Collage Friday - The Fantastic Field Trips
Friday, August 10, 2012 at 5:00AM 
I cannot ask for more than my children to be active seekers of knowledge. Self-education is the best form of education.
If you ever get a chance to see The Titanic exhibit, take advantage of the opportunity!
Our field trip was the perfect way for my daughter to wrap up a self-created unit study.
I took my daughter and a good friend of hers as a belated 11th birthday celebration. Anna has had an obsession with all things Titanic for several months. How perfect that her friend was also very interested in this very subject!
Last spring, she read Titanic - a three book series by Goron Korman. An entire issue of National Geographic was also devoted to The Titanic. In addition, we watched Secrets of The Titanic. A reading of a Dear America book - Voyage on the Great Titanic, rounded off her interest-led study. It was just a subject she wanted to learn more about.
After a very fun weekend we hit the ground running with our second week of school. As I outlined in our course of study for 2012-13, I am taking a more rigorous, classical approach to our learning this year.
Unlike last year, I've been keeping a more structured schedule and have been demanding more from my children.
So far so good.
I'm sure I'll blog about our schedule in more detail, but after the curriculum post last Monday, I had several comments about how I was going to "fit it all in". The short answer to that is that I won't. We do our "basics" each day, and I'm trying to designate a couple afternoons a week for the other subjects.
Basically, each morning consists of Bible study, piano practice, math, spelling, and writing. We are reading aloud The Storybook of Science at lunchtime. On our extra afternoons we worked more on our Olympic/England lapbooks. We listened to the music of George Gershwin as we ran errands, and of course we read aloud and finished The Witches by Roald Dahl.
Next week I'll add grammar into our morning routines....which I may alternate in units with geography. I'm not quite sure how that will all work just yet.
I felt very discouraged at the beginning of the week. Summer is officially over and it's hitting me that we are going to have a busy year. I also was listening a little too much to the voices of the "world" and not abiding in the Word... which always leads to discouragement. Thankfully, I felt so much support after my post, and also met a sweet friend for jumping time for the kids and fellowship for the moms.
1. I am LOVING the simple, no-frills approach of Saxon Math. Anna is working in Saxon 7/6 right now and will begin a math class through our middle school group next week. The teacher of this class assigns homework (but I grade), assigns and grades tests, and instructs in new concepts. Math was something I needed to outsource this year, and feel very good about the structure we have right now. I had always heard so much about Saxon, and now I know why.
2. The kids enjoyed a field trip to The Atlanta History Center on Monday - and I was not aware there was a Centennial Olympic Games exhibit there. It was AMAZING. Living in Atlanta during the 1996 games, I was so interested in the exhibit. It brought back memories of watching the torch relay (twice!) and attending two Olympic events.
3. Silly Grant "hanging out" at the History Center.
4. Our other fun field trip of the week - The Titanic Exhibit.
5. Anna and her friend - we got to The Titanic a bit early and no one was there... the escalators were empty, so the girls climbed the escalators backwards. Crazy, but they had such fun!
6. This is SO me. Do you ever smile to hide how buried you feel?
7. The kids started biking again this week. We are going to Colorado and Wyoming in October and my husband wants to take the kids on a biking tour of Denver (he did this when he was in Denver a few years ago). So, the kids need to start building up their endurance!
8. Did I mention our field trip to The Atlanta History center was FREE? Once a year they have a Homeschool Open House.
9. The Ultimate Guide to Composer Study was a labor of love. Did you see the post? Better yet -- did you enter to win the 4 CD set from Maestro Classics? I feel very strongly about Composer Study, and you will have no excuse not to study composers after you read my ultimate guide!
10. Sometimes it just hits me how much my children are maturing and changing. Here they are waiting to go on the zipline at The Atlanta History Center.
11. My favorite resource this week is the Hide and Seek Devotional from Tommy Nelson. Grant loves that he can listen to it online and follow along in his book. He's been singing the catchy songs, too. I'll be telling you more about it next week and giving you the chance to win one for yourself, too!
I hope you can link with Collage Friday. The rules are simple: Submit your link to the linky below. Please be sure your post has a collage of photos or many photos to document your week. I use PicMonkey to make my collages. Please also grab the button or text link back to this original post. Be sure to comment on another person's Collage Friday post to offer encouragement and gain ideas!
