We have been learning about Lewis and Clark this week and when I say "we" I mean myself included. It's amazing how much you don't retain from school. We have been enthusiastic in learning about their journey. We found a documentary for children on Lewis and Clark and watched it in bed lastnight. My oldest was getting frustrated as my middle child was being noisy and restless and it was distracting and my oldest couldn't hear. She asked me to rewind it! I don't know about you, but when I was 8 i didn't care about Lewis and Clark. Homeschooling allows you the opportunity to make things exciting and to be able to talk about a subject as long as you need until the kids understand it. We had an interactive lesson, my daughter was tracing the map with her finger where the pioneers traveled West and was excited to see the rivers and mountains that she learned about in the lesson. I am able to ask her questions and have her retell the voyage of Lewis and Clark until I know that she truly grasps what happened. I never had a teacher sitting right in front of me teaching in a way that they knew I understood it and not moving on until they knew I totally understood. It's just such a rewarding experience teaching your kids. I want her to know the story. I want her to be confident in retelling this to someone if ever prompted too. And I can safely say, that she knows what she is talking about.
We have read about Sacagawea and saw her in the film last night. My girls think she is amazing. She made her own clothes, knew about wild edibles and carried her baby in a wrap throughout the whole journey. My girls are intrigued by her, and I am going to bet that if they were at public school, they would be intrigued by the pretty girls wearing justice clothes and lipstick. And thats ok, too. But girls should know there capabilities and that there are many other things to be good at.
So technically, according to the curriculum, we are done learning about Lewis and CLark and must move on. But we aren't moving on. We like Lewis and Clark. We like Sacagawea. So we are going to keep learning about them. I believe that a lot of public school teachers would pick up on cues from their students that if the kids were engaged in the topic, they would want to fuel the fire and learn more. Sadly, the state is so involved that there is no time for this. Everything is rushed because teachers are forced to get so much in before the year is over.
Anyway, that is besides the point. Just sharing how much we have enjoyed school this week. I enjoy watching my kids learn. Seeing a child jump up and down and shout "I found the Rocky Mountains" on the map as they trace the route that Lewis and Clark went is amazing. I never had moments like that in school. Actually, if a child is curious and gets up to look at a map in a classroom, there is a good chance they will get in trouble. That is a problem! Let the children learn!
Sooooo, when are you going to leave off from the confines of online school??? You are already there, traditionally homeschooling!!! LOL!!! Lewis and Clark holds very fond special homeschooling memories for me also!! We did this whole incredible 2 hour interactive play of it one time with the homeschool group. Additionally, when I returned to college as a Non-Trad student I was enthralled at how much computers could add into History (my degree)! When I was young, in college and we had a huge assignment, we would traipse clear to Cleveland or Pittsburgh with a ton of quarters, a pound of index cards, and two meals. We would be all day at the library taking notes from books that could not be checked out, making copies on the copy machine, and stacking up index cards with references. When I was assigned Lewis and Clark (already having intended on teaching it to my children) I thought it was like magic to be able to pull up a document actually written in Meriwether Lewis' or William Clark's ACTUAL handwriting!! Lewis was known for his penmanship while Clark was renown for his poor spelling. The one thing that truly sent shudders of excitement through me, was when I was writing an intense paper about food history (specifically baking powder), was when I was able to read/study a cookbook from 1506!!!! I, without computers, would have had to have a Master's at the minimum, fly to Europe, and don gloves or have the specialist there handling the hundreds of years old cookbook for me. My children and I have been known to wallow in quite the THEMES or topics for quite the while...for my kids it is not Lewis and Clark so much (though nearly 7 years later, and ALL of them still remember that lesson and still talk about it) but it was Robin Hood. We stayed on that topic for months literally, covering all 11 subjects, plus others...but having them all tie right into that time period---it is unanimously their favorite lesson as they reflect back!!!! someone who does soooo "get it" ~Kelly
ReplyDeleteAwesome! We haven't learned about Lewis & Clark yet, but, the awesome thing is that my dad's side of the family recently found out that Clark is a distant relative of ours! How awesome is that?! Looking forward to exploring this with my daughter. I'm interested to know what video you used.
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