For those who don't know me, I have 3 wonderful kids. A beautiful 6 year old (soon to be 7). A wild, mischievous 3 year old (soon to be 4) boy. And a very serious momma's-girl who is currently 4 months old. I am married to a wonderful hubby who works very hard as well. His schedule is more demanding than mine, at least at work, so we'll try and integrate him into our adventures as best as we can. Not to mention, his days off are different than mine. I work during the week and have weekends off and he works every Saturday and some Sundays.
Back to the purpose of this blog. I've thought on this a while. I need to be more involved in my kids' education. I have a responsibility to teach them. My three year old taught himself to read. You read that right. He taught himself. He's very intelligent. But where was I? Working and taking care of a newborn. I felt bad I didn't sit down with him and take the time to actually teach him. Now, I'm not saying he's a pro at reading yet, but he's got the basic idea. Currently I am working with him and he's getting better and better. And my girl is very smart as well, especially socially. She doesn't have a shy bone in her. My little baby is just very serious. She gives a great 'serious thinking' face.
Knowing I have this wonderful responsibility being a mom, I came up with a brilliant plan. I would focus on a topic for 3-4 weeks (or however long it takes to learn the topic well enough for a 3 & 6 year old) and then move to the next topic. But, as we explore each topic, I'll make sure to incorporate different things such as, but not limited to: art, field trips, reading books on the subject, and science experiments/activities.
To begin, I typed a list of several different topics from history, science, English, and art. Then to make things more exciting and fun for the kiddos, I let them draw out of a jar what we're going to learn about. My eldest was first. She drew out: Orienteering.
Honestly I thought it would be something simple at first, like animals. Just a good general topic. But I did add this to the list, so I couldn't go back on it. And the kids honestly don't know anything about orienteering. Truth be told, I'm a novice myself. I can get around with a compass just fine, but don't ask me to go searching around the nation for different treasures competitively. Although, I admit, that does sound fun.
First things first. I need to teach my kids directions. They have no idea where North is, let alone South. Only that Santa Clause lives in the North Pole. And the sun sets in the West (I had to correct my daughter last night when she drew out the topic and I asked, trying to gauge where her knowledge of the subject was at, where the sun set and rose. She had them backwards. But, at least a general idea). So, I found a lot of information online and am starting virtually at ground zero in the subject. Which, is just fine. We all had to learn it at some point.
After teaching coordinates, I'm going to teach about maps. There are plenty of different types of maps and I'll go over them with them. Then after they understand maps, I'll incorporate what we learned with coordinates to maps. Then from there, we can begin orienteering! I thought we could do a little each day and then on my days off we could really spend more time on the topic. In this case, it'd be hiking, reading maps, and using a compass to guide us from point A to point B. Wish me luck!!
Tonight's activity: Learning where North, South, East, and West are. I'll pull out our trusty compass and let them see how the needle always points North. Then we'll color a compass rose.
Next activity: Finding a book at the local library about the first explores and how they used stars as their compass and then how the compass came to be.
Coloring Sheet:
