This year, we started our official Homeschool adventure. It's a place I thought (and swore) I'd never be, but here I am. Homeschooling my two kiddos. What's better is that my sister-in-law has decided to embark on the same journey. Just another incredible way these four cousins get to do life together!
One of the benefits of raising our kids together, and being on a similar homeschool journey, is that we get to support each other in really fun ways like Cousin Camp! What is Cousin Camp, you ask? Well, it's basically an opportunity to dump our kids on the other aunt so we can have a day to ourselves. (Let's pretend I'm kidding).
I got to take on the first Cousin Camp of the year, and we chose to dive into Greek gods and culture, to support our current history topic in Classical Conversations. I divided the day into half an hour chunks, alternating lesson/activity time with play time (aka "you run out your energy while I transition" time). This day turned out to be SO MUCH FUN! Here's what the day looked like:
One of the benefits of raising our kids together, and being on a similar homeschool journey, is that we get to support each other in really fun ways like Cousin Camp! What is Cousin Camp, you ask? Well, it's basically an opportunity to dump our kids on the other aunt so we can have a day to ourselves. (Let's pretend I'm kidding).
I got to take on the first Cousin Camp of the year, and we chose to dive into Greek gods and culture, to support our current history topic in Classical Conversations. I divided the day into half an hour chunks, alternating lesson/activity time with play time (aka "you run out your energy while I transition" time). This day turned out to be SO MUCH FUN! Here's what the day looked like:
Introduction
We started out the day gearing up in our togas. The girls weren't interested at first, but the boys were... liberated (need I say more?). Ha! We sat around for a bit, flipping through our Ancient History Encyclopedia and soaking in the awesome photography & illustrations. We talked about what looked familiar or interesting, and then discussed the role and importance of the gods in ancient cultures.
We charted the Greek & Roman gods that we are memorizing in CC, discussed each of their divine realms, and then made up motions to represent them while we sang our memory song!
Craft Time
I originally had no intention of including a craft in our day, but I saw this brilliant & simple idea on Pinterest and couldn't pass it up. It was an excellent way to learn a little bit about ancient Greek & Roman cultures, and an even better way to keep their hands busy while I read aloud to them!
The kids love this craft! All four sat for a good 30 minutes working diligently on their wreath crowns. While they worked, I read aloud The Odyssey (obviously an awesome abridged version for kids). I was impressed at how well this story was retold to be appropriate (and engaging) for young children. See inside that book here.
Lunch & Rest Time
During lunch, I continued our read aloud. Then we followed up lunch with Disney's Hercules (thank you, Netflix). I'm pretty sure this was a first for all of them, and they loved it! Beckett was so entertained and kept coming upstairs to fill me in on what was going on. Hercules for the win!
Greek Architecture
After the movie, we busted our encyclopedia back out and flipped open to the page about architecture. We used the images to evaluate what we noticed about the architecture and discussed the impact the Greeks had on architecture. We followed it up with another awesome Pinterest find!
First, I let the kids stand on paper cups to see how easy they crumpled beneath them. Then we build towers based on the Greeks' strategy. The kids predicted that our structures would not hold, and were initially intimidated to even stand on them, but they were VERY pleasantly surprised to find those paper cups could hold quite a bit when used correctly! They spent quite a bit of time, and ALL of the cups, seeing how high they could stack their structures, and were THRILLED to learn that even TWO of them could stand together!
First, I let the kids stand on paper cups to see how easy they crumpled beneath them. Then we build towers based on the Greeks' strategy. The kids predicted that our structures would not hold, and were initially intimidated to even stand on them, but they were VERY pleasantly surprised to find those paper cups could hold quite a bit when used correctly! They spent quite a bit of time, and ALL of the cups, seeing how high they could stack their structures, and were THRILLED to learn that even TWO of them could stand together!
It was a great end to a fantastic day!
