First Week: Not-At-Home Schooling

One of the things I love about schooling at home is all the rich opportunities to leave home and explore. How lucky we are to live in an area where we have such fabulous resources and museums and culture at our feet. I can't imagine staying in one place all day, day after day, when the whole world and our local community beckons.

Our favorite local resource is SERC - the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. It's a gorgeous, waterfront, nature preserve that happens to offer amazing little homeschool classes taught by amazing, kid-friendly scientists for a very small cost (think, the price of a large latte).

Our "first week of school" we headed over to SERC for a morning of Colonial life fun. This was right up Zach's alley, my boy who has a deep love for all things "old timey" and even likes to wander antique stores now just for the heck of it. The kids learned how to make a compass and why compasses always point north.



They were reminded that there were no cameras in Colonial days, and the only way common folk had an image of themselves as children was through silhouette drawings (funny to these insanely documented blog-generation kids). They played hop scotch and read stories and make pinch pots out of clay.

That afternoon we gathered with some homeschool friends outside on a big quilt spread under an oak tree to continue the theme by making corn husk dolls.

Packs of ready to craft, dried out corn husks are available at the grocery store in the Latin American aisle (used for making tamales). It's about $5 for a HUGE bag of corn husks. There's no right or wrong way to make a corn husk doll. It's a nice, free form, creative endeavor. We layered about 4-5 sheets of husk and folded them over, tying the top off with strong or yarn to make the head. Zach wanted his to be a boy, so we cut up the middle of the bottom and tied off the ankles to make him look like he was wearing pants. You can roll another sheet or two of husk around the back of your doll and tie it on for arms, or carefully make a hole through the body with scissors and push a stick through.

The face can be made with markers, acorns, or even sewn with a really strong needle  and embroidery thread. Then you can dress your doll in scraps of cloth, add hair, bells, ribbon, lace, etc.

It didn't stop at dolls either. They made corn husk snakes, alligators, swords... how fabulous for the kids to use their own imaginations and their own two hands to create the playthings they wanted for the afternoon.


We are thinking of a little road trip to Colonial Williamsburg soon, plus Mount Vernon (George Washington's house) is right in our area. In a burst of enthusiasm he even spent a long morning grinding cinnamin sticks with  a mortar and pestle because, "that's how they did it in olden days when they needed it."

I love being able to see and touch and taste hear the things Zach is interested in. His passion is our curriculum. And the world is our classroom.

Some Colonial Reading for Kids:

Our Colonial Year
If You Lived in Colonial Times
Revolutionary War on Wednesday (Magic Tree House)
Colonial Days (games, crafts, & recipes)

Do you have any favorite Colonial books to add?