Rowan has a new passion - sports. The shop I get my morning coffee from everyday offers a free newspaper to customers so Rowan requests his morning paper everyday. It's quite comical. He reads the sports pull out section, peruses each page, and calls Rand and I to tell us the highlights. If a Calgary team happens to win something then he usually jumps off the couch and jumps once or twice while excitedly telling us the details. But he's not only interested in Calgary teams, he likes to know what's happening with any of them in the paper. He's able to read some of the headlines and can find the section outlining the scores of the games from the night before. Hockey has become the sport he is most interested in but he's happy to read about football, soccer, and anything else in the section. He also flips the TV on much more these days and surfs for a sports channel. We've had a pretty solid routine for the past four months where he watches Word Girl, Electric Company, and Wild Kratts daily but not much else. Now he's losing interest in those favorites and much prefers something sportish. Yesterday he was watching curling.
Rand bought Professor Noggin's Countries of the World a few weeks ago for Rowan since he is keen to learn about other countries. Up until now it's mainly been flags, foods, and a few other details. I looked at the cards and thought they were way too hard. You choose a card with the flag, picture, and outline of the country shape on one side and various questions on the other - 3 easy questions and 3 hard. For instance, the card for Russia has an 'easy' question asking "I am the largest country in the world. What is the smallest: Guyana, Jamaica, or Vatican City?" A 'hard' question is "The longest river in Europe is found in my country. What is it called: Volga River, Oder River, or Seine River?" Surprisingly, Rowan thoroughly enjoyed the cards. He and Rand have sat several times with the cards and the globe figuring out the answers together. They have been looking through to find Rowan's most interesting countries to learn new things about them. But the cards can also be used to play an actual game with other players if you like. Rowan's interest and noticing of flags has increased as well as his ability to remember the colours on various flags. He continues to be most interested in Brazil and Germany but is wanting to learn more about Russia lately as well.
I also bought Usborne's See Inside Famous Buildings which shows many famous buildings from around the world. Rowan has been very curious about the tallest buildings in the world and this book shows them side by side to scale along with interesting facts about how they were built and so on.
I ordered the All About Spelling curriculum after several homeschoolers recommended it to me and I felt like I wanted a bit more substance to some of our daily 'schooly' work. We've done about 5 lessons so far and I'm afraid they're a bit too easy for Rowan - so far I am following the lessons in order anyway just in case there's a concept he doesn't know that will be built on later. In the picture above we have a plate with beans and rice and a Ziploc baggie full of dish soap. I would say a sound of a letter and he would trace the letter into the plate or baggie. He really liked this activity. He enjoys having something to sit down and do but really loves colouring the lesson # on the chart at the end to show he's completed something.
We have also started Math-U-See (Beta) which I also ordered over the holidays. Again Rowan knows a lot of the material in the first few lessons and isn't really interested in worksheety type stuff but does enjoy it when I draw a picture to go along with a math concept and using the manipulatives.
Doing these activities with Rowan - from the Countries of the World Cards to the Spelling and Math Programs I am just reminded of how grateful I am that we are choosing to and able to home school. If Rowan were in a class of 25 he wouldn't get to absorb what he really wants the majority of the time because he would have to wait a lot for the other kids. I can see the way he learns best so I can present things to him in this way, but can also see the areas that we don't want to leave out which again wouldn't be a priority in a classroom full of other children.
Today is the day Martin Luther King Jr.'s life is celebrated. Rowan and I talked a lot about Rosa Parks last year and he was very fascinated by her and what life was like in her time. We have talked of Martin Luther King before as well but today we delved a little deeper. It felt like such good timing with the two little ones here whose family has quite newly come to Canada from Africa, although we would have done the same activities anyway. We watched a shortened version of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, talked about words like freedom, civil rights, peace, nonviolence, prejudice, and equal rights. I told Rowan that many years ago his Dad and I probably wouldn't have dated, never mind lived together or had children together. And further, his Dad wouldn't be here because his Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't have been together either. Rowan said "Well, could I have lived with just Daddy, then?" I told him he wouldn't be here either because Daddy and I wouldn't have been allowed to have children together. While equal rights for all humans is an issue that has been close to my heart for as long as I can remember, it's interesting to watch it form in Rowan's mind as he gets older. Probably hard for him to believe that things were so different at one time. Being home schooled, he won't be exposed to the same kind of racism his father was as a child but he will hopefully understand it, and have some tools for managing it should he encounter it as a recipient or an observer. Being that he appears Caucasian he might not experience it based on his appearance but certainly he may based on his last name. We coloured a picture of a hand and listened to the song "My Own Two Hands" by Jack Johnson and talked about the world we dream about in the future - a world where plastic isn't allowed to be made anymore; everyone recycles; and all children are held and kissed by their mothers before falling asleep. Won't the world be a sweet place when these dreams are realized.
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