Thursday, February 11, 2010

So Excited!


I am quickly finding again my love for poems and art. I found a book today at TJ Maxx and call me crazy but I want it to be the base of our learning for the next year. A Child's Book of Poems by Gyo Fujikawa is going to be one of my favorites books for poetry right now. The pictures are so divine and the poems are so classic and sweet. They touch on everything and...AHHH it just makes me flutter with joy and anticipation of seeing the boys learn them and grow in the knowledge they can learn from such poems that have been read by children for over a hundred years. I think that is something that is really connecting with me in this homeschool journey, is connecting to the past. Not just for the boys for myself, to maintain a sense that we are very connected to the past, the love and joy that I feel was felt by mothers 200 years ago is what I feel today. That children 200 years ago, learned the same way that I am hoping my boys learn. Through life, family, friends, nature, neighbors, the market, the forrest, the fields, the streams. It gives my soul sense of peace and grounding. I want to be able to have the boys know this. They are not all there is, or was, or shall be. They didn't just show up here. I really hope that we are going to be able to live somewhere soon that allows us to get back to nature and the basics. Living simply, learning simply, eating simply, love with all. It is going to be through this that we learn and live. Crazy how a little book of poems can stir so much within me, but that is what it is all about to me. I want my boys to feel this. And that is why we do what we do.
My plan the more I look at it and read it is that this is what we will base our learning off of this year. I want to take the seasonal ones and use them as the fit. The rest we can tie in day by day, if it is A Sea Song From the Shore we can talk about beach ecosystems, the tides, animals, the tale of mermaids, so on and so forth. Maybe some explorers that were famous sailors and how they did it. With that one with all the S's in the title we would cover S and things that start with an S that are nautical. Some might be a week in learning, some a day. I am very excited by it all. So my plan right now, is to post the poem that we are reading, post pictures of what we are doing with the learning within it as well as our narration of the lessons learned.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Oh Leah! I'm right there with you sister! Don't stop getting excited about everything. You will instill wonder into the hearts of your children and they will be forever the better for it.
That illustrator did a book titled "Babies" that I used to read to Charlie so I completely identify with your love of its sweetness.
We are sooooooo alike!!!

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