises and discussion. I am surprised and pleased; I'd expected a bit of emotional meltdown from the sick kids.

Mindy asks me to make apple dinosaurs for them, as I had for her the day before. I suggest that she help me, and she eagerly washes her hands and abandons her playmates to do so. We get out three brightly colored plates and start arranging apple slices and chunks to make rough pictures of dinosaurs. Camille gets a triceratops, Lindsey gets a stegosaur, and Mindy gets a tyrannosaur.

Camille and Lindsey are very pleased to be presented terrible-lizard-shaped food. All three chomp through their dinofruit.

While they eat their snack, I read to them. I decide to read another of the dinosaur books we'd checked out of the library (Dinosaurs Are Different, by Aliki); then I read three more library books that are not about dinosaurs.

Mindy finishes her snack early and decides to illustrate her Kermit Storymaker story.

Something in the last book, which is about a pony, reminds Camille of some books she and her mom read together. She decides to share with us some of the things she learned. I cannot believe how old she sounds as she tells us, “Cowboys wore clothes that were very practical.” Later she sounds a bit more young-and-innocent as she assures us that buffaloes (she means American bison) “were very big and could almost knock you over.”

Yeah, almost!

Camille's mom comes to pick her up at this point, and so our lesson on Cowboys in the West is over, for now. Another day of homeschooling is over, as well.

For now.

"How It All Turned Out"

As I look back at the journal of our first day homeschooling, about 20 years later, I have a few notes.

The Power of Play

As anyone who is around kids realizes, imaginative play is powerful, and kids learn a lot from such play. (I think all home-schoolers, whether they “unschool” or follow a curriculum, should allow unstructured time for kids to play in any way they want, and should honor as well-spent the hours that their kids spend playing “pretend.”) On this first day of homeschooling, my unschooled kids played at being in school. And they loved it.

For a while.

A very short while.

I homeschooled Mindy and Lindsey (and my third daughter Whitney, who was born when my older girls were 9 and 7) from pre-school up to college, and you could probably count the days that looked like school days on two hands.


Games and Competition

Looking back at that first day's play with Candyland, I smile as I realize how unimportant "winning" and "losing" seemed to be to the girls. These days the family plays a lot of games, especially during family holiday get-togethers, and we now generally play non-competitive games. That is, we tend to turn “normal” competitive games into non-competitive versions of those games. Lindsey and I, in particular, seem to prefer it that way.

Some people are surprised how easy it is to convert just about any board game to a non-competitive game. We often disregard certain rules, don’t keep score, and or ditch the board and playing pieces! The fun of a drawing game is getting a complex idea across with lines and shapes, more than racing another group. The fun of a trivia game is challenging the brain, not moving along a gameboard track.

Of course, competition can be fun, too!

Repetition. Repetition.

Looking back at the first day, I found it interesting that Lindsey kept going back to the same activity among so many choices. Specifically, she kept going back to the magnetic letters.

Arranging the letters alphabetically must have been briefly fascinating to Lindsey—probably until she mastered it.

Babies babble the same sounds over and over again, until they reach mastery. Little kids practice walking; I remember Mindy, age 10 months, running up and down the hall over and over again, exhilarated by her new power and speed. Kids are often motivated to practice self-assigned tasks, repeating as much as necessary until they master a new skill. It's wonderful to sit back and notice and honor this willingness to work, practice, and learn.

What Was I Thinking???

As I read my journal, I find myself second-guessing some of the decisions I made.

Like: What was I thinking, putting my 3 year old in this situation where she clearly thought she “should” keep up with two 5 year olds?

Was I setting her up for years of having extremely high expectations of herself?

(Breathe deep, I tell myself. Lindsey is fine, and you did fine.)

It worked for us!

An educational philosophy that worked for us:

Have cool stuff lying around.

I know that sounds obvious, but just having art supplies, books, balance scales, number rods, computer games, and puzzles out and available meant that the kids very naturally wanted to use and play with these things. Also, I would periodically change things up by putting away items they'd explored and bringing out something else.

I'm sure anyone who read my First Day of School post would wonder, why so much focus on dinosaurs? In the countdown to the start of school, the kids had decided that we should “study” dinosaurs.

Maria and I spent a fun time and a modest amount of money shopping for dinosaur stuff. I found some stencils, feltboard pieces, and placemats.

I also checked out a pile of dinosaur library books.

By following our kids' lead in "studying" dinosaurs, we were engaging in interest-based learning. This philosophy of education entails following kids’ leads. Do what they want to do, what seems fun and interesting and valuable.

I’m sure most adults would think that would be a recipe for disaster. Won’t kids just sit around watching TV all day? Eating junk food and playing video games? When they’re older, they’ll just sit around talking on the phone, right?

Well, interest-based learning can be scary if kids are clamoring for TV and video games and French fries. But in an interesting and varied home environment, with lots of materials and fascinating things lying about, kids can be trusted to choose a variety of things to do.

Some families make a no-TV rule or limit time on computers and video game systems. Others think that this sets up those activities as especially desirable “reward” type activities that the kids will naturally then crave, so they make no such rules.

Still other adults ask, “What’s wrong with TV and video games?”

Basically, having a rich-and-varied environment and trusting kids to choose well is as easy as—and as difficult as—providing a healthy and varied diet and trusting kids to choose their own food.

It helps not to have too much junk food (however you define that) sitting around.

Also, it helps not to model eating tons of junk food.

So the corollary to "Have cool stuff lying around" is "Use cool stuff, and do cool stuff, yourself."