Scripture memorization

I was not a big fan of scripture memorization during the years I worked in children's ministry.  It wasn't that I had something against the idea of memorizing scripture.  I just didn't feel like it was a good use of time.  I had my kids for 1-3 hours per week.  There was lots I was concerned about teaching them in that very short amount of time.  The vast majority (with a few exceptions) of the kids in my program weren't receiving any Christian education at home.  Many of my kids came to church on their own - their parents weren't involved at all.  Some of the parents & guardians were verbally non-Christian.  Others came on Sunday mornings, but didn't take their faith any further.  Those who actively discipled their kids at home were certainly in the minority.  To me, that meant that my limited time with these kids was vital.  I wanted them thinking.  I wanted to devote the time to learning whole stories more than snippets.  I wanted them to have some time to play together and look for opportunities of living out and working through the values they were learning.  I didn't like the idea of memorization because I anticipated the rote learning of words and phrases that would not likely inspire deeper reflection in their day to day surroundings.  They would parrot the verse back to me and not likely think much of it again.  Most of them didn't have guides at home to help them realize the important of the words in their day to day experiences.  So we didn't memorize scripture.

I still work in a volunteer role in children's ministry and we still don't memorize scripture.  Yet, Cap has lots of scripture memorized.  He started on his own by learning God Rocks! songs.  Now the preschool curriculum we are using is centered around a weekly memory verse.  So, why am I ok with memorization now?  Because it doesn't stop at memorization.  He learns the verse and we talk about it.  Often.  He's learning to think critically about his environment through the lens of the Bible.  I bring up the verses he has learned in different scenarios.  He claims he can't do something and we talk about the implications of Philippians 4:13.  I don't just respond by saying, "Remember, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!"  We stop and really talk about what the verse means.  There are things he can't do.  He can't fly without a plane.  But, with faith we have the promise that Christ will empower us to do all that he calls us to do.  We pray about it.  When he's not sure of the right decision in a given situation, we discuss Matthew 5:16:  which choice is a way of letting his light shine?  In these discussions, I've got a newfound love for memorizing scripture.

Continuing Past Conversations

I like having conversations in the car.  There's no better place for philosophy that when driving a considerable distance.  Jeff and I have had lots of these philosophical conversations in the last nine years.  Early on in our relationship, we had several conversations about education.  Jeff was a youth minister, I worked with kids and we were both heart-broken by how busy and stressed out kids are these days.  We knew 3rd graders who had no time to play because they were busy with school and tons (and tons and tons) of homework and music lessons.  We spent a lot of time hashing out our parenting strategy so that our kids wouldn't be so overwhelmed.  I mean , really, it's scary that the word "stress" is even in the vocabulary of young students, let alone a very real part of their lives.  The solution that we came up with was to limit the extracurriculars our future kids would participate to at most one extracurricular sport/lesson per season.  It never seemed like the best answer, but it was the best we could come up with.

We also spent a lot of time talking about our respective school experiences.  Mine was positive once I got into high school.  Before high school I was put in the "Barney"(as in big purple dinosaur) classes -classes for the "dummies" (of course, named by the "smarter" kids).  With the help of some amazing teachers who helped me gain confidence,  I eventually moved in to the more advanced level of coursework.  In high school, I flourished and became a model student.  I went above and beyond the requirements and loved everything about school.  

Jeff's experience was much different.  He is a pretty smart cookie who was not often challenged in school.  His grades were average because he couldn't see the point in doing all of the monotonous busy-work that makes up such a large chunk of school work.  School was tough for him because it held him back.  He had to listen to lessons and do (or not do) homework long after he had mastered a subject.  As we talked about Jeff's experience we also talked about the fact that boys tend to do worse in school than girls.  For some reason the system isn't working as well for boys as it is for girls.  

These foundations laid the groundwork for where we find ourselves today - carefully considering different educational options for our two boys.  Jeff had a friend who was homeschooled.  But, while we talked briefly about homeshool, we always just assumed our children would go to public schools.  Today I find myself leaning away from the idea of public school.  At the very least, if we send our kids to school, I want to be very prepared to advocate for my children.  

We don't have anything against public school.  They provide a wonderful service for the majority of people, despite the problems.  And the majority of the problems are logistical - it's hard work to provide education for an entire room/school/district/state/nation of unique individuals.  There are gads of amazing teachers who are devoted to what they do and make a great difference in the lives of the children they teach.  I had a myriad of wonderful teachers who played a big part of making me who I am today.  But, as I look at the problems inherent in the system, I have to wonder: is public education really best for my kids?  Is there anything better out there?

I look at my little Captain Silly Wiggles and his experience last year in preschool and wonder how he will fit in institutional education.  He struggled this year - not with the material, with the structure.  His little progress reports came home saying he didn't know lots of things he had clearly shown mastery in at home.  At the beginning of the year he was getting in trouble constantly for not participating or acting out with behaviors he just wasn't exhibiting elsewhere.  By the middle of the year he was coping - he wasn't really participating, but he would sit quietly at the table while the other kids went about their business.  And it wasn't a social issue - he had lots of friends.  At the class picnic at the end of the year kids where fighting over who could sit by him at lunch.  He has shown an ability to sit still, concentrate and follow directions at home and in other places.  But somehow he wasn't thriving in the school environment. He had a wonderful teacher who put lots of effort into helping him, but nothing ever seemed to work.  

