Ok, today I didn't have school with Megan, but in a sense, we still had it.
We went down to the Western Heritage Museum tonight for the annual Christmas tree lighting party. We parked about a half mile away, enjoyed the trains for awhile, then missed it when they turned the lights on the tree in the main reception hall. It's ok, it was crowded with people and wouldn't have seen much anyway.
Besides that, we brought what we have been learning in history and made some connections to the city of Omaha. (I am just so amazed at how much we are learning in school!)
Here is how:
We had been studying about the ancient Greeks this week in school and we are at about 500BC now. For those of you who don't know, this is about the time of the Greek Golden Age. Everything was going great for the Greeks. Their city had just been burned down by the Persians (Megan can tell you that story) and the Greeks were rebuilding their city and a whole new level of culture was arising. They built the Parthenon, created money, and established their theatre. There were many new modern thoughts and they had some great leaders at the time (Until those Spartans came in and ruined everything 50 years later.)
Today we were at the museum and we were in the Byron Reed collection, which is a huge collection of money from all over the world. I am usually bored with this section, so I really didn't pay much attention, but just today, I looked over and saw "Greek money." I said, "Megan, Megan, come over here!" We sat there together and read how each city-state in Greece had thier own insignia on their own money. They had an example there from a city-state in Greece, unfortunately, it was not one that we have been learning about, but I still thought it was so cool that we knew what a city-state was, we knew that money was pretty new at that time, and we just knew the culture. It was fun to bring it all together!
Below the Greece money, there was money from the Roman empire. I know we are going to be studying that next week, so we might need to go back.:)
At another section of the museum, they had displays about the first buildings and their architecture here in Omaha. There were some theatre masks displayed on the wall and some columns on the other wall.(I still don't know why these were there when they were talking about architecture?) Do you know where theatre masks and columns on buildings orignated? Greece you guess? Correct! We had just studied the different kinds of columns that the Greeks used in their buildings on Wednesday. We also talked about how the Greeks made their theatres and how they would use masks that would signify their moods. These masks are what you often see around theatres these days.
Awesome, isn't it??
Oh wait, it gets better.
On our way home, we stopped at Subway (against Courtney's wishes) and as I am sitting their eating, I notice that their windows are in an arch shape. Any guesses here? Ok,I will tell you then. The Romans invented the arch that we see ALL OVER THE PLACE!! Like I said, we start studying about the Roman empire next week.
Do you see why I love homeschooling??
1. She would not be learning any of this at public school.
2. Even if she was learning it, would I know she was learning it? As a parent last year when Megan was at school, I didn't know what she was learning half the time.
3. Because I am the one teaching her, I can point things out as we are out in public and I can let her make the connection. Like I did 4 times today!!
I really can't wait to teach American history next year!!!
In case you are wondering, I really like teaching all the other subject too and if I can, I like to make connecttions anyway I can. (Like when Megan says, "What time is it?" I reply with, "You can read a clock, what does it say?)
Ok, one more example just because it is funny. Here's another "connection". It's not so important to us, but to a farmer, it is very important.
We are reading a book called "Strawberry Girl" for school and in this book, the family makes a field, puts a fence around it, and puts cows in it. They want to grow strawberries in there to sell later. Now, why would a person put cows in a field that they want to grow strawberries in??? Oh yeah, the cows "fertilize" the soil so they can have better strawberries!!
This one took a little bit of explaining to Megan- poor city girl! But never fear, we got a real live example yesterday. We were driving out to my parents for Thanksgiving and out in the country, we saw some cows out in the corn fields. Of course, I say, "Look Megan and Courtney, there are cows out in the fields? What do you think they are doing out there besides eating the leftover corn?" Fertilizing!! Same concept as in the book we are reading!! I just had to laugh!
Ok, the end of my really long blog. :)
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