Learning in the Garden Part 1

So many fun things you can learn in the garden. I’m in the digging stage of putting in a vegetable garden and it made me remember some of our past gardening experiences, when the boys were young. No matter what the age of your kids, or the subject you’re teaching, keeping a garden can be a great tool for your school. Here are a few of the things we have done in our garden, along with a few I’m trying this year. Most of the following can be used whether you just have a patio with pots, or an acre of land. I’m starting with some activities for the preschool, early kindergarten stage…but that is not to say that your older kids wouldn’t have fun with these.

If your children are in preschool and early elementary school everything in the garden is a fascinating lesson. Watching the miracle of seeds developing into plants, flowers, and vegetables never gets old. A favorite activity for the young is to take a few bean seeds, soak them for an hour or two to get them started, then take a clear glass and fill it with damp paper towels. Place a few seeds around the edges of the glass so that they can be viewed from the outside but are still in contact with the damp paper towels. Don’t allow the paper towels to dry out. I had my boys draw pictures each day (or twice a day if there is a lot happening) of the changes in the seed. They may want to carefully measure the seed to see if it swells before the root breaks forth. As they watch they will see the root emerge, the original stem, and the first leaves unfurl. . Although the glass allows us to view what would normally be going on under the soil, there is a lot going on inside of the seed as well. I’d suggest getting a few books on seeds from the library before you start.

Another fun activity for the younger set is to get a fast growing seed like radishes, have the kids write their names in the dirt with their fingers, then sprinkle in the seeds. In a few weeks time they will have their name in the garden. Take a picture and enjoy a salad.

One year (so sad I can’t find the pictures) we planted a square of tall sunflowers with one opening, then, once the plants were about 4 inches tall, we planted morning glories around their base. As the sunflowers grew the morning glories climbed the stalks. With some careful twining and few well placed strings we were able to train the morning glories to make a roof and we had a gorgeous flower clubhouse. When the clubhouse ‘bloomed’ it was truly extraordinary. Adding to the fun were the butterflies and birds that came to hang out in our clubhouse.

It seems young children can’t get enough of little hiding places, so if the sunflower house seems a bit extravagant another option is a bean tepee. All you need to do is make a tepee out of some long sticks or PVC pipe you might have around the house. (Pieces long enough to make a tepee a child could climb into.) Then run and tie string around most of the pieces leaving an opening. Plant 2-3 bean seeds (makes sure they are a climbing variety and not a bush.) at the base of each stick. As the plants begin to climb and send out tendrils help your children to observe closely. The tendrils will always wind the same direction and many of the tendrils in between plants will make themselves into curlicues. This is to protect the plant during growth and in the wind because the tendrils now have some give and won’t become taut and snap. As the beans mature they will hang down into the tepee and children can harvest them while they play. My boys liked to take a book into their tepee and ‘read’.

Science and botany aren’t all that can be going on in your garden. How about keeping a gardening journal with careful observations, poems, and illustrations. This can be a spring writing project, the possibilities of what to include are endless. With a little intentional thought on the part of mom this could be your Language Arts time and what child would object to a lesson outside sitting in the garden drawing and writing about the plants they’ve grown. They can keep track of the insects and wildlife that visit their garden. They can group those animals into beneficial and harmful categories. A journal can be both practical observations and a time to be creative with stories, poems, songs, and illustrations that the garden inspires.

Reading time is easy to incorporate into the garden. You may choose to check out books on plants and gardening, or maybe instead read some great literature. How about a cozy chair in the garden where you can read about Pooh’s adventures in the Hundred Acre Woods. Most little girls would love to sit in their sunflower house and read or be read to ‘The Secret Garden’. For the reluctant reader just moving your reading instruction outdoors can be inspiring.

Even math is more exciting when we are in a new place. I’m sure you can come up with garden ideas for addition and subtraction. Older children may want to figure the percentage of seeds that sprouted. Most seeds need to be thinned to a certain number of inches apart (don’t worry directions are on the seed packet) so it’s a great time to get familiar with using a ruler.

In ‘Learning in the Garden Part 2″ we’ll look at ideas for older students and how to incorporate history into your garden.

So get outside, get your hands dirty and play in the mud. Oh mud, maybe you could make some relief maps….. I’ll stop now.

Cave Painting

Evidently in this group we have 3 supervisors.

Just thought I would share some of the work my Art Appreciation students have been doing. We have been studying the prehistoric art found in caves throughout Europe. One of the unique things about these pieces of art is that they use the contours of the caves to suggest animals and use these contours in their work. We used crumpled up paper bags to give us some ‘contours’ to work with. If you are interested in more information on cave painting you can check out our homework page where I included more info for my class. I was having trouble getting all of the photos where I wanted them, so bear with me. I’ll get this technical stuff down eventually.

Love seeing the elementary kids working with high schoolers...

Dani, Desiree, Briana, and Melanie work together

Friday Classes Homework

Just click on the class you are taking to find your homework assignments. Because we are expecting additional students after the parent meeting this will be a light homework week. Have a great week Those of you in Tuesday classes need to check the Tuesday schedule for homework.

