Our Homeschool | Inspired Homeschooling

February 18, 2014 Encouragement, Our Homeschool, Parenting Post a Comment

February Burn Out

It’s that time of year. Christmas is behind us, spring seems so close and yet so far away. The winter doldrums have set in and we all feel restless. We want to shake things up. We want to breathe some life into the dreary surroundings. We want things to feel fresh and new rather than bleak and stagnant.

There are two things I always do this time of year – not intentionally, just as a result of a natural internal prompting. The first is to makeover my house. In the last couple of weeks I’ve bought a new (to me) couch, a new (to me) ottoman, a new rug, new (to me) lamps, a new shower curtain, and I’ve picked out paint colors and fabric swatches and on and on to spruce up my space. I love home makeovers on the cheap. The process revives me, and I always seem to go at it full force in January and February.

The other thing I always do in February, and I know I am not alone here, is rethink my home school. My oldest is in third grade now, and this is the first year this rethinking has not included the process of browsing local school websites.

I know lots of homeschooling moms come to February and start to think, “What am I doing? I am totally screwing this up. There is no way I’m teaching him everything he needs to know. We fight all the time. How do I know he’s learning what he needs to? I’m so tired of the daily battles! This isn’t what I thought homeschooling would be!”

I have so been there. And I will be there again, no doubt. But since I’m not in that space at this exact moment, I want to share some encouragement for those who are – and for myself when I return there in the future!

So here are my words of encouragement to you, and to future me.

You’re doing awesome. The sacrifices you are making for your children right now are huge and important and good. Homeschooling is an amazing gift you give your child even when it’s not perfect.
School won’t fix it. Whatever “it” is, if your true desire is to homeschool, you can find a way to fix “it” at home. You may need to find more social opportunities – or cut back on social stuff for awhile. You may need to “buckle down” a little more with formal work – or you may need to take a break from the formal book learning and try a more relaxed, less schooly approach for awhile. You may need more discipline, or more fun, or more outside help, or to tune others out and listen just to your own voice for a bit.
Sending your kid to school will not end the battles over learning. It will simply transform them into battles over homework. Do you have friends with kids in school? Do you know how much homework they have? Do you know how many projects they have? Do you know how many parent/teacher conferences, and back-to-school nights and socials and fundraisers and etc., etc., etc., you will have to attend?
Even if you’re a bad teacher (and I promise you, you’re not, because if you were, you would never even have tried this whole experiment because you just wouldn’t have cared enough to suffer the headaches and heartaches), but even if you are a bad teacher, your kid is getting the benefit of one-to-one instruction. Do not underestimate the value of this! Do you ever feel torn because your’e trying to meet the need of 3 different kids? Imagine a teacher who has to meet the needs of 30 different kids. And then, in an hour, gets a whole new batch of 30 kids she has to teach. Think it’s easier because they’re all supposed to be learning the same thing? It’s not, because every single kid is different. And nobody knows your kid like you do.

If you want to homeschool, you can. You can. If you don’t want to homeschool, that’s fine. There are great schools out there! I’m not one to tell you that your kid will be forever damaged if you send them to school. I know school works for a lot of families. But you chose homeschooling for a reason. Probably for lots of reasons. If those reasons haven’t changed, and you still want to homeschool, don’t give up because you don’t think you’re good enough! You are good enough! You may need to change something, maybe just your thinking or your expectations, but maybe a new curriculum will help.

Almost certainly you need to be kinder and gentler to yourself and step back and realize that you’re doing an amazing job. Take a few minutes to write down everything you do with your kids and everything they’re learning. You’ll be amazed. Because you are doing an amazing job. I’m going to say it one more time. You are amazing. Because if you weren’t, you would never have even tried this insane experiment.

July 23, 2013 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Preschoolers, Rethinking the 3 R's Post a Comment

Relationship Based Learning: Part 2 in the Three R’s Series

In my last post I suggested a new set of “R’s” to guide our homeschool philosophy, particularly in the early grades.

I proposed

A relaxed approach
based on relationships
and real experiences.

I then encouraged us all to take a deep breath and relax.

