History with Keona…

     So this year one of the many additions to Keona’s curriculum load is history.  We are following a classical curriculum as outlined in The Well Trained Mind.  It’s a pretty rigourous curriculum, but I like where it’s going.  So this year we are studying from 4,000 BC to 400 AD which takes us from the ancient nomads to the fall of the Roman Empire.  If our first lesson was any indication, it should be a “wild” ride.  I was giving Keona a little prep talk, so he would know what we are getting into and I started by saying, “You know we’ve been discussing the way that life on earth evolved (we take an evolutionary perspective) from very small organisms to dinosaurs.  Well now we are going to talk about when humans entered the picture.”  So of course that led to the FIRST big question:  “Mom, if people are born from mommies, where did the first people  come from– if there was no one to be born from?”  So I explained that there were quite a few different theories, but that most could be broken down into two basic categories: scientific or religious. And we discussed the Christian idea that man and woman were created by God in a single day (from the elements of the earth, or dirt) and all other people were born from there.  He thought this ridiculous….and so I moved on to science where humans basically evolved from apes.  He thought this equally ridiculous and I countered with the fact that there was quite a bit of fossil evidence for this idea.  He immediatly relaxed and said, “Okay.  I guess if there are fossils it must be true…..” and we moved on, saving the “beginning” for another day.  Whew!  And we hadn’t even hit page one yet!

      The book, The Story of the World–volume I begins explaining what “history” is and by way of introduction asks some very simple questions:  “Do you know where you were born?  Were you born at a hospital, or at home?” which led to some fun discussion (as we have discussed many times before) of Keona’s birth and the fact he was born by c-section…and then, for some reason, I said, “Some kids are born at home.”  I guess I’m a glutton for punishment because Keona immediatly asked, “How can that be?  How do they stop all the blood?  Don’t those mommies bleed to death?  I mean, who does the cutting?  Who sews them up?” 

“Well”, I said, “those babies aren’t born by c-section, in fact, most babies in the hospital do not come out of a hole in their mommies’ tummies.”  Of course, I knew he was not going to let me off that easily….I had dug a deep one and there was no going back.  “So how does the baby get out then?”  So I explained and got the expected horrified reaction and the proclamation: “Impossible!”  Case closed.  At least we got to move on to page 2! LOL!  It’s going to be a “historical” year….

Reading is.. Fun [or] Mental….

Keona is quite proud of himself this week. He’ll tell you: he read an entire book by himself. Currently we are using the Bob Books. We’re just taking it one sound at a time and working through them by going on our letter/word hunts around the city and using the Bob Books. I had thought of buying some big curriculum, but I’m not convinced of the necessity, so we’re going to try this for a while. For backup, I do have a handbook called Phonics Pathways but so far haven’t needed it. We’ll just keep plugging along and make a change if we find our progress is not what we would like it to be.

There is so much sparkle and glitz involved in T.V. and computer, that I really hesitate to get curriculums with a lot of razz-ma-tazz to them. I really don’t want him to depend on being entertained every time he sits down to learn something.

Our math curriculum, Math U See, is pretty basic as well and so far it’s working. We have bricks to count with and a book for written work. The basic idea in the Primar is to build it, write it, and then say it. So far it has been nothing but review. Keona’s amazing preschool teacher really covered A LOT last year. In fact, I have decided to skip a few lessons rather than making him sit there doing things he’s already mastered. Truthfully, my “schooly” side has a difficult time doing that. LOL However, I think I’ll survive and Keona will have something to chew on.