Learning in the Sunshine State

This Easy Set Pool is only 12ft. x 30 inches, but Kiddo has a blast in it. And okay, dh and I enjoy it too. I don’t care how small it is, when you get hot and sweaty just going from house to car to store to car and back to house, the pool is as refreshing as if it was Olympic size.

Kiddo took a break while playing in the pool, and decided he wanted to make mud. As long as he remembers to rinse off before going back in the pool, I let him have fun in the dirt.

Well, now the picture in the previous post isn’t too small. It’s too big. I guess it’s going to take some time before I know what I’m doing. In the meantime, I don’t know what size pictures I’m placing in a post, until the deed is done.

Kiddo and I just spent the morning exploring this lovely nature blog. After we finished, he suggested we take our digital camera and go outside to look for nature. We just came in, only because it started to drizzle and get the camera wet. I plan to upload some of our pictures later today. The blog author is hosting a Field Day (at least I think she’s the host). It’s a little late notice, but if you have any nature related posts or pics, you might be interested in submitting them.

****NOTE: The blog author is a devout Catholic, and sometimes her posts reflect her faith. Although that doesn’t bother me, I wanted to give a heads up. She usually doesn’t mix her posts, and the religious ones are pretty obvious.

??? I can’t figure out why this picture is so small and the one I used in a previous post isn’t. Seems somewhere I told something to use thumbnail size, but now I can’t find how to change that. I’m using the Flickr plug-in. I’m not going to lose sleep over this, but any help would be welcome.

I keep telling my hs friends that Kiddo has trouble in math. The truth is, he has trouble memorizing. That would be memorizing anything, and it’s mostly due to his ADHD. But in math, he still doesn’t have basic addition and subtraction facts to 10 down, and he’ll be 9 in 2-1/2 months. It’s like he has to do the problem every time he sees or hears it. Now, a lot of folks tell me I should take a “so what?” attitude towards this, and maybe they’re right. But I keep wondering what will happen when he gets to higher math. Well, actually to real math and not just arithmetic. If he can’t pull the facts from his head, and if he doesn’t have much of a working memory (another common ADHD trait), this will give him trouble, right?

Then something like what happened today pops up, and I think he’ll be just fine. We were leaving the grocery store, and were parked next to a 4X4 pickup truck. He doesn’t know to read the X as by, so he saw it as times.

Kiddo: That truck says 16.

Me: What?

Kiddo: Four times four is sixteen. (we haven’t even started multiplicaton)

Me: You’re right. How did you know that? Was it on your math game? (he had been playing a hand held Quantum Leap math game)

Kiddo: No. Two fours are eight and two eights are sixteen, so four times four must be sixteen.

Someone please refresh my memory. What was I saying about math trouble?

Threatened Scrub Jay at Canaveral National Seashore

I love homeschooling in summer! True, Florida is not the most comfortable place to be in summer, but living here beats having to deal with northern winters. Anyway, this is how we do “natural” summer school around here.

Nature Study — We’re learning about racoons. The first time we saw him (her?) we were in our inflatable pool cooling off. We looked over at one of the orange trees, and there was Rocky under the tree eating an orange. We watched, fascinated as he explored our backyard, then disappeared through the fence into our neighbor’s yard. Unfortunately, he’s been raiding our trash can, and he got into the garage when the door was open, and ate the cat’s food.

Other science — the pool offers numerous opportunities to learn about bouyancy. And what 8 year old boy doesn’t like to find out what floats and what sinks?

Gardening — Our tomatoes might actually make it to the table. We planted them quite late, but they’re beginning to get ripe. The basil, chives, and rosemary are doing well, and the bush beans are starting to flower. If it’s not rainy tomorrow evening, we’ll plant the obligatory zucchini. The only thing D isn’t interested in are the cayenne peppers, but dh and I are looking forward to trying them.

Mini units — We do these as the mood strikes. Right now we’re in the middle of a unit on bats.

Reading — D is reading a book about the Bermuda Triangle, one about ghost stories around the U.S., and a Zoobooks on backyard animals. Dh is reading The Story of Dr. Doolittle as our read aloud. The kid is like his mama. He has to be reading several books at a time.

Math — um, none right now other than everyday life math.

