How we homeschooled today #96
Time to shake things up
A cause for hope
A kind reader sent me this post by
:In addition to the new baby who arrived not long after we got to town,2 that year our kids were in preschool and first grade, and we sent them to the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School, one of six Hand in Hand3 bilingual schools around the country dedicated to creating a shared society of Jews and Palestinians4.
Each classroom had—has—two teachers. In my eldest’s first grade class, Genia taught all the kids Hebrew, Sireen taught all of them Arabic, and they co-taught other subjects, like math and science (which are, by necessity, not taught as frontally as they might be in other schools.) Each class has an equal number of Jewish and Palestinian kids, and even the principal’s job is held by two people, who divide responsibilities by grade level.
I thought it was a fascinating and hopeful piece.
Another kind reader reminded me that I’ve been meaning to let you all know that the How We Homeschool Pen Pal Exchange is still very much up and running. If your child would like a pen pal, let me know their age and home country and I’ll get to work. Leave a comment or reply to this e-mail.
How we homeschooled today
Today we were out of the house for a good six hours. The children (aged 6 and nearly 8) didn’t do their daily lists—I didn’t even write them. For the past few days we (or possibly that should just read ‘I’) have been in a funny mood. I’m always saying that children aren’t robots, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that parents aren’t robots either! Bad moods are contagious, and although I didn’t know exactly what was wrong, or exactly how to fix it, I knew that we had to Get Out.
Over the weekend I looked through my curriculum/planning folder, and concluded that the children are both just where they should be, and that we could happily step away from the usual routine for a bit. So here’s what today looked like, and who can say what tomorrow will bring!
Yesterday we were out in central London and came across some lumps of granite (see here for the fascinating story of why these 1-tonne rocks are lying around London and where they’re destined for). My daughter asked what granite is, so last night I wrote some granite facts on the blackboard and this morning we discussed them. I explained what an intrusive, igneous rock is, that much of the continental crust is made of granite so it is a very common rock, that it’s used in construction and has been since at least the time of the pyramids, and that it’s a 5.5 on the Mohs Hardness Scale. I showed them some Ansel Adams photos of Yosemite and explained that softer rocks are easily eroded, leaving giant cliffs of granite behind. I explained that ‘igneous’ comes from the Latin word ignis, meaning fire, because igneous rocks are formed from fiery lava. We talked about how lava can cool slowly under the Earth’s crust, or very fast if it erupts into water, because water is such a good conductor of heat. It was a very enlightening discussion!
El Capitan, Sunrise, 1956, by Ansel Adams Then off out of the house, to a city farm. We saw the giant compost/manure heap which was steaming in the autumn air—apparently rotting waste like this can reach 3 times the outside air temperature! We discussed why farmers would want to keep the farm’s waste like this and what function it might serve. The children fed the sheep and goats and we talked, again, about what an ‘ungulate’ is (a hoofed mammal, if you’re wondering).
An ungulate, and a goat Next stop, a boat across the Thames (if I sound blasé about this, I’m not—I think it is very exciting to be able to get around a capital city by boat). We started on the Thames foreshore looking for interesting shells, rocks, general flotsam. Then onto the boat. We talked about how in Medieval times there would have been hundreds of boats crossing the river as well as travelling up and down, and only one bridge. My daughter reminded us that the river then was much wider. I told them that in that period, Canary Wharf, where we were headed, would have been nothing but marshland. (For non-Londoners, Canary Wharf is now one of the financial centres of the UK, and a little island of skyscrapers.)
Museum of London Docklands. We started in the school lunch room (good tip for London home educators—much nicer than sitting outside in the cold!), and my daughter asked if the stone bases of the pine columns were granite (the museum is in one of the nineteenth-century warehouses that survived the Blitz). I said I thought probably limestone, but I wasn’t sure. We looked at how some of the pine was obviously new, but some was very old—in fact original. I explained that the pillars were supporting the weight of the building, so couldn’t be easily removed.
Royal Albert Dock during the Blitz. The cranes are for unloading goods off the ships. Out of the lunch room, we explored the Sainsbury Archive and the children learnt what shops used to be like before supermarkets. We learnt about the first post-war delivery of bananas—the docking ship was welcomed by the local mayor, so delighted were the British to have bananas again! Then into the war galleries, where we learnt about Black Saturday, when roughly 1,000 bombs were dropped on strategic targets including the docklands. 1/4 of Britain’s imports came in through the Port of London, so destroying the docks was high on the Nazi wish-list. Amazingly, the docks continued operating throughout the war. Then we moved on to a recreated 1900 home, where the children dressed up and we talked about all the foodstuffs that were being imported to Britain at that time. They smelt all kinds of spices, and I explained that before ships and the ‘discovery’ of the Americas, nobody in Britain would ever have smelt vanilla.
Then a play centre, followed by a trip to a nearby library. My daughter borrowed half a dozen of the Daisy books by Kes Gray, and my son and I chose:
The Story of Inventions (love this series: there’s also The Story of Life and The Story of People)
You Wouldn’t Want to be in a Medieval Dungeon (this series is hit-and-miss—some are fantastic and we’ve read them dozens of times (Shackleton, World War II Secret Agent), and some are impenetrable. I’ll report back on these three!)
They read all the way home, and continued once we got back. They were so engrossed they forgot to ask for their usual daily TV, which always makes me very happy. (I’m happy for them to watch a small amount each day, but I also hate that sometimes TV feels like the highlight of their day. It’s a nice surprise when they don’t even think about it.)
I’m debating whether we can manage another Big Day Out tomorrow….
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My favourite kind of homeschool day! Sounds incredible. And thank you for the link to the article about the Hand in Hand schools. What a beautiful thing.