My Goals

I'm wide awake from the tea that I drank tonight and my legs are aching from mowing the lawn today, so I thought I'd take a minute to jot down my thoughts.

I've established a few goals recently.

The first one is to read a portion of scripture every day--to myself. Ultimately, this means that I will read the Bible from cover to cover for the first time in my life, but right now, it's a portion of scripture--every day. That's it.

I also plan to read the Bible aloud to Judah this year. When he was three, we read The Beginner's Bible by Karyn Henley, illustrated by Dennas Davis (a good friend!), again and again and again and again. Now I'm reading the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago, to four-year-old Mira. Judah usually listens in, but his appetite for words has increased dramatically in the past four years, so I'm actually reading the Amplified Bible to him. It has completely captured his attention. At the end of a chapter, he says, "Go on." I love it.

After missing two consecutive days of scripture-reading this week, I realized that I probably need to slow down if I'm ever going to accomplish this goal. Which leads me to goals #2 and #3:

Goal #2 is to teach my children to read this year using Sing, Spell, Read, and Write. Both Judah and Miriam are on the same page developmentally when it comes to letter recognition and letter sounds. They're both beginning to sound out words--Judah a bit more than Miriam, but not much. I'm waiting for a workbook to come in the mail to really get them started, but we've had fun listening to the songs and looking at the chart with the letters and pictures. I love listening to them try to sound out words in the car. Miriam sounded out "jewel" yesterday: JL. :0)

Goal #3 is to work through the Math-U-See Primer with both Judah and Miriam. I'd really like to establish a basic foundation in math and get them both reading simple words before the end of the 2011-2012 school year.

We'll be reading a ton of books, as usual--biographies for history and nature books for science and continuing to look things up on maps and, of course, spending time outside playing in the woods and in the creek, which, by the way, is where Judah found his new pet: a toad by the name of Crossbones. I heard him referred to as Mr. Toad today, though. Judah feeds him cicadas and worms and keeps him in a big tub covered by a cotton sheet. He also takes him out daily for "morning exercises."

We're having fun "doing school," which, I've begun to realize, is as much about personal responsibility and freedom to be creative as it is learning to read and write and do arithmetic. For example, Judah and Miriam both wanted to play with play-dough this week. I kept telling them that we could open the play-dough when the playroom was picked up. I helped them pick up last night and they finished it this morning--including using the vacuum.

They played with play-dough the entire time I mowed the lawn. (Thankfully Nadia slept the entire afternoon!) When they were ready for an afternoon snack, they put the play-dough away and joined me in the living room. Then, it was back to the play-dough.

Before we left tonight to pick up our free Renaissance Fair tickets (yay, Daddy, for winning them!), they put away the play-dough, the puzzles they had been working on, and the blocks that were on the floor. On our way home, they asked if Daddy was going to fill in for them tomorrow as the "dishwasher emptying duo" since we're all heading to RenFest. I LOVE that they are anticipating their work and wondering how it's going to get done if they're not there to do it.

They love to tease me after putting things away. They'll say things like, "There are all sorts of worms and salamanders and port-o-potties and sewers and nasty stuff in the dishwasher. Come look!" Then, when I get there, the run away giggling. I chase after them and tickle them for tricking me. Tonight they said that elves had come and not only threw the puzzle pieces all over the living room, but they also destroyed the puzzles and there were splinters everywhere.

I just re-read "The Moore Formula" (summary below) as a reminder and an encouragement that I'm on the right track by not moving too fast or pushing too hard and allowing my children to think and wonder and create . . . they're still so little. I sometimes wish I could just put them on "pause" for a little while. They're growing up so fast.

THE FORMULA
1) Study from a few minutes to several hours a day, depending on the child's maturity.
2) Manual work at least as much as study.
3) Home and/or community service an hour or so a day. Focus on kids' interests and needs; be an example in consistency, curiosity, and patience. Live with them! Worry less about tests; we'll help you there. With the Moore Formula, if you are loving and can read, write, count, and speak clearly, you are a master teacher.

First, don't subject your children to formal, scheduled study before age 8 to 10 or 12, whether they can read or not. To any who differ, as their evidence let them read Better Late Than Early (BLTE) or School Can Wait (SCW). In addition to our basic research at Stanford and the University of Colorado Medical School, we analyzed over 8000 studies of children's senses, brain, cognition, socialization, etc., and are certain that no replicable evidence exists for rushing children into formal study at home or school before 8 or 10.

Read and sing and play with your children from birth. Read to them several times a day, and they will learn to read in their own time-as early as 3 or 4, but usually later, some as late as 14. Late readers are no more likely to be retarded or disabled than early ones. They often become the best readers of all-with undamaged vision and acute hearing, more adult-like reasoning (cognition) levels, mature brain structure and less blocking of creative interests. Yet late readers are often falsely thought to be in need of remedial help. If you have any doubts about your youngster, have specialists check vision and hearing; possibly see a neurologist. If there are no problems, relax. http://www.moorefoundation.com/article.php?id=5