Peter's Cross Station

On Early Reading

In a comment on my apocalypse post below, designermama wants my "tips" for early readers.

I don't really have any tips, but here's our story.  (It's good for me to write about it today because one week from today is Nat's first day of school and the early reading thing is causing me some consternation--do I mention it to the teacher?  or not?  if so, how?  will she think I'm an ass? etc.)

Nat has always had an interest in letters and words.  It was right at 17 months that we realized she knew all the upper case letters and most lower-case ones, too, because that's when she started hollering them out to us from the back seat of the car etc.  At 18 months she was fingerspelling N-A-T and declaring "Nat!" whenever a stranger asked her name.  By 2 and a half or thereabouts, she was sight-reading about two dozen words.  But if I showed her a word two or three times, she'd have it locked in for the next time she saw it.  I remember the first word I noticed her reading and recognizing out of context, as we drove by a truck stop and she read the side of the building "look, Mama Shannon, T-R-U-C-K, truck!"  This was when Selina was about 9 months old that would make Nat just at 3 years.  After that it just went rolling like a tumbleweed and she was picking up words far faster than I could keep track.

She could also sound out words phonetically before she turned three, but didn't distinguish between real words and nonsense sounds.  We had a wheel at the playground with three letter combinations you could spin for--it would come up "cat" or dog" or "net" or "cap" and Nat would read these out, spelling the letters then announcing the word.  But she'd also announce non-word, like "D-I-T, dit!" for example.  So I didn't consider any of this real reading.  Certainly some fab pre-reading skills, but not reading per se.

It was when we were in our rental loft last fall (Nat three and a half) that I started seeing that she was really starting to read for context and meaning.  "Duck for President!" she read, "like Barack Obama!"  Or a sign on the wall near the grocery store, "Let.  Us.  Help.  You.  Let us help you!" she lit up when she realized these word combinations meant something and were giving her information.

After that--about September of last year, her reading for meaning took off and she has progressed by roughly a half grade-level per month in her reading skills ever since.  I keep track by putting text from various books she's reading into various reading-level analyzers online.  Thus "roughly," but it keeps me abreast of her progress and remembering that she is progressing quite rapidly.  I'd say she's at about a rising 4th grade level at this point (at 4 and a half, a week before beginning preschool).  She reads almost exclusively by sight these days and so is quite fast.  If she comes across a word she doesn't know by sight, she'll hastily rush through it and kind of make something up that has the correct first two or three sounds.  I sometimes stop her and help her read it one part at a time by covering all but the first syllable, the the first two, etc. until she's got them all and put them together.  Sometimes I stop her and just tell her the word.  Sometimes I let her move on.  I try not to spend too much "teaching" energy on it, because obviously, she's fine.

As she began this bizarro journey, I did a few things that encouraged it (though again, I have NOT spent any energy trying to get her to read.  I have always, always, always, let her take the initiative and just kind of poked her in directions she was already headed).  Here are a few:

1.  I put ABC magnets on the 'fridge' that spelled out N-A-T.  Then, under the N, I put a bunch of other consonants that would make A-T words.  Every now and then we'd play the game of changing the initial magnets and reading each Nat-rhyming words.  Works great with the name Nat.  Not so much with Selina.

2.  When I'd be watching the News Hour, and Nat would be on my lap, I'd magna doodle whole words for her and she'd read them.  That's why she knew a couple dozen at two.  "B-O-O-K" she'd read as I wrote, then "book!"  We used all familiar words from her immediate environment, plus the names of family members.

3.  When reading aloud, I'd sometimes stop and point to a word in the book--usually one of the ones I knew she could sight-read.  I did this more and more as she got more and more literate.

4.  I tried buying some of those early reader books, but (and this is still true) the ones at her social level were way below her reading level and bored her to tears.  And I don't want her reading stories geared to 3rd or 4th graders yet.  She doesn't (and shouldn't) get them.  So we have given up on that.  We like Frog and Toad but she's blown those out of the water for months now.

5.  When we read bedtime stories (etc.) now, I ask her "do you want to read it, or me to read it, or us to take turns?"  If we take turns, it's by the page.  I totally defer to her on the choice.  Most often, she wants me to read it.  But if I do ask her to, she'll take turns or read it herself.  I guess I don't totally defer, because about once a week I want to checkin with where her skills are and I ask her to read something for me.  If she gets tired or bored I let her stop, though.  Burn out is probably the number one danger with an early reader, from what I've heard.

