Ships, pulleys, compass, and maps.
When the schools shut down and before I knew we’d be homeschooling for a year, I read “The Hobbit” to my daughter. Although we were confined to home we felt like we were on a marvelous journey alongside Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin and company. We were there when the dragon was slayed. We were there when the king died. We were there when Bilbo returned to find his belongings subject to a hobbit estate sale.
It’s now December. I’ve paused our history curriculum in order to enjoy a special winter and advent-themed reading list through this month. We’ll resume our study of early American colonial times in January but I want to highlight these past few months. I must.
I think back to where we started… the history of the place where we live; the history and stories of Native people of this continent. Then we moved to European explorers beginning with Magellan… a ghostly ship pulls into port after being thought lost at sea. What a story. We set anchor in the Iberian peninsula for a while… the Moorish history of Spain, the gorgeous Alhambra and its tales, Queen Isabela. We ventured south… Galileo, Michelangelo, and Columbus.
Canvas billows, / salty breeze. / Water glistens, / azure seas.
It’s a whirlwind through time and the feeling we’re left with, not always but most often, is wonder.
Alhambra palace’s celestial geometry by Sehar Shahzad
A favorite delphic sibyl; Sistine Chapel.
We studied Queen Elizabeth I, from her lonely childhood to the defeat of the Spanish Armada (“My body is weak but I have the heart and the stomach of a king.,”) Shakespeare sonnets and a few kid-versions of plays. We looped back to the English explorers Drake and Raleigh, Jamestown, the separatists, Bradford, the Mayflower, Plymouth, and the Wampanoag.
She’ll recite bits of sonnets and poems and it makes my heart soar every time.
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“Mama, shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely…”
While reading a book about Jamestown, she stopped me and said “They aren’t Indians, why does the book keep calling them Indians?” So many places to pause and discuss all her questions. How could this learning environment ever be replicated outside of homeschool?
Then there are the intersections—geography led to cartography which led to me building our own unit of astronomy, which is now a part of the curriculum. Locating Mars in the October night sky I say, “It won’t be this close again until you’re 23 years old.” She looks up at the heavens but I look at her. She asks, “What if my scooter could travel faster than the speed of light? I could make it to Proxima Centauri and be back in time for dinner.” My heart, my heart!
And this is just a part of our homeschool experience. There’s so much more I want to remember.
The next closest star is 4 light years away.
As is the story of my life, I go into a situation thinking I’m going to effect change and I end up being the one changed. I’d meticulously planned our study of world explorers, but my child would take me on a journey instead. One that spans the inner universe of the mind to the distant reaches of the stars.
