Sunday, June 7, 2009

Our solar system project...

was actually quite fun the other day. Yes, there is a tone of surprise in that statement. I am the first to admit that when it comes to most projects, I think bad words. Like artsy and crafts and glitter. Bad words like those. I am not a project mom.

When the boys were in traditional school and would come home with these amazing, student directed, student created project requirement papers listing things like create a diorama of the first five Boxcar Children mysteries, or build a to scale model of Mt. Olympus, I would begin to cry. And go to the bathroom.

Husband called these assignments "Homework for Parents".

Lots of people worry about homeschooling because they wonder how they will teach geometry or a child to read. I worried about how I would keep my sanity with the various projects in the curriculum sequence. I apparently worried so much that it paralyzed me the first year plus of homeschooling. I did almost nothing in the project part of any curriculum with the boys. The couple of science things that we did do exasperated me. And no one learns when there is yelling.

There. Confession is over.

This year I have decided to turn a new leaf, my own personal project work you might say. We are using the Apologia Astronomy curriculum, and we purchased the accompanying student notebooking journals. I have not promised to do every project or experiment, but I am at least willing to try this year. Chalk it up to teacher growth. Or the fact that with the boys older, there really is more student directed, student creative work.

In our schoolroom, the solar system of balloons hangs along the ceiling. Except for Jupiter which popped. Twice. The boys had fun and were helpful. I had fun and wasn't an ogre.

That's a successful project right there. Before the year is out, we might even tackle the whole graduated styrofoam ball models. With paint. Wow! Who knows?

2 comments:

  1. Arts and crafts. Ugh. You have my admiration for giving it a go. I hate anything involving a glue stick and safety scissors. But I'd love to hear your opinion on the Apologia stuff when you finish it!

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  2. Nothing breaks my spirit more than a craft project.

    I bought the Apologia Astronomy curriculum and notebooks with the plan to use them next year. However, I took one look at what's involved with TOG and decided to put it on the backburner - at least for the first few months - while I get my footing with everything else. Fortunately my son will be taking a couple of science classes at a one day a week program that focuses on on hands on projects so that gives me a good excuse to procrastinate with the Astronomy.

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