Talking Allergies

I was watching a show on tv tonight (at issue on i channel) about alternative education in Canada. As in... alternative to public school. The show was mostly about private school...but did have some facts about homeschooling as well. They said that 20,000 kids are being homeschooled in Ontario alone. That struck me as quite a large number.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

Check out

http://forum.homeschool.com/forum/default.asp

I post there as well, but under a different name. With homeschooling, there are many different styles and approaches. We tend to be very child-led. That means the kids generally choose what they are interested in throughout the day and we go from there. Sometimes it's crafts, reading a story together, a workbook, painting, gardening, baking etc., but they are always actively involved since they are doing it willingly. I found "doing school at home" to be unmotivating. We tend to do more stuff like read a book together (my 5 year old has picked up spelling, and sentence structure just by being exposed to the printed word), or play with measuring cups while in the bath tub, or explore topics which are of interest to them rather than the "school" type stuff.

Any homeschooling forum is relevant since when homeschooling the allergies are not the focus...the child is.

We absolutely love it. Now, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

Oh, I'm not Karen . Karen is the moderator here. With my girls, my youngest is pretty good now at wanting to be included too. If we are sitting together at the table she wants her pencil and paper or a book or a craft and wants to be invloved. When we read a book she wants to be read to as well. Would your youngest like to sit at a highchair at the table with crayons or a toy while you do stuff with your oldest? Both my girls really enjoyed toddler computer games from about age 2. We have a computer set up near our dining room so that my youngest can play educational games while I do other stuff with my oldest if she does not want to be right there with us. I let the girls learn through play a lot. We have a toy cash register with real looking play money. The girls will play store together and through that my oldest is now able to make change.

Luckily, your youngest will grow more independant. It may seem like a handful now...but it will only get better.

Is your 5 year old reading yet? I know it is early for kids to be reading at 5...but trust me when I say that kids who read are sooo much more independant with their learning. We like http://www.starfall.com/ . It's a great FREE site that kids can use independantly to assist in learning to read. My 5 year old is reading now...and having her able to read makes her soooo independant. She can easily read her own science books and other books of interest, as well as instructions in her workbooks.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

I don't homeschool, but I am a huge reading fan and also really want my kids to love reading. That's awesome that your 5 year old can read, but really too bad that he doesn't enjoy it... Maybe you could back off for awhile and let him find his way back. After all, you know he can do it. It's the love for it that is missing. Do you still read to him? Maybe you can try to find ways to make it fun again - starting with not insisting that he read. Maybe just model the fun parts? Does he enjoy being read to? Would that be a fun thing you could do together?

Here's what I have done with my kids (not that I'm an expert) - both of whom love being read to and, in the case of my oldest, reading:

1. I read to them almost every night still, and they are 6 and 8 years old. My oldest is out of picture books himself - reads a lot of chapter books to himself - but still loves the picture books. I make sure I find stuff that THEY like too, like Captain Underpants and Spider-Man comic books, and lots of picture books for the youngest. Here in Quebec we have a lot of comic books in hard cover (what they call bandes dessinées) and kids love them. My youngest loves Garfield comic books too. Is it highbrow culture? No. But they love it, and they keep going back to them, and for me that's what counts.

The only thing I really hate reading is Bionicle comic books, because they are sooo convoluted (polite word for stupid) in their stories!

My oldest loves much more mature books too without pictures, like Harry Potter and the Narnia Chronicles, but the youngest doesn't, so we compromise on things like that. But I make reading aloud really enjoyable for everyone, and it's still one thing we all do together that we love.

2. I read a lot myself, so obviously they see that books are fun for adults too. (And that mommy is a bookaholic!)

3. I have bought books for my older son that I think he might like, but often he hasn't, so I've just left them in the bookshelf (and have often read them myself before doing that), figuring that one day he might find them. He found Stuart Little last week, having ignored it for a few years, and he adored it. But the point it, it was his choice, not mine. I think that's important.

4. My littlest is dying to learn how to read, so I have to figure out the most fun way to do that. I have put it off because he goes to school in French, and I really should help him with that first, but I'm anglophone so don't have any resources for that - yet. But that's our 2007 project.

5. My oldest learned how to read at school in French, so that was taken care of for me. For English... he just picked it up because we read so much at home. He just started reading in English the summer between grades 1 and 2. It blew me away - I was all ready to help him learn how to read, but after going through a short series of little books with him that explained vowels (English and French sounds are different), he just ran with it. I didn't have to do anything!

Sometimes we're in such a rush to have our kids do stuff that we lose perspective. I don't personally care if my kids learn how to read when they're 4, 5, or 6 - it will come, and if it doesn't, then obviously one has to look into learning disability issues.

Since you are homeschooling I know you have more pressures because you don't have a school to do the teaching. Hopefully others will have some suggestions about how to cover that off.

I just thought maybe I could provide some ideas about getting the fun back.

K.

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Karen, proud Mom of
- DS1 (12 yrs): allergic to cashews, pistachios, Brazil nuts, potatoes, some legumes, some fish, pumpkin seeds; OAS
- DS2 (1o yrs): ana. to dairy, eggs, peanuts; asthma

My oldest's love of reading peaked recently when I myself started reading more for my own enjoyment. I recently have read a few books by John Holt and a good one by John Taylor Gatto (they both are very pro homeschooling writers). It was at those times that my oldest must have picked up on "mommy reads for fun" and started doing it a lot as well.
Here I was feeling bad that I was "selfishly" spending my time on my interests...and all the while I was modeling reading for fun. Mommy guilt is sooo stupid!