6.  Another way I encourage literacy without reading lessons, per se, is to ask her what she think is going to happen next as we read stories, or asking her what happens in a story we have already read, or asking her to pretend to be in a story we've read, etc.  She initiates the pretend part.  One of her favorite things to do a few months ago that was super cute was pretend to be a North-Going Zax and asking you to pretend to be a South-Going Zax and walk slowly toward each other until you bumped heads and got stuck like that.  Simple, but funny!  Now she and Cole make up their own stories with a set of stock characters every night.  Nat tells a piece, then Cole tells and piece etc. until Cole falls asleep.  Nat has also started invented spelling on her own and writes mostly single words this way but has also written a few sentences.  I was trained in teaching literacy with invented spelling a million years ago in a former life, so when she reads her words to me, I say "that's great!" then rewrite them the correct way beneath her inventions.  Last week, after I did this, she copied my corrections (while I was paying her no attention cleaning the kitchen or something) and she came and showed me.  She likes now, to have me write words and simple sentences that she dictates, then copies them herself.  Given her fine-motor limitations, I have not really attended much to correcting her handwriting, with the exception of making a connect-the-dots "S" for her now and then to practice writing S, as her Ss are more like Zs left to her own devices.

And there you have the story of Nat's reading journey thus far.  You can all say you virtually knew her when she's the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with dreadlocks to her butt.

Bragging and Pre-School Momxiety

The kids went to get their eyes checked for the first time ever, last week.

Since I was taking a two-year old who's been finally cutting her molars and is Miss CrankyPants-I-Will-Hit-You-Just-Because-I'm-In-Pain-And-You-Are-The-Closest-Thing and a four-year old who likes to disassemble everything she lays eyes on, I thought it best to bring along Babysitter J for back up. There are eyeglass frames laying out all over the store, many in perfect toddler reach.

So there we sat in the office, Nat up in the examining chair, J and I in the back, with Selina crawling between us.  The doctor said to Nat in a schmarmy condescending voice, "do you know your ABCs, honey?"  Nat didn't even seem to really understand what he was asking so I said "she knows them!" and the doctor proceeded to flash up the first eye chart.

The chart read "H R N"

"Hern," said Nat.

I then hastily explained to Nat that these weren't words and she should just read out the letters for the doctor.  I stood up and pointed to each one as she read.  Her eyes turned out to be fine.

Next was Selina's turn.  The doctor flashed up a chart with silhouettes of a fish, a car, a tree, an airplane.  Selina looked at the slightly curvy fish.  "S?" she asked.

I pointed to the tree.  "No sweetie, they aren't letters.  What's this?"

"T?" she wondered.

I figured she thought we wanted her to identify letters as she'd just watched her sister do.  I asked the doctor to use letters instead of pictures.  So he put up a chart that read "E S N Z"

Selina grinned, raised her right hand in the air and signed "E" then "S."  But she didn't make a peep with her voice.

"That's right!  I said, "good job, smart girl!"

The doctor looked befuddled.  "She can see them just fine," I explained.

****

But before Selina had her turn, the doctor was looking into Nat's eye with the light and he told her "Look over my shoulder at your mom and dad."  Again, Nat didn't seem to get it.

Now neither J nor I really care if people mistake us for a hetero-nuclear family.  But my mind was racing ahead to the fact that Nat will be starting at her school next month.  She is going to be hearing a lot about her theoretical "dad" from people all the time.  So I decided to let it be a teachable moment.

"Nat, darling," I asked her, "is J your dad?"

"No!" said Nat, like anyone who might think that must be crazy, "he's J!"

"Do you have a dad?" I asked her further.

"No--I have two moms!" she clarified.

"Oh! that's nice" said the doctor.

So now she knows that A) it's not a secret that her family is a little atypical B) a possible script for clearing up any confusion in that department and C) people won't be mad or freaked out or anything over it.  (I knew the eye doctor wouldn't be--he's probably gay himself and the clinic is in Lesbianville, Chicago.)

