Her previous projects have been a lot of fun*: raising caterpillars, digging up worms, hunting down dinosaurs, we've both had a great time.
This latest one, however, somehow just doesn't grab me.
The project is on houses.
She chose it herself, which is a wonderful thing: she looked at the world around her and thought "I want to know more about this".
Intellectually I'm thrilled.
Emotionally** I'm less excited.
Don't misunderstand me: we've plenty to do, we won't be sitting around saying "So...houses huh? They're those things with the walls and the pointy bits on top. Er...".
There ought to be plenty to pique my interest: we're looking at different styles of house, what we need in our homes****, what houses are like in other countries, what they were like in the past, how addresses work*****, What houses might be like in the future, all sorts of things.
We're going to look at the way Ellie's own ancestors lived, and talk about the problems faced by people whose houses don't belong in any one town, or community.
We're even going to make models of all the different kinds of home, and put them all together to make a miniature town.
But somehow it all leaves me a little...flat.
I can't shake the sense that we're just going to be sitting on the floor making houses out of cardboard.
This, of course, is one of the realities of home education: sometimes it isn't fun, sometimes what one person enjoys, another won't.
If it were Eleanor or Phoebe who was stuck in the doldrums I'd be looking for a way to tow them out again, perhaps by looking at things in a different way, or by scrapping the whole project in favour of some hands-on investigation of the art of paper-making.
As it is though, Eleanor's having a pretty good time, so all I can do is carry on and try not to dampen her enthusiasm.
Who knows? Maybe I'll learn something along the way.
*As opposed to alot of fun
** Which is the more usual way one experiences thrilledness***
*** Pronounced thrilledness, no particular reason, it just sounds better that way.
****Shelter! Beds! Food! Loo roll! An enormous library!
*****With sneaky hidden maths.
Addresses are great for teaching odd and even numbers. Just go for a walk and look at house numbers, let her work out the pattern and go from there.
ReplyDeleteHeh! We did that yesterday!
ReplyDeleteI suspect we'll revisit it though: I haven't explained yet that you only have to look at the last number.