After only a few hours of sleep, I woke up to a call from my mother-in-law letting me know that the local Gem & Mineral Society was hosting a free event as part of a promotion for the new 3D Jurassic Park movie. Since my little girl is a dinosaur nut and a lover of stones in general, I hopped out of bed and got us ready to go just in time. The J-Rex (as I'll refer to her in this blog) was so excited that she grabbed her lunchbox full of dinosaur bones to bring with her, intending to ask the geologists at the event some questions she had. This turned out to be an excellent idea because, as it turned out, the dino bone in question was not a dino bone at all! It was a drill-core sample!
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| showing off her free shirt from yesterday's event |
The rock and fossil event was a resounding success: The J-Rex spent an hour learning about the different types of rocks, fossils, and methods of rock identification. I even learned a thing or two myself about my role in helping my visually-impaired youngster "see" scientific observations, such as the scratch from a nail test on a rock or the tiny fossils in a large, mono-colored sandstone. We all learned about the many forms of quartz and the accuracy of its vibrations, continuing our discussion on this as we headed home and threw around ideas like crystal computers and the chemistry of dilithium...
I fully expected this to be a short field trip and for us to have a day of pure fun, no schooling...and I was right...half-right, at least. It was certainly a day of fun, but school was the name of the game:
Shortly after we came home, a minor frustration on my husband's part about looking at people while you're talking to them prompted him to initiate a spontaneous lesson on sound waves. Following a long discussion and experimentation with various objects that block sound, the J-Rex found me out in the garden and explained it with incredible detail and understanding.
But we weren't done there! No, the J-Rex decided she wanted to paint her first still-life (one of her favorite stuffed animals), so we had "Art Class," complete with another spontaneous lesson from the hubby about negative space. Next thing I know, my little learner is asking to play math games on the computer and then spending the rest of her day reading books.
Now, I know every homeschooler seems to have their own opinion about what type of schooling is best for their child/children. For my part, I've only been homeschooling since the beginning of this school year and I'm still figuring it out. Having two parents who teach and having been both a school nerd and (briefly) a teacher in the public schools, I'm not short of ideas about what kids need in terms of education - in fact, I think I probably have far too many conflicting opinions in my corner to be able to work through the tangles with any kind of ease... Then again, I like things complicated - it makes life more interesting.
So far, I think I'm set on a mix of the traditional and the radical in terms of homeschooling the J-Rex. I feel its important to have some traditional (teacher-led) schooling and practice on the basics for two reasons: I want to provide her with the skills to explore more of the interesting stuff that comes later and I want to teach her that discipline is as important as curiosity where learning is concerned. On the other hand, I absolutely love the idea of unschooling - it appeals to all of my higher ideals, even if I'm still a bit unsure of what it actually looks like in practice. So, we've been trying to incorporate a mix of both in our school days - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but I think yesterday was a truly excellent example of what I hope we, as a whole family, can get out of the unschooling method.
Regardless, it was one heck of a fun day.
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