Donna's Journey

Ladies you are welcome. I have been talking about living math for at least a decade. Living Math was part of my Daily Dozen. I first posted and discussed it back in 2001 on my momculture yahoogroup. I must have mentioned it somewhere else, because someone requested to share it with a friend and that started the online discussion. I had started using the Daily Dozen in 1999.
The Daily Dozen was originally:
1. Anchoring – Devotions
2. Duty Calls – Citizenship and Patriotism
3. Currents In Time – Current events
4. It Came To Pass – History
5. Wisdom In Action – Hygiene, Fitness, Nutrition , and Healthy Lifestyles
6. Publish It – Writing
7. Simply Science – Science
8. Math Works – Math
9. Heart Sense – Arts, Cultures, Refinement, Practical Arts
10. Speaking Up – Speech
11. Margins – Time and Resource Management
12. Family Matters – Stewardships, Service, Relationships, Family Council
13. Baker’s Dozen – Anything else we do!

I have since changed it to Math Matters, and Family Work, when I learned about the concept pf family work. I also wanted children to know that math really did matter.

Within Math I further defined it:
Monday: Read from MATHEMATICIANS ARE PEOPLE TOO, or I would read another children’s math classic aloud
Tuesday: Math manipulations. We used beans to visualize what we are doing or a clock, or measurements etc.
Wednesday: They did memory work, memorizing basic facts. I also let them do Math Blaster; it helps them with speed.
Thursday: They did problem solving, where they got to practice what they have learned and memorized. This was done on the white board, chalk board or paper.
Friday: We were out of the house doing shopping. They get to apply their math. I referred to this as living math. We were thinking and applying on our feet without a calculator.
Saturday: Math Narration; they get to explain/demonstrate to dad what they had learned during the week.
Sunday: Was tithing if there was any to figure.

Each area of the daily dozen carried different things to do each day.

> Donna, wow, you do have a lot of art background.

Thank you.

> I appreciate your insights.

Thank you.

>My children are barely 10 and 14 – one LOLer and one transitioning to Project Scholar.

Children around nine often develop a fear of drawing because they can see that their work is not realistic and does not look like what they tried to render. At this point both they and their parents tend to assume they have no talent. Then
parents tend to opt of art appreciation, and skip the practical side.

Truth is that drawing is a way to learn to see and is a skill that can be developed. Yes, for some this seeing comes easier that for others. It is also training the hand to do what the eye sees. I feel that anyone can learn to write. I also feel that anyone that can learn how to write, can learn how to draw. Drawing is also a discipline. Refining it is more a scholar phase thing. From this discipline comes a high sense of quality and follow through.

So, what about core, love of learning, and transition to scholar. Inspire not require of course. I recommend Wild Days: Creating Discovery Journals By Karen Skidmore Rackliffe as a start. I would couple that with Mom going through the following books:
Drawing With Children
More Drawing With Children
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

My strategy is:
1. Exposure to great Artists and their work through Charlotte Mason Style Picture Studies. I created four years+ of lists of artists and their works.

2. Museums, artists’ studios, and Art Fairs/ Exhibits. Expose them to drawing, painting, sculpture, stained and blown glass, printmaking, pottery,murals, architecture and more.

3. Opportunity to explore and experiment with many mediums.

4. Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks, which is to learning to draw, as learning the alphabet is to writing. The book teaches the basics in eight lessons. Do the pre-lesson assignment at the beginning of the book, it helps with our barriers and art fears. My daughter started out with “I can’t do this.” She thought she finished the assignment in a few minutes. I told her that she had 30 minutes and to continue working. As she did her perception of herself and her work began to change. Soon, I heard her mumble, “I like this.”

5. Discovery Journals- “inspire, not require.”

This will give them a good foundation. When included with a variety of exposure to great books, mathematicians, scientists, and more, they will gain a useful foundation and a love of learning.
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What about kids that want to take it further?

A few words to parents of children that gain a passion for art. I look at Jefferson and he drew and annotated almost everyday as he took copious notes in his notebooks. He also played the violin. The arts are vital.

Many parents worry when their children go into the self directed scholar phase. They may complain that all their child does is read. Children who have discovered a love of learning for the arts face the same issues. I have a son-in-law that has developed his art to a high degree and was never encouraged by his own family, in fact, they would tell him to grow up and put his pencils away. My daughter is now encouraging him and it is wonderful to behold.

Interestingly, you cannot go real deep in art without beginning to broaden and gain breadth. Art encompasses math, science, great literature, and more.

I see a book coming on…

Mahalo,
Donna

> Do any of you have favorite resources that you use to expose your children to art? Are there “programs” available or should I just get some books with reproductions and then just talk about them? Please share your expertise and advice! Thanks!
> JoDean

How old are the children in question, or better said, what phase are they in? I feel there are phase appropriate ways in art.

