Global Learning

Today, we experienced a perfect example of Global Learning and I just wanted to share. The three of us sat down to read a chapter from "The Story of Science" by Joy Hakim. The chapter was about Aristotle and his teacher Plato. In it, we learned more about why the earth was round and the proofs used to defend the theory. We learned a little geography from the maps provided. In a side bar, Hakim shared that Lewis Carrol wrote dedicated his book, "Symbolic Logic," to Aristotle. So we started to talk about Carrol and Alice in Wonderland. Then I asked if they had heard the poem, "Jabberwocky." They didn't remember it, so out comes our "500 Best Poems" and I read Jabberwocky. They remembered it from Drama class! Then we read "The Walrus and the Carpenter." Connor enjoyed the poetry so much, he asked if I would read Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." So off we went, riding with Paul Revere through the American Revolution. Then Connor asked, if there are 500 poems, why is the book longer than 500 pages? So we talked about how long Paul Revere's Ride was (3 pages) and figured out that if every poem were that long, how many pages would the book have? Then we estimated how many pages the book actually had and looked. Both boys were very close.

So, only 45 minutes and we covered Science, History, Geography, English Literature, Drama, American Literature, Poetry, US History, and Mathmatics (specifically multiplication and estimation).

Wow, what a morning!