The Universe in Perspective

After having spent time last week on a study of the universe with Sam, I knew that it was something we would need to review. My husband brought home a movie about astronauts in outer space. He didn't know about our science lesson from last week and that Sam had some trouble understanding some of it. So it wasn't something he planned, but the timing was perfect.  Sam got to watch the movie with us and she observed some of the things that were in the book she read in her lesson on Exploring the Universe. She was able to see what an astronaut wears in space. She watched a girl putting on a space suit and noticed that the suit is bulky, heavy and thick. In one of the scenes the astronauts were in trouble as they were running out of oxygen, so she understood that the space mask supplied the oxygen for the astronauts, which helped them to breathe. She saw that they didn't need to wear their space suits or masks if they were in the shuttle. And she also noticed items floating around in the space shuttle, like a clipboard and a pencil, just as her lesson had spoken of last week.

In addition to watching the movie about space, the shuttle, and the astronauts, this week we had a lunar eclipse, or what's been described as the blood moon. Sam didn't stay up to watch it at three in the morning, but we talked in simple terms about what an eclipse means. I showed her videos and pictures how the moon looked to help her understand, since she is a visual spacial learner.  Some of the pictures showed planet Mars and the star Spica near the moon.  Sam recognized that a star and a planet look the same to us from this distance.  So together we looked up how to tell the difference between a star and a planet. I've never liked just giving my kids an answer.  When they ask a question, we look it up.  I guess it's the researcher in me.  I love looking up things.  So Sam learned that planets revolve around the sun and they almost never twinkle. She said, "Like the song, twinkle, twinkle little star?"  Exactly!  So Sam got to learn a little more than we had bargained for or than her lesson of the universe covers, thanks to the eclipse.

As I looked up pictures and videos for her, my thirst to learn more got the best of me. I mean, it's not every day we have a blood moon. So as Sam repeated the lesson from last week and moved forward a little more with it, I continued some research of my own. Her online lessons free me up to do things like this sometimes. She also likes the feeling of being able to work independently at times, while having me close enough to observe her or help her if needed.  Some of the things I found in my research were so interesting. Certainly more than I could share with Sam, but they were things that I could talk to my high schoolers about. Homeschooling my kids has give me such a thirst for learning. I've never enjoyed reading, writing and learning as much as I have the last 15 years. I wish I'd had more freedom as a kid and a teenager to discover the world of learning, but my years in school consisted of rushing to get homework done and sticking to the curriculum placed before me. Homeschooling is more natural learning, at least in our home it is. Foster a love of reading, and the world is your oyster. I have to add that I think it is so cool that I didn't plan to rent that movie my husband brought home, nor did I plan a lunar eclipse, yet it helped Sam to understand the very lessons she was having trouble with last week. This just confirms for us that homeschooling is God's plan for our family.