Nat's school is technically queer-family-friendly.  There are a couple of other same-sex-headed families there.  Two children of lesbians are in her age group (3-6 year-olds), but neither are in her actual class.  I have a feeling the default theoretical family teachers and other kids will imagine and refer to will be a mommy-daddy-kids family.  Nat has already internalized that norm from watching her various videos.  PBS kids may have some high quality educational shows, but they are no better than anyone else when it comes to family diversity.

And I have been anxious as heck about all this for a few weeks now.

Originally, we planned to homeschool at least until the kids were around 8 or 9 or even older, in large part to keep them from facing too much marginalization due to all their difference from the other kids--like the whole, interracial-queer-adoptive family thing, ya know?  I figured I'd teach them until they were ready to kick serious butt (intellectually that is) if needed, to stand up for themselves and feel expressive and confident.

Then we moved, and I found a school that seemed like maybe it will be a good fit and the kids won't be all that different and the school values difference anyway and yadda yadda now I'm panicking.

It's not that I don't know Nat will manage just fine.  It's just that she's only four and a half.  I want her to feel strong and confident when she's facing that kid who insists a girl can't marry a girl (however innocently).  And there have already been a couple of foreshadowy incidents on the public playground here, in which a boy about 5ish years old was judging her for her less-than-stellar performance on the jungle gym (Nat's gross motor skills are still very late, though not enough to truly be considered "delayed") and then later tried to pull her hat off to see her hair because he thought in this way he could determine her true gender, though upon being asked, she had already told him she was a girl.

(I took note recently that almost all of the girls' play clothes are from the "boys'" departments of the stores and almost all their dress up clothes are dresses.  I just tend to not like play clothes for girls and I tend to LOVE the dresses I find for them.)

Cole intervened in this stuff with this particular boy and Nat is just too naive to feel bad about it anyway.  She's all like "yeah I'm a girl, yeah, I have pretty braids, yeah I'm new to the monkey bars, wanna be best friends forever?"

And thus I see her as a lamb among, well, if not wolves, sort of overly rambunctious puppies, perhaps, who might inadvertently nip her too hard when she's least expecting it.

One thing I've been doing is teaching her language that she might hear so she can make it her own and/or correct people who use the wrong language.  I've been teaching her that "when two girls love each other and get married and are two moms with kids, that's called 'lesbians.'"  I'm also teaching her that the same re: boys is called "gay" and the same re: a boy and a girl is called "straight."

If someone says "your moms are lesbians!" I want her to know that everybody has a label of this type and if need be, she can say "your parents are straight!"

So bent am I on instilling this in her that we are going to make three collages and hang them on the bedroom wall.  One will be called "Lesbians" and will feature pictures of female couples looking goo-goo at each other.  The other two will be similar, and titled, "Gay" and "Straight."

If all of this sounds silly, well, guess what?  One of the issues that I have often read about in books on the topic suggests that even kids whose parents are 100% out and have been since the kid was born may leap to the defensive and insist "no way!" if/when some other kid says "your dad is gay!" for example.  It could be that there's never been a reason to introduce the term at home, since it is just the normative family style, just like most kids with a mom and a dad wouldn't "know" their parents are "straight."

Also, when the term "gay" inevitably gets thrown around as an insult, Nat can play Raffi to whatever Billy is up in her face.

But can she do this at four tender years?

I may never sleep again.

Proud of My Girls

Selina:

A couple of days ago, Selina mistook someone on the street for Babysitter J (her favorite person on the planet Earth).  She called his name happily, but we told her it was someone else.  The man turned around and looked at her with distinct annoyance on his face.  "Say hi!" we cajoled Selina, because we felt awkward.  But after a couple of times being told this, Selina looked the obviously disgruntled man in the eye and said, calmly, "I don't want to say hi."

Well good for her.  She shouldn't have to make us feel less awkward about a perfectly harmless baby mistake or feel the need to be polite and conciliatory to strangers who aren't polite and conciliatory themselves.  Anyway, that's my humble opinion.  I think it's a very good thing to be polite and gracious, and we are certainly teaching our kids that.  But you know, girls are asked far too much by our culture to smile and act nice for the benefit of others.  And they shouldn't have to if they don't want to.  I was proud of Selina for discerning that this strange, annoyed man was not someone she really wanted to engage.  She wanted to engage her beloved J.

