Jewelry Making and Library Time

The girls had library story time yesterday.  For the last couple of weeks, the kids have been coming up with various ways of reporting on inventions.  Some have made things and some have done power point presentations.  Some have had hands-on demonstrations.  Each homeschool kids did their own thing. 

Megan talked about the history of Lego bricks.  Who knew that Lego's were originally called "automatic binding bricks"?  When she was preparing her report, she wanted to sit at the computer and type it herself.  She's always been a natural speller, but it still surprised me when she sat down and just started typing away without needing spell check.  She was scared to talk in front of the kids, but she did it and was proud of herself.

Sami struggled for three weeks on what to do.  She is such a perfectionist that she convinced herself that she needed to make an original invention that worked for her report.  I finally got her focused after two weeks of struggling, so she ended up making a solar panel windmill from a kit.  Sami was very scared to talk in front of the other kids also, but she showed her windmill in a show-and-tell fashion.  We were both pleased that she was able to do this after all that she's been through in the last few weeks.

That afternoon, the library had a bead class where we got to make our own bracelets.  The hardest part was choosing what beads to use.  After the beads were chosen, the rest kinda fell into place.  Sami, in her perfectionist way, took over an hour to choose her beads and then another hour putting it together and taking it apart to try and make it perfect.  She was so frustrated, but she stuck with it and finished it.  I'm using my 40%off coupons at Hobby Lobby today and get the girls some more beads so that they can make some more jewelry at home.

 

Mine is on top, Sami's is in the middle, and Megan's is on the bottom.  Megan got done early and had time to make a pair of matching earrings.  

Reading Classics

When I was in public school, I didn't have time to read any classics, or much of anything.  I was so busy doing school work and home work, that there was precious little time to read anything. 

When I was in high school, I was able to make some time to read quite a bit.  My bus route changed from 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours when I entered high school, so I was able to read quite a bit on my home every day.  I mostly read science fiction because those were the types of books that my older university-attending brother left laying around, so I picked them up and read them.      

So why didn't I read any classics?  Remembering back, there were several reasons:

1. If the teacher assigned them they were WORK, not pleasure.
2. Even if we did pick out a book on our own, the teachers expected a book report or a test, not an open discussion of the book.  Reading a book to test is a joy killer.  An oral report just brought anxiety and fear of failure. 
3. The teachers would have written tests where we regurgitated names, dates, and useless facts of the book.  It's a lot easier for the teacher to grade names and dates than to read about what we thought of the book.  
4. What the teachers did make me read was BORING.  I can't even remember any titles of books that we read.  Just because it was labeled a classic didn't make it enjoyable to a child with a huge imagination. 
5. I remember a particularly hateful high school teacher making us read Shakespeare.  I say "making us read" because she didn't make it fun or enjoyable, and did a terrible job of explaining it to us.  She pampered her theater students and the rest of us were treated as fodder for her jabs and hurtful comments of how we weren't going to amount to anything.  I still don't enjoy Shakespeare because of her. 
6. My parents didn't take me to the library.  We lived seven miles from town, we had one car for years and six children, and extra-curricular activities were non-existent.  The elementary school library was one tiny room (maybe 10x15 feet?) that 25 other children were jumbling around in at the same time for 10 minutes a week.  The high school library was only visited if we were doing a paper and given special permission to visit. 

I did have a couple of teachers in elementary school who would read classics to us in class, like The Little House series, or the Chronicles of Narnia.  That was great!  I think it is because of them that I was able to finally realize that books could be wonderful and entertaining in the right environment.  I didn't even know that these were classics that they were reading to us; they were just fun to listen to. 

I think that it's somewhat of a miracle that I love books after all of that, let alone classics.  I am passing on my love of books to my children.  Here is how I am passing on this love:

1. I read out loud to them. 
2. We listen to books on CD.
3. We read fiction, science fiction, historical fiction and classics.  Non-fiction get looked at and used, like our bird book and caterpillar book. 
4. I keep tons of books available on the book shelves.  We get bargain books at library sales, hand-me-downs from growing cousins, and an occasional new book for special occasions.  
5. Whatever they pick up at the library is fine with me.  Graphic novels are perfectly acceptable.  We visit the library weekly at a minimum.
6. We talk about the books that we read, both the good and bad.  We discuss what we agree with and what we don't like. We discuss moral issues that come up, and views in books that challenge our own views.  We discuss about how written words don't make something correct or moral or even fact, but rather a point of view.  We also quit reading books after the first few chapters if they just don't sit well and aren't fun to read. 
7. I encourage them to read on their own and I let them choose what they want to read to themselves.  I don't assign books to them.  Often times they choose the same book again and again, and I just let them.  It will be a loved book to them as they grow older, and not a book that their mother criticized them for reading. 
8. I read in front of them often.  They always ask me about what I'm reading and what's happening now.  It's hard to tell a quick synopsis of what I'm reading, but I try.  I'm hoping that they'll want to read my more complicated books when they are ready.  It's funny to be reading a book while soaking in the tub, and the girls are sitting around me asking me about what I'm reading. 
9. I'm reading classics now and reading classics to the children.  I listen to classics on my MP3.  There are some really good classics out there, but I sure wouldn't have told you that as a child.  It's all in how they are presented.  

I'm glad my children love reading and love books.  I wish I were that way at their age. They are getting classics and they don't even know that they are classics.  They just enjoy the stories. 

Library Books

As most homeschoolers know, the library is a great resource of learning.  We can read books without having to spend money on buying the book, which is a great money saver.  But is it right to feel guilty to not read a book that we have checked out?  I didn't think about this much until I read another blogger that was having those feelings.

I have checked out books numerous times that have never been read.  Sometimes I run out of time, and sometimes I just don't have the time.  Sometimes I just don't want to read it after I picked out the book, perhaps because I checked it out on impulse.  The problem is, I feel guilty for it.  I feel guilty for using the library's resources, and I feel like I let myself down.  Well, I'm not going to feel that way anymore.  It's just silly. 

The girls have no problem checking out many, many books.  Sometimes they check out the same book more than once, and still don't get around to reading it.  I used to try and curb their book-checking enthusiasm by limiting how many books they could get, but then I realized that I was limiting their access to something that might interest them in a week or two.  Unschooling is about giving them easy access to their many interests, and that can't happen if the book isn't here to read.

After I started letting them check out as many books as we could carry without dragging the bags on the ground, I found that they often did get to those extra books and that they were worth checking out.  I would watch the library book piles, lamenting the fact that certain books weren't getting touched, but by the end of the check-out period most books did indeed get looked at and even read. 

I think that my frugal self was equating mega-book-borrowing with being wasteful, and that is just fallacy.  I'm letting them check out as many books as the library will allow and I'm letting them enjoy it.

Tea Party

The Brown County Public Library had a Tea Party last Saturday, hosted and sponsored by the Friends of the Library. The whole occasion is fun yet formal. The hostesses bring their best china and linens, and bring wonderful homemade fingerfood. Sami's picture made the front page of the Brown County Democrat above the fold, but Megan was thrilled that her arm made the front page. Thank you, Brown County Democrat, for putting so many nice pictures online.