Hands-on Art

Art Appreciation

Ancient History

Shakespeare

World Geography

Elementary Science

Summer Newsletter

For those of you who are a part of Grace Prep School, the summer edition of our Newsletter has gone out. Let me know if you don’t receive it over the next few days. There are new registration forms, information for Fall classes, and an HSLDA form in each.

Classes, Sports, Theatre….How Much is Too Much????

Every year, you as parents and teachers, are faced with an ever increasing number of options for your students. Curriculum, Friday classes, soccer, CYT, Youth Theatre, baseball etc. How do you decide?

First, recognize that you can’t do it all. Each of us has time limitations, money considerations, and other work, family, and church commitments to fit in. Be realistic. The addition of outside learning can be a fantastic addition to your homeschool day bringing you a break, both during the time of the class and in terms of preparing that subject…but too many outside commitments can compromise what you are trying to accomplish.

Second, evaluate your goals for your child. What are trying to accomplish? Will this activity aid you in that journey? How old is your child? My suggestion would be the younger they are the more carefully you consider the number of outside activities you involve them in. A seven year old should not have a schedule that rivals an overworked middle-aged executive. They should have hours of free play time to build cities in the mud and curl up with books. Children need time, time to be loved, time to explore, time to play. A hectic schedule robs them of some of these most precious years. There will be plenty of time later on to involve them in outside activities, they don’t need to ‘do it all’ in kindergarten.

Every family is going to look different, you all have different commitments and different needs. For us the boys were always heavily involved in family, not just our immediate family, but we have a large extended family that we spent a lot of time with. They were always involved with church, in Sunday School, mid week activities, and special events. To us, these were the center, other things would have to fit around these two. As they got older we added some sports, then music lessons. They still had plenty of free time during the day.

By high school things had changed. High school students are beginning to become independent, they want to try things outside of home, spend time with friends. My boys love having a packed schedule and knowing that they will be jumping from one activity to the next. (You still need to keep from going overboard…but things change.) Time with family and at church remained constant, but they were eager to expand their horizons. I found it healthy for them to develop varied interests and to keep their minds and bodies productively occupied.

I had a couple of criteria I would look at before deciding if we should participate in an activity. I’ve listed them in no particular order.

Criteria One: Is this something my child will miss out on by not being in school. There are things that happen at school that you cannot duplicate at home with just you and your children…like competitive sports. My boys wanted to play sports so we found ways to add those into our school year. Figure out what things YOUR child might miss by not being in school, evaluate if that is a good thing or not, and then look for other ways to provide that experience.

Criteria Two: Is this something I’m not qualified to teach? I am not musical, all my children are…so I paid for music lessons. It was worth it. We try in our Friday classes to provide those subjects that parents might not want to do on their own, like Latin, Art History or Biology. For me, it was worth it to have someone else help out with those subjects I was tentative about. (Please note that I truly believe that with all of the curriculum choices available to homeschool parents now, if you are willing to put in the time and effort you can teach any subject you want on your own. You need to evaluate whether or not the trade off in having someone else do it is worth it.)

Criteria Three: Is this a subject that is better learned in a group setting? Over the years I’ve been doing the Friday classes I’ve discovered several things. First, some classes like Shakespeare, are just more fun to do in a group where you can act out the plays. Second, I’ve found that in classes like Chemistry or Latin that are especially challenging, students benefit from having others to commiserate (grumble) with. It seems to make the struggle more bearable.

Criteria Four: Will participation in this class/activity provide my children with healthy socialization, a chance to make friends and create positive feelings about homeschooling? While I believe that the non-homeschooling world is far too concerned about the socialization of homeschooled students, (research has shown repeatedly that homeschool children have enhanced social skills) we still want our children to have places to interact with age-mates and make friends. In particular, children who are transferring from a traditional school setting to homeschool are concerned about when they will be able to see friends. Knowing that each week they will be in classes, sports, and activities where they will see other children makes them less resistant to the change, and provides times each week to look forward too. (Conveniently, it also provides an answer to those relatives who are concerned about your child’s lack of ‘socialization’.)

Criteria Five: Does this activity move me toward my goals for my child, or way from them? Does this activity reinforce what we are trying to accomplish? I had written intentional goals for each of my sons and when it came to choosing between activities we always tried to choose those activities that reinforced what we were teaching them ourselves. With such a variety of good choices in front of us you need a way to weed through all the good and find the best. The ‘best’ for your child and your family will probably not be what is ‘best’ for someone else.

To sum it up, we found that adding outside activities was a crucial and fun part of our homeschooling experience adding a depth and breadth to our years that we would have missed without them. We also found that saying ‘yes’ to everything quickly led to frustration and stress. So while we wish to present you with many choices for the coming school year, and we hope you participate in many of those choices so that you have a rich, productive year…keep in mind that each day only has 24 hours and you don’t need to (and shouldn’t) fill each and every one of them.