I know a lot of you who are following me may feel that I talk a lot about the enrichment program made by Memoria Press. The obvious being that we use it and love it. I believe I have been teaching enrichment for close to 3 years, maybe longer, but I can't remember a time without it. It is a gentle approach to really great books and questions, science, history, arts, and music. It also entails some crafts, but it is only a small part of it. If you have ever tried Memoria Press' full core curriculum, you would know the work set out for you, particularly if you are homeschooling more than one child using their full core: it is a lot of work. Trying to navigate ALL the things that come with home education and living at home can leave you feeling depleted and most times, not enough energy to squeeze some enrichment in.
The great thing is, enrichment time can be done anywhere and all in one day. It doesn't have to be spread out like the teacher's manual suggests, and it doesn't usually take long. While holding our children's focus may be difficult (especially the little ones and the ones who are prone to being distracted often) it is still benefiting them to "hear" or even listen to parts of it. Just to expose them to the art cards and a brief description of the artists' lives helps them to see that not being strong in certain areas of life does not necessarily mean you cannot contribute something beautiful to the world, it's culture, and society. We all have a purpose here on earth and it was designed by God's will and His goodness and it was meant to be shared. This is one of the ways we can glorify God with our lives!
I strongly encourage you to get a good schedule set up for your homeschool so that you can incorporate enrichment and not miss out on it. If you cannot do some days (and I've had many weeks where we just couldn't get to it) you can always cycle from the beginning since it is only for Kindergarten to Second Grade and also, my Fifth Grader still asks to be a part of it!
For this week, we were introduced to John James Audubon and his life and what he did for a living, his passions, and his journey to becoming an ornithologist. As we read this book, we had recognition (I'm using figure of description here from Classical Composition) that some of the things he was doing as a naturalist are some of the things we also do at home.
I bought my children a vintage letterpress drawer and used it as a shelf for small shells, things found in their backyard or beaches. It was something I wanted to inspire my children with to appreciate and study the natural world around them. We've had feathers, egg shells, parts of nests, among other things that seemed to have not made it to the shelf, but we still have a flattened baby turtle they found on the street (yuck). Just because I want to inspire my children doesn't mean I love or enjoy everything they find!
The book was actually quite humorous and entertaining and we laughed quite a bit. Afterwards, we left to a lake near us to gather some feathers. It is called "Duck Lake" because there are quite a bit ducks there. We came home, washed the feathers, and started outside in our own backyard to find pine needles, some lichen, moss, dried plants, and proceeded to make a nest.
The children and I quickly began to realize that we had no idea what we were doing. We had to make this nest in less than an hour and we didn't know which things we had picked were best for nest making or how to even intricately design a stable nest to withstand storms and predators. It was then we realized how truly amazing and beautiful engineers birds were. The instinct that God gave them to know how to build the most perfect nest for their eggs was really hard to grasp for us. Who had taught them to do this that human hands could not replicate, even if they tried for years?
Here is a YouTube link I found of a bird making a nest that your children may enjoy after attempting to make their nests.
After we finished, we watched Art Hub Bluebird to draw our birds, color them, and put them in the nests we made. We love Art Hub for all art related drawings. Great teacher!
We read a poem by Victor Hugo that Memoria Press 2nd Grade Enrichment gave us a background to, one of them being that he wrote Les Miserables! We used A Child's Book of Poems for this week's poem for discussion as well.
Then we used the How to Draw Birds book to draw a Robin in our Composition and Sketchbook.
There's more! We also have a sweet friend who is a scientist and gives us wonderful things that we can add to our nature shelf and let's us borrow some of her books and one of them is the beautiful, awe inspiring book of a collection of John James Audubon paintings. This is a very large book, over 15" in height and weighs as much, if not more than my soon to be 2 year old! It was such an amazing experience. You can see all the little details, and the colors are so striking. We loved looking at it and will feel a little sad when we have to give it back.
We also took a little field trip to the museum near us because we were told a real Audubon painting was in there, but they were closed because they were exchanging exhibitions. However, my son immediately recognized his paintings on the outside banners they had around the museum and the children were excited about that and so was I, because now we have a little bit more knowledge of this amazing artist than we did before.
In 2nd Grade, we begin more science studies and one of the books we use for that is in Rod and Staff. We didn't do all of the workbook sections, but we did read and discuss it. We made bird mobiles with the templates they gave us and called it a day. For more information it can be seen here or on the Rod and Staff website.
It was a lot, but good for us. And if you're wondering if we got our other more important subjects done, we did. Do we always do all things well? No, not really. But I hope my children appreciate the effort that I am making in helping them make connections to their world and their education and I hope they will be better people because of it. How is your week going so far? How is your homeschooling going? Feel welcome to comment and share with us! And happy September to all of you!
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