3.25.2011

I Am a Home Schooler

An Early American Day - And One Man

I am a home schooler.
My two youngest boys go to Covenant Family Tutorial one day a week,
I am one of the teachers.

We have been studying the early years of our nation.
We had an Early American Day.

We began our day by exploring:



noticing our surroundings,




and taking notes






to inspire nature poems.




We prepared:


and ate rustic food:


We played some of the same games
the Native American children might have played:



Cliff Hodges, owner, founder and CEO of Adventure Out, was our guest:




He showed us many things the early Americans made to survive:


He told us great stories of his own hunting adventures using only his handmade weapons.
He is a brave man.


He chipped obsidian to make the beginnings of an arrowhead:


A finished arrowhead takes more than 20 hours to complete.
It is good for only one shot.
He is a patient man.


He makes bows from a thick piece of special hard wood,
and even uses various parts of the animal to complete all his weapons,
just like people of earlier times would have done.

He is a hardworking man.
Like the earliest of Americans.


The younger children made their own bows and arrows,
using foam shapes, sticks, feathers and string,
and imagined life in early America:
 







A great day was had!

*****

Personally, I was inspired by One Man.


A man who is patient.
A man who works hard.
A man who followed his passion
and built a successful business because of it.
A man who inspires others.
To embrace that which interests them.
To work hard developing skills.
And to work hard some more.

*****

Are we always telling our children to work hard
so they can go to college
and get a good job
and live happily ever after?

Or do we encourage
our children
our friends
our selves
to find that which naturally flows from them,
their passion,
their gifts,
and work hard at that?
To find their Place?

For I dare to think
each of us finding our Place
is what will bring
our children
our friends
and ourselves
the richness of this life.

And a difference in our world it will make.

*****
Homeschool-mom hat # 342:
Help my children find their unique gifts and run with it...


3 comments:

  1. That's good, Tina! Work hard. But part of the working hard is working hard at finding your gift.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this post Tina. This is something I have been pondering for a while too, how much do we just push our children to fit the mold and hit certain benchmarks so that we can say they succeeded? How much better to help your child find their passion, and help them succeed in that instead of just some predetermined norms that society has set up!

    ReplyDelete
  3. these are great pictures...it looks like you had so much fun

    ReplyDelete

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