It’s been almost a month since I received this iPad – yes, I’m writing with it right now, lounging on the sofa in the living room. This is something I don’t do with my heavy Dell laptop. It’s nice to be free from the typical writing spot with Desk and Chair.
One the benefits of having this toy.
And I keep saying the iPad is a toy, but that’s not true, is it? We know it’s much more than another screen for watching a movie, taking a photograph or access to email. The potential for learning with the iPad is great: larger screen, more memory, portability, and all the apps.
Friends, I big-puffy-heart-love all the different apps.
You know I like to talk about nifty things I’m learning or reading, how my children learn best and homeschooling. I think blogging about the apps I find for my iPad will go along nicely with those topics.
In fact, I’m working on a review post regarding an educational app. It should be up in a few days. I’m hoping my passion for home education, combined with more opportunities for iPad app reviews, will give new life to this old blog.
More to come.
Last week we met up with other homeschoolers for a long-overdue visit to Grounds for Sculpture. As a lover of art and long-time New Jersey resident, I’m embarrassed to admit this was my first visit to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey – a mere 52 minutes from my house. Now I can’t wait to go back, because even though we spent a good portion of the day, we didn’t get a chance to see all of the sculptures.
Here are a few of our favorites:
This first sculpture is “Summer Thinking” by Seward Johnson and it was one of the many pieces that we could touch. I had to laugh over this piece because I’m sure I wore this exact outfit as a teen as this young lady in bronze. Does anyone remember banana hair clips?
This was a popular sculpture with the group: “Sleeping Giant” by Eric Schlutz, made with all sorts of found objects like computer keyboards and vacuum cleaners.
I’ve always loved rocks, so any work involving big stone, such as “Cuckoo’s Nest” by Zoran Jojsilov, is a personal favorite.
Over the next few days, I’ll be adding more pictures to my Flickr account. Many of the images were taken by my 7-year-old. She already has a good eye, don’t you think?
Note to iPad and iPhone users: they have an app! I didn’t use it for this visit, because it was rainy and I didn’t want to get my shiny new iPad wet (I know! I’m over protective of my new “baby”) and we did have a wonderfully informed docent to guide us. Next time, the iPad comes with.
Today is my 43rd birthday. I’m too tired to write much about it. That’s aging, I guess. The tired trumps desire.
The day in pictures:
This is the card the 7-year-old girlie wrote for me. She’s subtle, this girl. “Mommy, how do you spell hope?” With a sly, backward glance she walks away. Moments later, the card.
Lilacs from our yard, via 12-year-old son. They smell wonderful.
Red velvet cupcakes.
As for the mystery box which I told you about the other day – one final picture:
My husband knows me well, what can I say? I adore my iPhone, but this iPad is a word (and info) girl’s dream.
{Special shout out to The Husband. You have me spoiled. x o}
Great birthday. Very blessed and loved.
Happy. :)
What could it be? Books? Jewelry? A kitchen appliance?
I always guess household items when it comes to presents and my husband. That vacuum cleaner was a Christmas present years ago, when our house was still new to us, and I needed a good vacuum. Last Christmas, a blender.
I don’t mind practical gifts. I love getting gifts, love the anticipation and surprise.
I think I typically get practical gifts because I’m a no-frills kind of person. Buying my own gifts for holidays and birthdays is usually how it works around here. Not the most romantic or exciting way to celebrate, but whatever works, right?
So when Doc sends me a text like this one, I wonder: what if I don’t like it?
Oh, I just remembered the time he surprised me with the Flip Mino video camera. That was a present well done.
So maybe my present is techy?
Hurry up, Saturday.
I played on my laptop this morning, drinking coffee, surfing the web, trying to wake up fully. Lucy, my youngest and newly 7-years-old, used my aerobic step as a desk on the floor next to me. I wasn’t paying too much attention to what she was doing. Like I said, I was trying to wake up.
“Mommy, I want to read my story to you, ” she said.
Ok.
And then she told me the story of the mermaid and the sea and “the girl cool and kind.” Cute, I thought to myself, still only vaguely paying attention. She’d been working in the purple notebook with her birthday Magic Markers since yesterday. She’s a girl who loves to draw, scribble, color and cut. And her big sister loves to tell stories too. I thought I had this conversation before.
Come have breakfast, I said.
“When I’m done, I’m going to write more of my story.”
Later, back at her makeshift desk, she worked again in the notebook.
“Mommy, I’m ready to read you more of my story.”
And she did.
But this time I had enough caffeine, and I’m not distracted by the web or my own goings-on that I give her my full attention. I noticed Lucy sometimes puzzled over what came next, like one does when up against messy handwriting.
Suddenly, her purple notebook and the Magic Marker smears on her cheek and fingers made sense. She’s not telling me a story – she’s reading me the story – written in her own 7-year-old hand, of her own will, for the love of writing and Story.
I’m astonished.
I looked over her shoulder to read what she has written. I pointed out a word missing an “e” and why it’s needed for the correct spelling. Carefully, she added the missing letter, then ran off to play in the other room.
It’s been a long time – over a year – since I gave you a proper update as to our unschooling. Why? Because some days I waver in my unschooling resolve and worry that unschooling is just too unconventionally weird and hit-or-miss to really work. Don’t kids need be taught ?
Like reading.
Like writing.
Apparently not.
Because here is the evidence from my own home:
My Lucy, with little interest in formal phonics instruction (I managed to get up to Lesson 33 in Reading Made Easy; mostly due to my adult, never-unschooled insecurities), yet with a love for stories, books, talking and communicating with others, is beginning to read and write.
How did this happen with barely any phonics or instruction from an adult? Probably because she spends many hours of her day playing on Roblox, Webkinz and Animal Jam, her favorite websites. For months, I’ve watched her use these sites as she tinkers with language. Reading, sounding out, typing a response, asking me how to spell, more reading simple words, then drawing on paper with markers.
She often asks what a word says or how to spell. Years ago, I would’ve attempted to make it into a lesson, telling her to sound it out. Not anymore. Now I just read or spell the word and try to stay out of her way. She refuses to let me type anything for her.
In fact, the story she wrote in the purple notebook is based on a Roblox game she enjoys.
She frequently asks me to read aloud to her from her favorite books. She watches me read thick novels and library non-fiction books. The three big siblings also spend hours engaged with written words, mostly online, so she has their example as well.
Even as I write this, I can hear her down the hall, talking to herself. She sings, grows quiet. Then that unmistakable sound of a new reader making out what the sound should be based on letters. These are the moments of unschooling that make me brave, encouraging me to keep on with this way of learning and life.
Lucy is learning to read and write.
And me – her homeschooling mother has little to do with it.
Read more stories of how unschoolers learn to read by following the above link.
