Thinking like a teacher

Now that we're "officially" homeschoolers, I find my brain works differently.

Take last weekend, for example. It was Father's Day, but it was also summer solstice.

K-S and I made Dad some gingerbread with whipped cream (for breakfast, because we are wild women) after which K-S presented Dad with a homemade pop-up card and some cork coasters she'd cut out and stuck tape on and then painted. (Who can't use a nice set of coasters?)

The old me would have left it at that.

But now that we're homeschooling, I'm thinking differently. I'm thinking like a teacher. Summer solstice, I'm thinking, is a great time for introducing concepts related to the sun and the earth and the seasons.

I googled and found some nice, basic explanations of the solstice on the BBC web site. I found a few more relaxed "lesson plans" on this Waldorf-inspired blog.

We ended up somewhere between YouTube videos and naked bonfire dancing. (Honestly, if I had room in the backyard for a bonfire....)

Here's what we did. I told K-S to come up with a sun. (She settled on yellow construction paper and yellow chalk.) I had her blow up a blue balloon, and then used a magic marker to draw an equator, a couple of poles, and the continents--with a big fat X over the little patch of ground we call home.

Then we took turns being the sun, who stood in the middle of the living room; and the earth, who revolved around the sun, spinning to make the days and bellowing out the year each time she whipped past the stereo.

After we were both dizzy, I got out a flashlight and showed her what summer solstice, equinox, and winter solstice look like from outer space. (Well, you know. Reasonable facsimile.)

It was fun. It cost maybe 8 cents and took maybe ten minutes. And while I'm pretty sure K-S wouldn't be able to explain in great detail today the concepts we covered last weekend, I do know she'll recognize the concepts when she hears them again in about three months.

That confidence is part of my newly-wired teacher's brain, too.