Life skills — a few weeks ago, dh was mowing the front lawn when D asked if he could try it. We’re thinking he might be old enough to start mowing the front yard, with supervision. The back is too big for him, but he has to start somewhere, right? Poor kid will soon be sorry he asked to do this.

While D has an unschool summer, I’m planning our new school year. But that’s another post.

I’ve finally had a chance to recover from my week of volunteering at Cub Scout Day Camp, and have also had time to reflect. Don’t tell the powers that be, but even if I didn’t get a discount on my son’s camp fee, I’d still volunteer. This year I was “The Nature Lady”, which actually meant I was there to help the boys fulfill book requirements or electives, or belt loop and pin requirements, related to nature.

What no one counted on was a tropical storm dumping rain on Florida in June. June is a time for quick afternoon thunderstorms, not all day rain. But Alberto had plans, and he forgot to ask us if we minded. So, the first two days we had 125 boys in church Sunday School rooms, while we tap danced and punted. Monday we actually had to keep them quiet, since there was a funeral going on in the church. Boys really aren’t made to be cooped up indoors for too long. Especially 6-11 year old boys. But we managed, and the weather cooperated for outdoor activities the rest of the week (with a few indoor times on Wednesday due to lightning).

At first, when you see 125 boys going from activity to activity, they all seem alike. Active, curious, hot, whiney, rowdy, loud… you get the picture. But when you get time to talk to them one on one, you learn so much more than you ever thought you would. Some examples:

• I sat in the office with a boy waiting for his mom to pick him up, because he wasn’t feeling well. He was tapping on the really cool drum he made. They all made one; yes my son brought one home too. Anyway he was tapping a song that was in his head. Then he looked at me and asked, “Have you ever heard of a song called The Entertainer?”. I told him I had, and we started singing the tune together. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Then he asked if I knew Heart and Soul. Again we sang. Da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da. He told me that takes piano lessons and likes those songs, so he taught himself to play them. He’s nine.

• Another time I was having lunch, when a boy was brought in to sit in time out. He sat next to our camp “enforcer”, a former kindergarten teacher with grown sons. She talked to him about behaving, then together they looked through a book about knots and scout badges. He became animated and started asking questions about the different badges. He also told her some scout stories his dad had told him. Yeah, he made a poor decision and got sent to time out, but he was still just a little boy like all the rest of them.

• On the last day, I was leading a leather craft. We were one kit short at the very end of the day. As it turned out, there was a boy with an injured finger in the den that was there when we ran short. He agreed to sit out the craft, knowing it was a two handed project. Another boy, who appeared to NOT be a favorite of his den leaders, if you get my drift, took me aside. He told me he was going to make his, then give it to T, the injured boy. We don’t know what these boys are capable of until we give them the opportunity to show us.

It’s not necessarily true that boys don’t open up and talk. They love to tell you all kinds of things. And, it seems, they’re still trying to connect the larger world to their own. Anytime you tell them something, they think of a way it applies to them. There was a gopher toroise burrow near our nature trail, and when I talked about it, hands went up immediately. “My dad said…” “One time I saw…” “When my mom was little…” “At my grandma and grandpa’s house…” “Did you know that gopher tortoises?…”

Sometimes though, they share things you really didn’t want to hear. Near the end of a session on one of our indoor days, a boy turned to me and with more than a little pride in his voice, announced, “I know how to do arm farts. Wanna see?”

Yep, they’re boys.

I wonder if King George knows the difference between a democracy and a theocracy. Yeah I know. This has nothing to do with homeschooling. I was just curious.

So, my son, the newly promoted Bear Cub, will be going to our district Day Camp in a few weeks. And I’m a volunteer.Volunteering gets me a discount on my kiddo’s registration. And since the Camp Director is a friend and fellow homeschooler, she would never let me get away with not volunteering.

Actually I did it last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. But last year I was in an air-conditioned room. This year I’ll be outside from 9-3. Now mind you, this is Florida. In June. If you don’t know what being outdoors in Florida in June is like, go sit in a steam room from 9-3.

Okay, I know I’ll enjoy it once it gets going, but right now I just don’t relish the thought of being out in the heat all day. I’m going to be running an area that covers Webelos Naturalist and Forester, and we’ll do things for the Tigers, Wolves and Bears that will be fun and fit with the theme. I need to finalize the plans for what I’m going to do.