Oct 7, 2008

Why I Homeschool - #73

This morning I vacuumed the livingroom.

And that's why I homeschool.

Really. It is. Of course, there's more to the story than that.

We've begun the history cycle over again this year and are returning to Ancient History. The kids are excited. They love the ancients. Lillie is a little bit miffed that she has to go so deep and begin with actually learning something about the roots of civilization, which involves a little bit of anthropology to begin with. But John gets to the meat right off. He's there, man, in the Fertile Crescent. Digging into maps and irrigation and goddess worship ... the whole deal. The Bronze Age.

I was vacuuming as he was doing some of his work. Well, I began vacuuming and then discovered that the beater bar was completely clogged. So I sat down to pull all the golden retriever fur, thread and other assorted mess out of the bar. It's a tedious task, but rewarding in the end. John wandered in as he completed his history assignment, "Mom, you know what I've always wondered? How come the Chinese always worshiped dragons but no one else did?" Caught up as I was in the spools of fur and thread, I had no answer for him, but immediately wandered down mental roads of future research possibilities. "Hmm, I don't know, John. That's a great question. We should look into that." He went to get some water and ask the same question of his sister, who replied, "I don't know. Maybe they had a few leftover dinosaurs there and that's how it started."

That's when I wished I'd had a tape recorder in the room. They had the most fabulous conversation about dinosaurs, and how some went extinct, how some might have been left, and become worship objects. They discovered fire in the process and fire breathing dragons came into being. They had forgotten I was in the other room, because I was out of sight pulling fuzz out of the vacuum cleaner. I can't remember it all or write it down and if I ask them about it, they'll look at me like I'm slightly nuts because it's a fairly normal conversation between the two of them. And it is.

And that's one of the reasons I homeschool. I love hearing and sparking those conversations. They are wonderful.

No comments: