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.