But not for real. Maybe someday one of these kids will make it there, but for now we are just learning about South and Central America for the summer. Summer school! You know you've become one with your homeschool when you can't separate the school from the home.
I've spent the last two weeks (or so) coming up with my lesson plan for this unit. The following is the Reader's Digest Version of my thought process:
Okay, South America. I need to make sure we cover all the geography, like, everyone needs to know at least all the names of all the countries and Ian and Shane need to know the capital cities as well. I'll get out the GeoPuzzle. And then we need to learn all the history of the Aztecs and Maya and Inca and all that. And read the myths and legends. Oh gosh, and science will be awesome because we will learn all about the Amazon! Everyone can write an animal report...they can choose the jaguar, or the piranha or the poison arrow frog... we can go to the zoo for a field trip! And I have to include some cooking and arts and crafts and I know Mark has a huge collection of South American music. Yma Sumac for sure. Andean flute music! Yeah! I can pull out all those Guatemalan table napkins that belonged to his mother. And that stuffed llama toy. And definitely the molas. We have to have the molas. Finally, all that stuff will be useful for something! We'll color maps and flags and everyone will make a lapbook. Or a scrapbook! And I'll use up my scrapbook paper! And for every single thing we learn, we will make a page for our books so that we get plenty of writing practice this summer. Now, what order should I do things in.... country by country? Chronological order? Oh, now I'm confused. Should we cook a dish for each country? Or do a craft for each country?
It goes on and on like this for a few days while I start checking out books and movies from the library and stressing about how I'm going to get my house clean and the toddler potty trained. And then I start. With no plan, just a list of goals:
- Know the country names (and capitals)
- Eat some tasty food
- Watch some interesting documentaries and also some fun movies
- Develop an appreciation of the world outside our living room without actually leaving our living room
