Self-Sovereignty And Self-Love Guide Our Instruction
Tutoring: Kindergarten and Beyond
Our school offers homeschooling families with curriculum and teaching support. We teach small classes that cover homeschool curriculum through experiential learning and creative projects. We also include families that regularly attend a school and are looking to augment their childs education by attending our classes.
Sciences
Living on planet earth, we are surrounded by science, and our environment is ripe with opportunity for observation, hypothesis, documentation, and experiments. Whenever someones focus is pulled toward the soil, a tree, a bug, the way the wind is moving, why the rain falls, we dig in and discover answers together.
Visual Arts
We usually find a way to express ourselves through art as another way to deepen our understanding of a topic or subject. We use a variety of mediums and materials to experiment with while making art. We celebrate each others artwork and describe our artwork and feelings.
Mathematics
Mathematics is woven into every project we do. We measure ingredients when making a meal, we make graphs based on observations and data collection of the world around us, we learn about different cultures mathematics. We do "sneaky" math projects.. math projects so fun that kiddos don't even realize were crunching numbers!
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING+EXPRESSION
We discuss our feelings when reading books and learning as another way to fully digest what we're taking in. We discuss healthy ways of expressing our emotions and practice different communication techniques to learn how to work through miscommunications and confrontations in a loving, understanding way.
On the train we looked over our map of Florence and our list of things to find in the city. Atticus wrote down a few items while Getty helped with spelling: postcards, belts, statue. We calculated what time we would need to catch the train back to Compiobbi, we transformed military time to non-military time. We discussed how to say excuse me in Italian for navigating a crowd, and how to smile and say hello if you enjoy looking at someone, buongiorno! Getty explained he'd rather just give them a smile because he's uncomfortable with speaking Italian.. I was proud of how well he understands how he feels and how well he expressed himself! He smiled at the person sitting across from us!
At the cathedral de Santa Maria del Fiore, I had Atticus and Getty close their eyes before turning the corner and then we walked up and opened our eyes and they loved the surprise! They were flushed with questions about the structure and imagined that giants must live inside, perhaps it was built for a cyclops! We searched for and discussed the many different shapes, we drew the shapes and talked about the emotions portrayed by the sculptures.
Culture + Stories
We learn about different cultures through theatre, acting out scenarios, and storytelling. We read books about cultures all around the world and research different groups of people. We discuss what kind of community we want to live in and take steps toward creating that kind of environment.
Sustainability + Community
We focus on ways to create a more sustainable lifestyle and how to be a strong voice in the community. We teach community members by leading lifestyles that are a positive force in the neighborhood and through direct relationships with community members. We garden and learn about incorporating renewable energies into our lives.
A highlight today was when we strolled up to this building housing a dozen or so grand sculptures! We took our time examining each one, we noticed the writing was in Latin. I told them the story of Medusa and Perseus, they loved this myth and the sculpture that accompanied the story. We sat on the large steps and looked at the sculptures from another perspective. We discussed perspective and learned about the story of The Little Prince and how he lived on a different planet where he could watch the sunset over and over again because his planet is so small. Atticus and Getty loved considering different perspectives. Getty pointed out that the steps reminded him of the steps at Xunantunich in Belize, very tall steps. Atticus took some photos of the sculptures and we made our way to the river, walked through many arches and crossed the pont vecchio.
Atticus and Getty were impressed with themselves when navigating back to the train station. They noticed that all the landmarks we noticed on the way, we were seeing in opposite order. We were becoming more confident with our mental map of Florence. We loved the architecture and sculptures around town so thoroughly that we didn't even go inside any museums!! On our next visit we will cross some other things off the list!!
Music
We create our own music using different instruments. We write songs, do improv, and perform. We listen to all kinds of music genres and discuss the music as a group. We connect math and music, culture and music, and build our own musical instruments.
Health + Movement
We move our bodies frequently throughout our class, we act things out, create dances, romp in the forest, and play sports. We discuss and practice safe ways to move our bodies and how to engage and interact with others in a respectful way.
We ordered sandwiches in Italian and Getty looked at the map for directions to the first couple stops on our itinerary, then pointed us in the right direction. We found an obelisk and discussed its shape and related it to small crystals of amethyst and quartz that often come in an obelisk shape! We noted the obelisk as a landmark to remind us where the train station is later on our way back. We noticed some street art and stopped to admire it.. it was The Girl With The Pearl Earring by Vermeer.. with a modern twist of goggles. Atticus and Getty remarked that it looked like Amelia Earhart. We discussed the mixture of an old piece of art with a modern take. We then joked that she was getting ready to go snorkeling in Belize! Later, Getty recognized a painting of Mona Lisa in a town square.
Weaving through streets in search of the dome we could see above the rooftops, Getty found a leather shop with belts. We went in and searched among the snakey wall for the right belts for us. All the belts were wonderful Italian leather and far too big. We negotiated a two for one deal and asked to punch more holes in the belts so Atticus and Getty could use them for years to come. Getty started crossing things off our scavenger hunt list and we went in search of postcards. Along the way we found many palaces, cathedrals, and statues. At the Basilica di San Lorenzo we stopped to discuss the architecture and stories. When we decided on our postcards, Atticus paid for them and spoke in Italian with the merchant.
First day of Italian Adventure School!
Love Revolution,
Captain Cody
