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!