Nat:

Nat is a champ in her Spanish class.  She really loves the teacher and I think the teacher is rather fond of her too.  But they do this weird thing at the school.  They use a plant mister--a little spray-bottle full of water, and they squirt the kids with it as a reward when they respond in an exercise or game.  I can't even imagine how anyone came up with that idea.  I see a water mister and think "cat punishment" right?  But the other kids (not Nat) just laugh and giggle and seem to love it when the teacher squirts them with this water bottle.

So it was Nat's turn, and she dutifully did whatever the teacher was aiming for her to do and the teacher squirted her. I was peeking through the classroom window and I saw Nat flinch.  I happen to know she hates to be sprayed with anything, because she complains whenever I spray water or conditioner on her hair when I'm braiding it.  So the teacher made it around the circle and got back to Nat again.  She asked Nat for a response again, and Nat hesitated, looked the teacher in the eye, and said calmly but clearly, "I don't want you to spray me with that water."  The teacher told her that was fine and she promised not to spray Nat any more.  Then Nat gave her the answer she wanted, and the teacher cheered her sin water sprayer.

I was just really impressed that Nat didn't cry or throw a tantrum or try to leave the circle, (or come looking for me) but neither did she submit to something she didn't like.  She named her boundary politely and made sure it was going to be respected before she went on with the exercise.

Really, I think I was as proud of that as I was of her quick and ready responses to the instruction.  Prouder even, maybe.

I wouldn't have done that at four.  No way, no how.  I would have rolled over with whatever awful thing the adult was doing or telling me to do.  I was a meek little kid.  Nat is not meek, but she is not rude, either.  Go Nat!

Arty

Nat has made some fun pictures lately.  I thought I'd share a smattering (so I don't have to actually keep them.)

This is a drawing Nat calls "Go" which she is still learning with Babysitter J, who says she's coming right along:

Here's a pretty painting.  Only recently, she's started paying more attention to filling space and color in a way she finds pleasing and balanced--as opposed to just going nuts with the brush for kicks.  I like this one, because it's in my favorite color scheme:

I dictated the letters and Nat wrote Selina's name.  I thought it was pretty good:

Nat has started to write a lot of words lately.  I only dictated this one.  Others she's written include "bear" and "apple."  She spelled bear correctly on her own, but apple, she spelled "APPL."  But I was impressed that she put two Ps in there.  Invented spellers at Nat's stage would typically just write APL.  And Bear--maybe BR.  But she reads a lot, so I guess she picks up some spelling that way, unconsciously.  I want to start writing stories with her, but I need some pointers on getting good stories out of children.

Here's a fairly typical face these days.  Sometimes, though, they do get quite elaborate with jewelry and appendages and clothing.  She still hasn't hit the torso stage.  When she does limbs, they come straight from the face:

 

And finally, a cameo from Selina!  Her style is interesting. Unlike Nat, who I mentioned has only recently started thinking about filling te space consciously (painting above), Selina is already quite focused on filling the page in a balanced way, with similar marks, in a variety of colors, evenly spread over the page:

Hola Amigas

That's about the extent of my Spanish.  But yesterday, we took Nat for a free trial Spanish class at a language school (it's a big national company, sort of like Berlitz, but geared to kids 2-10).  I had found it online and was a little skeptical that it might be one of those things that is fun and all, but not particularly educative.  You know, like toddler music classes or baby yoga or something.  I have nothing against those kinds of things, and in fact will be using the cheap versions offered through Parks and Rec quite a bit, I'm sure, but I didn't want to pony up big bucks for "fun but not particularly educative" seeing as how fun can be cheap and even free--right?

But it was both fun and educative.  I have some experience teaching English to adults in this model (the Berlitz-type model, but I taught for a smaller company) and basically, that's what they were doing, just geared to preschool kids.  Nat sat in on a class (they keep all classes under 8 kids) for kids aged 3-5, and even though it was the end of a session for the class, the teacher was just brilliant about giving each child (including newbie, Nat) access to success in the language at her own level.  She just kept going and going without a break for 90 minutes, changing activities about every 5-7 minutes to keep those kids engaged.  She had nary a "discipline" problem, as the kids were just always on their toes to keep up with her next activity.

