We’ve begun the Age of Exploration! Daring adventures, wrong directions, pirates, new lands! Originally I intended to launch more in depth into the Middle Ages this year. But as we completed the Revolutionary War and pulled out the books/stories/maps for the Middle Ages, it felt — wrong. Our Revolutionary War unit had so much to do and make, and suddenly, what I had next began with reading — not that we didn’t have that before as well, but all of a sudden, the work was different. It felt like — work. So I returned to what I did at the beginning of our year. I looked to the student and dared to ask, “Is this interesting to you? Do you WANT to learn about the middle ages right now?” His tepid reaction pretty much said it all. So I jumped online to look at something that had caught my eye before. The Time Travelers History Studies. The New World Explorers activity pack. Chock full of coloring, cutting, cooking, science, creating — making journals, mapping, lapbooking all while learning about explorers, myths and legends, early navigation, and more. Right from the start, while we read about why people chose to explore, we also baked spice cookies (he measured, sifted, mixed and for the first time exclaimed he liked baking!), learned the parts of a ship and built one out of a box, and made fake parchment for his very own “Captain’s Log Book”, in which, my reluctant writer has already made two entries.
What never ceases to amaze me is how, when play is “allowed” as part of the process, the learning blossoms on its own, the discovery happens with — dare I say it — glee, and before I knew it, our work table was transformed (“Don’t come in yet, Mom, I’m not done!! I want to surprise you!” ) into a Captain’s Quarters complete with compass, map, magnifying glass, bell, log book and quill pen.
While I usually have a general goal, or destination, I’m not always sure precisely where our journey will take us, or what we will discover, but neither did the New World Explorers. However, with Captain William at the helm, I know it will be an adventure!
January 27th, 2011 at 12:33 am
[...] recent blogpost about their latest learning adventure. You can read the whole post, with photos, here. We’ve begun the Age of Exploration! Daring adventures, wrong directions, pirates, new lands! [...]