Monday, July 19, 2010

Traveling the World

June Module spread

Even before it was officially “summer,” duffel bags and suitcases have been in various stages of packed and unpacked all over my house.  The front door has become a revolving portal to summer camps and experiences of all kinds.  I’ve seen each child off to at least one different church camp and some have been to multiple camps already.  Three of us even travelled out of country on a 10-day mission trip to Guatemala!  With all of our on-the-go activities, it was great fun to be asked to review the June 2010 Planner Module for The Old Schoolhouse entitled “Travel the World.”

A multi-level geography-based module, “Travel the World,” has something fun for everyone in my family—including me and the MainMost.   I loved the way it began by describing geography as “GOD’s handwriting on the earth.”  What a beautiful image to have in my mind as I shared GOD’s big, beautiful world with my children—to be reminded that “when you study geography, you are studying GOD’s stage, story, and plan for man on earth.”  I especially enjoyed “studying” with the kids without them really realizing we were “studying.”  In their minds, summer means NO SCHOOL, but we were able to talk about continents, do activities, color and enjoy learning without stress.

“Travel the World” is a 52-page downloadable resource that was ready to go as soon as the download was complete.  It required absolutely NO preparation on my part, although we did print a few of the pages so the kids could color or write on them.  It truly had something special for each child.  Elisabeth, my 9-year-old daughter, is a struggling reader, but loves to do word finds and draw pictures.  She enjoyed searching out words in the mix of letters and solving colorful picture puzzles, but her favorite thing of all was putting together the Travel Book lapbook included in the module.  Jenner, my 11-year-old son and chief question-asker, enjoyed labeling the maps and deciphering the continents on the coloring sheets included.

The High School Expansion section challenged my 14-year-old daughter, Victoria, and my 16-year-old daughter, Claire, to think outside of the box and look at the three branches of geography:  mathematical, physical and political geography.  Victoria is a computer junkie and she especially enjoyed visiting the internet resources suggested and doing the High School Word Search.  Claire is our Master Chef and she couldn’t wait to try the recipes included.  In fact, our church hosted a Survivor Weekend Retreat and she was able to tweak the Chicken in a Pot recipe and make it over an open fire for her tribe.  She received rave reviews!

Because I wanted to focus on the “fun” element of summer school, we skipped the copywork pages in the Travel Module, but I plan to use them as review for the younger children when we begin a more organized school day in September.  In addition, the High School Expansion section also gave an excellent activity idea on starting a business and tracking the geographic locations of customers.  I have chosen to save it for September as well and include it in the Economics project my older girls will be doing.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our travels this summer but now are beginning to slow down. I am looking forward to using the “Travel the World” module again and again as the washing machine continues to spin and we unpack our bags.  I know we will continue to study the many colorful facts about the continents and continue to sing the “continent song” together.  For an investment of just $7.95, your family can travel the world too.  We definitely have the travel bug at our house—and can’t wait to see where GOD takes us next.

~~I was given the opportunity to use and review this “Travel the World” module by The Old Schoolhouse.  The opinions stated are mine and mine alone.  I was not paid to share my thoughts and feelings with you.~~ Pin It Now!

2 comments:

  1. Hello from a fellow TOS crew member. I'm spending a little time checking out some of the the other reviews. Nice job!

    ReplyDelete

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