Spring is here! Oh joy! The weather this whole month has been so fine and everyone seemed re-energized by the changing seasons. Our homeschool has been blissfully sunny.
I have been thinking a lot this month about my responsibility as not only an educator, but an example of a learner. If my children are going to take seriously this lifelong quest of growing in skill and knowledge, they need to see that I also take it seriously for myself. So with that pep talk, I have been working on learning scary new skills a little bit everyday. Like new music. And writing speculative fiction. And memorizing Mandarin vocabulary. At first it was really scary, and then disheartening. But now I am excited about the journey, which is exactly what I hope for my sons.
In Kindergarten
The Pancake - A friend recommended a lovely anthology to me called Nursery Tales from Around the World and from this anthology, I found the story for our first unit in March. It is a variant on "The Gingerbread Man" that features a runaway pancake instead of a runaway cookie. The kids really got a kick out of the story, especially Soren who quickly saw the similarities between this story and "The Gingerbread Man". I had a great time accessorizing this story. For nursery rhymes, I shared rhymes about baking ("Bat, Bat Come Under My Hat", "Patty Cake", and "Sing a Song of Sixpence") and we learned to sing "Merrily We Roll Along". For our outdoor time, I taught the kids to do somersaults and they suggested that we play tag. For our (art) projects, we painted plates to look like pancakes and frying pans, colored pictures from the story, and made pancakes (of course). On the last day of the unit, all the kids had a chance to make up their own runaway food story. I told a story about a runaway pizza, Soren about a runaway loaf of bread, Carl about a runaway egg, and Michael about a runaway cake. The kids were so bright and happy; I really enjoyed teaching this unit.
I have been thinking a lot this month about my responsibility as not only an educator, but an example of a learner. If my children are going to take seriously this lifelong quest of growing in skill and knowledge, they need to see that I also take it seriously for myself. So with that pep talk, I have been working on learning scary new skills a little bit everyday. Like new music. And writing speculative fiction. And memorizing Mandarin vocabulary. At first it was really scary, and then disheartening. But now I am excited about the journey, which is exactly what I hope for my sons.
In Kindergarten
The Little Blue Frog - Megan's unit this month was centered around a sweet (and sad) story from Korea. She said it came from her favorite cooking blog. Carl was surprised by the sad ending but everyone seemed to enjoy the story anyways. I love bittersweet stories like that. The kids made kimchee as part of this unit and said that they liked it. (When I asked Megan about it later, she said that they were very positive about it but only ate half a bowl.) I know that they sang "5 Green and Speckled Frogs" and learned to play "Leap Frog."
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