Looking at and pondering what many educational philosophies have in common with each other, I recently achieved a level of clarity and understanding, where everything fell into place for me.  I think I may have come up with a Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Actually, you could call it a Grand Unified Theory of Education, because I think this idea could be implemented in public schools as well… But, since I am a homeschooler, and this is a homeschooling blog, and to actually implement this in public schools would require far more change than most would probably be willing to do… let’s just stick with the “Homeschooling” side of it for now.

The fundamental basis of this Grand Unified Theory, upon which everything else rests, is this:

The most important stage of learning for any child is not until after they have started adolescence — usually around 14 years old.  There are essential changes that happen to the human brain when it goes through puberty.  Children around this age are capable of complex and abstract thought processes, and are able to analyze facts and ideas with great depth and insight.  This is almost entirely a function of physical development, and is not based on prior learning.

This is fairly well recognized as true, even if you haven’t specifically noticed it before.  This is the age of “high school” in the public schools, which is a very different environment than elementary and middle schools.  Classical education calls this stage “Rhetoric,” where students apply advanced logic and analysis to discuss, defend, and persuade myriad ideas.  The Waldorf tradition speaks of the “14-year change”, the beginning of the third 7-year-cycle of development.  In Waldorf terms, the first stage (up to age 7) is “hands” – primarily active and physical development and learning; the second stage (age 7-14) is “heart,” an age of deep feeling; and 14-21 is “head,” as they move into their intellect.

However you explain it, around age 14 is when our children become truly capable of deep learning.  And so my argument now, is that everything learned before age 14 is merely preparatory.  Not that it is unimportant, but that it is only skeletal.  A framework upon which the real learning that takes place in adolescence can be built.  Much as how knowing the letters of the alphabet is preparatory to reading (but is not, in itself, reading), education in the first 13 years of life is merely the setting up of the basic skills that will be needed for in-depth learning later.

So here is the second part of the Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Rather than worrying about “what my 5yo should know” or “what does a 3rd grader need to learn,” all we really need to concern ourselves with is “what should my child be able to do by the time he is 14 years old?”

Once you look at it this way, you find an awful lot of freedom.  You will quickly see that there are many ways to arrive at this goal.  And you will also, hopefully, realize that what any child knows at age 6 or 8 or 10 is, by and large, quite irrelevant.  (Not that the knowledge is irrelevant; just the age at which they learned it is irrelevant.)  Whether they start to read at 3 or 11, as long as they can read comfortably by the time they’re 14, that’s all that matters.  Whether they learn long division when they’re 8 or when they’re 13, as long as they’re okay with it by the time they’re 14, they’ll be fine.  Instead of worrying about lists and requirements for each and every year along the way, and whether we’re ahead or behind or what have you… why don’t we take a more long-term view of things?

And so the next piece of the puzzle, therefore, is what are those skills that are needed for the in-depth learning stage of adolescents?

This is my suggested list.  A child 14 years old should, by and large, know or know how to:

• read
• elementary arithmetic, fractions, patterns, decimals.
• cook a simple meal
• write a coherent paragraph
• look up something they don’t know (online or in books)
• do the laundry
• basic concept of historical eras in a broad sense
• basic concept of the earth, continents, and different cultures
• speak a few phrases in another language
• keep their belongings and their personal timetable organized
• basic understanding of money, budgeting
• draw, paint, sculpt
• tell time, understand seasonal cycles (not necessarily the mechanics of why there are cycles, just the fact that there are)
• brush their teeth, wash their hair, shower
• basic understanding of physical sciences (hot air goes up, gravity goes down, birds are alive and rocks are not)
• ride a bike
• swim
• cross the street safely
• talk to other people respectfully
• type
• choose nutritious food
• take public transportation
• light a match, build a campfire
• first aid
• sew on a button
• read music, play a musical instrument, or sing, at a basic level

You will notice that not all of this list is academic subjects.  In fact, most of it is not.  Yet all of these topics are, or should be, essential aspects of any child’s education.  They are all important skills needed for living life; and life is about much, much more than academic knowledge.

You will also notice that the academic parts of the list are rather short on details.  And that’s precisely the point.  The details are merely that — details.  All the fine-tuning, all the depth, all the details are easily learned in the adolescent or “high school” years.  One child might know a lot about, say, human biology by the time they’re 10, and that’s fine if that’s what interests them.  But it’s not necessary.  All that is truly necessary in the elementary years in terms of science, is that they keep a love of discovery and an interest in the natural world.

The same is true in pretty much every academic area.  Really all that is necessary is a basic framework.  The details and the depth come in high school.

