"'Education is the Science of Relations'; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
'Those first-born affinities,
That fit our new existence to existing things.'"

Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education
with a quote from The Prelude by William Wordsworth

Saturday, January 30, 2010

History Fair

This year we are not part of a large co-op, and it has been such a blessing for me given the fluctuations my life is going through right now. We belong to a small, 3-family, 11-child (from 7 months to 11 years) TORCH co-op that we really enjoy. I am leading the older 5 in the Journey North Mystery Class for science.

We are part of what I call a homeschooling enrichment group with many of the families from the former large co-op, and we get together for various activities and classes. The most recent was our History Fair. We reserved the large, beautiful room at the library, set up tables, put up our displays, and invited families and friends to come see what their homeschooled relations were up to.

Ds#1 has been fascinated with the Interstate Highway System so he jumped right into that project. Ds#2 really loved the recent Bales to Bolts program that our enrichment group went on in Lowell mills. He decided to compare Slater's Mill in Pawtucket, RI to the one built by Lowell in Waltham, MA and by his partners later in Lowell, MA.

We had 13 displays in all and a good amount of visitors. In two more months we'll do it again, only this time the theme will be science instead of history.

1 comment:

Dana Leeds said...

What fascinating topics! I'd love to read more about their projects. :-) Or be able to see close ups of their boards?