We've been so busy! Apparently these twice/week swimming lessons officially pushed me over into Over Scheduled Land. That plus all the last week of classes stuff, dentist appointments, an end of the year fieldtrip, and weekly parkdays - oh, and homeschooling. I tried to thoroughly embrace unschooling, I really did. It speaks to my soul, but is too big and scary for me to dive headlong into it. N. is still doing math and reading everyday this summer, though I expect we'll take a week off here and there. We took months off at a time in the past year, so I don't feel like I'm robbing her of anything if we sit down together for an hour or so to keep the progress up in those areas. She's even been writing letters to a few people - writing on her own is a new thing, so I'm trying to support this new interest without cramming it down her throat. Always a balancing act.

Two pictures from the end of the year Springfest at the district homeschool campus. One is N. acting out a sleepy owlet during the reading of "The Tree in the Ancient Forest" by Carol Reed-Jones. The other is her dancing around during the "Silly Dance Contest" routine that she and her classmates did in their Drama class.




Swimming lessons went great for both kids today. I wish I'd been blogging about just what a militant teacher this swim instructor has turned out to be. Not a warm, fuzzy bone in her body. Has the kids in tears most classes... but the kids are learning and improving. It's physically uncomfortable for me to watch most of the time. She relies on scare tactics, blaming, and other coercive maneuvers to get the kids to do what she needs them to do. It's so completely opposite of the way I operate with kids (my own, and others) and just people in general. I always find myself trying to be sensitive to their fears and respectful of their legitimate concerns. When my daughter went underwater while on her back trying to swim, and finally came up sputtering, crying, and physically shaking, the instructor said to her "Why are you crying? You did that to yourself! If you hadn't tipped your chin so far forward, you would have been just fine!" and then left her sobbing on the opposite side of the pool, I wanted to leap over the fence and hold that b*tch underwater myself. This from the woman who two weeks ago said my daughter could trust her. Huh? So she basically teaches through ridicule and verbal tongue lashings. It's exhausting for all of us. And then we found out that this lady won't be teaching the kids next month. I'm thinking "Hallelujah!", but the kids were sad and mopey that they will be losing their "favorite teacher". Again - Huh? So while it's not at all the way I go about things, maybe there is a place for it after all. I did some research on the 'net somewhere, and came across an article that basically said that kids crying in swimming lessons is perfectly normal, and that the best way for them to get over their fear is to just keep going - they'll get over it. It encouraged lessons to be taught apart from the parents, or at least for the parents not to intervene in the process - so I'm trying. I'm biting my tongue and sitting on my hands, and watching my kids slowly turn into swimmers. Anyway - pictures of the kids at lessons...





More entries to come!