So here is the final part of the Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Having recognized this list of skills as the goal for the first 13 years of life, it’s quite easy to recognize that it does not take 7-8 years of intense daily work and study to achieve those skills.  Some are best practiced from an early age, so as to develop good habits.  Others can be quite easily learned within a month or two by a 12 or 13-year-old child, even if it was completely ignored before.  Most homeschooling families will recognize that they will have mastered most (if not all) of these skills, at least the academic ones, long before 14 years old.

And so the point is, whatever style of homeschooling you find works best for your child and your family… in the end, the details don’t matter.  You can save yourself a lot of time, and a whole lot of stress, by not worrying about yearly timetables and schedules and curriculum requirements.  You can choose to follow a curriculum if you prefer to have that structure, but you don’t have to stress if your child seems “behind” when they’re 8 years old.  And even if they’re “ahead”, it’s still only just “details” — the real ‘deep’ learning still is not going to happen until they reach adolescence.  Until that time, everything else is just placeholding.  It is introductions.  It is frameworks.  It is exposure.  But that’s all it is.

Within this Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling, there is an awful lot of freedom.  There is room for every individual circumstance.  Even the age of 14 is somewhat arbitrary… for some children, that stage of brain development comes a year or 2 earlier.  For others, it may be a year or 2 later.  But as a general goal to keep in mind, 14 is pretty consistent.

The main point I want to get across is this.  Grade levels and standard curricula are completely arbitrary, often based on child development science but not always, and are more often about being able to say you “did something” than about that ‘something’ being actually necessary to know at that age or stage.   Year-to-year curricula are useful for organization and planning, for learning habits and routines, but should not be taken as ‘rules’ or absolute guidelines for what a child should know at any particular age.  Far better, less stressful, less time-consuming, whatever homeschooling methodology or philosophy resonates best with you, is to take a long-range view.  Don’t fret about what they retain and what they forget when they’re still young, it’s all merely “details,” the real learning happens later.  Focus less on the year-to-year, and instead focus on the day-to-day art of living.

So what are your thoughts?  Is there something missing from this basic list of skills?  What are your experiences with the adolescent “change,” and how relevant – or not – were your children’s (or your own) learning experiences when younger?

In our case, it’s how I overdid early academics with my son, forcing him to do lots of workbooks (and yes, I do mean *forcing*) when he was far too young because I thought he showed signs of giftedness and wanted to jump on it, having been gifted myself (and never gotten the FULL chance to excel from a young age), as well as a desire to ‘prove’ how superior homeschooling could be.  It created a lot of damage and took us years to heal.

I learned my lesson well and learned a TON about homeschooling methodologies, freedom, child development, etc etc.  I resolved when my daughter Pomme was born years later that she would be unschooled.  At *least* until she was 7.  Around age 7, we might start some gentle academics if she seemed so inclined.  We’d use Montessori “lessons” through toddlerhood (not academic but practical skills) and let her be creative and independent and all that wonderful stuff I didn’t do with my son.  And there would be NO WORKBOOKS!  And I was so happy and pleased with myself, and so looking forward to this ‘better way’.

Well, then my daughter, barely age 2, started begging for workbooks.

Oh, not every day, but when the mood struck her, she could sit at her little desk and work for a solid hour, focussed and uninterrupted.

She’s now going to be turning 5 this December.  Along the way, everything else has indeed gone as planned… the Montessori practical skills, the independent self-reliance, the creative free range imaginative play.  But… she also LOVES to do sit-down academic work.

It’s like they do this on purpose, you know?  Just to drive us mad?  Just to keep us on our toes?  Just to always challenge our drift into complacency?

If she were going to school, she’d be starting kindergarten this year, although with her December birthday I think we’d have the option of delaying a year if we wanted to.  Except when I look at the kindergarten curriculum here… well, she’s finished all that.  It’s been quite awhile since I’ve blogged here, but as a quick catch-up: she’s now reading, loves doing lapbooks and learning about science, is CONSTANTLY asking questions and telling us “I learned something!”, and we’re almost finished Right Start Math level A.

What I really wanted to share right now is the story of what happened yesterday.

This time of year is, of course, back-to-school.  When I was young, this was my favourite time of year.  Yeah, I was a weird kid.  I love school supplies.  New pencils, crisp fresh new books, the latest nifty binders, colourful scissors, sparkly pens… Love it, love it, love it.  I’m almost 40 and I still love it.

