When I wrote the prompts, I thought today’s would be easy. Grab a notebook, pick some work and photocopy it for the world to see. Then the problems started. My children just do not see the world the same way I do.Take a recent field trip. One of my resolutions for homeschooling this year is to take more trips with the children. I want to take them on several short camping trips across the state so that they really get to know Nebraska. I even bought a copy of Roadside History of Nebraska to teach them state history along the way. And occasionally check out Roadside Geology of Nebraska, which probably has taught us more geology than I have ever formally planned. Mom wants to share this:
And talk about the sandhill cranes’ staged migration, their behavior and that beautiful karroo that echoes in your ears after spending a day with them. They want to make sure you see this:
The spot under the highway bridge where they spent all their time while I was watching the birds come in to roost on the sandbars of the Platte.
But mom, the bridge was the best!
I don’t know how to signify that succession of notes on the mom, but I trust most of you know how “mom” is pronounced when preceded by “but.” It was unanimous. Except for mom, who didn’t see throwing sticks in the river as quite as exciting as four foot birds with a six foot wingspan descending by the hundreds. But then, this did come out of it:
Each of the children made a crane out of paper and they are soaring peacefully in the current of the AC near the ceiling of our front room. And although the trip was Easter weekend, they still come out with random bits of information as they stare wistfully at their cranes. Even if it does come back to,
Remember that bridge? That was so cool!
I also thought yesterday I might like to include quite a bit about the whale project we are doing to show that we can indeed recover from a bad day. All is not lost. The whales, too, held their interest. But not as much as one and a half tons of sand being delivered for the sandbox they helped their father build. So the humpback whale lesson was interrupted to shovel sand. And after they finished that, what mother in her right mind would say,
OK. Back to lessons.
Only to have them stare longingly out the window at a sandbox? You may think me, but I do draw the line at some acts of maternal stubbornness. So they played.
Here is something I dug up that is probably more representative of our days than I like to admit. It is a really great project and deeply meaningful to me and my daughter. I love the idea as we slowly chronicle her studies on becoming a woman based on Proverbs 31. This is a twelve year project. Thus far, we have one page done. This one got interrupted because we lost the needle…(cough) three months ago (cough)…and she couldn’t finish the cross stitched title. Anyway, this page is the result of her study on Proverbs 31:22: …Her clothing is fine linen and purple. You might notice the purple theme of the page:
I taught her how to sew on buttons and she practiced this for her page. The little box is a short description of the significance of the color purple and she practiced her running stitch around it. The title will read, and she clothed herself in purple, whenever she finds her needle. Here she is working on it:
Oh, and she wanted to make sure you were all aware of this most important aspect of womanliness:
And now, because I just can’t let go of the whales, I am going to share something from Mouse’s sketchbook. This wasn’t even assigned. She just dug through the books I picked up from the library and she and her brother spent a good hour laying in the middle of the hall (don’t ask) and coloring.
See how hard this is? While I could put any number of projects on display to demonstrate their work, none of them can quite capture what it is we do in a day. Because the real work isn’t displayed in the end product but in the time spent along the way and in all the little events which take center stage in their little world while mom struggles to remember how important those things really are rather than fretting over lessons pushed back yet another day.
Activity: Make a “brag book” with your children, some photos and an old container. It is like a mini-scrapbook, but oh so cute in a small container.
Did you bring something for Show and Tell for Home Education Week? Leave the link to your post here, and be sure to link to this post to share all the wonderful experiences others have chosen to share with your readers as well. I am looking forward to getting to know you all a little better this week!
[tags]homeschool, homeschooling, home school, Home Education Week[/tags]
“Because the real work isn’t displayed in the end product but in the time spent along the way…”
How true this is! Loved your post, Dana!
Oh, I laughed when your lesson got interrupted to shovel sand. This sounds so familiar. My husband works at home, so he is always doing neat projects or having something delivered. And, of course, the kids want to be a part of it. But, it’s part of real life and they are learning from it.
Quite true. And they worked so hard on it…although not quite as hard as they did for me a couple years ago. We had the dirt for three raised garden beds delivered, but the driver dumped it at the end of the drive rather than half in the sandbox and half out. So they moved all that with toy shovels and toy cars and plastic tubs across the yard.
It took us eight hours, but we did it.
http://principleddiscovery.com/2006/04/30/to-move-a-mountain/
And that actually turned out to be a rather successful lesson, lest anyone think nothing ever goes right around here.
