This past Saturday I attended our local homeschool convention. Friday night, when I told the boys that I would be gone all day they asked why. I told them I was going to some meetings that would help me make our home school more fun. They promptly responded, “Our home school is fun!”
I have been looking forward to attending one of these for years, but I admit, I was a little dissapointed. Maybe my expectations were unreasonably high. I went expecting to be highly inspired, or motivated to make big changes in our homeschool. I really enjoyed hearing Susan Wise Bauer’s keynote and her workshop on “The Joy of Classical Education”, but I was pretty disappointed in the other classes I attended. I have heard others saying the classes were great, so maybe I just made poor choices… I was pretty interested in a workshop I took on Unit Study. I even looked up the instructor on Facebook (it is a social networking site, after all!), went to a seminar she presented at this week again so I could look closer at the curriculum she uses, but decided it wasn’t for us. I have been going over my notes, looking up things online, and this morning realized that the best thing I got from all of this is that what we are using is great for us. It works for our family. What intrigued me about unit study wasn’t the unit study aspect, it was the activity aspect. I am homeschooling two seven year old boys! They thrive on hands-on learning. I have really neglected that this past year, I think because I am a book/story learner. They enjoy that too, but they are seven. And boys. They need to do!
One of the turn-offs of the unit study concept for me was how it presents history and science in a completely random way. At least KONOS does. I love the classical trivium; teaching history chronologically begining with ancient history. How can expect children to understand why the Revolutionary War took place if they don’t know about European History?
So, I looked through my current curriculum and realized that The Story of the Wold has lots of great suggestions for activities, but I’ve been skipping them because I wasn’t as interested or didn’t want to make a mess, or it was too much to do with the little ones running around, or…. yeah. Lots of excuses.
In all this I discovered that I already had a lot of resources, I just needed the motivation and to take that journey of discovery.
Thank you, Susan Wise Bauer for coming. And if anyone on the UHEA board reads this, please do not let anyone sell magic veggie pills at next years curriculum fair.