I do not love shopping for school supplies this time of year, though.  The store is crowded, full to the rafters with parents dragging their kids around, supply lists in hand, desperately trying to get the 8 binders and the made-in-Canada-only pencils and the right colour pens and the white bristleboard that every store seems to have run out of.  It’s not a fun place, it’s a place of stress.

But, we needed poster mounting tabs for her new world map.  So off we went.

She, of course, was in heaven.  She wanted everything. But the thing that caught her attention most of all, more than the pretty pencils, more than the stickers, more than the bright highlighters… The thing that made her stop and beg… was the “curriculum helpers” workbooks.  Which every other kid in the store was very specifically and deliberately not noticing.

You know the ones I mean.  Every bookstore and stationery store has the little display of these grade-level subject practice books.  Usually there’s one for math, one for reading, and one for writing, as well as a big fat combined one for each grade.

My daughter picked up a grade 2 math book and exclaimed, “mommy!!!  This is math!!!  Can we get this??  Please!??!??”

I’m not making this up.

Now she is advanced in math, but not that advanced.  I took a look through the book, and well yes, she could do some of it, but really it was too much.  So I told her we’d need to look for one that had a “K” or maybe a “1″ on it instead of a “2″.  She eagerly helped me look.  We found “K” math — which a quick glance through proved to be waaaay too easy.  We found “1″ writing… but since we’re doing cursive first, any standard writing book would be useless, besides she’s not interested in writing too much yet anyway.  Unless it’s numbers, or her name.

We eventually did find a “1″ math book, and it was indeed “just right”.

She carried it proudly through the store, beaming.

When we got to the car, she couldn’t wait to start it.  We used her new pencils (I caved there too).  She’d read the instructions out loud, and spell for me any words too difficult for her (‘mom, what’s n-u-m-e-r-a-t-i-o-n?’)  She would squeal with glee when she finished a page.  She would whine with disappointment when she came across an activity that needed coloured pencils (since we had none with us).

When we went to the grocery store next on our errands, she sat in the cart and worked in her new book.

One lady stocking shelves noticed, and commented “oh, are you getting ready for school?”

Pomme grinned and giggled shyly.  I knew she was going to explain that we actually homeschool — she has been very keen on this fact lately.  And indeed, she did.  Almost.

She said “Actually, I do homework!”

“Oh,” said the stock lady, “this is homework, is it?”

I should add that school has not yet started in our district, though I know it has in many other areas.  So it probably seemed a little odd to her that this little girl had homework already.

I whispered to my daughter, “you mean homeSCHOOL, sweetie.”

She laughed and said out loud, “I mean, actually we do home SCHOOL!”

The stock lady said “oh, I see, you do homeschooling?  That must be very nice.”

“Yes,” said Pomme, “It’s way more better than regular school!”

Although it seems we need to work a little on grammar.  Heh.

Just a few short weeks ago, Pomme was eager to learn to write.  She was frequently “writing”, by which I mean she was making little circular-ish shapes and squiggles in neat left-to-right lines.  And she had learned a few specific letters — she stunned me one day a few months ago, in fact, by writing a perfectly legible “mom” on a Valentine’s envelope she had prepared for me.

But anything beyond a few of the simpler letters was beyond her.  She loved to trace letters, and we would write out entire sentences for her to trace.  But no matter how many times she traced a particular letter over and over, as soon as she tried to do it on her own it fell apart.  Her muscles just weren’t yet able to remember the sequence of motions.

This is not worrisome, of course — she’s only 3!  But it was a little frustrating for her, since she so wants to learn.  And frustrating for me, since most handwriting instructional books, being intended for older children, don’t feature a lot of tracing.  They go pretty quickly to forming letters on their own without that crutch.  So my hopes of finding a program to save me the time of writing out things for her to trace all the time were quickly dashed.

I did find one possibility — A Beka’s K4 handwriting program is designed for this younger age group and does have lots of tracing.  It’s also not “ball and stick”, which I despise with a white-hot burning passion (there is a choice between ball-and-stick manuscript or cursive).  I still waffle between d’Nealian printing and just plain old cursive first… and if cursive first, traditional style or Italics?  But for now, I would be happy with anything single-stroke and not ball-and-stick.

Any program we used would also have to focus on lower case letters first.  Which, fortunately, most these days do… but not all.  Any of the tracings that I’ve done for Pomme myself, all the letters that we’ve worked on learning so far, have all been lower-case.

Then a couple of weeks ago, everything changed all at once.  We were registering her for her dance classes, and I had signed a credit card slip.  As she often does, she announced that she wanted to sign too.  I’ll usually take the regular receipt and let her “sign” that, which is usually her little pattern of circles and squiggles in a neat left-to-right line.

