life with coronovirus around

[watervole]

 I'm tending to post here rather than on Facebook, as it's slower and more thoughtful, and because there is no instant reaction.

I'm finding that there are things I need to think about, and Facebook really doesn't suit that.

Teaching every day is tiring but rewarding.

Oswin is well ahead of her age group in most things, and that raises its own questions.

To move ahead of her age group, or to dive sideways and expend general knowledge...

At present I'm going for a bit of both. Moving her ahead, but hopefully not so far that she'll get totally bored at school.  Also introducing a lot of topics like Roman roads (we have one very close by and often walk along it).

At my sister's suggestion, I'm going to try teaching her to read music.  I think she might be up for it, though I'm not entirely sure which instrument to focus on.

Her mini accordion is in C with one and a few notes octaves. (and all the black notes like a piano)

The cimbala is in D, but has 2 octaves.

We haven't tried recorder yet, but they're pretty flexible.

The accordion is easiest, but the limited range may be a problem - plus, a lot of my music is in G and D.

Comments

[pensnest]

I suspect that if she is learning how much fun learning can be, you are doing her a most fantastic favour.

[watervole]

She really does enjoy much of it, especially history at present. We can explore so much! Today we talked about stone age barrows as we have two on a hill near us (which we walked to in the afternoon).

[pensnest]

Have you seen this? https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/2020/take-part-family-dance-workshops/

[coth]

The half-advance, half-sideways sounds like a good strategy - (at least some) schools do that these days, and it works a lot better than the jump-ahead they subjected me to.

[watervole]

What problems did the jump ahead cause for you? Our biggest concern is that she'd be out of step with her friends.

[igenlode]

The biggest problem the jump ahead caused for me was that not only did I lose all my friends, but everybody in my new class hated me (especially the cleverest boys) -- because, with hindsight, they felt threatened by having someone a year younger as their rival. There was another boy in my class who had also been put up a year, and I now realise he wasn't popular either -- that, of course, didn't cause us to make friends with each other.

[watervole]

That is a seriously important point, and I'm very glad you raised it. Oswin has few enough friends as it is, owing to living some distance from her school and having recently moved house.

[igenlode]

Theoretically speaking there was absolutely no reason why I couldn't have kept my friends - we all lived within walking distance. But children are incredibly insular, and people didn't even socialise with their peers in the parallel class in their own age-group, let alone with people in a different school and/or a year-group above.

They didn't suddenly hate me the way my new classmates did. They just dropped an acquaintance that was never -- with hindsight -- based on any connection more durable than age-group and physical proximity.

[coth]

Social disconnection is the issue. I went so out of phase with my cohort that I never quite recovered - it took years in fandom to find social validation and decades of adulthood to acquire basic social skills for the wider world.

Oswin needs to know and be able to navigate and appreciate her cohort's variety and general preoccupations (who's hot, where to hang out, what's fashionable, the cool music) and stay in step with her social peers as well as being able to follow her own interests and find peers for those specialisms. I think (hope) schools may be a bit better at managing all this than mine were, and stability (which I did not have) helps too.

There are arguments for home schooling a child in the short term, particularly if you are using the resources available now we have the internet. But there are dangers and costs too, and I think (having talked to home schoolers) that the latter have often been overlooked.

[watervole]

You've convinced me. She's staying with her year group.

we'll home school through the lock-down, (but exploring side topics like music, touch typing, anything she finds of interest, but not going too far in key subjects like math and English) but she'll be back at school as soon as the virus allows.

I'm also trying to find out what the popular children's TV programmes are, because my instinct is for the ones I loved, but to interact with her peers, she needs what is popular with other 5-6 year olds.

Paw Patrol, here we come...

[coth]

Don't let me convince you from my own experience. I'm a data point, not an argument. Test what I say against good advice from elsewhere and against Oswin's own character and abilities. And best wishes for you and her.

[watervole]

You weren't the only data point, rest assured. Another friend said almost exactly what you did.

