Knowing When To Stop

I have to learn to resist the urge to squeeze in that one last thing--a lesson in telling time or shoe-tying--before we stop for lunch. The last little thing I squeeze in never goes well. The Lark is just ready to be done, and I end up feeling like I'm squandering his good will by making him do this thing just for the sake of I don't know what.

I think the reason I do this is that in general I haven't found the right balance between teaching the practical little things that are relatively easy to teach (adding and subtracting, dressing and bathing, playing the piano, doing jumping jacks, coordinating our actions, understanding gestures, etc.) and the big-picture things that are very difficult to even define, let alone teach (narrative thinking, reciprocal thinking, identifying with other people). I end up feeling like I haven't done justice to either area, so I try to squeeze in one last practical thing to make myself feel more productive. When I do strike the right balance, then I feel competent and successful, and I have no trouble stopping. So the trick is to plan our mornings with this balance in mind and to make sure I have at least one good, fun activity that addresses one of the big-picture goals.

"It's storytime!"

Daily Rhythm. The Lark was really in synch with our rhythm today. (I call it a rhythm rather than a schedule because there are no set times--everything just takes as long as it takes--and the items on it are very general. The idea (which I got from Enki Education) is that there should be enough structure to make everyone feel secure and confident, but plenty of flexibility as well.) Anyway, the Lark was one step ahead of me all morning, eagerly anticipating the next activity. It was not a rushed or anxious anticipation (which he sometimes experiences), but a confident, happy anticipation. For example, we had a nice snack together. We chopped up a mango and a banana. The Lark playfully fed me my banana bit by bit, while I pretended to be a baby bird. We cleaned up after ourselves in a leisurely way. But as soon as we were done, the Lark went running down to the basement. I called after him, "Where are you going?" And he called up cheerfully, "It's storytime!" The funny thing is, he usually doesn't particularly like storytime. He was just enjoying being in the groove and knowing what was coming next.

Narrative Thinking. Storytime went really well today. We played "How Would You Feel?" I described a scenario where the Lark brought a cookie to school for snack, and one of his classmates grabbd it away and ate it. I asked, "how would you feel?" and the Lark said, "mad!" in a growly tiger voice. It was very cute, and also really positive that he was so animated about something we were just pretending. He also did better than ever at retelling and acting out our frog story (which were still working on).

Body Mapping and Body Integration. We introduced deep knee bends into our exercise routine, and the Lark simply cannot do them. He cannot squat down and stand up again. That's okay. We're just going to do it once each day until he gets the hang of it.

Imagine That!

We worked some more on imagining how we'd feel in different situations. It was really encouraging. For example, I said, "Let's imagine that the doorbell rings--ding dong. And you run over to the door and open it up. And Laura's there!" The Lark laughed and jumped up and down. Then he jumped on my lap and hugged me in excitement. I said, "How would you feel?!" He was too excited to say, but he was clearly feeling it. I said, "Happy or sad?" He said, "Happy!" with real enthusiasm. The cool thing was that, first of all, he was obviously really imagining it. And what was even cooler was this: he understood that it was a game, and that we were just imagining. In the past, he might have run over to the door and flung it open, and then been confused and disappointed. But he really got the pleasure of just pretending. (Next time I'll try to work in some actual pretend play instead of just talking about it.) I gave him a couple of other scenarios, and he really enjoyed the whole thing.

Mowbow Had a Job

Narrative Comprehension. Whenever the Lark hears a new song, he wants to know who sings it and what CD it's on. Well, today I was singing an old spiritual, and the Lark said, "It's by...?" I explained that it wasn't by anybody, and I never heard it on a CD. I learned it from an old lady. The Lark said, "An old lady named...?" I said, "An old lady named Milly." The Lark said, "Milly lives in...?" I explained that, "A long time ago, I used to have a job--like Daddy. I used to work in a restaurant, and at this restaurant there was an old lady named Milly, and Milly used to sing this song." Before we started working on real-life comprehension through event based learning, this whole story would have been completely lost on the Lark. He probably would have gotten upset because it would have confused him. Now, instead, the Lark thought for several moments and said, as if having an awakening, "Mowbow had a job!"

