Smushed Egg

We're studying volcanoes this week and next. I've added an extra week of volcanoes to our schedule, since we have a Magic School Bus volcano kit to add to the Intro to Science curriculum. Also, we had the fire station field trip this week and we have an aquarium field trip next week, so we're loosing 1.5 days of school over these 2 weeks.

Today we did an experiment with a soft boiled egg to demonstrate that volcanoes tend to form in the cracks between tectonic plates. Basically, you soft boil an egg, let it cool, tap it against a table to form cracks (tectonic plates), mark the cracks with a sharpie to make them stand out, and then - squish the egg. My daughter chickened out and so I ended up being the one to do the squishing. It was a bit messy, but sure enough - the "core" of the egg came out right along a "fault line" (though you might not be able to see the sharpie line in the picture below). Messy fun!

Fire Station

We went on a tour of a fire station this morning. Our homeschool support group set up a tour for the "birth - 6 year old" group, which we fit in quite nicely. All my kids seem to love fire trucks, shouting whenever they see one while we're in the car, so I figured this would be a good field trip to attend. The firemen showed us their trucks and the things they carry (jaws of life, hoses, axes, etc.), and let the kids climb through the front of the truck (and the moms too, if they wanted). They showed us all the gear they wear, talked about safety, and showed us inside the building (offices mostly). They then showed a video with a silly fire dog and robot, but with little safety tips added in throughout the videos.

My son was thrilled, and kept pointing at everything and naming them ("Firetruck! Firetruck!"). He wanted to touch and climb on everything, of course, so I ended up holding him probably half the time. He was better than I expected - at least he didn't continually run off and escape me.

My oldest daughter was interested, but stuck close to me most of the time. She enjoyed climbing through the truck. She made some friends as soon as we arrived too, handing out hugs left and right.

My youngest daughter was really fascinated and paid extremely close attention to everything the firemen said. She often walked off ahead of me, following the firemen whenever they said, "Come this way." She just had a lesson on a fire station yesterday, so this was really good timing for her. I was surprised just how attentive she was, though, especially for a 3-year-old. She could probably relate to me everything they said!

All 3 kids watched the video raptly, though Ryan did squirm a bit near the end. They all got a bag of goodies and a plastic fireman hat, which all 3 refused to wear until we got home. Then the 2 younger ones put them on and marched around the house playing fireman. And of course, during lunch we had to watch our own fireman video, which is one of their favorites. All in all, a successful field trip!

A Good Teacher

I found this article today, via an email, which made a lot of sense to me:

What Does Your Child Want in a Teacher?

Patient, encouraging - I think I am definitely more like the "Miss Jackson" in the article than the "Mrs. McGregor." Oh, I absolutely love and care for my children more than a non-related school teacher would, but I know that still does not make me a better teacher in itself, despite what some home schooling parents will tell you. I know my first attempts at home schooling were not the best. I didn't really know what a 5 year old was capable of, so I grew frustrated with the slow pace of learning and my daughter very quickly picked up on my attitude. She became frustrated with learning and was beginning to dislike school more and more.

I have been learning myself, though, and have improved my own attitude. Some of that came from learning what a 5 or 6 year old is able to learn, and backing off on my expectations. Most of it has come from stepping back from the day to day teaching and watching the distance learning teachers do their job on DVD. They truly are excellent teachers, with much experience, and despite filming their teaching with no students present in the room for feedback, they know just the right pace to take for this age level. The amount of encouragement required for happy learning has been a learning experience for me too (you'd think that would be common sense for me, but unfortunately, it was not), and my daughter is blooming with the positive attitudes in her BJU classes. Learning how to encourage (and how much to do so) is a wonderful learning experience for me in everyday "mothering" life too, not just during "teaching" times. As my excuse, it is hard to be encouraging sometimes when 3 little children are constantly pestering you with demands, every single waking minute!

I may learn enough before long to be a good teacher myself, but I still think I prefer using the distance learning classes for the most part, and letting my role be that of reinforcing concepts, reteaching if necessary, aiding with "homework," organizing supplies and schedules, picking curriculum, etc. Sometimes it is better all around for the mother to take a step backwards from the day-to-day teaching and just be the mother. Even if a mother does not need to work outside the home, being the only teacher of her children is not necessarily her purpose in life. Sometimes God really does have other plans for mothers, and not all mothers have a desire or aptitude for teaching. God has, after all, given some people the gift of teaching, and thus He must intend for them to have students who are not all their own biological children! I know I am deviating somewhat from my topic and ending up on a soapbox, but I think this is one area that the homeschool world puts too much emphasis on, and seems to look down upon mothers who do not enjoy teaching.

Many mothers make excellent teachers, of course, and are the best teachers their children could ever have. Many homeschoolers decide to home school because they want to be the ones teaching their children, and that is an excellent reason. It's not my reason, however, which has much more to do with providing a higher level of academics, offering more individualized learning, emphasizing math and science more, teaching social education issues (sex, drugs) at the age I believe is appropriate, protecting from the physical/emotional hazards of bullies, encouraging self-respect and self-esteem and independence, reducing peer pressure, reducing busyness and schedule pressures at this young age, spending more time together as a family, and teaching and demonstrating Christian beliefs in the home. I don't want my children spending so much time socializing with children who are disrespectful to authority and their peers (or being taught by teachers who cannot enforce respect in the classroom), who promote immoral and/or un-Christian beliefs, or who spread false beliefs and rumors (about all sorts of things).

Not that I intend to shelter them from all beliefs I disagree with - this is one reason I am including a wide variety of reading from Sonlight and other sources, which introduce different religions, cultures and ideas. But I want to introduce these other beliefs within the framework I choose, particularly at this young age before they have developed the skills of logic and analysis to evaluate other beliefs themselves. I see too many grown people floating around with so many wild ideas they are overwhelmed, especially in this age of the internet, and they do not have appropriate tools of logic to analyze anything. No wonder they think the world is chaotic.

Anyway, this blog has turned out much longer than I intended (which was just a simple link to a good article). I think I need to stop writing now and go get my children back under control!