Revival to Revolution:
It is hard to believe we are about 2/3 of the way through RevtoRev! Time has literally flown by. Wyatt is learning so much this year, and I am loving our time together. We are enjoying RevtoRev so much. One of my favorite times is our meeting "checkpoint" time. This is a time when we come together to go through the work Wyatt has done and enjoy the follow-ups together that are planned in the guide. He has hot tea with lemon and sugar, and I have butter toffee coffee.
He shows me his work, and we discuss the questions in the guide, or go through whatever is part of the box's plans. We look at the paintings, the primary source documents, and/or the poetry (depending on what day of the plans we are on), and we talk about them using the guide as a guide.
He reads his written narrations aloud, and we fix them together, though there is not much "fixing" these days - the editing tips and written narrations tips have worked wonders in his narrations over the years with HOD.
I like to read the key ideas aloud at the end of each box too, just as a neat concise summation. We just thoroughly enjoy this time together.
This week Wyatt's History Student Notebook was especially lovely. He worked very hard on his "Draw and Write Through History" sketches and coloring, and they turned out so well. I like how he is able to do much of his work right within the beautiful notebooking pages. It is nice to pull out these History Notebooks when grandparents come over, or even just to look back through them together with our own family. Progress is so evident. Not to mention it is a visual journey through history - so neat.
Wyatt studied 3 different ways people took to travel to California for the Gold Rush this week. He studied the Oregon-CA Trail, the Panama Shortcut, and Around Cape Horn. Each of these routes were perilous for different reasons. He was surprised to learn how many people died on these journeys. His history project was so creative and original - love this about HOD projects. He made 3 envelopes, one for each way to CA, and in each envelope there were the dangers of that specific route. For example, for the Panama Shortcut, there were steaming jungles, dead horses, malaria, yellow fever, crocodiles, jaguars, etc. Each path had its own envelope with its own unique set of dangers. Then, we got to travel the routes, and see if we survived. I would have made a poor traveler, I never made it on any of the routes! Wyatt made it on 1 of them. This was such a fun project, and one that will be remembered for a long time.
Wyatt has memorized 26 verses from Hebrews 11 now!
It is amazing to me he is able to do this, and yet all of his past practice in this with HOD have worked together to hone his memorization skills. He is doing it!
The Hebrews study Wyatt is doing along with this by Evelyn Wheeler for his Bible Quiet Time is really helping him understand what he is memorizing, and he really is learning to look at these amazing people from the Bible as true heroes of the faith.
Wyatt has had some laughs reading Dame Shirley's letters she wrote. We have had some laughs discussing them! Imagine being the lone woman in a mining camp - yikes! You'd have to have a sense of humor to survive.
The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed has been another great read for Wyatt, and has given us excellent discussion material. I love to hear his oral narrations about this book, as well as his oral narrations on the inventors. This week he read about Gutenberg, and could not believe that his partner stole his printing press from him. It is amazing how many great inventors did not get much wealth nor much credit for their inventions until after their death. Wyatt is LOVING his DITHOR book now too - Sir Malcolm... It is full of so many opportunities for us to talk about Godly character qualities - I am so thankful DITHOR plans these Godly lessons for us, and I try to take the lead and share my faith and life lessons as much as I can - it is humbling.
I just have to say that our time together is so important right now, as my ds is nearing his teenage years. I am very thankful we are close, and I think it is due in many ways to the way we are able to approach homeschooling together. He feels like we are partnering in this learning journey, and he likes taking the lead on some things. I feel it honors his maturity and age. He feels all grown up, and yet I am leading the things that he needs to be led on still. I just love this balance - this respect and recognition of my ds growing up and needing - wanting - to take more personal responsibility for his schooling. He feels so good about his school, and I do too. What a wonderful week in RevtoRev! Hope you had a good one too!
In Christ,
Julie