Today, I want to think about the role of relationships in our homeschools. I want us to think about the relationships between and among the people in our homes, particularly between us as mothers and our children. I also want us to think about how our children relate to the material they are learning.

Let’s take a minute and perform a little thought experiment. Imagine you’re 5 years old. You’re going off to school for the first time and you’ve heard that your teacher is the best in the school. She’s kind and warm and funny. She’s gentle yet firm – you know your days will be peaceful. She loves kids and she loves teaching them. She respects children and encourages them to ask questions which she patiently answers. She laughs easily and her excitement for learning inspires her students’ sense of wonder.

Now imagine you’re the same small child, but you’ve heard your teacher is the meanest in school. She never smiles. She’s strict and harsh and has no patience for silly questions or nonsense. She is the quintessential schoolmarm taskmistress.

How did you feel imagining yourself meeting each teacher? Which teacher made you feel excited to be in school and to learn?

Like this thought experiment, research shows that a positive, supportive, encouraging relationship between teacher and student promotes learning. When you’re homeschooling, always remember that you are your child’s mother first. There’s a Jewish proverb stating that “one mother is worth a thousand teachers.” This is so true. You are better than your child’s teacher. You are his mother. Don’t ever let your role as his teacher diminish your role as his mother.

Don’t let learning conflicts destroy your relationship. If a lesson becomes a battle, leave it for a time until you are both calmer. Use the time to determine what the root of the problem is. Is the material too hard? Is it too boring? Is there another way to present the same idea? Is it really necessary to pursue this lesson at this time? Can you come back to the concepts in a week, a month, or even 6 months or a year?

I started phonics instruction with my oldest many, many times before we finally pursued learning to read together. I truly thought he was going to be an early reader. When he was two, he spent several days on the couch with the stomach flu. In between bouts of vomiting, he watched the Leap Frog Letter Factory over and over and over again. (This is a truly obnoxious video, but kids love it.) By the time his tummy recovered, he knew his letters and letter sounds pat. I thought for sure he’d be a precocious reader.

He wasn’t. When we started Sing, Spell, Read and Write in kindergarten, it was kind of a disaster. I tried various other programs over the next couple of years with various levels of resistance and distress. I never pushed it. I didn’t have it in me to force the issue. If he resisted too much, I’d drop it. I would ignore reading instruction for 6 months at a time and try again.

Eventually he started sounding out “environmental print,” signs along the road, words on cereal boxes, that sort of thing. Then he decided that he could read Bears in the Night by Stan and Jan Berenstain. That was the only book he could read for about a year. Then he started trying other books, but never read more than a few words. Finally, when he was 7.5 I told him we were going to get more serious about school. We would be doing 10 minutes of reading and 10 minutes of math a day. I told him he could read anything to me he wanted for those 10 minutes. He mostly chose easy reader books and the Henry and Mudge series was his favorite.

After about 6 months of this, he announced one day, “Mama, I’m going to read the Harry Potter books.” As it happened, the next day I found the first four books at Goodwill for $.99/piece so I bought them all. And you know what? He’s reading the first book. After a couple of days of reading, he came to me and excitedly told me, “Mama! I’ve already ready two and half pages!” It’s slow going, but he’s doing it and he is so proud of himself. And he will be a much better reader by the time he finishes this book.

All told, I would say over the first 7.5 years of his life he received about 3 hours of direct phonics instruction.

I’ll talk more about how you can teach a kid to read without a phonics curriculum (I’m not anti-phonics, so don’t jump on me here!) in my post about reading. My primary point here is that it was never worth it to me to fight my son about reading. I decided that if teaching my child was going to strain or injure our relationship, I’d rather send him to school.

And I didnt’ want to send him to school.