But that time, she wrote her name.

Now I should mention that she’s been typing her name recently, and working on learning the spelling by heart.  She logs in to various computer games with her name and had just really mastered the complete spelling by herself.

But to write it by hand all by herself, that was another matter entirely.  And what’s more — she wrote some of the letters in capitals.  Which I have never taught her.

My guess is that she learned the capital forms from her computer games.  But it’s still a difficult task to transfer making a shape by clicking points with a mouse, to forming it with a pen by hand.  And she did it flawlessly, without asking for help, with no advance “practice”.

Not long after that, we were doing the first unit of Meet the Masters.  The project for this unit is to make a portfolio to store your artwork, and to decorate it with a palette featuring the names of the artists which will be studied in the programme, and your own name.  I let her write it all by herself.  She doesn’t yet know how to spell her last name, so I told her each letter, but she wrote them independently:

Now I realize that by posting this picture I’ve exposed her real name to the world, but I was just so proud I can’t help it!  She also cut out the palette by herself except for the worst of the inside turn (top left of this picture) which I finished for her.

So now my plans for a handwriting program are up in the air.  She is able now to write without tracing!  So maybe we’ll give Penny Gardner’s Italics program another go.  Or maybe I’ll splurge and buy Cursive First.  Or get Barchowsky’s Fluent Handwriting, I love their emphasis on rhythm… either the regular or the beginner’s workbook… Or maybe we’ll still get A Beka but go with K5 instead of K4.  Or maybe K4 is still a good choice.  Or maybe… or… or… ARGH!!

Jumping on the chance to practice some addition in a ‘natural’ fashion (since she herself brought it up), I then asked:

“What if you have 3 cookies, and then you eat 2 more?”

“That will make 5!”

“What if you have 5 cookies, and then you eat 4 more?”

“That will make 9!”

“This is a harder one… what if you have 2 cookies, and then you eat 6 more?”

“That will make us sick!”

So much has happened too, so many interesting adventures and changes and cute little moments.  I’ve been tending to post little blurbs on Facebook, or on any of the yahoogroups I’m a part of, rather than properly write things up for the blog.  I should try to remedy that.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Facebook or Yahoogroups… those are more immediate.  This has a more… permanent feeling about it.

All I’m going to mention today is about how Pomme is doing.  I’ve mentioned before about how I learned from my mistakes with Flipper in regards to early academics.  To quote myself:

I am a staunch and vocal advocate of letting preschoolers PLAY to learn, that there is no rush for academics, that forcing early academics on children not yet ready for them causes much more harm than good.

I have approached Pomme’s preschool years with the same amount of pride and certainty of the correctness of my beliefs that I used to have in regards to turning Flipper into ‘My Little Prodigy’.

But the universe just isn’t that simple, is it?  Pomme has turned out to be the complete opposite of her brother, a child who at only 3.5 years old adores and demands worksheets, math lessons, and just more and more academics.

I’ve been greatly informed by Waldorf philosophies this past year, and I know that the ‘pure’ Waldorf approach to a precocious preschooler is still to not provide them with academics.  The belief is that their precociousness is a sign of an unbalance that must be corrected for; that they still need to be in their dream world until age 7 in order to be healthy.

I don’t agree with this 100%.  But I do let it inform my decisions.  We make sure that Pomme still has LOTS of creative play time.  While we are indeed doing “work,” it takes a very small part of her day.  Most of her day is still off in her own fascinating little world.  She even brings her imaginary friends with her to “school,” and helps to teach them what she herself is learning about.  She still spends her time building barnyards out of blocks, turning her playsilks into dresses, running around barefoot in the backyard, digging in the sandbox and making mud pies.

But when I do ask her “would you like to do school now?” her response is almost always a resounding “YES!”  In fact, the other day, we sat down to do what was really the first time I’d ever really pulled up a structured work day for her.  More than just an informal math lesson, more than just a match-the-numbers worksheet or two.  I had a whole program laid out:  Cuisenaire rods work; reading practice; TBB Seasons unit study activities; and a RightStart math lesson.  I was honestly just curious to see what would happen.

What happened:  She did everything, then demanded more.  I had printed out enough of the TBB activities to last most of the week, but by the end of our school time that one day I only had 2 sheets left.  She had traced letters, tallied survey results, made a bar graph, learned about temperature and coloured in thermometers, sorted seasonal activities, learned about what trees need to grow, and completed most of a “colour by shapes” picture.

It was three hours since we had started before she showed signs of slowing down.

And we weren’t finished yet.  When it was bedtime, she saw her unfinished picture and declared she wanted to finish it.  I let her do a few more shapes, but it was soon apparent that she was being so deliberate and careful with it (she’s extremely careful to colour properly, and within the lines), that we’d be up all night if I really let her finish it.  She wasn’t happy, but I told her she could get right back to it the next morning.

That night, she stayed in her room all night (which is about 50/50 these days).  I peeked in on her in the morning just as she was starting to wake up.  A few minutes later, I checked again… and she had set herself up at her little table, and was dutifully colouring her picture.  She didn’t come out until she was finished.

I believe that she has recently passed over another of those little bumps of development, something has “clicked”.  Three weeks ago, she could not independently write most letters, but loved to trace them.  Suddenly, a few days ago, she started writing letters by herself, correctly, that she had never even been shown how to write… had never traced.

Two days ago, we had started a RightStart math lesson but didn’t have time to finish it.  So yesterday, we reviewed the first part of the lesson then did the rest of it.  She wanted more.  We did the entire next lesson.  She wanted more!  We did the first part of the next lesson before she decided it was enough!

Today, we started Meet the Masters, a great art program.  We’re trying the age 5-7 program for her, I think she’ll be able to manage it.  And since Flipper is doing the same program but at the older level, we’ll be able to do the actual projects together — there are modifications for the different age levels but it’s a similar project.

There are three parts to each lesson.  An interactive slide show online with me narrating the script.  Then a ‘worksheet’ to learn about a certain art concept related to the current artist.  Then the project itself.  These can be done all in one day or spread over a few days.  The whole lesson start to finish could be an hour to three hours.

She did all three parts today for the first lesson.  Then she wanted to do the next one right away!  It wasn’t possible, unfortunately, since they were about to head to grandma’s for the afternoon.

I’m just flabbergasted.  And excited.  Could she really be this easy?  But I’m also keeping my feet on the ground, and staying cautious.  I still have to be careful not to overdo it (since I know I have the tendency), and I have to realize that this might be temporary!  She could very likely go through phases where she does not want to “do school” at all, and I need to be prepared to respect that!

In the meantime, though, I’m going to enjoy the ride. 

Saxon Math 5/4, Homeschool Third Edition (2005).  630 pages.  Just the student textbook.  Some exercise numbers are circled in pencil, otherwise no marks.  Very good condition overall, some wear here and there.  $30.

Easy Grammar: Grades 3 and 4, 1996 Teacher’s edition.  480 pages.  A few pencil marks, no writing.  Cover shows wear, first40 or so pages are dog-eared.  Otherwise in good condition.  $15.

Easy Grammar: Grade 4, 2006 Teacher’s edition.  585 pages.  Excellent, like new condition.  $25.

A Reason for Spelling, Level D, Teacher’s edition.  355 pages. Front cover missing, some dog-eared pages, otherwise good condition.  $15

Birthing from Within, England and Horowitz.  Paperback.  Excellent condition.  $10.

Enjoy!

One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is that when we need to, we can just take some time.

About a year or so ago, I bought the Life of Fred: Fractions book, much to Flipper’s chagrin.  More math!??  This was an atrocity!

Until I started to read the first chapter to him… and he giggled… and he took the book and read it cover to cover.

Of course you’re not supposed to read it cover to cover in one sitting.  You’re supposed to work through the math in each chapter before moving on to the next.  But it was a good sign that he would enjoy the book, and he was more than happy to read it again, this time stopping to do the math along the way.

Within a few chapters, I was impressed enough that I went ahead and ordered the rest of the books, from Decimals through to high school Geometry.

However, after awhile, things began to bog down.

Flipper has always had difficulty with retention, especially in math.  He will learn a new concept, clearly demonstrate solid understanding of it, successfully complete several lessons on it… and when the concept comes up again a few weeks later, he insists he’s never ever ever done this before and has a meltdown.  It takes a ridiculous amount of re-learning and repetition before something actually, permanently, ‘sticks’.

This is why we’ve gone through so many different math programs through the years, often repeating the same “level” in different programs.  Each one is great, but not enough for him to be able to move on just yet.

And so it started with Life of Fred.  Although he had previously done most of the fraction concepts with Teaching Textbooks (I knew he needed more review, which is why I purchased LoF in the first place), it was like he’d never seen them before.  He was starting to have trouble with the “Bridge” unit tests.

At one point, he ‘flunked’ all 5 Bridge options at the end of one unit, and even after attempting them a second time, he still could not get enough correct answers to show he understood what was happening.  In fact, it was very clear that he did not.

So, we put it away.  And we focused solely on the RightStart level E he was already doing.

Fast-forward to this year.  He is now well into RightStart Geometry and loving it.  When we found a massive printing error that required us to wait for a new copy (which they gladly shipped to us at no charge), we decided to start Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra in the meantime, and also to get back into Life of Fred.

Now that I think about it, this Teaching Textbooks was also a “get back into” event.  After having finished TT Grade 6 two years ago, we tried going straight into TT Pre-Algebra, but it was again quickly obvious that he had not retained well enough and it was too ‘dry’ for him.  That’s when we switched to RightStart E in the first place.

This time it was completely different.  The first 25 or so chapters of TT Pre-Algebra have been a piece of cake for him.  Although many concepts which really are review for him still seem to him like “new” concepts, at least he is not getting stuck, nor is he getting frustrated.

And Life of Fred?

Well, today he finished the last chapter, after having sailed through every single Bridge along the way on the very first try.

The Final Bridge, however, was not successful on the first attempt, due to a single repeating error — using the ‘shortcut’ for turning a mixed number into an improper fraction, he put the resulting figure in the denominator instead of the numerator.   Now this did result in a meltdown when he realized he’d blown the entire thing, having made this mistake every single time.

But now that he’s done that, I highly doubt he’ll ever make that slip again!

In fact, when he went to bed tonight, he asked if he could work on the Final Bridge second version, so that he could start the Decimals book tomorrow.  And he asked to take the Decimals book to bed with him as well… just in case he did finish the Bridge successfully this time.

All this is simply to demonstrate the value of time.  The value of putting something away and bringing it back later… whether that means after doing practice in other curricula, or just letting some maturing happen.  I really do think that 90% of the difference has been simply the fact that he’s a year more mature, though certainly the RightStart program helped immensely as well.

To do so… to put something away when it is too much right now… is not to admit defeat.  It is not a failure.  In public school, there would be no option.  Each child must march in lock step with the entire class, and if it’s too much too soon, or too fast… too bad.  Any difficulties are indeed perceived as failures.

But at home, we can be more realistic.  It’s not the child that’s at fault.  It’s just not the right time for this program.  You take a break, with no recriminations or disappointments, and you try again later.  We can allow the development that happens with time to unfold at its own pace, and work with our kids where they are rather than where some artificial and arbitrary standard says they ought to be.

Some items, such as the Stockmar crayons and paints, can be a bit harder to track down in Canada.  I found some at ape2zebra.com, but it still didn’t have all the supplies I was looking for.  I could find them at US-based online stores, but shipping costs were prohibitive (when they even shipped to Canada at all).

Well, I finally found them.  Waldorf.ca, which is run by the Waldorf School Association of Ontario, has a Waldorf Bookstore, but that’s a misnomer.  They sell so much more than books.  The store is physically located on the campus of the Toronto Waldorf School, but they sell online as well, and ship all across Canada.  I suspect it’s the main resource for Waldorf schools across the country.  And that’s good news for us homeschoolers as well.

I found all the art supplies I was still needing, as well as a few I already had but at a better price (good to know for when they need replacing!)…  They have modelling beeswax, which so far I’d been unable to find anywhere else in Canada.  Beeswax candles in various sizes.  Painting boards!  Silk, fairy wool, quality chalkboard chalk, wooden flutes (both pentatonic and diatonic), and main lesson books!  Main lesson books in all shapes and sizes and types.

Up until now we’ve been using regular art sketch books, which I often see suggested for homeschooling main lesson books.  But they aren’t without problems.  The paper is too thin, so we can’t draw on both sides of the page.  Or to get it thick enough, it’s waaaay too expensive.  Or it’s only available with a top-opening, not a side.  Plus, they’re generally 100 pages, which is awfully big for a main lesson book.  We’ve been using one sketch book for all his subjects, all mixed together.  And you know what?  For many subjects, I think that’s fine — everything is learning, everything is related, after all.

But for some subjects, the idea of having a separate book to help him really connect the ideas within a certain area, has a nice ring to it.  But it would have to be shorter.

Well, that’s the main lesson books, the “official” ones.  You can get them with or without onion skin — thin paper between the pages to keep drawings on adjacent pages from smudging, side-open or top-open, small through extra-large sizes, staple binding or spiral bound… there are also lined books, journal books, composition books… Oh, and did I mention the price?

The art sketch book we’ve been using, which has too many pages, and can only draw on one side, was about $20.  A large size main lesson book with spiral binding is $6.  Page for page, it’s still cheaper.

