Wednesday, July 22, 2015

First Time Down a Rabbit Hole

The last week of schooling has been running fairly smooth. I've decided on Squirrel's gymnastics day, that we will have as an off day. She is only required to do some free reading. She comes home so exhausting that it's pretty pointless to get her to concentrate on anything.

Today at lunch check-in, she was having a mini-meltdown. It happens. She had no interest in learning, and we sat and had lunch, giggled and started on her writing/ grammar daily work. She says, "I've never had a teacher let me eat GRILLED cheese while doing my work. This is Awesome, mom."

Life of Fred is the math of choice this year. I researched it for a while and had/ have my reservations about it being a full-on math curriculum, but the more I read, the more relaxed I become with what it offers.

I'm still supplementing with math worksheets a few times a week since I have a brain that believes you should be drilled to death to learn math facts. I'll get there... (maybe)

Last night, LOF clicked for her. She asked for another chapter. Then another... before I knew it, we had done four chapters in the Apples book. And I believe the only reason it stopped was because a side-learning opportunity sparked her attention.

Chapter 12 talks about the Titanic. And that was all she wrote.
 
 
Before the night was done, we'd watched a number of Titanic Youtube videos on the living room television (courtesy of Daddy Squirrel) and we all have a family date to watch Titanic in 3D this weekend.
 
There are also some great short and sweet learning videos on Youtube about the Titanic. We learned a bit about the way the boat sunk, about the lives lost, the rooms and areas of the boat never destroyed when she sunk. Squirrel was extremely interested to know that so many lives were lost. She was sad for awhile, but we talked about the way history includes these massive and momentous sad occasions for us all to learn from and grow.
 
She liked that answer. And we read a few chapters of her new favorite book series, Clarice Bean, so she could get her mind off of the sadness that happened. Our first rabbit hole was traveled together that took us from math to science and history.
 
That's what it's all about. Learning for enjoyment and interest. To remember.

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