Mummifying a chicken...

I have quite a science project on my kitchen counter--it's really creeping out my sister. We're mummifying a chicken! The first step is to wash and dry it very thoroughly, then cover it in spices. After that we filled the cavity with salt, and put it in a large ziploc bag filled with salt. The salt draws out the moisture.

The instructions I'm using recommend changing the salt once a week, but the first week, the bag filled with moisture after a couple days, and so it got an extra salt change. Once a week, I am rinsing all the salt off and weighing the chicken (the instructions say to weigh it, and this is the only way I can see to get the old salt off). The results are in this spreadsheet. Then I dry it, add some more spices, refill the cavity with salt, and put in a new salt-filled bag.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but so far it doesn't stink-- it just smells mildly of the spices we used. Unfortunately, I seem to be more interested in this than the kids, but my oldest wants to keep doing it, as long as I do the dirty work, LOL!

A brief vent about the S-word...

I'm having "those" conversations. You know, the ones where someone who I've recently met (which is almost everyone I know right now), finds out I homeschool. And they cheerfully let me know that it is fine with them if I homeschool, "as long as the kids are getting enough socialization." Gee, Thanks! I love it when relative strangers give me approval to parent my kids, especially with contingencies!

I know this is intended nicely-- they don't intend to be critical, and anyone who doesn't know anything about homeschooling "knows" that socialization is the real challenge, right?

The thing I don't get is this: I don't knit. If I met someone who was taking up knitting, I wouldn't give them advice, because I would assume they probably know more about it than I do, even if they were just starting. Homeschooling is a much bigger undertaking than knitting a scarf, and yet people seem to assume I've leapt into it with no thought at all.

For the record, grouping kids with same-age peers isn't something schools do to meet an innate need of children. They do it because it's efficient. There is no reason to believe kids need to spend 6 hours a day, 5 days a week surrounded other kids. My memory is that we weren't allowed to talk most of the school day; I don't know how sitting next to someone to whom you aren't allowed to speak counts as social time anyhow. We are talking all day, and regularly interacting with people of all ages (yes, including same-age peers).

The idea that putting kids in a big group with few adults is necessary to teach social skills always confused me. I wouldn't expect 5 year olds to teach each other to cook-- sure they'd probably figure some stuff out, but probably not what you were hoping for and chances are good that somebody would wind up getting hurt. I think the same is true of social skills. A key difference is that kids do need other kids to practice their social skills, but that's easily done, even while homeschooling.

Vent over!

My favorite homeschooling perks (so far)

We are about 3 weeks into our first official year of homeschooling, and I am having a great time. Living our lives without worrying about the school calendar is a heck of luxury. So far we have:

1. Visited blissfully empty museums on school days. Interactive exhibits are a lot more fun when you can actually get a turn to use them.
2. Spent a beautiful afternoon at the park, savoring the warm weather while it lasts, for far longer than a normal school day would allow.
3. Took an off-season vacation to a family resort. We got a discounted rate, and essentially had the place to ourselves.
4. Best of all: my lateriser can stay in bed when she's tired, instead of having rushed mornings where I spend my time fighting with my little dashpot, trying to get her up, dressed, fed, and out the door on-time. Our Saturday mornings aren't devoted to letting her catch-up on the sleep she missed during the week, either.

And the downside? There isn't one, so far. She's learning lots, and her pride in her accomplishments in wonderful to see. Why would we send her to school?

An interesting article about rewards...

I hope my children will learn and grow emotionally because they want to, for their own reasons, and not because I or another adult makes them. My instinct has been to avoid start charts, etc... and my oldest daughter's resistance to be manipulated this way has reinforced my instinct. It's funny, she will happily accept a bribe (and often solicits them), but is very suspicious when I use positive reinforcement techniques I've learned from parenting books. I stumbled across the article "Rewards and Praise: The Poisoned Carrot" listed in Unschooling Voices #3. It thoughtfully explains and defends the choice to avoid "positive reinforcement" much more clearly than I could. Here is a snippet:

But, rewards improve children's behavior and performance, don'’t they? Or so we thought. However, when the little gold stars or jelly-beans stop coming, the behavior we were trying to reinforce tends to peter out. Children that have grown used to expecting praise, can feel crushed when it doesn'’t come. This dampens their perseverance. There is plenty of evidence that in the long term, reward systems are ineffective. Contrary to popular myth, there are many studies showing that when children expect or anticipate rewards, they perform more poorly.