Great Post, Dana! This has been such fun…Thank you!
Yes, they do see things differently, don’t they!
[Remember the bridge?] When Marissa was still in school, right after Ron and I got married, she designed two bridges using West Point Bridge Design. Then she and Ron made the bridges out and we did weight bearing tests. She had a lot of fun.
Thanks for the inspiration. I first realized that what is of utmost important to me is not to my daughter when we began to ’shoot photos’ together. What I would label ‘a perfect shot’ was quite different from what my daughter labeled ‘a perfect shot’. Our photo field trip taught me more than I could have possibly taught my daughter that day.
Can it be? Comments working?
Yippee!
I’m loving this Dana. A great idea!
Thank you for doing hosting this week. I have enjoyed participating and looking at all the sites!
Be blessed!
Terri Sue
Isn’t it funny how kids can view things so differently than their moms? The field trips I think will be so fun sometimes turn into duds, while an ordinary outing can be so extraordinary.
Great pictures! Your daughter’s scrapbook page is so sweet. I think I will do something similar with my girls. I bought them each an antique teacups at the second-hand store, so we started having fancier tea parties.
The sandbox looks like a blast!
My children would have loved this field trip! We just missed seeing spoonbills in south Texas a few years ago. Love the Shamu picture; he lives next door!
Blessings,
Laurie
Thanks for putting this week together, Dana- I have enjoyed the prompts. The kids loved it that people were going to get to see their tree fort, which is what I blogged about for today’s topic. I had wondered what projects the kids would want to display- I should’ve known.
Able to climb trees is such an important part of womanliness.
I love it.
Dana,
Of course they would love the bridge! Don’t you know that bridges are the coolest!
The scrapbook idea is great. It will be such a treasure in years to come.
Your daughter’s drawing of a whale is really good. It looks like our girls have another thing in common – the love of drawing!
Hope you have a great day.
Stacy
Great post! I love the Proverbs 31 scrapbook and would love to hear more about it!
I know that feeling very well–my kids always notice very different things about projects. Now I let them run with it. I finally got mine posted –I spent all day working on all that mess with the server. Seems like all is well now.
great post..and thank you, this has been so much fun
I’m linking late again, but hopefully everyone else is like me, and planning to check these out over and over for the next few weeks. Your show’n tell is beautiful, Dana.
Well, I know I’ll still be reading them over the next week or two because I haven’t had time, either!
You have some really great projects, especially the sandbox!!! I love your Proverbs 31 idea; it’s wonderful! My girls would love to do something like that.
~Andrea
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/andijeane/510116/
Um, oops. I linked late and on the wrong link; blame it on Mommy brain. The second link is for today’s. And now I have to get off the computer, because my kids are asking me why my internet friends are so important to me! (yeah, ok,I got the hint,guys!)
I tried posting comments twice this morning. So I think that’s why I’m on your list twice.
That’s ok…it is bound to happen.
The server went down early this morning and part of getting it back up involved disabling all the plugins…one of which operated my comments.
Great pics Dana. My dh just dumped a load of sand in the play area under the fort of our dc’s swing set. Now I’m praying that every cat in the neighborhood doesn’t think they’ve got a new litter box.
Needless to say, my post is pictureless – at least for now. If I get one up, it will not be of any great accomplishments, just my dd’s skinned, swollen, and bruised face. :-0
Should note, reason for the dumping, is he’s taking away their dirt digging pile behind the hot tub enclosure to make a garden area. I’m praying that he’ll take the time to do the raised beds, as our backyard soil is so depleted, I’m afraid nothing will grow if he doesn’t do some preparation. And I love the low-work of Sq. Foot Gardening.
We LOVED our camping through NE summer a few years ago, and took along Roadside History.
Thanks for submitting this entry… it was very amusing to read!
Lve
MJ
Awesome! It’s so true. Just when you get to the point of the lesson, they get distracted & show you how much they have learned about something else or the interest heads off in ten different directions. But they are learning. So fun.
Thanks, Lisa! I love that part of homeschooling…unless I spent too much time planning a lesson. Then I don’t like “going with the flow.” Sometimes, I’m a better teacher when I don’t plan as much…
And thank you Miss Jocelyn. I hadn’t participated in Photo Friday before, so wasn’t entirely sure it fit, but I figured it had pictures.
I love the sandhill cranes! I grew up in Nebraska and we used to go out in our field and bird watch for hours. We also used to collect owl pellets and dissect them!!!