The Pros and Cons of learning to read...

Some of you may know that I started teaching Cosmo to read very young. I did this because I whole-heartedly believe that if you enjoy reading, no subject is closed to you. I'm also dyslexic, as are several members of my family, and I thought 'if he is going to struggle with reading, I want to give him a head start'.

I needn't have worried, because as it turned out he recognised his first words at around 10 months old.

By two years old he was beginning to sound out words and at 2.5 he is now reading sentences and paragraphs competently and even enjoying his very own toddler bible.

You would think this was only a good thing, and it should be. Sadly though, we live in a town where people don't seem to have very much respect for public property. I love to take Cosmo to the park where he can run and jump and climb and generally go wild and have a great time. Unfortunately the park is heavily graffiti-ed even inside the toddler area. So when Cosmo comes out asking me what f*** means or innocently announcing 'Mummy, that word is c***' I am forced to explain to him that those are naughty words and we shouldn't say them. The reality is that they are naughty words and he shouldn't have to read them in a children's play area either.

On the bright side though, this week we discovered where our town library is. Cosmo is taking great pleasure in selecting books to bring home and is, for the first time, enjoying reading by himself. His new bedtime routine now includes the light being left on for 30 minutes so that he can read some of his new books before he goes to sleep. It's a great way for him to unwind and he never complains about going to bed anymore, because he is excited to read a new story. Equally, by the time we go back up to turn the lights out, he has wound down and is ready for a kiss and to go to sleep.

I'm so glad we have been able to bless him with the ability to read so early on. It really does have such a calming effect, and seeing him so excited about going to the library is just too precious. I really can't praise the YBCR system enough.

Your Baby Can Read

As-Seen-On-TV! Babies Reading Using
Our Proven Learning System
www.yourbabycan.co.uk

Notebooking

I love the idea of notebooking. Building your own custom exercise books makes your children's work so much easier to look through and they look super cute! I love the idea of having their work all laid out neatly, and the best part is you can download notebook pages for different subjects, or create your own.

For example, your science pages might include spaces for their prediction, hypothesis, method and results. Your bible study pages might have spaces for memory verse, chapter, what you learnt and prayer notes.

Cindy Rushton produced the following blog about notebooking for history:

''Yes! Notebooking for History Studies! Notebooking for our History Timelines!

What great literature does to feed the mind, Notebooking does to deepen the studies, teach research skills, and record the real education that your children are receiving. Old path? Yep! But not a path that has been overgrown.

Notebooking goes as far back as eternity.

In Scripture, we find that the kings were trained and prepared for leadership by copying the law and keeping it in a book (isn’t that too cute??).

Want to know something even better? We find that EVEN God has a Book of Remembrance that He is keeping until that day that we join Him in heaven for that “Heavenly read aloud time” we will enjoy some day soon. Oh. Don’t worry! We will ENJOY this time. His Book of Remembrance does not contain a list of sins and transgressions that we have committed that He wants to be sure not to forget. Instead, it is filled to overflowing with precious quotes of praises that His servants speak to one another (My PERSONAL goal is for Him to have PLENTY to quote from my life!).

Up until about a hundred years ago, Notebooking was used in the education of every child. But, something called textbooks and “progressive” education eliminated them from the education of children today. With that elimination, we find the need for more and more artificial methods of education. Well, until we find this old path.

My friend, of all the ideas I could share with you as you homeschool your children, this one is certain to change the atmosphere of your home while equipping your children to learn more deeply now AND more voraciously for the rest of their lives.

Although I cannot begin to do justice explaining Notebooking in one simple article, I have to tell you a few perks (if you want more help in this area, take a look at my book Notebooking! YES! You Can Be A Binder Queen Too!). You have to know that this is a WONDERFUL way to teach more than just the historical facts that we want for our children to learn. There are LOTS of perks!

First of all, Notebooking encourages deeper research on topics of study. As my children have found a “place” to keep their special “finds” along the way, they have had more interest in hunting for more information on every topic they run across. They may think of this as a treasure hunt, but while they are having a blast finding great ideas, facts, and heirlooms, they are learning the skills of researching that will serve them all of their life. That is not all! While our children are building notebooks on topics as they study, they are also learning how to record what they are really learning. Besides relieving mom of the pressure of keeping records of every minute of their day, this teaches them the skill of record keeping and keeps a more accurate account of what is being done each and every day. Oh, and need I mention, Notebooking also teaches our children Language Arts skills and techniques the EASY WAY!

So, how do you use this old path as you teach History the easy way?

First, find great resources that can be used for building notebooks.