So what can you do if you’re finding learning time to be a battle? First, you can just stop. As I said before, there’s no reason your 5 year old has to have a formal curriculum of any kind. If sitting down to “do school” is a battle, go to the park instead. Wait awhile and try again in 6 months after he’s matured a little. And then, if you need to, wait another six months and try again. Or look for a different approach. Make train tracks shaped like letters and let him puff his train along the “j” track. Draw letters and numbers in the sand. Make cookies together and count scoops as you measure. Just go to Pinterest and look around at some of the “learning to read” or “preschool math” boards and you’ll be flooded with fun ideas that you and your child will love. Life presents so many joyful learning opportunities that can bring you closer to your child – there’s no need to doggedly pursue a curriculum that creates tension and discord.

You know your child better than anyone. You know what lights his fire. You know his interests and passions. If you don’t, find out. Put aside your curriculum and expectations and just spend some time following his lead in play and see what excites and motivates him. You’ll have a much easier time teaching him if you know what makes him tick. And you will probably discover he is learning things you weren’t even aware of.

Finally, pray. Ask our Lord how to reach your children’s hearts. Ask Him what it is you need to teach your children today, this month, this year. Ask Him to reveal to you His plan and purpose for each of your children and your role in helping each to fulfill that purpose. Pray to your children’s guardian angels and baptismal saints. Ask them to intercede for you and your children regarding their educations. I have been astounded and overwhelmed by the answers and blessings I have received when I have placed my trust in the Lord regarding challenging situations with my children. The Lord is truly good and he desires the best for you and your children. He will guide you if you ask and listen.

Your relationship with your child is the greatest educational tool you have. Don’t let your anxiety over what he “should” be learning when he’s little create a rift between you.

In the next post, I’ll look at the second relationship I mentioned above: the relationship between your children and the material they are learning.

To read the other posts in this series:

Part 1: Relax

Part 3: Your Child’s Relationship with the Material

Part 4: Real Experiences

February 26, 2013 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Parenting, Rethinking the 3 R's 2 Comments

Encouraging Creativity

“Hey, mom! Want to color in Cutielicious?”

Yes, I do. I love Cutielicious. It’s a super fun doodle book with just enough structure for the creatively challenged (me) and more than enough freedom for the artistically inclined (Helen). One of the best purchases I’ve ever made, it makes me happy to color in this ultra cute book with my little girl.

Usually.

“Ooooh! Let’s color the cookie page,” my little one exclaims. “Which cookie do you want to do?”

I select my cookie declaring, “I’m going to color it like one of the yummy sugar cookies with the slick pink frosting on it. I love those. I’ll try a pink circle in the middle and then color around it with tan.”*

“No. You have to color it all brown first.”

“I don’t want to color it all brown first, then it won’t look like I want it to.”

“But I want you to make it look like this one,” my little girl asserts, pointing to the sample cookie provided.

Um. That’s an ugly cookie. I don’t like the way it looks. I wanted to color it like the delicious cookie in my brain.

“Why can’t I color my cookie the way I want to color my cookie?” I ask a little petulantly.

“Because I want it to look like this one!”

“Then you can color yours like that one. I want to make mine a pink sugar cookie.” I’m a little surprised at how strongly I feel about this and how grumpy I am to have my small opportunity for creativity wrestled from me by my tyrannical daughter insisting I recreate the uninspired cookie offered as a model.

At her further insistence I copy this stupid cookie, while she criticizes my efforts.

“Those circles aren’t round enough!”

“That’s the wrong color.”

I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am a grown up, that the activity in front of me is not about my artistic (ha!) expression but about connecting and sharing time with my precious daughter. So I copied the ugly cookie.*

And then I thought about how often we suck the joy out of our children by asking them to copy the ugly cookie.

It may go something like this.

“Hey mom! Can I help you clean the bathroom?” a child asks enthusiastically while grabbing the spray bottle of homemade non-toxic cleaner.

“Sure! Here, spray right here. . .wait, no, that’s too much! No, don’t spray there, here, that’s enough. Okay now. Wait! Where are you going? I thought you wanted to help me!”

Or maybe this is more familiar.

“Mom! Look! I wrote a poem! Want to read it?”

“Sure! . . . Oh, you misspelled this word. You should put a comma here. Do you think it would be better if you. . . “

Or sometimes around here it’s:

“Mom! Can I make a cake?”

