Pushing.

I am right now kicking myself, hard!
Rye has had that break through,and it's exciting him enough that he's trying to read on his own - albeit with books far too advanced for him at the moment.  I'm taking his newfound enthusiasm and running with it...

Yeah, that's the problem.
Push, push, push...meltdown!

This morning, we began with handwriting practise.  He quickly developed, what I call "duck lips", give him his dues, he did persevere and finish the set pages.  I was careful to point out the improvements he's making and encourage him to look at the whole page of his writing, rather than concentrate on the letters that were screwy.  He is so quick to criticise himself.

We went onto maths - and I kicked myself that I hadn't checked the lesson in the Singapore Maths book.  Recapping 10s, 100's and 1000, and the exercises asked for the answers to be written in both number and letter form.   Oh dear.  Still, he did really well, and by the end of the page his writing of the word "hundred" had improved dramatically, which again I focused on!  Had I checked today's maths lesson first, I would have be happy with it counting as handwriting practise too.  Rewarded his hard work with a YoYo Bear thingy - it's fruit leather swirls and comes with cards that Rye wants to collect.  So yay, completed those tasks on a high!

I should have stopped there!

I got carried away and suggested reading practise.  First we looked at the lesson in the Classical Education learn to read text book.  Excellent work.  Then I suggested having a go at reading Fox in Socks.  Started off brilliantly, read 4 or so pages really well, he was visibly tiring at this point.  Did I stop.. no push a little more... push, push, push.  Gah!
"Just read this, and we'll stop", I said.  Rye had reached saturation point, he was yawning, stretching, fidgeting more than ever, what did I do?
I got annoyed - boom, a morning of excellent work ruined.

Clearly, I have a bit of a "thing" about finishing what is started, so to combat that, from now on I shall start using the stopwatch on the Iphone, and set 10 minutes chunks.  As Rye progresses the length of time he'll be able to concentrate, without brain scramble, will increase.

We are also still trying to find the right balance of free play time and activities while also living in a co-op where Rye has friends on tap.   Perhaps I need to embrace more learning activities where his friends can join in.  The other day I was babysitting my housemate's daughters while she went away for a couple of days; the children played games, and much to my surprise they all really enjoy playing Fiddlesticks (reading game) - the luck element of the game, meant one of the younger children who isn't reading yet won several times too, so it is suitable for all levels.

Kids playing King of New York

 I think meshing the "strewing" principle of unschooling, with the Classical Education pedagogy will, I think, make it more Rye friendly, and ensuring textbook based activities are well mixed with practical hands on activities, of which some activities can be "group" friendly.

I do like to be "solution focused", which sounds terribly pouncy, in reality it means I learn from the day's lesson(s).  This morning I failed Rye, I could beat the crap out of myself, doubt myself - and initially yes, of course, I felt a failure, I briefly wondered if home education was the right option for us.  Shake it off.
Home Education IS the best for Rye, he loves being home educated.  Today I made mistakes, learn from those mistake, set strategies in place to prevent, well hopefully, a repeat of those mistakes.

Surely, the epitome of learning?

Scholarly Thursday.

One of the joys of home educating - doing it in one's dressing gown and a cup of coffee in one hand!

The morning began with me coaxing Rye to use the pencil grip aid - it's a simple enough wee gadget, elastic that goes over his wrist with a short loop that goes over the end of his pencil, so it encourages him to hold the pencil at the correct angle; and then there's a wee football charm that he holds in his fist with his middle, index and little fingers, the pencil itself he pincer grips between his forefinger and thumb. This alongside with reminding him to angle the paper so it was comfortable for him to write, made a massive difference to his writing.

He wrote a page of numbers, then made up his own sums and wrote those down too, followed by writing a page from the Science Encyclopedia on the Sun.

After a rewarding mouthful of chocolate, we went on to review the past lesson on Proper Nouns, and then I read a fable to Rye and he answered questions that checked his comprehension, along with many reminders to answer in a complete sentence.

The Classical Education books, are fabulous and save me a large chunk of time I would otherwise need to spend researching activities and books for literacy and language.
Anyway, that brought us nicely to break time; juice and toast for Rye and coffee and toast for me - I'd gotten dressed while he was doing his handwriting practice.

Once refreshed, Rye read about half of Thor to me.  I think though it's time to move onto some other books for a while - apparently another common dyslexic trait, is using the pictures as a visual reminder of the story; so while he can seemingly read words like "hammer", "beasts", "monsters" seen out of the context of this story, he wouldn't know what those words are.

