Earth Summer Camp

I think every Kindergartner, in this modern day and age, has a unit on "the Planet Earth" and how to care for it. Consequently, I felt like I too should brooch this subject with my children, and perhaps try to be a little greener myself in the process. Originally, I thought I would hold this class sometime close to Earth Day; however, when I saw an Earth Summer Camp at our community center, I decided we would have this special unit sooner than later. It seemed to fit into our schedule nicely too. The kids could go to summer camp and get introduced to the planet Earth. Their class would cover the placement of Earth in the solar system, the actual layers of the planet Earth, rocks, mountains, fault lines, etc., and then briefly touch on conservation issues. Then our home school unit could expand on the conservation issues, including days on water conservation, energy conservation, garbage conservation and recycling, air pollution, and move into a discussion of taking care of our planet. This would lead very nicely into our next special unit on National Parks. After all, national parks are simply land set aside to protect and conserve. After covering national parks generally, then we'd move into specifically studying Yellowstone National Park, in anticipation of our trip there in a few weeks. At that point, my kids would already have a foundation for discussing the geothermal features in Yellowstone, and learning about the plants and wildlife would just be fun little extras! It would all flow so logically--necessary in my world of teaching! There was only one problem! Day one of summer camp put a wrench in my plan! Let me explain.

Perhaps I am naive, or I just didn't give it a lot of thought, but when my children arrived home from the first day of summer camp and told me all about how the earth was formed when a big explosion happened in outer space, shooting our planet off like a rocket into its current placement in the universe, I about died! I probably should have assumed that a Science summer camp on the Earth would teach Big Bang theory, but to be honest, when I enrolled them I was thinking more about the Earth's composition than about its origin. Needless to say; however, after day one of summer camp, origin was forefront in my mind. In fact, my two week holiday came to an abrupt halt, and the kids and I began an immediate dialogue about the earth's creation.

Now, let me pause here and say two things. First of all, I want to note, in behalf of all of you scientifically minded individuals, that I am not in direct opposition to everything supposed in the Big Bang theory. Just most of it. And secondly, let me just state that my kids have in fact been taught the true creation story. Many times in fact. Which was part of the reason it was so troubling to hear them tell this second version as fact. This ought to be a lesson to all parents. Even children who have been taught the truth, may not recognize a contraction when it is presented to them from another source. When my kids shared with me their understanding of the Big Bang theory, as it had been taught to them in summer school, they did not see any problem with it. They didn't connect it to the creation story we read in Genesis. Then, when I asked them how the world could be created by a big bang when the scriptures teach that Jesus Christ was the creator of the world, they just stared at me kind of confused. Eventually we got to the obvious conclusion, the one that many Christian scientists have come to, that Christ just caused the Big Bang, but even that was insufficient. My kids still couldn't seem to get past the mental image of some big explosion, and after talking and talking and talking, it was clear that a very accidental version of the creation was still stuck in their minds. I was upset, and angry at myself for not anticipating the topic. I was also ready to keep them out of the rest of the week of summer school, not to mention march right in and tell their teacher what I thought of her teaching Big Bang to my 4 and 5 year olds. My level headed husband; however, pointed out what a good teaching moment this was. "They need to confront some opposition." he said reasonably. And I guess that's true. It helps them to learn that not everything they will ever learn is true, and that they need to always weigh new understanding in light of their cherished gospel knowledge. It also taught me the absolute necessity of talking to children about what they see and hear in other places, and the obligation we have to teach them the truth.

So, teach them the truth we did. We countered Science summer camp with our own unit on Creationism. We read out of the Old Testament and Pearl of Great Price every night. We discussed the order and purpose of each day, the beauty of it all, and most importantly, the great Creator Himself. We testified to the truth of the scriptures, and told them to anticipate their visit to the temple as an adult where they could learn even more about God's creation of this Earth. It turned out to be a very positive experience. And although the U-Tube explosion video was very impressive, I think the true message sunk deeper into their hearts. And, as for their teacher, well, I couldn't resist having a little talk with her. Only, I made the kids do the dirty work. I helped them write her a letter about how we believe that Jesus Christ created the Earth. We then gave her a pass along card for a free Bible where she could read all about it.