I think the goal of the day was the verb "to play" and maybe also "to like."  The kids were putting balls in basketball hoops and kicking them and jumping up and down on one foot and holding hands and doing ring songs/dances and just all kinds of busy.  Nat just stared and listened with complete attention for the first half of the class then started joining in a bit in repeating words and phrases.  She absolutely loved it.

So we ponied up the cash and signed her up for one 90 minute class per week for ten weeks this summer (they also let you make up any classes you miss while on vacation or something).  I know 90 minutes a week is not enough to have her a fluent speaker in ten weeks, but it's a good start for her.  This one yesterday was the longest she's ever been in a classroom setting.  She'll be in preschool in the fall for three hours a day (though I'm thinking of keeping her home on Fridays), so this will help ease her into that classroom/peer/teacher experience.

I also plan to explore good opportunities to reinforce the Spanish just through life in our neighborhood.  We live in a neighborhood full of first-generation immigrants.  Right on our block, it's mostly African immigrants, but a couple blocks down you hit a very intensively Mexican immigrant neighborhood where all the stores have signage in Spanish and that's the dominant language on the street.  I'm thinking that I can find a playground right in that neighborhood, a grocery store where we might pick up milk every week--that kind of thing--to give Nat some natural life exposure to Spanish.

Then there's all the Spanish-language programming we can get on demand on t.v.  If the kids are going to watch 1-2 hours of t.v. per day (which is about what we average in the summer months--more like 2-3 in the winter months), an hour of it can be Plaza Sesamo, which Nat already loves to watch, even though she doesn't understand a word of it.

The school she is going to in the Fall does Spanish once or twice a week.  I doubt it's intensive immersion, but it will still be some reinforcement.  And maybe if I can find the cash, we can keep up the language school in the fall.

Overall, it does look like this is going to be a good start for Project Multilingual Kids.

People Are So Weird

Need to vent a little here in personal space.  So I wrote this thing (you might have seen it) at Strollerderby about questioning the appropriateness of pirates as a theme of children's play.  Mainly, it was supposed to be kind of funny, like "huh, yeah, never thought about it, but how DO you explain a plank to a 3-year old?"  (I told my kids their Little People Pirate Ship plank was a diving board.)

Anyhow, now a few commenters are convinced my children are micro-managed and having their creativity and learning opportunities cramped debilitatingly.

It really never ceases to amaze me how much assumption people can load onto the smallest pieces of information.  In another recent post, a woman said she was terribly worried about the children of anyone claiming to love their spouse more than said children and accused such people of having a sick "codependent" relationship.  You know, just in general.  Without knowing anything more than a silly comment on a blog about "love" which can interpreted in about a thousand different ways by a thousand different people.

For the record, my kids own about 300 books, buckets of blocks, a basket full of dress-up clothes (some girlie, some decidedly NOT girlie), baskets of dolls and stuffed animals, tea sets and play food, cars, trucks (and yes, even a pirate ship), a dollhouse and tons of furniture and dollhouse people, a miniature piano that has two and a half octaves of real keys, several drums and bells and other rhythm instruments, a real ukulele, blankets they use to build forts, a closet full of art supplies, more balls than I can count, scooters, tricycles, and yes, even videos (gasp!).  Plus more free-play time than any kids their age I know.

I hardly think I'm cramping their style by thinking twice about certain toys or books or videos. I mean, ALL parents choose what they let their kids play with to at least some extent, right?  (If they don't what's up with that?) My kids are still too little for peer influences, so I'm not exactly fighting them over their true passions.  They don't even know pirates exist (in spite of the Little People).  They don't miss them any more than they miss Hannah Montana, whom I sincerely hope they never discover (yeah, yeah, wishful thinking, I know).

Sheesh.

Pre-Preschool

Nat had a preschool "interview" today. They didn't call it an interview. Something about "fit" but anyhow, it was an interview. I have no idea what it was like, since Selina and I were exiled with other parents in he gym while the kids being not-interviewed were doing their thing in the classrooms.

Nat was the last kid to return from her group and I was dead curious as to why, but the teacher ran off after dropping her with me. She was running late for the next group, because, as it turns out, Nat didn't want to leave the classroom because she was having so much fun. All I got out of Nat was that she saw a rabbit eat hay, and saw some fish in a tank, before she broke down and had a full-on temper tantrum about leaving.

