Friday, September 05, 2008

The Best School Day I've Ever Had!

We're finishing up the first week of our home schooling year. It's been a very good week and the kids have worked really hard.
My main goal this year was to have more FUN! We're good at working on the reading, writing and arithmetic, but when it comes to not worrying about the "have to's" I don't think I've been as unstructured as I'd like.
So today after Bible, I told the kids, "We're not doing the bookwork today." You should have seen their faces.
Instead of hitting the books we read Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully. It's a Caldecott Medal winner and the kids loved it. It was actually the second time we read it this week.
Like Mirette we tried walking on our own High Wire. We talked about what we had to do with our bodies to keep our balance like put our arms out and bend our knees slightly.
I then had the kids lay on white paper and we traced their "high wire" moves. They had a great time picking out what their "people" would wear, what color eyes they'd have, how dark their skin would be and how their hair would be styled. Our oldest child said his boy looked good bald, but we decided to add hair anyway. Our middle boy painted his boy's clothing to match his favorite clothing picks. He usually wears two shirts each day-one long sleeve covered with a short sleeve. His boy looks exactly the same. And our girlie is all about pink. So no surprise her girl is a Pinkie too.
Toward the end of the painting, our middle son exclaimed, "THIS IS THE BEST HOME SCHOOL DAY I'VE EVER HAD!!!"
Now, that's what I'm looking for! I want our homeschool experiences to be the best they've ever had. Learning should be fun!
In case you're interested, we found this activity in a book called Art Activities from Award-Winning Picture Books from the Teaching and Learning Company. It is written by Judy Hierstein and designed to be used with preK-3rd grade kids.
We'll post our finished products when they are dry and on the "High Wire."

1 comment:

Nettie said...

Excellent Job Wallflower. Your blog is great.
Nettie