Still he did do well, showed that he was considering the context of the sentence, and using the pictures appropriately to help him work out words, and trying to sound out words.  Mind, at one perplexing point, he started reading "had" as "did", I kept saying "try again, it begins with a "h""  but he still kept saying "did".  Rye tends to see the shape of word, again a dyslexic thing, so while it seems daft to me that he's mixing up "had" and "did" in terms of  word shape, they are similar.  So, as he had read quite a bit up to that point, I suspected reading fatigue was scrambling his brain.  We stopped at that point.  We had another chat too, about remembering to look properly at the word and the letters that make up the word - not just the shape.  Next was history.

Looking through the History Encyclopedia.

Funny isn't it, we began the Space Project because I had this idea we could incorporate, science, math, handwriting, reading, history, geography, natural studies etc all into one super project, and have lots of interrelated strands.  Rye doesn't want to work just on a space project, even when we are covering lots of different things and he has a lot of autonomy - he is a boy who does enjoy mixing the freedom a project allows with more traditional learning methods.  So, I've dug out our Story of the World Book 1, and read to him the introductory chapter that explains what an historian is and how they learn about people's pasts.








One of the activities in the history work book was to create a family tree.  I'm out of ink for my printer at the moment, so I'll have to photocopy the sheets for building up the family tree later, so instead I suggested he draw a picture of his family.

So cute, see me, with my colourful dreads.  Rye drew his Great Granddad George, Granddad Graham, Rosemary, his dad and me, oh, and of course himself.  Took him a while to get his head around the task, but once he got past being harsh about his drawing skills, he really enjoyed the task.

He worked hard, and he knows he accomplished a lot today, and felt really good about himself.
I had planned to do some maths, but as it was already lunch time, I decided that was enough for now, and he did kinda set himself sums during his handwriting practice.

The afternoon was spent on lego, a video game, and playing with his house friends.  During dinner I read the next chapter of the "Goblet of Fire".  Thursdays is also house meeting night, so after settling him with a screen, to the meeting I went.

This coming weekend is a work weekend for the Co-op, working on the windows to ensure they have a long life, and maintaining the access ramp to the garden.  It does mean I need to do some preparatory work tomorrow.  This is the beauty of home ed, and sometimes the difficultly, juggling various life needs and commitments.   The vague plan I have in my head at the moment is for some math work in the morning for 30mins to an hour, depending on how Rye responds to the tasks, then he can help me with the work I need to do in preparation for the work weekend.  And if not too shattered from that, maybe a game of fiddlesticks - it's a reading game, I'll explain more tomorrow.

Now, its bedtime!

Wednesday: Day of Tidy.

How the flat gets so messy with just the two of us, I do not know!

Well, I suppose I do, our routines have been disrupted with the summer living and camping; and stuff gets dumped any old place.

So anyway, big tidy up today, which has the added benefit of knowing where materials and resources are. 

Rye has been wonderfully helpful today; completing his own chores cheerfully, and taking on extra too.  We do need to tackle his bedroom.  While reading about dyslexia, I learned that the condition exhibits in a number of ways; the difficulty learning to read, is of course, the obvious one.  The condition can also cause disorganisation, difficulties in finding things and following instructions.   It was a lightbulb moment.   The pit, that is his bedroom, is more than simple untidiness or laziness.   A strict tidy up routine is necessary, it prevents his room from reaching nuclear state with the subsequent battles over tidying up, and the routine will, hopefully, embed keeping his things organised and in or on the correct boxes and shelves.  A large dollop of self preservation too; nothing irritates me more than having to spend hours sorting his bedroom.

That time of the year too; when a declutter is necessary before the Yule and Christmas!  

After the mammoth tidy up, we read a little, and then Rye went and played with his friends.  After dinner he had cubs.  Heart break!  He came back so sad.  The cubs stayed in and played games in the hall; hockey, which Rye loathes, and a game he said was called "Hand Ball", and where they passed the ball to each other, but no one passed him the ball, Rye said it made him feel really sad and left out.  He came back saying how "terrible" he is at games, and doesn't want to do cubs anymore.

Rye is a kid whose self esteem is really fragile; if he can't do something, he immediately exclaims he is rubbish and can't do it.  He needs lots of patience and being shown the task step by step.  He is the epitome of Afred Cohen's assertion that generalised praise is worthless and children can spot it a mile off.  Telling Rye, he's "doing well", or "that's great!" is a waste of time.  Praise has to be meaningful, thoughtful and I try to engage him in praising himself.  If he's telling me something is rubbish, and is getting upset and teary, I ask him to show me something he has done, that he's happy with, and to tell me why he's happy with it.

Cubs, though is a dilemma; he is adamant he doesn't want to go anymore; up to until this session he's enjoyed Cubs, and I think with encouragment he will enjoy it again; but at the same time I do want to respect his wishes, plus subs for the term are owed, and it's a chunk of money that could be used for other activities instead if he is serious.    I'll chat with the cub leader and make a decision after that.

Home Ed life is never dull, that's for sure!