She wanted to A) stay and B) return to the room with the rabbit and "play with the toys." (I was happy to hear that they haven't brainwashed her to say "work with materials" just yet!) When we finally made it to the car and I got her calmed down, I got a bit more out of her. She said she poured water into a cup and didn't spill any (I asked) and that she used a "clip" to pick up "circles" and put them in a bowl, one at a time. That is "I picked up a circle and put it in the bowl and I picked up another circle and put it in the bowl and I picked up another circle and put it in the bowl..." etc.

Sounds like they were evaluating fine motor skill levels or something.  Or maybe they let her choose and those were the activities she picked.  But whatever it was, she loved it. I think she's going to pester me about going back for the next six months. I imagine they will offer us a slot, since we want the least popular, half-day afternoons.  We're going to apply for financial aid, which is a long-shot, but we might as well try.

So preschool it is.  What's nice about this school is that Nat can go half-days for two full years until she's six and a half.  Then we can revisit the question of school-school.  And reevaluate the impact of tuition on the budget...

Nat's Story* and Other Literary Achievements at Our House

"There was a dark, dark outside. And in the dark, dark outside, there was a dark, dark marching band. And in the dark, dark marching band there was a dark, dark peeking eye. And in the dark, dark peeking eye, there was a dark, dark look. And in the dark, dark look there was a dark, dark closet. And in the dark, dark closet there was a dark, dark rocking chair. And in the dark, dark rocking chair, there was a...GHOST!"

I don't know which I like better, the marching band or the peeking eye.

Selina, meanwhile, recognized a letter for the first time yesterday.  Well, that is to say, I recognized Selina recognizing a letter for the first time yesterday.

I was rocking her before her nap and reading a book to her.  She kept getting mad at me for trying to turn the first page and go on past "Big red dog barks bow wow wow."  So finally I said "fine, you hold the book and read it yourself."

She took it and looked at it and looked at it and talked a bunch of gibberish until it occurred to me that she was actually saying "W."

I said "W? You see a W?" and she got so excited that I had finally realized what she was talking about and why she didn't want to turn the page and went "yes!  W! W!" and pointed to the W in "wow."  So I pointed to the O and she said "ohhh" and then the next W again.  "W.  Ohhh. W.  wow-wow-wow!" she declared.  We stayed on that page repeating this for a good five minutes and she took the book with her to bed to study it some more.

Since I am always bragging on Nat's reading, I figured I'd better record this one for posterity to be fair to baby sis who is clearly a total genius in her own right.

* Based on a Halloween book that made a big impression on her last fall.

Me Too!

That is Selina's new battle cry.  She runs behind Nat, arms outstretched, squeaking "metoo!  metoo! metoo!"

It is adorable beyond words.

Love of Big Sister is gonna be the end of that kid, though, I tell you.  Yesterday, Nat was running around the hardwood floors in socks, slipped and sort of belly flopped onto a (luckily) carpeted part of the floor.  She survived, picked herself up and commenced to running again.  Selina, having watched the whole thing, immediately launched herself--squealing with delight--face-first onto the part of the carpet where Nat had fallen.  Then she giggled "Uh-oh!" scrambled up and did it again.

Selina is, shall we say, more physical than Nat was at this age?  Than Nat is now?

Meanwhile, babysitter, J, the one whose name Selina chants like a mantra at all times, whether he is present or not (she is head over heels in love), is teaching Nat to play Go.  I have no idea what it is, but J. is all into it, like crazy and he has been reading up on how to teach it to wee snappers.  He told me that "all the really successful professional Go players started when they were, like, 3 or 4."  I asked him if Nat could afford to keep me in the posh rest home in Honolulu to which I want to become accustomed in my dotage on a professional Go salary.  He told me professional Go players make between $100,000 and $million a year, depending on how many tournaments they win.

"Carry on, good man!" I told him.  Even Supreme Court justices need hobbies, right?

Nat, on her own, is reading things like "Daddy says we're going to grow vegetable soup." (Yes, from the book, wherein she also read "zucchini squash" which I can barely read myself) and "If you go outside today, be sure to take your umbrella."

I think she gained about a semester's worth of reading levels in about the past two weeks and I don't know how it happened.

Yeah, I'm bragging. Sorry, I can't help it.  The kid positively blows me away.