I am constantly on the lookout for great resources with neat Copywork. My children began using Copywork when they were very little and STILL use Copywork for building their notebooks in High School. There are many, many great resources. The very first thing we used was a large print edition of the Bible. It was easier for my young readers/writers to copy from. I also look for books with poems, quotes, narratives, songs, speeches, etc. As we travel, my children also look for special mementos to add to their notebooks. Anything from art prints to recipes to maps to pictures of the people and events from History are game for their notebooks. The key is in having a “place” to keep the information that contributes to each and every study. That place is our notebooks!

Second, encourage your children to USE those notebooks every day.

It is so easy to put projects on the shelf only to collect dust. It is also easy for us to let the children do work that we pile away in a box to put away later for them. Notebooking is NOT another thing for YOU TO DO! Well, unless you are going to keep a notebook for your own studies.

My dear friend, the greatest benefits come from our children doing the work for themselves. Sure, you may have gone to every local Scrapbooking crop in your city and state. But, this is not a contest for the most creative memory book. It is a discipline that we can pass on to our children so they can learn the skills of writing, researching, recording their own education, and collecting information in a logical and understandable way. Simply find some great resources for them to copy from…buy just ONE NOTEBOOK (3-ring binder) and sheet protectors (to keep their work stored nicely in each day)…and turn them loose! The fruit you gather along this old path is simply too good to miss!

Happy Homeschooling…the easy way''

If you do want some notebooking resources I thoroughly recommend the notebookingpages site. There are loads of free and very cheap notebooking templates you can download for you or your students.

I'm an affiliate, so if you do end up purchasing, please make sure you have clicked through from here so that I can get some commission :-)

Thanks. Happy notebooking!!

It's been a while...

As you may be aware it's been a while, but I have been super busy - with the arrival of our new baby girl!!

Lychee was born on the 25th of July and we are so pleased to welcome her into our little family. Between night feeds and pure exhaustion I barely have time to entertain Cosmo during the day, let alone get online, so posts are going to be a little fewer for a while, but I will try to keep up ;-)

Cosmo's latest achievement is that he has finally accepted we read from left to right (hooray!!!) which means we can progress to reading sentences and even paragraphs. In celebration of this, his daddy bought him the 'Beginners Bible' from our local christian book store. He absolutely loves it, and is doing really well at reading us a chapter from it each evening before bed. Okay, so it's not a full bible, but at the rate he is going he will have finished it by the end of the year and should therefore at least be familiar with the stories and how they fit together, with a basic understanding of the overarching themes.

He is also loving Sesame Street podcasts at the moment. I love it when he tries to use his new vocabulary in every day life. He told me that the breakfast I'd made him was 'exquisite' the other day. He also says that Lychee smells 'luxurious'. Soooooo cute!

Cosmo's first picture!!!

I've been particularly interested in watching my nieces drawing recently. They colour away with abandon and tell me great stories about what they are going to draw for me and the wonderful letters they are writing me.

Cosmo on the other hand seems to be incredibly aware of his limitations regarding hand eye co-ordination. He can hold a crayon, and is willing to colour in something you have drawn, but if you ask him to draw something specific, he says 'no, I can only draw one and seven'. Which is partly true. Most of his drawings are lines, some of them with a kink, which can then be rotated until it becomes a seven.  He will usually at this point pass me the crayon and ask me to write a word or draw a picture for him.

I do think it's sad though that he is unwilling to try and draw anything else, so I was extremely excited when he came bounding into the kitchen to tell me that he had drawn a helicopter!! I'll be honest, my first thought was 'what have you drawn it on...?' but I was overjoyed to find it in chalk, on the chalk board. He just wanted me to come and write the word helicopter next to it so that we could show daddy what it was.

He was incredibly proud of himself, and I was pretty pleased to.

So here it is... Cosmo's Masterpiece!! (age 2 years 5 months)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="Cosmo's first recognisable drawing!!"][/caption]

Children's Catechism

I used to think 'what's the point?' and considered children's catechism a form of brainwashing. More and more though, I'm realising that someone else is brainwashing our children. Even the small children's section in our library consistently puts forward the idea that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago and that we evolved from monkeys.

The fact is, that if I don't give my son a biblical account of creation, Cbeebies will ensure he gets a non-biblical one. How do I ensure that my son grows up with a basic idea of God the creator? Catechism.

Children learn through repetition, and I apply this to everything else (reading/flashcards/numbers), so why am I afraid to apply it to our faith? Because I know that judgemental atheists will slate me for it. So the question becomes 'do I care more about what they think of me than my sons relationship with his creator'? Even voicing the question makes me feel ridiculous for worrying about it. I know what I need to do.

That said I came across this website http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/cc.htm which has a basic catechism for little ones. I think we will break down the lessons to be a little shorter (Cosmo is only 2 after all!) but I look forward to working through them with him. As he gets older, hopefully he will ask more questions and we will be able to explain more fully the theology and apologetics behind them. But we have to start somewhere, and a 2 year old really doesn't need advanced scientific explanations.