Following our week studying the Creation, we then launched into our Save the Planet week. First we talked about garbage. We watched our Little Hard Hats movie on where the garbage goes. We visited the city landfill, talked to our garbage man, and made recycled paper. Through it all, we were careful to cover the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle program presented in most schools, and then tried to implement these ideas into our home. The kids went crazy with it all. They made special garbage cans in our house just for recyclable goods, they went through our current recycle bin and garbage to find things they could re-use (i.e. they used all the old baby food jars to sort their legos into), and they became quite effectively--the recycling police. We even thought we would try our hand at a compost bin; however, after actually building the thing, we determined that we weren't quite that green yet!

Once we finished our discussion on garbage, we moved straight into energy conservation. We watched our movie on Ben Franklin and the history of electricity. Then we learned all about power plants and how energy gets to our homes. Then we brainstormed ways to save energy, as well as had a unit on safety as regarding electrical power sources. By the end of these discussions our little police had duel jobs: recycling and energy-efficiency monitoring.

We couldn't end there though. We had to learn about water, where it comes from (the water cycle), how it gets to our homes, and how important it is that we have enough of it. The kids loved our field trip to the water tower, and you guessed it, they became diligent about not wasting water as well. In fact, one night during dinner, Spencer stood up and went to the sliding glass door. He then proceeded to open the door and poor his glass of water on the flowers outside. When I asked him what the heck he was doing, he informed me that he was no longer thirsty and that rather than wasting the water, he was going to water the plants with it. Pretty impressive, I know. Not too mention hilarious! I have to confess that even I started to get caught up in all of this. I told Nick that I want some of those down-spout water containers for Christmas. We already store drinking water in our food storage, but storing rainwater for outdoor use seems like a equally good idea!

Even water conservation didn't bring our unit to a close though. What true "greeny" can teach about saving the Earth without a class on the O-zone layer and global warming? Maddi was actually very affected by this discussion, particularly the part about air pollution and acid rain. She announced that we were going to start riding our bikes everywhere, and she has also decided she wants to protest airplane usage. It was amazing to see how the kids truly cared about these issues. It made me realize how truly wise it is to teach children when they are young. They internalize the beliefs, and as the adage states, when they are old, they will not depart from them.

Here is a shot of the kids holding some of their projects from our Planet Earth Unit:
Think green signs, paper mache globes, recycled paper, grass that they planted in a cup, and their own version of the planet earth cut out of construction paper. (Maddi built a Mayo Clinic right in the center of her Earth and made her Daddy very proud.)

Continuing Revelation

After 11 crazy weeks of non-stop home schooling, the kids and I decided it was time to take our first holiday. I desperately needed a break from such a full-on schedule, and the kids wanted some time to play with their friends before their school year started. After some consideration, we decided upon a two-week vacation. The first week would be pure play. Then, during the second week, I actually enrolled the kids in an Earth Summer Camp--still a break for me, but back to school for them!

During our little vacation, I took the time to ponder and evaluate many things. Of course, the number one question on my mind was: How is home-schooling going and do I want to back out while I still have the chance? This was a hard question to answer in my state of sheer exhaustion. The 11 weeks of school we had just completed was a roller coaster of stress and excitement. I loved spending time with the kids learning and exploring and discovering. And to be honest, I think the kids loved spending the time with me. They have been better kids lately than ever before, and I think it is a direct correlation of our time spent together. In addition to loving my time with the kids, I feel like have renewed my own love for learning. I feel curious again about the world, rather than being too busy too notice. It is wonderful. On the other hand; however, I have never had so many nights that I cry myself to sleep simply because I am so tired. I feel overwhelmed all of the time; inadequate to the task at hand. Part of me wants so badly to send Maddi off to school and put Spence back in pre-school. Then I would be down to two kids a day. I could get so much done! Honestly; however, I know this is not an option. I am into this neck deep, whether the real school year has started or not. Consequently, rather than day-dreaming about sending the kids off to school like everyone else in the world, most of my time during our vacation was spent trying to figure out how I am going to survive as I keep on home schooling. In truth, I already know the answer. SIMPLIFY. Our school was only supposed to be for a few hours a day three days a week. However, it has somehow evolved into four to six hours everyday of the week. That's wonderful because we are learning so much and spending so much time together--but the time constraint is eating me for lunch. So, I have been struggling to figure out how to simplify. Gratefully, I have not been left on my own. One day, as I sat thinking about our home school, the revelation simply came. It was pure and simple, and so beautiful to me. The inspiration was this: stop doing circle time every day. The kids already grasp the calender, the days, weeks, and months. They understand the weather, seasons, etc. They simply don't need to keep doing it everyday anymore. I realized that if I just moved circle time to the first day of the week, then that would open up hours of time for me every other day. We could still do table time and other classes each day, but save ourselves at least an hour a day on circle time. It may seem like a simple solution to everyone else, but it was one I know I didn't come to on my own. It was as though Heavenly Father's arms encircled me with love. I am so thankful for continuing revelation--both for the assurance that we are on the right track, and for the needed knowledge and understanding to make it through each new day.