“Sure, first you need to . . . okay now . . . wait, let me just . . . good now . . . wait! I thought you were going to make a cake!”

The resentment I felt at being forced to copy that ugly cookie, the disappointment at having my joy and vision subjugated to someone else’s agenda, made me realize just how damaging it is to interrupt a child’s inspiration. Not only does it prevent their expressing their creativity, but it robs them of the motivation to act in any way. I copied that ugly cookie, but I didn’t want to and I hated every minute of it. And when I was finally allowed to create my own cookie, the joy was gone.

I’m pretty sure that had I had the freedom to create my own cookie first, I would have happily copied that ugly cookie to please my little girl. Of course, I’m a grown up. I can get over it. But every time we ask a child to copy the ugly cookie before they’re allowed to create the cookie that inspires their joy, we rob them of the opportunity to express their unique vision. We deny them the satisfaction that comes from acting on their internal motivation to create something that pleases them. Ultimately, we prevent them from learning to be self-motivated individuals who can conceive of an idea and follow through on it’s implementation without always having someone else tell them what to do and how to do it.

I’m going to try to cultivate an awareness for when I’m asking my children to copy an ugly cookie. I’d much rather see the beautiful pink-frosted sugar cookies lurking in their brains.

~~~~~

* I would like to say for the record that I can see that the “ugly cookie” I created under my daughter’s direction is, in fact, much cooler than the pink sugar cookie of my imagination. But that’s hardly the point now, is it?

November 7, 2012 History, Our Homeschool 1 Comment

DIY Wall Timeline Tutorial

A long while back I wrote about wanting to create some sort of masterpiece of a timeline to hang on my dining room wall. I promised to update with pictures when I’d done so, but I just didn’t. The conversation has come up recently in a number of homeschooling circles, so I am finally sharing my finished product with some pictures and helpful hints.

Without further ado, I give you our timeline:

Do you see the size of that bad boy? It’s 5 feet long and 3ft 4inches tall. It dominates the room and is, sadly, the most attractive thing in the room. Aside from maybe the pink Christmas tree. Which was a Halloween tree and will become a “Saint Tree” and then a Jesse Tree before heading upstairs to do it’s job as a Christmas tree in the kids’ room when the time comes. But I digress.

I’m a bit proud of my timeline. It’s not a great work of art, but it is much more attractive than many of the timelines I’ve seen. And in fact, it’s much more attractive than the first one I attempted:

Here’s a bad picture of my ugly timeline.

Now, as I mentioned in my first post on the subject, I’ve accepted that my house will scream “we homeschool,” but I still just couldn’t bare looking at that every night at dinner. So I went back to the drawing board. I think I wandered aimless around Dollar Tree looking for inspiration when I was struck with the idea of using ribbon. I didn’t find any suitable ribbon at Dollar Tree and ended up at Michael’s.

I wandered around Michael’s looking for any sort of round sticker to use for the year markers. I was shocked that I was completely unable to find appropriately sized round stickers. But I saw those giant hole punch things and realized that it was actually cheaper to invest in one of those and make my own “stickers” out of craft paper and glue. And I got a new toy out of the deal.

If you want to make a timeline like this one, here’s what you need.

4 sheets of foam board, 30in X 20in (I got mine at the Dollar Tree)
Duct Tape
Contact paper in a pattern you don’t hate – enough to cover the foam board. I also got this at the Dollar Tree.
40 feet of narrow ribbon
a craft punch in a shape you like
a ruler
a sharpie
glue – you’re going to have to buy good glue designed to glue ribbon. I used something called Embellishment Glue in stick form. I tried using school glue and a glue gun and both were a disaster. Invest in the glue. Trust me.

The first step is to tape the 4 sheets of foam board together using Duct Tape. Then flip the whole huge board over and cover it with contact paper. It helps to have help with this step unless you’re the kind of person who likes to be alone when you’re frustrated and trying to wrestle giant sheets of sticky paper.

The next step was the hardest for me, but I’ve done the hard work (the math) for you, so just follow my lead. Lay out 8 rows of the ribbon. You can be anal and measure to evenly space it, or you can just wing it like I did. I intentionally crowded it toward the top where I figure we’ll have fewer dates to add and spaced it further toward the bottom where I figure we’ll have more to add.