When he is a bit older I will probably introduce Kids 4 truth (http://clubs.kids4truth.com/) which I believe caters for 4 year olds through until 6th grade.

It's so hard as an adult to initially get your head around the fact that your teachers were not infallible, and that some of what they taught you might not be completely true. I hope that I can instil in my children the ability to question what is being taught to them by adults and the media, and come to their own conclusions regarding their beliefs. I hope this will include questioning me, but I want them to have heard both sides of the argument in a fair and balanced way, rather just having atheism and evolution drip fed with no alternatives offered.

Nursery & Cortisol Levels

There was an article yesterday in the Guardian about the stress levels of children who are placed in daycare compared with those who were cared for at home (article reproduced below).

What I want to know is, when does this kind of group care become less stressful?
Do these results still occur in children who start school at 4/5 years old?
Is this why classroom management is getting harder and harder as more of our teenagers were sent to daycare as babies?

Oliver James
The Guardian, Saturday 8 May 2010

I am acutely aware that those readers who have placed their under-threes in daycare (group care in nurseries) will not find this column easy reading, so let me make two important provisos. Nothing you are about to read is in any way critical of working mothers. I am strongly in favour of those who wish to, as long as the substitute care is adequate. It should never be forgotten that all the problems I am about to describe are just as common among children raised at home by depressed mothers: so long as the substitute care is good, it's much better for her child that a mother works than gets depressed at home.

Second, as far as we know, most children in daycare do not suffer ill-effects. So just because it has been your chosen method does not mean it has created problems.

The story starts with cortisol, the hormone we secrete when faced with threat, leading to "fight or flight". Its levels were measured in 70 15-month-old children at home before they had ever been to daycare. Compared with this, the levels had doubled within an hour of the mother leaving them in daycare on the first, fifth and ninth days. Measured again five months later, while no longer double, they were still significantly elevated compared with the home baseline.

When at home, under-threes' cortisol levels usually drop during the course of the day, but in daycare, nine studies show that they rise. While high-quality daycare does moderate this, they still do rise even under those conditions, and the fact is that the vast majority of daycare provision is low or medium quality – in America, only 9% is high quality; something similar is true here.

The effect appears to be lasting. When cortisol is measured at age 15, the longer a child was in daycare when small, the higher its levels. As high cortisol has been shown many times to be a correlate of all manner of problems, this is bad news.

In particular, it may help to explain why children who were in daycare when under three are so much more likely to be aggressive and disobedient. The definitive study of the subject showed that this was true of only 6% of children largely raised at home, rising steadily as the number of hours per week in non-maternal care increased, to 25% of children spending more than 45 hours a week away from mother.

In America, where daycare is widespread, it looks possible that it is increasing classroom problems. A study of 3,440 children from 282 primary schools showed that children who were home-reared were significantly worse behaved the greater the proportion of their classmates who had been in daycare: they seemed to be led to misbehave by the greater misbehaviour of their daycared peers. Other studies also suggest that daycare increases the risk of insecurity in relationships.

On the positive side, daycare can benefit the academic performance of children from low-income homes and, when combined with parent-infant therapy, can even improve such children's emotional wellbeing. But it is a myth that toddlers or babies need stimulation, education or friends. They need close supervision by a familiar, responsive adult.

Overall, there is just no reason to use daycare if you can possibly find an alternative. The evidence shows unmistakably that most parents would prefer a relative, and that it is indeed best if the substitute is one-on-one for an under-three, providing care at home. If that is unaffordable, a minder, preferably caring for only one other child who is older than your under-three, is best.

Doubled cortisol on being left in daycare: Ahnert, L et al, 2004, Child Development, 75, 639-50 ... For a fuller account of this evidence, contact Oliver James at selfishcapitalist.com. It is also available on pp274-99 in Oliver James's How Not to F*** Them Up, out in June

Making Butter

As we are using the www.letteroftheweek.com preparatory curriculum to give us topics/ideas, we are looking at cows this week. Cosmo thinks this is great, but the most exciting part for him is that he had no idea butter, yoghurt and cheese were made out of milk.
Wierd isn't it?
I felt sure that the fact that cows make milk would be revolutionary, but he wasn't in the slightest bit bothered. The idea that milk can turn into other thinks has fascinated him. He made me watch a video on how to make butter four times today already!
This afternoon we are going to the local farm shop to buy some cream so we can have a go at making some. Not sure if I'm brave enough to make cheese with a toddler, but butter is pretty easy.
If you want to have a go, there are some simple directions here:
http://www.makingyourown.co.uk/make-your-own-butter.html