Aseem's Math

Aseem has been working on math on his own. He loves to count everything. We have also spent some time on the orange Miquon book. He has a very good handle on addition and subtraction. He knows what they mean and can do small numbers competently. Recently we came across a stumper. It read "3 + blank = 5". So I said, "If 3 plus something is 5, what is that something?" He repeated what I said but could not get his mind around it.

So yesterday I tried a different tack. I asked him, "If you have 3 pieces of candy and you want 5, how many more would you need?" "2", he said after about a second's thinking! This goes right back to John Holt's thoughts about math. Always start with "word problems" because kids can relate to them in a tangible way. Always go from the concrete to the abstract.

Supriya the Singer

Supriya is coming into her own as a singer. She sang a solo (unison duet really) in the recent ATN concert and was also a part of the Harmony Cats. We have a repeat performance coming up next week and she will be doing more stuff - including a solo. We just went over her parts at the piano and she has the stuff down pat.

Then I started singing "Follow the drinking gourd" (which we sang in the concert), and Supriya said, "Wait, wait! Where is my folder? I want to sing the solo." So she went to the music bag, pulled out her folder and sat down with the song. Then we sang the whole song twice, with Supriya doing the solo and me singing the response. She sort of knew the words and she used the lyric sheet as a crutch as she went along! It just made my day!

The Success Principles

I have been reading and re-reading this book of late. The subtitle is "How to get from where you are to where you want to be". It's written by Jack Canfield (co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul phenomenon).

It starts with taking complete responsibility for your life. (This, incidentally, is the theme for all personal growth books.) Then it goes into how to figure out what you want and how to go about getting it. There is a whole section on creating a support structure (which I am looking to build for myself), and another on attracting money. All in all the book gets high recommendation from me.

Now let's look at the whole philosophy behind the book from a different angle. The core of it is: find out what you want (your dreams, goals, ambitions), set up a system (coaching, mentors, support groups) and make it happen. It also presupposes that this is an abundant universe, and that it is not a zero-sum game. To my ears the whole thing sounds suspiciously like our unschooling philosophy!

I have written about our philosophy on this blog before. We humans discover our goals, ambitions, purpose - indeed our selves - through trial-and-error and experimenting and lots and lots of playing. This is the part that tells you the "whats" and the "whys". One of my big criticisms of the school system (public or private) is that the kids get no chance to ask these fundamental questions. The book has many good ideas on how to discover these as well. Once we get glimmers of these paths, the bigger part of the book comes in that tells the "how" (as it says right there in the subtitle). The book and its worldview is a perfect fit for unschooling. As the kids grow older I am going to use ideas from the book (such as getting a mentor and setting goals). Indeed I think of the book as a "unschooling curriculum"!

More on the Concert

The concert had a good turnout and the chorus made some good music. Highlight #1 for me was Harmony Cats, an a cappella group I created at the beginning of the last session. We sang two songs on the concert, a simple 3-part arrangement of my own of "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and the classic (albeit simplified) doo-wop version of "Blue Moon." Both songs sang very well, and we got many compliments. The best part of Harmony Cats was that Supriya chose to participate in it - giving up 20 minutes of playtime to sing! She also sang a solo with her good friend Duncan who is a born showman. It was a pleasure to watch the two of them attack the solo with gusto, with no signs of nervousness. She is now feeling more and more comfortable about doing solos and even asking for them. I am of course thrilled!

Highlight #2 was a 1940-style 4-part arrangement of "Moonglow" that we directors sang. We made a ton of mistakes on stage, mainly because we had not rehearsed it enough, but practically nobody in the audience noticed them! Later I made a point of telling the chorus about our mistakes, because learning is not about not making mistakes. It's about making mistakes and learning from them.

AllTogetherNow Concert

Our homeschooling family chorus had the annual concert last Saturday. Here's a writeup by Rachael Barlow (co-director #4; the one not mentioned in the article!) about the concert (published on http://www.nashobapublishing.com/chronicle; the link is most likely outdated by the time you read this.). It ends with a nice proclamation by me!

Local Chorus Concert Benefits Acton’s Habitat for Humanity Project

On May 22nd, the latest Habitat for Humanity project in Acton will start to take form at a ground-breaking ceremony. The group hopes to have an affordable house built by mid-December for the DeSouza family, who currently lives in Leominster. Reportedly, the way Habitat for Humanity works is that the family and their friends, must donate 500 hours of sweat to the project and then they can purchase their home at cost. The home is deeded to always be “affordable housing”.

Bill Schumacher, who is on the committee overseeing this project, explains that “this is a tangible way to get involved. We can help build a house for a local family while bringing awareness to the need for affordable housing in our own communities. Otherwise it’s just an issue on the news. This makes it personal.”

The Habitat for Humanity’s North East Central office has volunteers from many local towns including Littleton, Acton and Stow.

Hearing about this opportunity, the All Together Now Family Chorus decided that their May 19th concert would benefit the Acton Habitat for Humanity project. It is the chorus’ hope to use donations from concert attendees to pay for at least 2 square feet of living space in this local home.

The chorus chose the local Habitat for Humanity charity because of its dedication to families and its proximity to the chorus’ Littleton practice site. The All Together Now Family Chorus, founded in 2003, is an intergenerational chorus whose mission is to help families enjoy making music. Unlike other choruses, which are run by staff paid to select, arrange and direct music, the All Together Now Family Chorus is an entirely volunteer-run organization: the directors, accompanists, and steering committee all donate their time.

In spite of the leaders being volunteers, the quality of what they produce is reputed to be quite good. “I’m thrilled to see that the chorus is able to enjoy increasingly more challenging music as time passes”, says Christina Kennedy, a director from Stow.

Their concert, titled "Out of this World," follows a space theme and includes songs that range from old standards to less well-known space novelty songs. "I was pleasantly surprised at how wide a range of song styles we could sing while still keeping to our theme," says one of the group's directors, Jan Power of Concord. Manoj Padki, a director who resides in Lowell proclaims “it's sure to be fun for the whole family!”

Family Mission Statement

Manisha and I read Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits for a Highly Effective Family" recently. It has many good ideas, one of which is the idea of a family mission statement. Manisha and I have talked about homeschooling/unschooling a lot, and I wrote a post about it recently. It felt like a natural extension of that discussion to do the family mission statement.

So here is the current version of the mission statement for our family:

• We are a team, and we take care of each other.
• We think win-win and find mutually agreeable solutions.
• We support one another to enable all our abilities and talents to blossom, for it is a critical contributor to a rich life and happiness.