The next hardest part is getting the rows straight. Once I decided where I wanted the ribbon, I marked it on one side, measured it’s distance from the top and then measured that out on the other side and laid it across. I tried all kinds of crazy things to get the ribbon straight. I hung a string from a weight and tried to get gravity to help me get it straight. . . You just have to decide how crazy you want to be about it.

See the black line? That’s there’s one in the same place on the other side. That’s how I got the ribbon straight.

The glue I used. This worked great and wasn’t messy.

Once you’ve got the ribbon on, the hard part is over. The rest is just tedious.

Take your punch and punch out approximately 18,000 punches.

Now you’re going to write years on them as so:

For the years 5000 BC to 2000 BC, write every 200 years (5000, 4800, 4600, etc.)
For the years 2000 BC to year 0, write every 100 years (2000, 1900, 1800, etc.)
For the years 0 – 1600 AD, write every 100 years
For the years 1600 – 1850, write every 25 years
For the years 1850 – 2020 write every 10 years

A side note for the anal retentive (like me): No, this doesn’t give a totally accurate depiction of the passage of time. However. You want this to fit on your wall. And you want room for all of the big events that happened in modern history without leaving huge chunks empty in the ancient past. This is also why I spaced the rows further apart as I moved down the timeline. You’re free to arrange your years anyway you want, but then you’ll have to do your own math.

I went up through the year 2020 because I want to add stuff to this as we go forward, and I plan to leave it up forever.

Okay, now you’re ready to stick all of these on. Use the same glue as before and, starting with 2020 and working backwards, space as follows:

2020 to the year 0, one marker every 8 inches (measure from the middle of one to the middle of the other)
year 0 to 5000 BC, one marker every 3 inches

There. Now you’re done. Stand back and admire your handiwork!

Since I’m really committed to this timeline, I stuck it to my wall using that double sided foam tape stuff. It’s not going anywhere. In fact, I want to paint the room and I think I’m just going to paint around it. I’m afraid I can’t get it down without destroying it.

All you have to do now is add the history. I made a template in Pages where I can just drag and drop images from Google Images into the template and then print, cut and laminate. I happen to have scored a laminator at Goodwill on half price day for a grand total of $4.50. So I get to laminate. But you can use packing tape if you’re not as lucky in your thrifting as I am.

One of the reasons I wanted to make my own timeline is because I wanted to decide what goes on it. I wanted to be able to add important family events.

We also add the historical novels we read.

And whatever else we happen to take a fancy in.

We’ve had our timeline up for more than a year now, and it’s not as fleshed out as I had hoped, but that is due at least in part to the fact that I seem to always be missing either printer ink, double stick tape, or laminate/packing tape. So I guess that’s one drawback of doing it yourself. Another is that it is a pretty big project, but hopefully the mistakes I made will make your efforts easier. I really am proud of this. And it really is a great conversation starter – both for family dinners and for anyone who comes to our home. I had high hopes when I made it, and I think, so far, it’s delivering what I’d hoped it would.

June 24, 2012 Homeschool Science, Our Homeschool, Rethinking the 3 R's, Writing 1 Comment

Monster Quest: Search for Big Foot

Henry has been deeply immersed in two different “unit studies” of his own design and choosing. One is a study of ancient Egypt, which I’ll blog about in another post. The other is a unit on crypto zoology, specifically the search for Big Foot.

I’m not sure what sparked his interest in this topic, but as a result my husband hunted down a couple of shows to stream on Netflix. Monster Quest and Is It Real both examine evidence for the existence of such terrifying and mysterious creatures as Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster and the Chupacabra.

I am astonished by the amount of learning that has come out of watching these shows. Henry has expanded his knowledge of folklore, geography (marking the states on a map where there have been Big Foot sitings), and the scientific method. In the process he’s also done a good bit of practice drawing and writing.