Thinking about School--Sort of!

One of the main reasons we want to home school is that we figure we'll never find a school with a curriculum we like, with any decent number of children of color, for tuition we can afford.

Except we just did.

We found a Montessori school near us that actually has a serious commitment to diversity and it's working.  There are at least 2 or 3 African American kids per 15-20 kid class, and lots more non-Black kids of color, too.

The curriculum is classic Montessori, which I mostly like.  I like the multi-age classrooms (each "level" incorporates 3 years), the individualized "work plans" for each student, the complete absence of grading (quarterly anecdotal reports) and the physical classroom space.  What sometimes squicks me a little about Montessori is the emphasis on orderliness and the idea that there is One Right Way to do everything.  But this particular school (we went for a private tour) seems to have a flexible enough attitude not to be too awful about that.  I do like the emphasis on respecting the materials and each other and tidying up after yourself.

I wish Montessori didn't insist on calling everything the children do "work."  I realize this was Maria Montessori's way to emphasize the importance of children's play, I just wish we could respect play, as play and not call it work.  But that's kind of a semantic issue and I can get over it.

I am also not ready for Nat to be in a full-time school and don't think I will be for a long time.  This program is three hours/five days.  We might very well skip Fridays on a regular basis, if she goes, since Friday is usually "yea! Cole-mom is home, let's hang out with the family all together" day and Nat did so terribly when asked to just spend 45 minutes tap-dancing on Fridays last Fall.

If she goes, it will be in the Fall when she's four and a half.  I am telling myself it's okay, because I am getting roughly this many hours of baby sitting, now, so it will still give me plenty of time to do all the same home school things I do now (or plan to do this spring, after not being able to keep on top much last fall during all our moving and settling).

Nat would get two full years of part-time before she went into the 6-9 year-olds class for an 8am-3pm day.  I don't know how I feel about 8am-3pm days for a 6-year old.  Maybe we can keep taking Fridays off or something, if we decide to do this school at that point.  And Nat's birthday is in February, so she'll be fully six and a half then.

But this brings me to money.  We can afford the half-days, as the money for that is slightly less than I'm paying for baby sitting now.  The trouble is, we'd still need some baby sitting, because of Selina.  But not as much.  And the nice thing is I can spend the time when Nat is in school (and Selina isn't with a sitter) hanging out with Selina so she can get her own good strong home education going between now and 4 if we do this same thing with her.

I'm also reminding myself that we can not go to the 6-9 year old class if we don't want to or it doesn't seem like the best decision (or we can't afford the full-time tuition, the very same year Selina would be starting to do the 3-6 year old half days).  I had been pleased to learn that school is not compulsory for kids until 7 years old in Illinois, and was thinking seven would be the first time I'd even consider school, but probably wait until nine.  We could, theoretically, bring her home again for the 6-9 years and send her to the third level ("upper elementary" they call it) at nine and a half.

On the other hand, the Montessori place is small, with a 1:10 teacher:student ratio and it follows a lot of the same philosophy that attracts me to home schooling.  Its weaknesses are music and physical education, but we'd have time (in the half-day years, anyway) to keep Suzuki and church choir and capoeira in our plans.  I don't want us to be rushed and stressed and over-scheduled when Nat is only six, because she's in school full-time and trying to cram in "extracurricular" things.  The school does keep to a half-hour homework limit after the kids hit the 9-12 year old class, so that bit seems reasonable.

We will apply for the fall and see what we see.  I do think Nat will really enjoy it.  It's totally up her alley.  She will thrive with the freedom to explore the room and choose what she wants to do, and she will enjoy playing with the same other kids--at a range of ages--every day.  I think she'll handle that "One Right Way" to do everything without getting a perfectionist or compulsive hang up, like some kids definitely do.  I just hope she doesn't get bored with the One Way, or if she starts inventing her own ways, they let her.  Because that's how she is.  When she finishes out the learning curve for something, she complicates it.  Most commonly, she complicates it by turning it on the adult who's trying to "teach her" and tries to teach the adult.  "What sound does B make?" she'll ask "b-b-b" I'll say "Good, Mama Shannon, I'm so proud of you!" she'll praise.

Can't you just see her doing that with the counting beads to her Montessori teacher?

It will be an adventure, I guess.