 Winnie the Pooh, on a hunt for huffalumps and woozles, walks around in a tree following tracks in the snow. The prints keep multiplying as he walks around, unable to catch up with the creature.
They multiply again when Piglet joins him. Pooh and Piglet get quite worried when they start to see the large amount of tracks that must be made by “ferocious” animals chasing them. Until Christopher Robin sets the story straight. The tracks were made by Pooh and Piglet themselves. We can all be pursuing something that’s within us all along. And we can all be scared of What’s Out there, so forget to recognize it in the first place, In other words. In every step of the journey, you have arrived. I was raised with the idea of a ladder. That life was about learning how to “be good” and that we often failed.
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So, it’s crossed my mind that maybe people are wondering why I’ve talked so much about the journey my daughter and I have taken with the homeschool curriculum, Oak Meadow.
Why, right? When my work is focused on Spiritually Aware Parenting and really my blog should be reflecting mindfulness and spiritual alignment for parents and kids? Well, you probably know that there’s nothing more exciting, or exhilarating than when you find something that helps support your child: especially when its something that deals with a challenge that has always been there. Oak Meadow came at a time when I was noticing my younger daughter was struggling with not only her schoolwork, but her sense of herself, her confidence, how she learnt and how she absorbed information. As I’ve told you in past blogs, Oak Meadow has given her the tools and awareness to delve into topics from a self aware perspective. She not only completes the projects and sets her own schedules and routines, which builds her sense of Who She is even more, but she’s also learning and reading about so many different elements of life that we never would have been able to explore before. This winter Gia went into the Oak Meadow Grade 8. She wanted to mix things up, and since she was so eager to dive into the English Section, she chose to focus one topic at a time, rather than scattering them through the week. I can’t blame her for wanting to work through the English. This time, Oak Meadow exceeded even themselves. The grade 7 English worked hand in hand with the World History section. But this time, English takes a front seat and becomes a core unit all by itself. This is produced seamlessly through 4 elements. The course book, which breaks down all of your projects and lesson focuses, as well as how to use the rest of the supporting material. The works of fiction, which exemplify the lesson. From some sci-fi works such as A Wrinkle in Time, The Giver and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, to classics such as The Hobbit and Tom Sawyer, I truly felt I could relax knowing Gia was getting a strong foundation in some important pieces of literature. The other elements were for writing itself, and she was instructed on how to use them within the course book. These included Writing for 100 days, which Gia LOVED. Although it is written for classwork, OM guided her around the work she could do independently and she enjoyed it’s structure and space it gave her to write in. The last element shocked me as it was the Strunk and White book The Elements of Style. I remember my sisters using this book in university, so it was rather surprising to see my grade 8-er working her way through the notes on the design of writing. She really did well with it (and is enjoying explaining semi colons, colons and various grammar to her older sister.) Last month I was happy to be able to attend a homeschooling conference in Halifax, where I represented Oak Meadow’s amazing work. I still can’t get over how effortless it is to discuss this work side by side with my work of Spiritually Aware Parenting… because watching how my daughter has grown as herself and with the knowledge she has attained… it makes me breathe a sigh of relief. It really is exactly what I was hoping for for her. She’s now off to work through the Science. That’s going to be a challenge for her, as she naturally gravitates towards the English and reading, especially when it’s full of imaginary worlds. I’m fascinated to see how OM creates a platform of curiosity as she dives into further into the Scientific studies. (They did a wonderful job in the grade 7, but there's definitely a deeper element being offered with this grade 8 curriculum.) |
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