He researched on YouTube to find a video showing the process for creating a plaster cast of animal tracks. He practiced measuring and mixing and multiplication to create enough plaster to pour into the print he discovered.

Some non-standard unit measurement for the preschooler.

Working to get the cast out.

This was my favorite part. Our neighbor is a biologist and Henry thought he might be able to examine the specimen. He started to write the note and had me finish it. It reads: “To Brian, From Henry. Please take to lab. If your lab doesn’t deal with Big Foot evidence, please return to me and I will send to New York University. Thank you.”

The neighbors got a huge kick out of this. Brian did return the specimen noting that his lab generally deals with really tiny things, not big ones.

The project has also involved a lot of writing and drawing. Below is his recording of what he planned to do. “We spotted a big hairy animal. What was it? We will send it to Jack. Signed Monster Quest Member, Henry.” (Jack is his best buddy.)

He happened to have captured a picture of the creature on a hidden camera.

This is the unknown specimen. (Potentially Big Foot)

He then compared the unknown specimen to known primates with similar characteristics.
Could it have been a gorilla?

Perhaps it was a baboon?

Or maybe an orangutan?

Or not a primate at all, but a bear?

He determined that it most closely resembled an orangutan but that we could not rule out the possibility that he did in fact discover a new species.

June 1, 2012 Our Homeschool 2 Comments

Summer Vacation

Summer vacation officially started this week for all of the kids on our block. Since we basically unschool, the school calendar means little to us. But having the neighborhood kids home has certainly changed our days.

We are so very blessed to live on a block with a bunch of really great kids ranging from 13 on down to 17 months. These kids shatter all of our self-righteous homeschool stereotypes about public school kids. They’re creative, kind, they know how to play with kids of all ages. They’re really great kids. And, also shattering stereotypes, they’re not over scheduled. With the exception of the one family with two parents working full time, the kids are home pretty much all day every day. And they play outside pretty much all day every day.

My kids run out the door after breakfast and I have to drag them in kicking and screaming for lunch and then again for dinner. It’s awesome.

The kids are basically running their own summer camp. Today’s mission was to catch a garden snake. As far as I know, they didn’t actually make the catch, but they sure have had a lot of fun in the pursuit.

The other evening as I was making dinner I looked out my window and saw all 12 of the block’s kids playing in my backyard. A visiting grandma had wandered over to help supervise and as it got closer to dinner a few moms showed up chat and collect their children.

I love all of this. I do. But I have to admit, I kind of miss my kids! Especially my oldest. He’s so darn self sufficient now at the ripe old age of 7, that I hardly see him at all. He did come in with a splinter today. That was a nice way to make me feel needed.

It gives me such hope when I look and see these kids playing and interacting the way they do. I see that it is possible for kids to be schooled in a variety of ways and come out great. I see that “kids these days” are intelligent, creative, kind, and respectful.

On the other hand, it makes me that much more thankful for the closeness that homeschool provides. I can’t imagine what I’d be missing if my kids were away from me all day, every day, all year round.

May 19, 2012 Our Homeschool, Parenting, Toddlers Post a Comment

Montessori at Home: Spice Smelling

When my oldest, now 7, was a baby, I was very excited about creating a Montessori atmosphere in my home. I love Montessori’s philosophy and the beauty of Montessori materials. But at some point I realized that what many of Montessori’s “practical life” and “sensory” activities are trying to replicate occur quite naturally in the home. Maria Montessori was working with institutionalized children who did not have the luxury of the rich learning environments found naturally in today’s middle class American homes.

There’s nothing wrong with creating Montessori materials for your home, but if you’re short on time, trays, and baskets, don’t feel like you’re cheating your child. Just open your spice cabinet.

My 17 month old and I spent about 25 minutes smelling spices this morning.

Nice fine motor component – taking off the lid.

Mmmmmm. . . red pepper flakes

Mmmmm. . . rosemary

Putting the lid back on.

Here, Mom! You smell.

Sad because he spilled spices on his toes and he doesn’t like the mess.

