"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember;
involve me and I'll understand.”
involve me and I'll understand.”
As adults, sometimes we forget this one simple thing ~ 'Involve me and I'll understand.' We learn by doing. We all learn differently. Some things work, somethings don't and for me books are boring. I need excitement. I need to do, but being raised in the public school system books are our guides. I frequently ask myself, how can I make school fun? This was a request made specifically by Gert ~ 'Make school funner.' So this summer I began to think, but once again I fell back to the old standby of books/workbooks.
Today is Tuesday and I had some fun things planned. Yesterday the plan was to go outside and take pictures of our community and then make a map. We were also going to start taking pictures of native plants and maybe even find native animals. But once again it was raining. Although our mapping adventure is once again postponed, we looked at various maps and the various landforms shown (mountains, rivers, lakes, deserts and plains). Since we were unable to take pictures of our community we headed to Google Maps to look at the pictures already posted of our community.
For a 7 year old hurricane season is so frustrating. Cloudy days most likely resulting in rain and are not much fun, but if it is not raining and there is not lightning jumping in puddles can be lots of fun. Here is the unfortunate part. Although there are days that are fun (i.e. jumping in puddles) they typically result in behavior changes as well. For me, rain makes me sleepy -- cloudy or dark days just give me that feeling. Now in Gert's eyes naptime in NOT an option and thus becomes grouchy which in turn makes me grouchy. This is something we both have to work on.
During the summer, we watched TV or a movie. I have now made the rule to eat in the kitchen while on school days as we tend to get back to our schoolwork much quicker. Unfortunately this means we spend most of our day in the kitchen as it is also our classroom. Today I broke my own rule and we sat down with our Ramen noodles and watched Tall Tale staring Patrick Swayze, Oliver Platt, Roger Aaron Brown, Nick Stahl, Scott Glenn, and Stephan Lang. Although tall tales were not on my list of things to talk about we had a good time watching the movie and then talking about Pecos Bill, Calamity Jane, Johnny Henry, Paul Bunyan, and of course Johnny Appleseed. As we talked my mind began to wander and ideas of activities danced in my head. Oh the things we can do! I think this may be the start of our first lapbook. I think this is going to be fun and of course I'll keep you posted.