Reader Comments (17)
Fabulous field trips indeed!!! We definitely want to get down to the Atlanta History Center. That would be a great way to wrap up our Olympic studies. Thanks for sharing all your resources. (And I love the 'smile to hide how completely overwhelmed I am)! Another really great week Mary!
What wonderful field trips! We went to the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge a few years ago. It was awesome.
Blessings, Dawn
Mary, what a great week! We, too, were blessed with a couple free/nearly free field trips this week. Such a neat opportunity to see different exhibits - and the Olympics one sounds fascinating. We are slightly obsessed with the Olympics right now. The Storybook of Science was one of our favorite science read alouds. We learned so much from that book. Jean Henri Fabre has a few more we hope to delve into. Sounds like a wonderful trip in the works for this autumn (and a great time of the year to visit those beautiful states).
Good for Anna to create such a thorough study of the Titanic! The exhibit sounds awesome :) I'm glad that so far things are going well with you in your new schedule. Feeling overwhelmed is the worst! Remember that it's OK to relax a bit and let the natural flow happen...no schedule is more important than your sanity and everyone's happiness.
Thanks for linking up with your Favorite Resource, Mary.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
You have the greatest opportunities in your neck of the woods! Regarding "fiting it all in" - my list looked crazy when it was all typed out, but I promise, we won't do everything every day! It's just all the stuff I want to get through in the next 52 weeks. :)
Thanks for the link up opportunities as always :)
Okay, but now you need to tell more about the Hide and Seek Devotional.........
I think that 'feeding' a child's love is one of the BEST parts of homeschooling. I love that Anna was able to attend something that she was so interested in. It sounds amazing and so does The Atlanta History Center. You just have SO many more resources living near/in a large city. Regarding "The Story Book of Science" We LOVE Fabre! We have "The Book of Insects" by Fabre and love it. We read in it all the time and I am constantly amazed by how he studied insects for years and years.
I get overwhelmed also. There is just so many amazing resources out there. You would think by year 6 I would learn that I don't have to introduce all of them right now. :) Thanks for hosting the link up Mary. Happy weekend.
I've had such a busy week getting ready for school to start next week, I completely forgot it was Friday! Maybe next week I'll get it together enough to have a collage. Your trip to Colorado and Wyoming sounds fantastic and can't wait to hear more! Now I'm going to enter the drawing for Maestro Classics - love their stuff. Thanks for sharing your week and have a great weekend!
Mary, that looks like a nice week. I had a question related to your composer/music post - I want to look into Beethoven's Wig more, I've never heard of it. Do you find the lyrics distract the child from hearing the music itself? Do you use that when listening to a specific piece or do you prefer the music with no words? We've gotten out of the composer study habit and I'm trying to get something easy and workable going in a few weeks.
sorry you were feeling discouraged - I hate that feeling! praying for ya!
The Titanic exhibit sounds really interesting...that or a similar exhibit was here a few years ago, but none of my kids were old enough for it at the time, so we didn't see it. Hope we have a chance in the future when the kids are old enough to appreciate it.
Your number 6 is me for at least the last year! Seriously, it's perfect! Glad I'm not alone.
I know what you mean about getting used to the routine again, getting up earlier, etc. I've been getting up about two hours earlier the last few weeks and it's tough!
I hope to make it to our Titanic exhibit next Friday. It looks great.
I hope you enjoy your weekend and have a wonderful next week too. Thank you for hosting this link up!
The Titanic is one of those stories that captivates people, isn't it? My kids, even though quite young, were focused on it for a while last year. I wish we'd had a museum display to visit nearby!
And I just adore the black and white "I smile" photo, especially the retro look of it. I need that right beside my desk to crack me up when I'm getting that overwhelmed feeling. It's great to read about others feeling it, too--and getting past it! I'm glad you felt better by the end of the week.
What an awesome week. Love the field trips.
Thank you for the composer guide! I plan to use it. What fun field trips!
I am linking up thanks to Jen's (Forever, For Always, No Matter What) pointing me your way. I deleted my first link, tried to redo it, and now don't see it! Either way, I'll come back and check tomorrow and link up if I am not.
We loved the Titanic exhibit too. The girls and I are still fascinated with it. Molly was reading about it again this week:)
Love your collage, especially number six...I need that printed on a t-shirt;)
Nice photos! I didn't get many this week (or rather month, I guess- in line with my post), but we did take school photos. You know, all professional like lol.
Looks like you had a great week- here's to another one! :)