"I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience." -- Anne Sullivan

Friday, August 19, 2011

Learning Rocks

One of the things I'm finding to be the most rewarding about homeschooling is the freedom it gives you to learn from just about anything. You can take almost any object, situation, or experience and expand on it as much as you like. This summer, we used rocks to help us learn.

Gracie has always been a rock hound. Everywhere we go, she's looking at the ground, finding cool ones and stuffing them in her pockets. One of my favorite memories happened one day when she came home from kindergarten. I had just had Luke and couldn't drive yet, so her grandmom dropped her off. She got out of the car, and her pockets were bulging with rocks. As she ran up the driveway to greet me, her pants fell down around her ankles! Sometimes she finds really interesting ones, but most of the time, they're just your average driveway variety. Until Elise found out Gracie likes rocks...

Elise is one of the most interesting people I know. She's a missionary with YWAM and has been all over the globe- Australia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia- lots more- and now she's in Latvia. But even though she's across the ocean, and very busy, she takes time out to think of Gracie and enhance her education.She started collecting rocks for Gracie from all the different places she travels to, and I have to say, the rocks she finds are much cooler than the rocks in our driveway!
                                                                                             
                                                       (I told you she was cool)              

Elise was home for a few weeks in July, and brought a bunch of rocks for Gracie. The rocks from Latvia are my favorite, because one is actually a piece of a castle, and the little one is amber (Gracie loved that, because now she has a fossil) The one from Sweden is interesting too, because it's really black and looks like it may have been volcanic in origin. Elise labeled them for us, and then it was time to do our homework!


                                                                  
We went to the library and got a book about each country.We had already been studying some other countries from our FIAR curriculum, so the rocks were a great way to continue what we were already doing

After we read about the country, we located it on the map. I don't mean to brag, but I don't know any other seven- year- old who can find the Baltic states on the map. And Caleb can find Pennsylvania, 'cause that's where Thomas the Tank Engine lives!


Then we colored each country's flag, and wrote the capital and language on them.
                                                                             

                                                                          
We still have a few more countries to cover, but that's kind of the beauty of it- we can do it at our own pace, just for the fun of it, and still be learning tons!

And, most importantly,since the rocks came from Elise, it's the perfect way to teach Gracie about missions. I'm able to show Gracie, "Look, this is where Elise went, so she could tell people about Jesus. This is what the country is like, these are some rocks!" And Gracie can really understand that. Instead of just imagining what missionaries in other countries do, she knows a real person. Her world gets bigger and smaller at the same time.


I'm hoping that we can make up a nice display box for the rocks so Gracie can show them off when she moves into her own room. Right now she's been keeping them in her nature box with the rest of her treasures.
                                                                                  
                                                                                          
I also had to find a solution for all the other rocks that were coming into the house. While I'm glad Gracie is interested in them, I'm also tired of stepping on them! So we decided to make a rock garden. We got a cheap planter from Home Depot and I planted the flowers the kids gave me for Mother's Day. Then we put Gracie's rocks around it. Now every time she finds rocks, she knows right where to put them. It's become one of my favorite things to look at.                                                           


                                                                           
Thanks Elise!
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