Art is one area that the classical ways still are used. I guess the reason TJEd resonated with me is that as an artist that has been my experience.

I personally feel that art studies are a core subject, as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic!

Think of Jefferson, he could draw and kept detailed annotated notes… This helped in the development of his keen observational skills.

Many artists have developed the discipline of art in their lives, complete with annotated sketch books full of their experience, knowledge, and epiphanies! So, a commonplace book was an easy step.

Mentors: Great artists are often either directly mentored by other great artists or by their works.

Classics: Through the study of great books, great artists’ works, artist’s journals, and their techniques, many have been inspired and created great works of their own. There are abundant examples of great art being inspired by great classic texts such as the scrtiptures, Homer, and Virgil, and other classical writers.

Simulations: Critiques are an opportunity for artists to gain feedback from peers, before putting their work into the public eye. In a way, a critique is a simulation.

Field Experience: Many great artists were apprentices to other great artists.

God: Though not all great artists were godly men, much of art in history is of art used to inspire or created by inspiration of religious classics.

I could go on about the five environments and seven keys of learning, but I think you get the point.

One of my favorite artists of recent times was the painter, Andrew Wyeth, a great American artist. He was 91 when he died in January of this year. His father was the great American realist painter and Illustrator, N.C. Wyeth, illustrator of children’ classic books such as Kidnapped and Treasure Island. Andrew Wyeth was home educated! His father once remarked that no great artist was ever trained in the public schools.

Our local library had a video about NC Wyeth, his children (all did marvelous things), his son Andrew, and his grandson Jamie that we loved. Andrew’s sister Henriette was a portrait painter. His sister Carolyn was a painter. His sister Ann was a musician and composer. His brother Nathaniel was an engineer and inventor, creator of the Polyethylene terephthalate bottles used as for carbonated beverages.

New York Times Article on the Wyeth Family Documentary.

I have been to their Chadd’s Ford Museum and through N.C. Wyeth’s studio there. Needless to say, I was inspired…

Again, let me know the phases your children are in. Then I can share a few resources that might be appropriate.

Mahalo, Donna

This was a question posted on TJEdMuse
JoDean,

> Do any of you have favorite resources that you use to expose your children to art?

I am an artist, a daughter of an artist, have a BA in Fine Art and Design and have taught art classes to children during the summer. Mom was an oil painter. I started out college on drawing and painting. I do printmaking, stained glass murals, sandblasting, sand carving and beginning to learn high speed engraving.

I got my start because mom would let me come to her oil painting classes with her when I was not yet five years old. They would give me brushes, a full palette, and a clean white canvas. She took me to museums when I was very young. She was resourceful and used her color and design skills in the clothes she created for her children. I changed my major to art in the middle of my sophomore year of college.

I personally feel art studies need to include art appreciation as well as art creation.

I created lists of artists and their works for four cycles of history, Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern. I included this list in my thesis, available in an e format on princessacademies.com at [20%] discount this week for the e-download. Each artist has four works selected, so we could study an artist a month with an art piece a week. I show it to them Charlotte Mason style and then post it to the fridge for the week. I may have them draw it from memory. Then they can retire it to a binder along with anything else they want to collect about the artist or the artist’s work. I also created lists of musicians,
mathematician/scientist/inventors/discoverers, and statesman/stateswomen/dramatists/poets/world leaders.

The other half is the learning to produce art. I like to teach my children to keep a nature notebook, explore mediums, and learn the basics of drawing, color, and design.

I plan on doing “En Plein Air” Academy again this summer.

Mahalo, Donna

TJEDMUSE Yahoo group RE: Presenting Whats Mine

Dear Friends,

Jennifer asked:
> I’ve been pondering more on the idea Rachel uses of presenting what’s “mine” each day during our school time…

This is good! Pondering brings good questions. Good questions can bless your life and that of your children.

> I understand this is a way of giving them a broad exposure to a lot of topics so do you present something different each day and let them take up learning more about those things they are interested in during their personal learning time? Or do you present something and if there is excitement about it, continue on with it the next few days more as a unit study?

Yes, both tends to happen.

> I have 5 kids ages 11 down to 7 mo so I am dealing with a variety of interests and skill levels and don’t have a lot of one on one time with each child to help them study their own interests and passions. I try but it’s hard.

Not only age and skill difference but phases of learning and development, too. It appears you have many core phasers. If your 11 year old is a boy, there is a 60% chance that his transition into scholar will not happen at 12, as boys tend to hit puberty later than girls and this can affect their transitioning. Puberty brings hormonal changes that in turn increase the ability of the brain to understand abstraction and symbolism.

