Feeding their imaginations

Part of my role in our family is to seek out the fodder for our imaginations.  I control the netflix queue, and do the library runs.  I read book reviews and chat with other parents about what their families are watching and reading.

Sometimes it turns out that something I got is not of interest to anyone.  That's fine too.  And sometimes the kids hear about something from their friends and ask me to get it for them.  And that's fine too, although sometimes I try to check it out a bit first.

Here's some of what they have enjoyed recently:

Apps


DragonVale is an iPhone app that Carbon heard about from a friend, and then he just had to have it.  The nice thing about these apps is that each one is pretty inexpensive so it's a low risk for me to buy them for the kids.  Carbon loves this one.


Movies


The Lord of the Rings is pretty violent and intense for the kids, but watched in the light of day in our living room they love Tolkien's world.  After we watched the movie, I got the dramatized radio plays on CD from the library and Carbon has been enjoying that at night in his room.  Hypatia can't follow the action on audio, so she's skipping that.  Carbon was inspired to make wire rings, and he wrote a short book about his rings and their own magical properties.


Audiobooks


The difference between a book on paper and an audiobook is The Voice.  Depending on the narrator, the book can be brought to life in amazing ways, and listening to these voices in our car is one of our favorite things.  Anne of Green Gables and Betsy Tacy have been giving us lovely gentle tales of girlhood and friendship, and before that Urchin of the Riding Stars gave us excitement and humor.  Andrew Sachs, the narrator of Urchin, is a familiar voice we've heard before and that the kids enjoy.


Read-Alouds

And then we read more books before bed.  The kids have been on a Bunnicula kick for the last six books, but now we're reading another Mistmantle book.  Can I match Andrew Sachs as a narrator?  No.  But now we get to see the cute little illustrations, so it has its compensations.

And I just have to add this because I LOVE it.

finding time to read

So I need to make more of this happen in my household:

 

 So that I can find time to deal with this outrageous load of reading riches that the library gave me today:

 

Legendary Learning

Legendary Learning: The Famous Homeschoolers' Guide to Self-Directed Excellence by Jamie McMillin.

Why I read it:


I spotted this at my local library, and naturally would have to read it based on the topic!

What it's about:


McMillin, a homeschooling parent, worries about doing the right thing with her kids, as we all do at times.  All the conflicting advice and different methods of homeschooling leaves her more confused and worried, so she gets the idea to examine the lives of famous people (because they are easier to research, as she explains) who were successful and somewhat homeschooled or self-taught.  By looking at their lives, and at how they were schooled, she started to see patterns of what education prepared these people for their future selves.

What I thought of it:


McMillin was engaged with her story, and so that was engaging to read.  However, a lot of this ground seemed familiar to me, and although she doesn't credit it as so, the conclusions she reaches are very much like the Thomas Jefferson Method.  But the book is well-written and interesting, so overall another good read on the subject of self-directed learning.

The Take-Away:


For me, this was just another reminder that there is a middle ground where you aim for some instruction in the "basics" and also leave plenty of room for self-directed learning.  It also reminded me that the most important thing to learn is how to learn, and that the most important role of the parent-teacher is to model life-long learning habits. 

The Outdoor Classroom

It's our goal to get outdoors for a nature hike once a week from now until the weather is just too awful in the fall.  Today's walk at a nature sanctuary was cold and wet, but we saw some pretty ducks and had fun anyway.

These outdoor walks have so many benefits: connection to nature, health, fresh air, mental decluttering, boosts to our happiness, family time.  On today's walk we saw many older folks who looked like serious birdwatchers, and one small school group, but no other kids.  I've read all the statistics about how much time kids get outdoors now, and it makes me very sad.  We all need to go outside!

Gather the Spirit

We've just done the UUA Tapestry of Faith curriculum "Gather the Spirit" with our 3rd-4th grade class, a program that looks at one specific issue (water stewardship) through a UU spiritual lens.

You won't find it in the Children's programs on the website, though, because it was written to be multigenerational.  I loved the idea of doing a multigenerational program, but when I offered the class as a multigenerational one through our Adult Education catalog, we didn't have enough people sign up and it had to be canceled.  So I don't know how it would have been in a multigen group.

The program got a second shot with us for our Spring "Faith in Action" pillar with our 3rd-4th graders, and there it has been an excellent program.  I felt like the water chalice was a very creative idea, and the mural that gets added to each week was fun and popular with the kids.  Going outside on an animal scavenger hunt for one of the activities, and making aquifers in cups for another, were also big hits.

We'll definitely do this program again, and it works well for this older-elementary age group.  I wish I had organized the class to do a larger-scale social justice/water stewardship project in conjunction with the program, so that will be important to add in next time.

And, why do all these Tapestry of Faith programs have to have names that don't mean anything to parents?  "Gather the Spirit" is a hymn, and each individual workshop is named after lyrics from that hymn - it's clever but it means nothing to the kids and parents.  Titles that would actually draw them in, tell them why they want to get to church today, or what they will be doing, would be much better.

(Like all Tapestry of Faith programs, the whole thing is available for free on the UUA website.)

Something we've been looking forward to ....

We got to see the King Tut collection!  We've studied Egypt so much, and we have been waiting for our chance to see the exhibit for over a year.  Earlier this week the kids and I watched another King Tut documentary to get ready for seeing the real stuff.


















Unfortunately, the crowds, the heat, and the dark were not conducive to Hypatia enjoying the exhibit as much as I wish she had.  She did like the jewelry, and everyone was glad to see shabtis (which feature in the plot of Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos).  Carbon would have happily stood and read all the tags on everything, so we had to strike a balance between the "just get me to the exit!" child and the "I'm still reading!" child.

Overall, however, a very fun Field Trip.

Let's Make a Book

Yesterday's project started off as a standard art lesson based off the book Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett.  Brett's signature style is to do little sidebars full of interesting details on her drawings, so the art lesson was about sidebars and use of detail.

We started with sidebars, but for some reason what the kids really wanted to do was draw little story books and try to sell them.







Their plan to photocopy and sell their books was foiled by my unwillingness to use up all my ink and the fact they had drawn on yellow paper (so the home printer was trying to print yellow background over the entire page), but they were happy enough to just sell the originals to their father.

Did we learn to draw sidebars?  No.  Did we appreciate Jan Brett's art?  Yes.  Did they then go on to learn something else that was cool?  I think so.