Indian Literature

Just as a quick side note to our states unit, since so many (if not all) of the United States have Indian history, we have tried to incorporate some "Indian Literature" into each state unit. We read about the Ute's with the state of Utah, including some of the actual documents that passed between the Indians and Brigham Young. Then for Oklahoma and Minnesota I found books about Indian legends. For Oklahoma we read the Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. The kids loved this story that describes the beautiful flower and how it came into being after a small Indian boy left his paintbrushes on the hill after painting the sunset. In fact, after we read it, they insisted on taking a night to paint the sunset themselves.



Then for the state of Minnesota, I found a book called The Legend of the Lady Slipper. The Pink Lady Slipper is the state flower of Minnesota , so this book also captured the kids attention. Hopefully we can continue to incorporate some of this Indian literature as we go throughout the rest of the year--both for our own enjoyment, and because it is part of the school curriculum!

"The Gopher State"

After two fun-filled weeks of pioneering and land-running, I was honestly ready to declare a homeschooling holiday and just stare at the wall for a few days. I decided; however, to push through with just one more week of school before our holiday. This week we moved onto state number three: Minnesota. I was going to go with the whole "where we all grew up" trend and do Missouri next, but then I decided we had better do Minnesota while it was still summer so we could site see as part of our schooling. And site see we did. After learning all about Minnesota in our states books, we took a weekend field-trip to see some of the famous sights in our own lovely state. Since we have already been to the Mall of America, the old Pillsbury flour mills, Lake City (where water-skiing was invented) and the Mayo Clinic, our first destination on this site-seeing tour was Itasca State Park,



a beautiful area about five hours north of our Rochester home. We invited some of our adventurous friends to join on us the weekend tour, and decided that camping would be the best (not to mention cheapest) way to take it all in. While we almost had to cancel the trip due to severe weather (we were literally sitting in a tornado warning while we were supposed to be loading the car!) at the last minute we just "took off", arriving at our camp site a little after midnight. The next morning we cooked a big breakfast feast,



and then headed out for the great adventures of the day. After all, Itasca State Park, though probably unknown to most everyone in the U.S., is actually quite a significant location. Within the park lies the beautiful Lake Itasca--headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River. You can hike up to the lake and take a swim,













pause to enjoy the view,





or simply wade across the great river at it's most shallow and narrow opening.





We couldn't resist doing all three. And it was actually quite an awesome experience. Afterward we paused for lunch in the back of the truck,



and then spent the better part of the day just enjoying the scenery. One aspect of the scenery the kids especially enjoyed was this giant eagle's nest we came across. Amazingly enough, just as we spotted it, two eaglets poked their heads up and then proceeded to take their first flying lesson right in our view. It was awesome! And appropriate to our Minnesota weekend since our state has such a high population of the bird.



The next day we broke camp and made a six hour loop back to our homes through a number of stops. Here we are at the Paul Bunyan and Babe Monument, (it was a blast studying a few tall tales!)





and at the Judy Garland home.





We also saw some of the old lumber and paper mills, but somehow failed to snap a picture while we were there. All in all, the weekend was a blast. And left us more than ready for a well deserved home schooling vacation! (aka. the beautiful world of simply hanging out instead of holding 4-6 hours of school each day!)