Speaking Session: Literature and Film-A Dialog

From the 2015 Naums Conference in Ft. Worth. Sorry for the occasional technical difficulties.

 (Part 1) (Part 2)

Speaking Session: Classical Education with Quintilian

From the 2015 NAUMS conference in Ft. Worth.

(Handout here)

Speaking Session: Latin and Classical Education

Hello all! I know it has been too long between posts, but I promise that I haven't been idle. I've been working on some sessions that I'll be presenting this summer, and delivering a session on classical education and Latin at a recent homeschool convention here in Greenville. Here is that session for anyone interested. I'll also make sure to post my summer sessions when they are done and recorded. My new talks will be on Quintillian's Institutes of Oratory as well as interpreting Tolkien.

(Download link)

Youtube video:

Stargazing: Engage!

We started astronomy this week at school. The lesson plans have been pretty simple, so let me lay them out quickly:

Out of school/Prep:
1. We picked a constellation for a two-week study. (Orion is first)
2. We laid out memory work that focuses on the main stars in the constellation. (Here) This gives the kids a bit of the vocabulary they will hear in lessons.

In-class lessons: (Broken down for three days)
1. Share images of Orion with stars labelled. Have the students draw the star patterns and label stars. (We also used Google Earth to show the sky.)
2. Have the students graph the stars on graphing paper for a great maths integration.
3. Review stars and read the myth of Orion.

The remaining element that I decided to do was to add one extra concept of astronomy each week or so. So this week I focused on the relationship of the earth and moon (and the moon's synchronous orbit around earth) to the Sun.  We also used scale models to start to try to understand just how immense and awesome our solar system and universe is. (We did this.)

For "home work" then the students have two nights of stargazing assigned to them over the course of two weeks. They must go out and find and draw Orion and chart the conditions for their observation (date and time, temperature, and cloud cover). We've sent out a link to this app to help parents who (like me!) may not know what to look for.

It has proved so far to be a great experience for our families and students. I also have LOVED doing this new unit. It has really been quite the experience to be able to already look up into the sky and find things I couldn't find before! So much fun! Science on!!