Swinging

Crossing midlines and full-body integration. I mentioned before that the Lark has trouble integrating movements on the top half of his body with movements on the bottom half. Swinging on a swing has always been very challenging for him, because when we swing we use our arms, our legs, and our core muscles in a way that has to be timed just right. Last year (fourth grade) in the Gray School, we worked a lot on swinging, not just because it's a fun thing to be able to do, but because integrating all those movements helps us integrate activity in different parts of our brain. Well, the Lark did eventually learn to swing last year. He learned to do it, but he didn't reall get it. I knew he wasn't getting it because I could see that he never really enjoyed it.

Well, we didn't really work on it this year, but apparently he's been working on it on his own. Because now he really gets it. He goes out on his own and swings his little heart out. He swings as high as he can go, then he leans straight back and flies through the air like a missle. Then he sits up and pumps some more.

I take a couple things from this. First, it's never too late. If fifth grade is the Lark's years for discovering the fun of swinging, that's a lot better than never discovering it. Second, teaching is a kind of planting. You can't make seeds grow. You can't train them to grow. You can't open them up and pull out the plant. You can only plant them and nurture them. They have do the work of growing all on their own.

How would you feel?

Narrative thinking: We're still plugging away at various aspects of narrative thinking.

1. We know that in order to have any interest in a narrative at all, we need to identify with the characters, and to identify with the characters, we have to be able to imagine how they would feel in the situation that the narrative places them in. To help the Lark develop this ability, Tony suggested that we help him imagine himself in a familiar situation, and help him imagine how he himself would feel. So far, so good. We've tried two different situations, and both times the Lark really seemed to think about the situation and was able to say how he would feel (scared, mad).

2. ACT-OUT: The Lark is definitely getting better at using figures and props to tell our little frog story. As we tell the story, we're focusing on how the frogs feel (hot) and what their goal is (to get cool). Each time we retell the story, the whole thing seems to become clearer in the Lark's mind--not just the sequence, but the setting and the characters' feelings and their goals and the outcome of their actions. This is the key to narrative thinking--to be able to integrate all this information into a coherent and meaningful whole. It's really exciting to watch the Lark putting it all together!

Ownership: The Lark continues to get more and more mindful and responsible during dressing and grooming. He is still reluctant to take ownership of bathing, hair-washing, etc., but we'll get to that.

Math: We ran into a snag today. The Lark has no trouble adding 10 to a number in his head. Today we looked at adding nine to a number by adding 10 and then "going back one." I learned that the Lark does not understand the phrase, "one less than." So before we work on adding nine to a number, we need to work on the idea of "one less than" a number.

Exercise: The Lark did such a good job with his sit-ups, etc. today. We added knee-bends. This is extremely difficult for the Lark, because he has great difficulty squatting down, let along standing back up. This is a good one to work on, but we'll have to take it really slowly.

"He wants to go home."

Narrative thinking. During snack, the Lark and I were listening to "Sloop John B," one of the Lark's new favorite songs. The Lark was listening intently, then he looked up at me and said earnestly, "He wants to go home." I had to suppress a laugh, because the singer/narrator says about 100 times, "I want to go home, let me go home." But I was encouraged nonetheless, because the Lark was thinking about this character's motivation, and then he shared his thoughts with me.

A few days ago I wrote about the importance of narrative thinking. Thinking narratively allows us to organize a vast array of information, sensations, and emotions into a coherent, meaningful whole. At the center of narrative thinking is the ability to understand and identify with the goals of the characters. The goals drive the narrative and allow the people hearing the narrative to organize and remember all kinds of information relative to that goal. In order to help the Lark with narrative thinking, we are trying to help him understand his own goals and intentions as well as those of other people. Today we worked on this in two ways--by acting out the story of some frogs who were sitting in the hot sun and jumped into a pond to get cool, and by playing a game that Tony came up with, where we present the Lark with a situation and ask him to think about how he would feel and what he would do in that situation. Both activities went well.

Ownership: Once again the Lark decided on his own to brush his hair upon noticing how messy it was. And once again he decided on his own to brush his teeth upstairs so he could use his tooth-brushing diagram.

Misc.: Math is continuing to go really well, with the Lark picking up new concepts with great ease. Jazz Chants, an activity we're doing for language fluency, is also going well.

Reciprocity: Tomorrow we're going to get back to our reciprocal games to help the Lark discover the other side of games like Tag and Hide & Seek.