Homeschool Highlights

 Lately there have been so many different things - a game, a book, something new that we do with the kids and I think "Wow, this is a wonderful way to learn!" There have been so many things that we have been having fun with and yet lots of learning is being done. I thought about sharing everything in one big long post but then thought that maybe this would make a neat series.

  So I am going to try to write a post about each of those things and all the new things that I am sure will come up and I will try to share a "Homeschool Highlight" each Friday. I also might from time to time pull out some of my very old posts about teaching little kids and share some of them too. Since we homeschool I think of learning very often in those terms but I hope that this will be useful to any parent - whether you homeschool or not.

Today I wanted to share with you one of our highlights from last week....

At our homeschool co-op a couple of times a year we have the kids write and present reports. This month they were required to do a report about an artist. We have been pretty busy around here and so we didn't get any major research done on artists but even with a little bit of time we really had a lot of fun learning about the different artists that the kids choose.

  Mara researched and reported on Joe and Beth Krush the illustrators of the Borrowers Books (American editions) and an All of a Kind Family book and others. We have enjoyed their illustrations over the year so it was really fun to learn more about them and their methods.

Jonathan learned about Terry Redlin one of our favorite nature artists who was from our neighboring state and went to art school in MN.

Aaron studied up on Garth Williams (illustrator of the Little House books and many more) and also copied one of his pictures.

Megan learned more about Thomas Moran - drooled (figuratively) over all his pictures and had a report about him.

This learning was fun for all of us as we were able to visit it about it. The reporting is good for their learning how to write things in an understandable way and then be able to present it clearly and without getting stage fright. We have found this to be a very good thing. Even if you don't have a co-op to do this sort of thing in I would encourage writing reports and presenting them at the supper table or when Grandpa and Grandma come over or something like that. I think that this could likely be a useful tool later in life.