The store also sells health products (mostly Weleda brand), games, videos, and — of course — books!

All the Waldorf books (eg, on form drawing, painting, etc), which I’ve been looking for on Amazon and from US-based shops (such as Christopherus), including some I had not been able to find yet anywhere — there they are, right here.  In Canada.  Affordably priced.

They have tons of Steiner’s own writings — which I myself am less interested in, but most other Waldorf-inclined folks would drool over.  Books for children (with the gentle, nature-based Waldorf spin).  Waldorf craft books.  Books on “Destiny, Karma, and Reincarnation”, if you’re into that side of things.  Books of rhymes and verses and songs.  Curriculum guide books.

In fact, it’s almost too much!  I almost don’t know where to start!  But at least I know where to get my supplies once I know what I want.

So far, I’ve ordered painting supplies and main lesson books, and they arrived today.  Customer service was great (I had a glitch with my credit card payment — my fault, nothing to do with them — and they were wonderful dealing with it).  Shipping was super-quick (they were low stock on one item and gave me the option of shipping right away but incomplete, or waiting a few weeks for the complete order) and shipping costs were reasonable.   Everything I received was precisely as advertised.  We spent a lovely afternoon wet-on-wet watercolour painting with my daughter, the first time we’ve used the Stockmar paints!

I’d be remiss not to mention the downside of the site — many items don’t have pictures, or full item descriptions.  “Details coming soon” is something you see quite a lot.  I get the idea that this is a fairly small operation, without a staff of hundreds maintaining the website.  Perhaps their online selling is still relatively new and they’re adding details and photos as they get the chance.

But this is a very minor inconvenience when compared with the many, many wonderful things about this site.  Their variety is just astonishing, the completeness of their stock is almost overwhelming.  And of course, no cross-border fees.  One-stop Waldorf shopping in Canada!

Okay, I wasn’t going to get into this whole “Tot School” thing, since we’re not really doing all that much in terms of formal schooling.  But, she did a few really cool things this week, and I know that “Tot School” isn’t supposed to necessarily mean “formal schooling” anyway, so I decided to jump on board and share.  Maybe next week I’ll take more pictures too…

First, art.  I’ve been getting Waldorf-y lately art-wise.  I’ve just read Painting with Children — I’ll post a review of that another time.  I’ve also broken down and ordered Stockmar watercolour paints and some accessories (painting board, paint jars and holder)… We’re still awaiting those, so I decided not to do the typical early Waldorf painting experience, where we would start with just one colour to fully experience it.  Pomme loves drawing great details — even though she’s only 3, she draws people with hair, eyelashes and eyebrows, toes, teeth, clothes… she draws a baseline too, which is apparently very unusual for her age.

So I decided to do a Waldorf-inspired “child copies the parent” painting.  I started with a light wash on part of the paper, for the grass, which she then imitated.  Then another wash for the sky.  Then we added a tree, apples on the tree (using a different brush technique), a sun in the sky, and a few people around the tree, all of which she duly (and most excitedly) imitated!

Here is my finished model:

According to Waldorf art principles, the people are deliberately simple, mere suggestions of people.  Here is her finished work — she had a bit too much water in the tree paint, so it ended up spreading and fading as it dried, obscuring just how amazing her tree looked originally.  But it still looks pretty cool!

Notice that her people are more detailed than mine — she tried to add faces, hair, etc, which didn’t work as well with the thicker paintbrushes, but she refused to just to basic shapes like I had.  The taller person is daddy, apparently, and the shorter one is her.  Then there’s a mere suggestion of a person on the other side of the tree — that’s one of her imaginary friends!

This was such a fun and simple activity.  We’ll definitely do this sort of thing again.

The only other thing we did ‘formally’ this week was math.  We’re working through Right Start level A — nice and slow, she’s only 3!  But she gets it and she loves it, so why not, eh?

So far, she’s learned to recognize quantities up to ten at sight (when grouped as “five and something”), using fingers, objects, tally sticks, or the abacus; instantly count aural taps up to ten; parallel and perpendicular; squares, rectangles and triangles (which she mostly already knew, but didn’t know a square was also a rectangle!); and repeating patterns with up to 4 elements (ie, Red Red Blue Green).

Rather than using the “bead cards” (reproducible in the appendix of the book) as a manipulative, I decided to make Montessori-style bead bars — like the golden bead bars, but using the 5-and-something patterns of Right Start, and using natural wood beads à la Waldorf.  Here’s one finished set:

I’m actually really proud of how these turned out.  I plan to make another post describing how they’re made, with more photos, and a video of Pomme helping!  She instantly recognizes each one, it’s so cool.