Then I followed it by mentoring and coaching rotations. One child would be working with toddlers and playing games or helping them make their beds, read them stories, build forts, dress up etc. while I worked mentoring or coaching one-on-one with a child, and another child got to have free learning time.

> Also, in presenting what’s “mine”, does that mean you are not really covering a lot of the “academic” (I realize that is a taboo word for LofL age kids but I don’t know how to otherwise define what I mean ) subjects each day (at least not in a “group” setting) and that each child would learn the academic skills at their own pace during individual time?

I see “what is mine” as share from my store of knowledge, not teaching from a textbook. This is very contextual and incidental, inspired by the incident at hand, rather than picking up a text book or manual to teach our kids what we think they should learn. A lot of basic academics at our home are learned in context, incidentally. I do not feel that academic learning is taboo in LOL. It is in core phase that focus on academics can undermine and distract a child from more important lessons. These missed lessons of life and values tend to rear their head at the time they should be transitioning into scholar phase. It is assignments and busy work that we need to be careful to not fall in the trap of during the love of learning phase, as they tend to douse the fire of love of learning.

> Because right now it is the time to expose, expose, expose and develop the idea that learning is fun and there is lots of cool stuff to learn. Right?

Expose and giving them time to experiment and discover. A lot of adults have trouble learning new things because they never play with it. They try to learn it perfectly with no mistakes. Whereas a child plays with and finds out what works and what does not, and then they embrace what they discovered works, through their play. Their play is their work.

I see love of learning as a time to be exposed to a breadth of knowledge, have opportunity to explore, experiment, embrace and enjoy. It is not so much that learning is fun as it is rewarding and fills a internal need to grow up. Many mothers today grew up latchkey or on daycare before school. There, children were kept fed, clean, and entertained. Schools turned to trying to make education fun and entertaining, which earned title of edutainment. Real learning is rewarding can engage the attention, interest, and therefore the mind.

> So my real question I guess is: Are there any pros/cons to doing unit studies where you stay on one topic for awhile vs. more “flitting” presentations where every day is totally different? Keeping in mind that this is the main “schooling” in our home for the day each day besides our core book and reading good literature books together.

Unit studies integrates studies around a theme. Though there may a general theme, there may be flitting within that theme.

It is one of two track options that Aspiring and Junior Scholars can use to gain a very generous foundation, in short, it is a pre-scholar program. The Four year, Four Cycles of History provide a systematic integration of spiritual and secular learning activities covering the following:
* Cycle I– Old Testament, Book of Moses, and Book of Abraham/ Ancient Times: Pre-Mortal Existence to 1 AD/ Introduction to Beginning Hebrew.
* Cycle II– New Testament/ Birth of Christianity, the Apostasy, and Medieval Times: 1 AD to 1500 AD/ Introduction to Beginning Greek and Greek Roots.
* Cycle III– Book of Mormon/ Age of Exploration , Migrations, the Foundations of Liberty, and the Restoration: 1500 to 1820/ Introduction to Latin Roots.
* Cycle IV– Doctrine and Covenants and Joseph Smith History/ The Fullness of Times: 1820 to the present/ Melting Pot Approach to Foreign Language.

I hope this helps.

Mahalo, Donna

This was a question on LDS-CMERs

> Hi everyone. I’m new here. I’m a single, stay at home, work from home, homeschooling mom.

Wow, three full-time jobs! Mom, teacher and mompreneur.

> I have a 6 year old boy and a boy who will be 2 in a few weeks. My 6 year old has autism, but is very high functioning. We tried public school last year. TOTAL disaster. They placed him in a special ed class because of his autism and because he is still in pull-ups. When they tested him at the beginning of the year he was testing 2nd grade or above in all subjects. When they did the end of year testing for his kindergarten assessment, however, he failed almost every subject. He had fallen below kindergarten level!

I am not surprised. Academics based kindergartens send many children into shut down. It is not the they cannot do the work, or that they cannot learn, they simply shut down and are overwhelmed. When I was a kid, kindergarten and preschool were nonacademic. Kindergarten was designed to acclimate children to being somewhere other than home, with other children and adults in preparation for school. Preschool was almost non existent. It was day care where children were kept safe, clean, and happy.

> They wanted to keep him in the same class for this year. I was panicked, thinking, “No, he shouldn’t be in this class. This class is ruining his bright intellect and making him hate learning.” What was I to do? I prayed so hard about it, and was inspired to homeschool him. I had always planned on homeschooling my children, but when a child with austism came along I thought I would not be equipped to give him what he needed. Then it hit me that I was probably the only person who can give him what he needs. The schools certainly can’t– last year was proof enough of that.

