MEET SCIENCE: A NEW UNIT STUDY \\ & HOMESCHOOLING THOUGHTS ON LIFE & LESSONS...

“there are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” -albert einstein

a new decade has begun and the pressure to accomplish, achieve and succeed is so thick. but all I want to do is simply finish what i’ve started. since the moment I laid eyes on each one of them I was given the gift of watching them grow. the pleasure of watching them learn of the world around them and the duty of stewarding their hearts & minds.

this new year marks the top of our eighth year homeschooling. this… is the beginning of the eighth year that i’ve devoted myself to shaping the way that they observe and walk through this world being my top priority. we just wrapped up our first week “back to school” after our holiday break and what I have loved the most is that it hardly seems any different that the days we have spent “away”. i can honestly say that homeschool and life have become almost completely one in the same. we still love a healthy dose of structure and a decent amount of planning and unit study prep. but, our efforts are more collaborative now and count as quality family time on any given day.

“a ship is always safe a shore but that is not what its built for.” -albert einstien

this is a big year for us. the year that we push past our own limitations and others ideals of what learning and education should look like to explore and discover for ourselves. there is so much to learn and I want them to experience that first-hand. I want to experience that first-hand. the world is massive and can be scary when we reach beyond our comfort zone. but I want my family to reach for more. so I am excited to see were our faith in and love of learning takes us in the days to come.

at the end of the year the kids threw out ideas for a new unit study and they landed somewhere between chemistry and marine biology. with each question they sparked so many exciting ideas and after letting their curiosities circulate through my heart and mind, i settled on a unit where we are to explore the very nature of a true scientist and all he/she was created to discover.

“MEET SCIENCE”

whenever I begin building any unit of study, I start with a list or memory bank of questions that I have collected from them over the last few weeks or months. I then grab any resource from our school room that I can think of that might be used to strew in different places or incorporated in different ways. this time around I grabbed a couple of science unit curriculum ( chemistry, marine biology, energy), our everything you need to know to ace science book, our ada twist’s big project book for stellar scientists and our new happy atoms kit to start.

we’ve owned the happy atoms kit for a few weeks now and they were just getting around to opening it up to see what it was all about. we talked about the different types of sciences, what it means to be a scientist, the types of things that scientist discovered, our conversation on the very first day of our new unit study played a MASSIVE role in how the unit began to take its shape. albert einstien, mae jemison & george washington carver made their way onto our list of scientist to learn more about. all while building molecules one atom at a time.

one of our favorite moments in the day was the presentation portion where we got to use miss vannah’s new microphone to add to the fun of it all. breaking down physical and biological sciences never looked so good, lol.

I am often asked about curriculum, planning, schedules and routines in our homeschool life. but the best stuff has always come from the stillness that we keep. sitting with life long enough to let the lessons make themselves known. its hard to explain. but it is worth a try. to build on a homeschool and life where understanding, knowledge and wisdom reign above any plan that we could execute perfectly in our own might.

i have no special talents, i am only passionately curious. -albert einstein

i’m curious about it all. but, mostly curious about how they experience the world around them. hoping and believing that they will live as if everything is a miracle!!!

with all the love,

syreena