Plus, my youngest was educated privately for a few years (to avoid the school where his sister was badly bullied). When he want back to the mainstream, he was so far ahead that he lost the habit of learning in class. He had the same problem in his first year at uni. Everything was too easy.

If going ahead doesn't work, going back doesn't work either.

Oswin already has too few friends. Anything that risks her having any less is a serious problem.

Advice from another family member also goes with staying with her own year group, and with advice on ways to cope with being near the top of the class eg. Find ways in which you can help the other children. Have a non fiction book handy (if teacher is okay) so you can quietly read if you already know what is being covered.

[igenlode]

I don't think you can 'go too far' in English so far as basic reading and writing is concerned -- once a child wants to be able to read for itself you can't stop it. The motivation of being able to have your own stories whenever you like without having to pester grown-ups into reading them for you took me into "Swallows and Amazons" before I was seven (I remember thinking how ridiculously babyish Roger was, when he was supposed to be older than me!), and most of the rest of my parents' childhood literature thereafter.
And the prime motivation of being able to write was that I didn't have to dictate my stories to my mother to write down for me any more.

Attempting to hold me back would have been pointless -- and very cruel, even if it did mean I'd basically finished the primary school reading curriculum before I started. (The teachers simply gave me the liberty to take anything I liked out of the school library instead of the approved reading scheme books, and let me sit at the back and read while the other children were being given flash-cards and cut-out words to take home -- oddly enough that didn't affect my popularity in class at all but earned me admiration.)

[igenlode]

F sharp and C sharp are reasonably easy on the recorder (F sharp is easier than F natural).
The problem is that the low notes are trickier due to breath pressure and require the co-ordination of two hands, so most beginner recorder players are stuck with the one-handed range of G, A, B, C and D -- baby recorder players generally only G, A and B, which means that the music can be mind-numbingly boring.

The recorder works quite well for vocal music, since the range of the descant recorder is similar to that of the human voice, so you can (once you know a few accidentals) play a lot of well-known tunes on it. But by the same token 'one and a few notes octaves' is all you're likely to get out of it; I can play middle C to top A with reasonable ease, and a good player on a good instrument can get a full two octaves, but that's all.
Hence the invention of the transverse flute with all its mechanical keys.

[watervole]

Vocal music is what we're after. She loves singing, so my aim is to teach her to play tunes she already knows. She can already sing "Go tell Aunt Nancy" and "Hot cross buns" which memory tells me are easy recorder tunes.



I agree that low notes will be harder. We may stick to very simple for now. Learning basic recorder as a kid enabled me to teach myself as an adult, and it may be that's all she'll need for now to allow her to pick it up again if she so desires later on.

[igenlode]

It depends on Oswin's coordination - F, E and D are not difficult (the very gentle breath pressure for middle C can be a challenge), but they require moving a second set of fingers, and for some reason young children seem to get horribly confused by the requirement to manage two hands.

Once they get the hang of it, motivated children will teach themselves the fingerings for new notes very quickly. We did an early arrangement of the 'Harry Potter' music when the films first came out (with all the chords put together by ear, as there was no printed music on sale), and the children at school, who really wanted to play it, acquired the most extraordinary array of accidentals in no time at all.

[watervole]

That's really impressive.

I've just given up my plan to teach recorder, not because of Oswin (who still has her accodion and a cimbala) because I've loaned my spare recorder (which hasn't been played in some time) to a morris friend so she can learn to play during the lockdown. Oswin may be able to play on my normal one, but I know she'd be happier copying my actions...

I may still give it a try, even so. I'm teaching her to sing "Go tell aunt Nancy" and "Merrily we roll along" as they are two of the easiest recorder tunes, and it's always easier to learn a tune you can already sing.

[raspberryfool]

Hey, I hope you're well and fit. Music is a great mood-booster and children learn so easily. I'm sure you'll have a good experience.

Take care. :)

[watervole]

Fitter than I've been in a while to be honest. Finally over most of my major health problems from the last year and getting in a run every morning to ensure I'm fit enough to survive the virus if I catch it!

Planning on doing some music with Oswin this evening. A friend just worked out Three Blind Mice to fit on Oswin's tiny accordion.