This week she did her first official math worksheet, as part of lesson 10.  This was writing tally marks to match the number of objects shown.  She’s only 3, so her writing is not great, but I think it’s darn good for a 3yo… (today she wrote “mom” on her own…)

Ain’t she something?!?

One thing I’ve loved about the Waldorf ideas, is the concept of drawing to learn.  This isn’t solely exclusive to Waldorf, of course, I’ve seen it pop up in many curricula and philosophies.  It’s just especially prevalent in Waldorf, and so it’s led me to re-examine the idea with more freedom and more deliberate cogitation… how can we work main-lesson-style drawings into Flipper’s other subjects?  It’s one thing when you’re working with a resource that already includes drawing, but it’s another thing altogether when you want to keep using the materials you have, but add/substitute drawings where appropriate.

Well, I had a flash of brilliance today (if I say so myself).  I confess it wasn’t entirely original.  I was inspired while reading about The Sentence Family.  This particular grammar resource reminds me a bit of Sentence Island, which I’ve been thinking of using with Pomme when she’s old enough.  They are similar in that they both teach the facts through interesting stories with anthropomorphised grammatical concepts, rather than dry academic text.

Where Sentence Family takes a step beyond Sentence Island is in the active, creative element from the student.  Given cues and suggestions, they are to draw their own pictures of the grammatical characters.  For instance, Verb is an energetic young boy who wears red, and he should be drawn doing something active.

This approach is similar in concept to lapbooking, narration, and Waldorf main lessons, in that the child does not merely parrot back fill-in-the-blank answers, but becomes part of the process, engaging in an act of creativity which helps to secure the information in their consciousness – not just their short-term memory.

I was so impressed with this, that it struck me, that this is the way to incorporate drawings for Flipper’s other subjects.

First up, was French.  He is currently on unit one of book two of L’art de lire, and in general is doing very well.  He’s remembering the vocabulary and the pronounciations, his translations are generally accurate, he’s even getting the hang of gender and number agreement (which we don’t have to worry about in English).

But for some strange reason, the basic verbs avoir and être cause him constant confusion.  Not for lack of practice – he’s actually been taught these as early as age 4 or 5.  He sings the songs I learned as a child (conjugating to the tune of Mexican Hat Dance) with joy and enthusiasm.  He translates them accurately from french to english.  But english to french?  He’ll mix up “vous” with “il”, “est” with “êtes”, spell them wrong everywhere (he even used “ill” and “ills” recently), confuse the avoir conjugations with the être conjugations… many of the mix-ups are understandable… but not really after this length of time.

He needed a way to make each one more concrete, more individual.  Enter the main lesson drawing book.

I had him divide four pages into 2 sections each.  Then in each of the 8 sections, he labelled and illustrated one conjugation of être.  I gave him some hints of ideas where needed, but for the most part I just let him be creative and draw whatever was meaningful to him.

So, for “je suis”, he drew a simple stick figure of himself, with an arrow pointing to it saying “me”.  At my suggestion, he added a background of grass and a beautiful tree.  Then he thought of adding another person to the picture, smaller and in the background, to differentiate between the “me” and the “other.”

Then, for “tu es”, he drew the same two figures, but this time the other was the one in center focus.  For “il est”, the same two figures were located one on either side of a new figure, both pointing to him. “Elle est” repeated a similar picture, but with a girl in the center.

For “nous sommes”, he created a soccer team.  Complete with matching jerseys, a soccer ball, and an intricate net.  “Vous êtes” became, of course, the opposing team, with a couple of the first team off to the side pointing to them.  For “ils sont” and “elles sont”, the solitary figure of himself again took the center, pointing off to the side to a gaggle of boys (or girls) in the background.

He loved every moment of this activity.  It remains to be seen how much different it actually makes to his retention of the verb conjugations, but I love this approach.  We will continue tomorrow with the “avoir” conjugation — I can’t wait to see what objects his little characters will “have”!

I have to say that I’ve tried to demonstrate the conjugations in a similar manner previously… by explaining to him, by speaking and pointing to imaginary people whiler reciting the conjugation.  The difference is that then, I was the one doing the activity, and he was a mere passive observer.  That’s fine for your pure visual learners, not so much for your kinesthetic ones.  With this project, he was doing the activity, he was internalizing the meaning of the verbs in a more concrete way than rote worksheet exercises.

And most importantly – he liked it.