Well, it feels a little funny to be doing it, but here I am posting school posts on our family blog, just as I said I would. It will make our blogging life much easier, but it feels a little strange nonetheless. Still, here I go....
It's been simply ages since I have made a school post. This has been true for a number of reasons. First off, it's been a while since we have had a history field trip, which trips usually comprise half of all our home school posts. We have still been studying history--spending a lot of time on the constitutional convention, memorizing the preamble, learning about the branches of government, and now beginning a chronological study of the United States Presidents and their many accomplishments, but it just hasn't lent itself to many pictures or posts.
Second, we basically took a year off of studying new science topics last year, which make up the other half of all of our posts. Madison was at school for the first half of the year, so her science classes were there. And Spencer, well, when we got the chance to do science, I decided it was a good time to review some of the things that he had learned during Madison's kindergarten year when he participated in all of her science classes, but was still technically pre-k. These review topics included: national parks, geothermal features, the composition of the earth, volcanoes, and a more in depth look at meteorology and the weather.
Our RV trip came at the conclusion of our national parks and geology review, and then we finished up our meteorology and weather unit just as Madison was pulling out of public school. Since it was all review topics, I didn't feel like it was necessary to re-post about them. Looking back; however, I kind of wish that I had, or at least made mention of them when we did things like visiting Mt. St. Helen's and the other National Parks or hearing Elder Eyering's Christmas address and deciding to learn all about barometers and how to predict the weather using our own barometer just as he did. I can't help but want every little detail to go down on record so I don't forget all the cool things that we do. Honestly though, with Madison suddenly back at home, life got a little crazy. Too crazy to have time to write school posts. So crazy, in fact, that I decided to do something I had only dreamed of doing in the past. Something that seemed like an excellent idea to me, but didn't materialize quite the way I had envisioned.
That something was turning the rest of the years Science classes over to Nick. He had done an excellent job helping with our month long body unit, and the topics that we still needed to cover to get through the elementary school requirements all seemed to be good topics for him to teach--basic chemistry, basic physics, magnets, electrical circuits, simple machines. I thought it would be fun for him to get more involved with the kids' learning too, and to be honest, I needed to off-load something off of my plate in an attempt to hang onto my sanity. He agreed to my proposition, and was even quite excited to begin with; however, studying for oral boards soon drown out his enthusiasm. When they were over, house plans and meetings with our contractor seemed to take up every free moment, and before we knew it, the school year was coming to a close and none of the topics he was supposed to teach had been covered. I was pretty upset with him, but there was nothing to do but try again next year. That, or as Nick suggested, just send the kids back to school. Since that option didn't pan out, Nick recommitted himself to the task, and with my help, finally got his science classes up and going.
His first science class of the year was one we have been meaning to do ever since we bought our microscope several years ago: Germs. We bought petri dishes and made homemade auger. Then the kids swabbed all sorts of surfaces and we set them to growing. Then Nick taught them all about different viruses and bacteria and the kids were actually able to identify all of the things they grew and diagram them in their new science journals.
We closed out the unit by talking about how to kill germs and prevent illness, etc. Needless to say, after studying all of their petri dishes, there has been a definite increase in hand washing at our house!
And I just have to say I am truly impressed by what the kids have been able to learn and remember. I have to confess that there were a few times I wanted to reign Nick's lessons in and help him get more age-level appropriate. To my surprise; however, the kids rose to the challenge. Perhaps if we don't let on that words such as staphylococcus and diplobacillus aren't in the usual elementary schooler's' vocabulary, then they won't ever know how ridiculous it sounds when they make statements to each other using them. Oh the joys of home schooling. And what on earth are we going to teach them in middle school!
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