Welcome to Saturday School, my weekly look into the practical side of homeschooling. Feel free to leave a link in the comment section if you have shared any practical ideas recently! This week, our Saturday School project fell apart. But rather than give a lesson on following directions, I am going to postpone it until we are not substituting materials that were apparently more important than we at first thought. This is not a lesson per se, but an idea. When my daughter lost her first tooth, she was so excited. All day she talked about it, and that evening she mentioned something about a tooth fairy. We had never talked about the tooth fairy, and had never really planned on doing the tooth fairy. By her own conversation, it was obvious she knew it was all a game.

But she expected there to be some cash under her pillow.

And I had none. Not so much as a penny. So I had to think fast. And wrote the following letter:

Little Mouse,

You are growing so fast. It was not so long ago you were running about, scaling cabinets and getting into mischief like Baby Bear. It was not so long ago you depended on us for everything like Baby Bug. I still remember when you got your first tooth.

Now you can do all kinds of things for yourself. You can cook and clean and even sew. Sometimes you get into trouble, but mostly you are a big help. You are beginning to put childish things aside, like it says in 1Corinthians 13:11. Including your first baby tooth.

So for your first tooth, I thought we could have a tea party. We can have fun planning it out together. Does that sound like fun?

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

We made scones and had a tea party together, using the tea set I had brought back with me from Germany. We have a regular tea time in our daily schedule. Every afternoon (according to my schedule, anyway), we sit down to tea and have a sort of book talk. Generally, this follows the traditions I learned as an exchange student in East Frisia, a part of northwestern Germany. It is what I know. But, for educational purposes, we have also had formal English teas, looked a little at the Japanese tea ceremony and had our own Middle Eastern tea.

It is amazing how much there is to learn about a culture just through talking about our reading while practicing a local custom.

Of course, now that we have tea time regularly (if not every day), my daughter is asking for something else for the next tooth she loses. So I’m going to have to start thinking some more. At least she doesn’t have any loose right now!

_____

I am thinking that the imminent threat of a major holiday has kept most of the blogs I follow from posting much practical insight.  That or I just missed them all while scrolling.  Either way, I didn’t find much in the way of practical posts to share.

I did, however, find this resource.  I am starting to incorporate more current events into our homeschool and think the New York Times Learning Network looks like it could be an interesting resource.  If nothing else, I am sure I can get some ideas from their ideas!

[tags]homeschooling, family[/tags]