You are a wise mom! Some things to understand about Special Ed classes:
1) Boys are more likely than girls to be in special ed.
2) Once in Special Ed, most never get out of special ed.
3) The schools get extra money for every special ed kid they teach, there for there is little incentive to help children become fully functioning.
My kids shut down in public school too. That led to me home schooling. I find that God has a way of qualifying us for the work He sets us to do.

> So now we are working together at home and what a blessing it is!!! Wow. It is so wonderful. My sweet little son has rediscovered his love of learning again.

Great!!!!

>I have only run into one snag, and that is math (we are using k12 math). He hates doing math problems more than anything. In fact, if you set a math worksheet in front of him, or even a little dry-erase board with only one math problem on it in front of him, he has a complete meltdown. I mean the worst meltdown you can imagine. If you have an austic child or have been around one, you know what I am talking about.

Ah, yes, the ridgid thinking that can go with autism, and many children. This is what is called ZPD (zone of proximal development). Which is the the difference between actual developmental level and where your child needs help. Many children do not do well in that spot. It is a place of high anxiety. About 60% of boys are not developmentally ready for kindergarten at age 5. This is one reason I do not like the age/grade system we have moved to in America. The typical classroom will have children that are functioning two grade levels below to two grade levels above. I really feel the one room school without grade levels were better. It recognized that learning is a continuum and that all agemates are not alike and do not unfold developmentally at the same rate.

Math is great learned in the context of everyday life. Cooking, games, songs, stories, and such. When it is practical and applied it does not have the same issues as trying to shift to the symbolic. Most children go through changes in the brain during puberty that helps them develop the cognitive ability to deal with abstraction, and believe me, math notation is symbolic abstraction. Children often struggle with this because they are learning the math concept, memorizing the abstract symbols, and learning how to work abstractly, all before their brains are developed to deal with abstraction. Children in many country schools during the late 1800s did not study math as a symbolic study until they were 10-12. Then they would learn in one school year, all it takes our schools eight years to teach. They were able to do this because children in the country lived math, so they got the practical application, and because these children were now reaching puberty and able to better grasp the symbols and to think abstractly. The textbooks only taught the concepts and they had no worksheets, no endless tedium of problems to work in the book, and no workbooks. They already understood math, they just needed to learn it symbolically, and how to work it out symbolically. They would work through problems on the board and there they would demonstrate their understanding. At the right stage of development they could do this easily.

> I have tried everything I can think of to get over this aversion he has. I’ve tried writing math problems in the sand, writing them in shaving cream, writing them on the bathroom mirror– anything to make it seem less like a “worksheet.” We have tried using all sorts of manipulatives. But his reaction is still the same.

Again, this is all symbolic and he may just not be ready for symbolic abstract learning. He also may be so traumatised by the classroom experience that he truly has rigid thinking on math and it may take a long time to overcome fears associated with such. He may need a long detox time, while he learns math by living it.

> The only way I can get him to do math is by making it into what I can only describe as a play. I have to make up a story, and together we act it out, and he figures out the math. It’s kind of like story problems in your math book, only acted out and in much more detail.

Ah, role play. Children’s play is often mimicking life. This kind of play is practicing being grown up. Something they want very much to be. So their play is their work. Basically, you can live and learn to see the math in what you do and help him learn to use math without calling it that, or you can make up stories about other people or yourselves that use math. Math stories is one way children without math context learn to apply math. So, give him context, or real life. The graded math books with story problems were designed to help children that had little math context understand application. Traditionally, mass schooled children in the graded public schools in America tend to do poorly on converting symbolic math into word problems and word problems into symbolic language. I feel they lack context and they are not developmentally ready for it.

> It’s very intellectually and emotionally draining on me to always try to come up with these new and exciting “plays” we can do that involve math. I have been asking around and overwhelmingly other homeschoolers have told me they like Right Start Math best. But in looking at it– worksheets, lots of manipulatives– it looks extremely similar to what we are using now. I don’t know what to do.

Ask around and you will find that many homeschoolers are still looking for a math silver bullet. A look into many homes would show that many families have math power struggles and result to nagging, bribing, or withholding privileges to get their children to finish math work drudgery their children are not developmentally ready for.

> Help! Does anyone have any suggestions?

Yes!

2) Try Living Math! I have since discovered this website: http://www.livingmath.net/

Mahalo,
Donna

Friends,

This was posted on Mentoring Our Own when the person signed up. Mentoring Our Own is no longer a discussion group. So I thought I would post my answer here.

> Hi. I have 4 children. Three are triplet five-year-olds. My question for now would be…when do you all have a moment to sit down and “write” a curriculum or lesson plan?
Thanks,
Anissa C.
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Anissa,

Mahalo,
Donna