Worldschooling from home ... a day in the life

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Last week I gave Graham the atlas, told him to spend some time browsing it and make a list of countries he was interested in. He came back with this typed doc:
Since we are all missing travel, we have decided to embark on a world tour, learning and cooking along the way, basically worldschooling from our own home. I don't love strict structure, so I'm keeping things loose and letting the ideas and interests inform our schedules. Graham begged to begin our "World Tour" this week, so Australia is on our minds.

Today went like this:

8:00-9:00    Art craft: we made passports from construction paper and printer paper. Graham designed a logo in my iPad, and we printed four of them for our passports. We also took terrible photos of each family member (no smiling, no hats, two ears) and printed them out. I designed an info page and some blank "stamps" and then the boys glued everything together, made up nine-digit passport numbers, and stuffed them into a suitcase.

9:00-10:00  We spent some time looking at the map of the world, plotting different travel routes ... how would we get there if we had to take a boat? What if we were departing from the west coast? Would we make any fun stops along the way? We google imaged Lake Eyre. We talked about reference books and maps and compasses and Fiji. 

10:00-11:00 We had a snack and they played LEGO for a while, while I did some of my work/social media-ing. Graham made a "menu" for the lego farm they designed and decided strawberries were $10/pound and carrots cost $1/each. Then I told him he had to figure out sales tax. That's when he asked Alexa which states didn't have a sales tax, and then suddenly we had all virtually moved to Oregon, which honestly seems pretty cool. The Beaver State! 

11:00-12:00 Beavers then reminded us of animal-life in Australia, so we did some research and watched this National Geographic for Kids intro to Australia and then this video about Animals in Australia 

Then I had to go to physical therapy for my shoulder, but while I was gone they each drew pictures of at least four Australian animals. When I got back from PT, they each gave a little presentation on Red Kangaroos and Duck-Billed Platypus and some sort of spiked anteater.

I haven't gotten groceries yet, so our virtual trip to Australia will have to wait a few days (we are currently just in that phase before you depart when you make sure you have your passport and you browse a bunch of travel books). It's cool to put the kids in bed for 17 hours and simulate the plane ride, right? KIDDING I'M KIDDING!!

I'm a bit tired from PT and overdoing it today, so I think we'll curl up and watch Babe. Australian! Screen time, y'all.





2 comments

  1. I wanna come live & "travel" with you guys!

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    1. I want to set up a bunch of tiny homes in our yard just for friends who wanna come hang out but remain socially distant!! I know I'm in the minority in that i'm enjoying homeschooling, but graham was testing at 10th grade in math and 12th in reading, so i'm sorry, but him missing out on 2nd grade isn't gonna cause him harm :) At least not any more harm than beineg strapped to a desk in a facemask all day. I'm lucky we can stay home and travel, for sure!

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