After a good 20 minutes he expanded the activity from smelling to dumping. He pulled out a measuring cup and started pouring spices into it. This is when I got tired of the activity. I wasn’t in the mood to clean up a huge spice mess. Or to waste my spices. Plus I was tired of standing up. So we moved on.

Sometimes when I’m browsing Pinterest and all of the amazing mommy blogs, I start to feel like I should do more for my kids. My point in sharing this is to recognize the good stuff that happens spontaneously.

So tell me, what are some of your natural environment learning successes?

January 8, 2012 In the Kitchen, Our Homeschool 3 Comments

Born to Cook

Henry has declared that he was born to cook. Today he decided to bake a cake. He didn’t ask for permission, he just went for it while unsupervised. Ryan “caught” him as he finished the batter and prepared to bake it. So Ryan helped him pour it in a pan and bake it.

The mess wasn’t that bad. And he did help me clean it up.

The cake came out surprisingly well. And was pretty tasty, if not terribly sweet.

Because I’m always looking for an opportunity to get him to write,

I asked him to write down the recipe.

I guess he’s been paying attention when I bake!

November 13, 2011 History, Homeschool Science, Our Homeschool 2 Comments

Greeks and Zombies

My kids have been up to some interesting stuff. Really interesting stuff. Like self designed experiments in which they come to the conclusion that the only way to kill a zombie is to crush his brain. Here is Henry with his cup of zombie brains.

Helen’s experiment was about rotten eggs. Apparently if you leave eggs out for weeks they become really stinky.

Henry has also developed a deep interest in Ancient Greece. I believe it was sparked by our new routine of picking up Little Caesar’s Pizza after his enrichment program on Tuesdays. He really likes the costumes of the period.

Here he is as “A Greek.”

Here he is as a Greek sculptor working on a “huge statue.” That’s an olive leaf wreath on his head. He designed it himself.

Here is his “Acropolis”

Here are the Olympians wrestling. The women have been kicked out since they weren’t allowed to watch the original games. But he did later decide those rules were stupid and let them join in.

I don’t have any pictures of him dressed as Zeus hurling lightning bolts at Athens.

It’s occurred to me while watching Henry do this self-directed unit study that “self-directed” really, truly, is the key to learning this sort of stuff. I never told him to build an acropolis out of blocks. I never suggested he might use his tinker toys as lightning bolts or to create Poseidon’s trident.

I remember being asked to do such things in school in an effort to make the learning “meaningful” and “hands on.” But it wasn’t “meaningful” because I usually didn’t care too much about what we were learning about. Which sucks because now, I wish I’d learned more. I don’t wish that I’d “paid more attention in school,” I wish that I’d retained more. I think Henry will retain a lot more about Ancient Greece than I ever did simply because he’s learning about it at a point when he asked to learn about it. And he’s learning it in a way that is truly meaningful for him because he’s designing the learning tasks. Another kid might want to do detailed drawings of an acropolis or write stories about the gods. I love that my kids have the freedom to learn in ways that work for them.

September 17, 2011 Our Homeschool Post a Comment

Celtic Harvest Festival

We decided to head out for a little family fun today. I highly recommend the Edgewater Celtic Harvest Festival to those in the area with small kids. It was really, really low key and fun. And the only thing we paid for was $1/person for the sword play.

This kid was mean. I had to intervene and tell him to stop jabbing Henry in the crotch.

Not sure where his parents were!

My leprechaun!

Watching hurling. Or some other Irish ball and stick sport. I told you it was a chill festival.

Kids playing bagpipes and drums. Very cool.

Cutest baby ever.

So we were watching a puppet show which, honestly, I was a little bored with. In another area they had started up a little Irish weapon demo and I suggested Henry might prefer to watch that. I should have known better. He was way into the puppet show. Here he is, balloon sword drawn, ready to face the evil Nick-a-Brick. He moved behind his daddy before a bit of protection before drawing his sword.

They had a lovely little arts and crafts area where Helen enjoyed painting

blarney stones and popsicle sticks.

Here’s part of the weapon demonstration. We were able to catch the end of it.

Henry and Ryan are currently in the back yard running at each other with swords and shouting “huzzah!” We’ll definitely be going back next year!

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Category: Our Homeschool