Yet, this summer as we have tried out some "school" stuff at home in an attempt to ease the transition next fall, he has completely surprised me.  In the six weeks that we have been working together at home he is soaking up information.  He's willing to try new things, he's writing, he's reading, he's asking questions day and night.  So, as we experience learning together I find myself asking a question I never ever ever imagined I would consider - should we homeschool?  And I'm finding myself in a very scary/exciting/weird place of thinking the answer may very likely be yes!

Teaching Cap

Last fall I enrolled Cap in the pre-k program at a Christian school near our house. My primary motivator for sending him to school was so that he could spend more time with kids his own age and start getting accustomed to a more rigid routine.  Suffice it to say that he had a really rough year.  More often than not, at the end of each day I would get a bad report.  He wasn't participating, wouldn't follow directions, and liked to distract his peers.  Late in the year he seemed to settle in.  He still wasn't participating much, but generally followed directions and didn't cause too many disruptions.  We decided to re-enroll him for next year, probably much to the pre-k 4 teacher's chagrin. ;)

In hopes of making the fall back-to-school transition easier, I decided to do some "school" work with him over the summer.  We just finished our first week.  I stumbled across some amazing resources through Totally Tots and 1+1+1=1. Feeling pretty empowered, especially by the material on 1+1+1=1, I decided to dive in. After a week of getting organized, Cap and I started the Raising Rock Stars Preschool Program.   While I loved the materials, I was super skeptical that it would work for us.  I had tried sitting down with Cap and teaching him certain things before, but he had always fought me on it.  This time was a huge success.  I'll post a little later on exactly what we did in our first week, but right now I want to focus on a few things that I learned about teaching my son this week. 

It's hard for Cap to sit still for long periods of time.  While family members have expressed concern that he may have AD/HD, I have seen a real ability to focus on a particular task for a very long amount of time.  Even if it's not something he wants to do, he has a very long attention span.  I think the multiple intelligences people would call this kinesthetic intelligence.  The trouble is that he wants to move.  He doesn't enjoy sitting in a chair at a table for long.  While this is a problem at school, it really isn't an issue at home.  We did our school work on the floor.  He loved it!  His patience grew exponentially when his body was free to move while his mind focused on completing a task, project or worksheet.

Apparently, Cap is pretty ambidextrous.  His right hand has long been predominant, but he has very good left-hand fine motor skills as well.  When we started out, he kept wanting to hold his pencil and scisisors in his left hand. I corrected him a few times and told him to switch hands.  After fighting it for a few minutes, I decided to just let him use his left hand.  I found out that he was actually more confident using his left hand and had better control.  It seems crazy to me because he certainly favors his right hand .  But he seems to be very happy switching between left and right for writing, drawing and cutting.  When I shared this discovery, Daddy (a drummer) got pretty excited.  Apparently ambidexterity comes in very handy for drummers. I may be in for a very noisy household!

Cap thrives on integrated learning.  The RRSP materials we used are centered around a Bible verse.  Cap is very interested in the Bible.  It is not unusual for him to spend an entire day pretending to be King David, asking questions about God, and sharing his knowledge with others.  As we wrote L's this week, we were talking about our verse. As we played with play dough, practiced cutting, colored pictures we also talked about letting our light shine (Matthew 5:16). 

One-on-One time was really important.  Going along with the integrated materials, it was really helpful for him that as we did our work we were talking together.  He had my attention.  What would have bored him before was engaging now partly because he had someone to discuss it with.  This didn't really surprise me since one of the primary reasons he got in trouble at school was for attention-seeking.  (He's a little comedian when he can get the spotlight.)  

We used a workbox format.  I decided to try workboxes because I thought they would help me stay organized.  Cap loved them!  I think it was helpful for him to see each activity as a distinct project instead of an endless string of work.  He could see exactly how much work he had to do and, since our boxes are clear, was motivated to do the less appealing activities because he could see things he wanted to do in the next boxes. 

I couldn't be happier with how our first week went.  Cap had several achievements this week.  While before I've struggled to get him to even hold a pencil or crayon, let alone write or draw, he was all over it this week. He gladly traced worksheets full of L's and colored in the lines rather than griping while randomly scribbling all over the page.  He read his sight words book all by himself.  He learned the verse of the week quickly and has kept it with him, measuring his choices and others by whether or not they allow God's light to shine.  We'll see how next week goes.  But for now, I'm amazed!

Decisions, Decisions...

Being a parent is tough.  I think it's all the decisions.  The decisions and the responsiblity for those decisions. I am in charge of everything from when my kids move from a bottle to a sippy cup to where they go to school, to teaching them how to handle things that don't go their way. It's tough. And surprisingly, it's the seemingly little things that can be the hardest.  Sometimes that's because I overthink things, but sometimes those little choices have great big consequences. As a parent, I've got lots and lots of decisions to make and, with little ones at home, I know that every decision I make will affect them and everything I do will teach them something. This blog is a place for me to think, to problem solve and to make decisions as I try my best to take care of the little living epistles God has given to my care.