One study found that students' performance was undermined when offered money for better marks. A number of American and Israeli studies show that reward systems suppress students'’ creativity, and generally impoverish the quality of their work. Rewards can kill creativity, because they discourage risk-taking. When children are hooked on getting a reward, they tend to avoid challenges, to '“play it safe'”. They prefer to do the minimum required to get that prize. Here is a good illustration of why we made the mistake of believing in rewards, based on benefits that appear on the surface. When an American fast-food company offered food prizes to children for every book they read, reading rates soared. This certainly looked encouraging - at first glance. On closer inspection, however, it was demonstrated that the children were selecting shorter books, and that their comprehension test-scores plummeted. They were reading for junk-food, rather than for the intrinsic enjoyment of reading. Meanwhile, reading outside school (the unrewarded situation) dropped off.

The rest of the article is very good too!

Amazon has a Homeschooling Store!

Their selection isn't impressive-- it seems to be mainly books geared towards after-school enrichment of schooled kids. It looks like a new part of Amazon, so there is hope they will expand to include more of the typical homeschooling curricula (attention entrepreneurs-- there might be an opportunity for someone to open an Amazon zShop). I did some searching on Amazon, and discovered that they do sell Singapore math workbooks and textbooks, but don't have them listed in the "homeschooling store"-- it's hard to understand why they have special store for homeschoolers if they can't be bothered to put the relevant products in it.

Although my first loyalty is to the Rainbow Resource Center, it would be wonderful if Amazon could be an outlet for homeschoolers to sell the used curriculum that eBay has banned.

**Currently Amazon's list of banned items includes:

Solutions manuals. Manuals or teacher's editions that provide answer keys to student textbook editions are prohibited.

If Amazon wants its homeschooling store to ever have a decent selection, it needs to make an exception to this rule for homeschool editions (unless they choose interpret "student textbook edition" as not including homeschooling student editions). I'm not a heavy user of curricula, but there are items I wouldn't purchase without the teacher's manual. I can understand that Amazon might not want to sell teacher's manuals that are marketed to schools, but the editions that are marketed to homeschoolers really ought to be fair game, IMO.

Browsing the site, I am again considering purchasing the Bob Books. I've heard good things about the series, but we have Dick and Jane, and a series of Dora the Explorer primers, so I'm not sure if it would just duplicate what we already have.

The (Nit)Picky Mother's guide to Educational TV: Part 2

In an earlier post, I criticized the educational children's tv shows recommended by Liz Perle. In this follow up post, I'll give my own list of tv programs my kids and I recommend. My criteria for a good children's show are:

• An engaging cast who treat each other kindly (with the exception of clearly identified villains) and generally behave as I hope my kids will;
  
• A well-written script with a good storyline, interesting, well-presented information or both;
  
• Not too much merchandising, particularly for junky toys and candy, err, I mean "fruit snacks";

and

• My kids need to like it.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it? Here is my list of shows I feel good about my kids watching:

1. Cyberchase. This show is as entertaining as Scooby Doo, and it presents complicated mathematical concepts in a way my 5 year old understands. It is hands down my kids' favorite show. I think the writers are geniuses.
   
2. Between the Lions. Set in a library, this show reminds me of the Electric Company from when I was little (but without the yelling, of course). There are a collection of interesting characters, recurring segments (my older dd loves Gawain's Word), and great books.
3. The Magic School Bus. Another brilliant educational show. Obeying Ms Frizzle's slogan "Take Chances! Make Mistakes! Get Messy!" the kids in her class investigate a wide range of scientific topics, from optics, to gravity, to reproduction (with brilliant discretion) to digestion. It has served as a jumping off point for many interesting conversations with my kids.
4. Little Bear. This sweet animated series is based on the classic children's books. It isn't as heavily academic as the other shows on the list, but the plot lines are interesting and creative. They've created a world that feels almost real and completely wonderful.
   

Some of my kids' favorite shows aren't children's shows at all. Here they are:

1. Mythbusters. A silly show where former special effects experts attempt to debunk myths. It isn't serious science, but they do usually explain why things work (or don't), and they use the scientific method in designing their experiments. I think my kids like the explosions.
2. Dirty Jobs. Every episode has the host being taught a couple dirty jobs. It's funny, often gross, and I learn something new every time I watch it.
3. Good Eats. A cooking show with a heavy emphasis on food science, generally with fun visual aids. And Alton Brown's recipe for fried chicken is delicious!

For the record, my kids don't watch that much tv, but I think they have learned valuable things from tv, and I disagree with the idea that children's programming is some kind of necessary evil for parents who can't figure out how to do without it. My extensive opinions are the result of actually watching with my kids (like I am now...I don't always pay attention), and a very good memory for this kind of information (It's a blessing... and a curse, LOL).