I totally was not either. But, I see how well my girls do when I back off...and how much they try to resist when I "push". I guess for me the key was to understand that from birth kids are natural learners and are very good at it. Then learn to walk, talk and some kids even learn to read on their own. Then suddenly they turn 5 and everyone assumes they are suddenly incapable of the independant learning that they have been doing since birth. Kids can and do keep learning on their own after the age of 5. And they actually do it willingly if someone does not come along and make it a miserbale chore.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

I think the word "unschooling" at first scares a lot of people who choose homeschooling. Now that I am more informed about various homeschooling styles I definitely consider myself to be mostly an "unschooler". We read when my girls ask me to read to them provided i'm not busy with housework. If I'm busy, often they offer to help so that I get done sooner so I can read...or they read by themselves or my oldest to my youngest. We do math by having measuring cups in the bathtub, an interactive toy cash register (that shows change and has "real" toy money), by baking, by computer games etc. We do have math workbooks (singapore), but I often find my oldest is ahead of the books from her life experience, so keeping up with them is not necessarily learning new things. For writing practice, my girls like to write letters to people, make lists (like help with a grocery list), and other relevant things. We also 3 hole punch computer paper and tie together with pretty ribbon to make books they can write or draw in. Science is usually in the form of gardening (or growing sprouts now that it is cold), playing with magnets, watching science shows (like henrys amazing animals), or anything else interesting that comes up. Social studies tends to be mostly child-led...we are currently reading the little house books so pioneer days type stuff is popular in our house as well as looking up locations in an atlas of locations mentioned in the books. My oldest is sooo excited to go to the "western development museum" 90 minutes away this spring to check out the types of things used when "Laura" was little. They like to help with the map when travelling. The girls also have a toy globe and actually know their continents, oceans, and other facts just from looking at that.

I admit when I started out I needed the security of structure too. My girls did not need it...infact it was harmful to their love of learning. That's when I gave it up. We have been learning happily ever since. We don't have "school days" and "days off" either. I hated promoting days off of learning as a good day.

Then there are the days we have dance, gymnastics, playdates, or homeschool group activities...or we spend a nice afternoon skating or sledding.

I think a lot of people hear "unschooling" and don't really understand. One common concern I've heard is about children learning 'work ethic" and having to perform tasks when told. We do that, just not in regards to learning. In the future we will do that with school work too I'm sure, but right now I don't feel they need 13 years of sceduled schooling just to learn work ethic. The girls help with housework to the best of their ability when asked and even initiate it when their playroom or table for crafts is messy and interfering with their play.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

Have you looked at Five in a Row? http://www.fiveinarow.com
it's a very gentle way of starting homeschooling, starting with 4yo, up to 8yo. I used it with my kids, and they still love it.

Your kid is only five, don't push. Let the child lead. I have an accelerated 9yo who could read Harry Potter at age 5, and could add numbers in the thousands with carrying at the same age. (yes we homeschool). Relax. It's a marathon you're entering, not a sprint race. And it's a marathon that lasts years! If a child doesn't see something when he's in primary school, it takes minutes to catch up at the high school level. You cannot go wrong, unless you leave *everything* out.

With FIAR (Five in a Row) you will see plenty of geography, history, important people, science, social studies. You will have GREAT discussions with your child.

I'm not a fan of unschooling, but I do let my children lead. We do mostly classical studies here, a la Well Trained Mind, but I never push some knowledge on my kids. And never ever push SKILLS. Kids will let you know when they're ready for a skill. They will ask for it. Don't follow anyone's agenda but your child's.

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11yo boy - peanuts nuts chickpeas
8yo daughter - peanuts, nuts, mustard, eggs, sunflowers (new! ), oral allergy syndrome
husband - pollen of all kinds
me - seafood,, oral allergy syndrome

s_tumrai,

Have you looked into a book such as this one http://www.amazon.ca/What-Your-First-Gr ... F8&s=books

to give an overview for you so you know you're on track.

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.

Yup, one big secret is that once you know how to read with the Latin alphabet, you can read any language within that alphabet with minimal instructions. My son (a francophone) picked up English reading within moments too. Never got into phonics with him. In fact, I (another francophone) never got English phonics either. Once you learn blending in one language, that's it. You can read.

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11yo boy - peanuts nuts chickpeas
8yo daughter - peanuts, nuts, mustard, eggs, sunflowers (new! ), oral allergy syndrome
husband - pollen of all kinds
me - seafood,, oral allergy syndrome

I have been homeschooling for a good six years now. Here are some of my favorite websites.

http://www.ebookdestination.com/estore/search
http://chasesc.com/forms.html#8
http://www.donnayoung.org/
http://www.homeschoolestore.com/catalog ... cPath=2_12
http://www.millikenpub.com/
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html
http://www.abcteach.com

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Karen in Ohio mom of 7
Allergic to tons and tons of food as well as perfumes, scented air sprays and cleaners. Hubby to Fish, ds #2 Shellfish, youngest to Eggplant, potato, Caesin, Raw Tomato & spinach.

Momofhalfadozen,
Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.

How old are your children? We've been homeschooling a year. What a year it has been! My kids are happy, learning lots, and so am I. We went to a llama farm yesterday with our local homeschool group. My youngest even went, petted the animals and had symptom free day even wihtout any medication (she has DRASTICALLY improved as far as seasonal allergies go), right now you just can't wipe the smile off my face .

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DD age 9 1/2 -peanuts, nuts,
DD age 7 1/2 - milk, eggs, chicken, peanuts, treenuts, cats, dogs,
DS age 2 1/2
Husband- asthma, eggs, treenuts, fish, shellfish environmental
Self - penicillan, eurithromiacin, mild laytex allergy.