Homeschooling After Allergies

Well, I feel we've blown off a few weeks thanks to relentless pollen allergies, and though I'm still feeling less than perky, I'm ready to dive back into a few of our "formal" odds and ends, like our curriculum story, movement work, fingerplays, etc. We definitely saw some old behavioral problems show up again when our rhythm became.... er... arhythmic, I guess. The past few weeks suffering the side effects of letting DS live in a world of endless expansion while I slugged around reminded me to dig in a little deeper into mindfulness and Tonglen meditation practices. I need to work on keeping it together even when I'm sick or down, and I need to strengthen my ability to remain calm within the storm. And maybe I need to plan a more rhythmic annual hiatus in April because for the past several years, as soon as the Bradford pear trees bloom and the pine tree catkins poke up all over town, I'm as ill as with the flu. I -must- keep the computer off till late afternoon. I'll just have to figure out how to get it all done, anyway. Not sure yet, but I'm sure it entails peeling off more internet tasks. Coincidentally, though, I've just signed up to finish my bachelor's degree online, so I'll be glued to the computer for classes come fall. Still, I'm determined to confine that to late in the day and keep our mornings attentive to rhythm. Life is so much more peaceful that way.

Arts and Crafts:
During our hiatus, we did, however finally begin painting and fingerknitting, so we now have those activities to weave into the day and I'm glad to have broken the ice (of my own worry) for the watercolor painting. I'm still not 100% sure I've mixed paints to a proper saturation of color, and suspect that my first attempt at blue was too pale... he even commented that it wasn't very blue. I used a "pea sized" amount of Da Vinci's Scuola tube watercolors, as that's the closest thing to a measurement I was able to scrounge out of the web and egroups, but to achieve a color that felt rich and nourishing to me, I had to add more until I'd probably added three or four "pea sized" blobs. But he seemed to relax into it a little more. Then, as I'd feared, he wanted to make "something," some shape or "thing" rather than just play with the color dancing in the wet on wet painting style. So I'd prepped my own materials to paint alongside as subtley and quietly and free form as possible, and still he ended up saying "yours is better than mine!" *sigh* Thus we struggle. He's very sensitive and self-conscious, "awakened" early as the Waldorfers say referring to young children who move more into their head (intellect) before developmentally ready. They can do this, ready or not, and public education encourages it with early academics, but it can make them self-conscious too early, halting a lot of their freedom to just be and do in the moment, to follow their noses and curiousities, to try new things and challenges without worry about how they measure up, others' judgement, or comparison/competition. At least that's how I'm understanding it at this early point in my studies. And it definitely seems to be the case for DS. I hope, though, that a few more sessions of painting will loosen him up. I'd read that the wet on wet watercoloring could help in that way for overly awakened children. Fingerknitting went famously.... he was quickly accomplished and secure in that, even woke early the next day and went straight to his fingerknitting to practice it before waking me up. This was a much better experience for him than our first go at bow tying.

Movement:
Movement class is out for the summer soon and I've also begun a new walking habit in the mornings that will replace our formal movement circle for a while. On the days we don't walk, we'll use the YogaKids videos by Marsha Wenig. They're real gems we discovered at our local library. She uses many of the same movements offered in our Enki materials, though not to the same verses, of course. But the movement is there, at least and we will find other ways to work in rhythmic verses with movement. I'm leaning strongly towards working mostly with the Enki comprehension verse activities for our stories, and we'll resume our fingerplays. I've asked husbo to work in as much skipping and rhythmic step activities as he can into his play with DS on the weekends and evenings.

Turns out I'm only just now actually understanding the importance of the midline crossing activities to neurological preparation for reading and since DS is already reading up a storm since September, I'm in a mild panic about wanting to makes sure we support as much brain hemisphere "bridging" as possible so that he doesn't become over reliant on right brain sight reading before he is able to employ left brain phonics parsing. (see "You Are Your Child's First Teacher").

Music:
We need to resume our musical jam sessions that were hard to maintain in the rhythm of the day because Husbo's work schedule was soooo relentlesly unpredictable and late nighted. As of today, though, he is in a new department that should offer a more stable schedule and less overtime and stress, so hopefully we can rely on a good time to jam as a family with shakers, rattles, and drums. I have also been working on music for myself, resuming the flute practice I'd barely dipped my toes into 13yrs ago in high school band! I've been so motivated the past month to play it, despite the silly band book I'm practicing out of. (you know, stuff like "Go Tell Aunt Rhody") But I have such high hopes for it and know that this time next year, I'll be rocking out Tori Amos and Jethro Tull, so I am patiently and positively paying my dues with Go Tell Aunt Rhody. As for DS, I know that exposing him to my personal example of learning an instrument from scratch should help support our work next year learning the recorder in our Enki program. Now that we have a VCR again, I'd also like to whip out my VHS frame and djembe drum videos and work on polishing my newbie skills with those. My heart has been full of music and poetry lately, so I want to run with it and see where it takes me.

Well, off to rework our daily rhythm for our new morning walk habit and husbo's work schedule.