Saturday, February 9, 2008

a plea for help!

This evening I fly to California for a convention and won't be back until Thursday night. So this will be my last post for a while. I figured what better time to make a plea for help! LOL!

After the brawl over Legos yesterday I came to a realization.... I cater too much to Alex's interests in our homeschooling. Okay... maybe not "too" much, but I do. Perhaps because his is much easier to identify. He loves building and engineering... so it's a no brainer to fill our house with Lego and K'nex science kits (simple machines). He loves them and they have educational value! lol!

Clara enjoys legos and is very enthused to build with Alex... at first. But her attention wanes, while his does not... which is when the brawl developed.

Okay... so now its time to figure out what Clara's thing is. The girl loves art. I would not say that she's terribly "artistic" but she is extremely creative. She's a rule breaker with her projects... she's not big on doing it the way it's supposed to be done... but doing it the way she envisions it.

We encourage her free form projects... she has bins and bins of art/craft supplies that she has full access to. She creates projects for us nearly daily.

Now... how do I turn this creative energy into something a little more educational? I don't want to take away her free art time, just like I wouldn't want to take away Alex's free lego building time, but how do I turn this creative streak of hers into school projects that will get her as excited as the Lego kits get Alex? Are there any science based art kits? LOL! I'm at a loss here!

I would love any suggestions that you might have (Joyce... what did you do with K?).

Thank you!!!

ETA: I have the comments set to where I have to moderate them (due to some spam a couple of weeks ago) so if your comment doesn't show up immediately, its because I may not have computer access yet to accept them. :-)

2 comments:

Katie Nelson said...

I'm going through a lot of the same thing Tracie even though my kids are a bit older. My daughter has joined us in homeschool now which has been an adjustment since I've been homeschooling my Alex for a few years now while she has been in school. I'm trying to figure out how to add her into the mix. She is very creative and also likes to do her own thing. Very different than my by the book guy.

I don't have a lot of answers but I will let you know if I come up with anything creative. For now, I'm just trying to be sure she gets a lot of chances for hands on learning. She loves arts and crafts and she has really gotten interested in cooking lately.

Have fun at CHA!

Jules said...

Ut-oh! You won't want to hear this!

K didn't have any art anything until this interest peaked after high school. I guess the spring of her senior year she took a glass bead making class at the local park program and that got her going. But no curriculum w/ art themes. (ducking & running!)

But she was around me all the time as I sewed nearly all of her clothes growing up. She helped with choosing patterns & fabric at the store. She modeled! ;-) And now we are seeing how much of an influence that was on her. LOL

The glass work led to wire & glass jewelry making & designing. She went to SAIC in sculpture because of that. But her first semester she wanted a taste of the fashion department and that hit her hard! :) So now most of her classes are in fiber & fashion. I'm grinning from ear to ear over it!

However, I know there was an art curriculum integrated w/ other subjects that came by my email within the last year. Alas, I lost my bookmarks so don't have it ready right off hand. Will keep this in mind.