Halloween Party, homeschool style: The Dead

Photos from our fabulous Halloween Party. Our unsuspecting invitees learned a lot about the Celtic, Greek, Egyptian, and Mayan traditions and beliefs about death.

I don't seem to be able to make the pictures match up with captions nor get them in any kind of order, so you'll have to figure it out.

We made four corners of our house, each set up to explain the four different traditions. We made poster sized pictures of the different gods from each regions: Persephone and Hades; Osiris, Isis, and Anubis; Michtlantecutli; and Morganne. Mi'ita wrote up explanations of the gods, legends that accompanied them, descriptions of their beliefs in the afterlife, and other such. When possible, we added pictures or objects. We made the most hideous papermache Cerberus that I have ever seen. We spent two weeks on it and all I can say is that it's finished and does indeed have three heads.

I built an ofrenda for El Dia de los Muertos, my favorite of the cultures. Every year I set up an ofrenda, a table filled with pictures of our dead family members (and cats) with candles, skulls, papel picado, flowers, butterflies, and other symbols of the tradition or objects important to our loved ones. We made luminarias, too, and set them outside with our pumpkins. (We also carved a turnip, which is what they do in Ireland, not pumpkins.) I made sugar skulls for the children, too, and they got to write their names on them in icing and decorate them.

I served dishes from the four traditions we were studying: pomegranates from the Greek legend of Hades and Persephone, humus and baklava from Egypt, pan de muertos from the Mexican Mayans, barmbrack from the Irish Celts. Barmbrack is a loaf of sweetbread with dried fruit baked with little trinkets inside. Each trinket means something and if you find a trinket in your slice, it prophesizes what you should expect in the next year. Mi'ita got the cloth, which means poverty. A coin means wealth, a button means that you'll never marry, a ring means you'll be the next to marry, etc. We also made jello red blood cells just to toss in some science.

We also made a full sized coffin out of cardboard just to toss in some fun.

Mi'ita had a great time at the party, as did all the other kids. I gave them a "quiz" at the end. I wrote up about 40 questions that our captions all over the house answered. We broke up into teams and each team had to go find out the answer to their question and then come back for another one. Mi'ita couldn't be on a team, since she knew all the answers, but she could assist by showing the teams where to find the answers. They did really well and enjoyed it! I thought it might bomb, but they kept coming back for more.

Unfortunately, trick-or-treating didn't go as well. Some kids stayed and trick-or-treated with us. Others went off to trick-or-treat with their families. Mi'ita was disappointed with who left and who stayed, nor could she agree with everyone else's consensus on where to go. So by 6:30 we left everyone else to their devices and came home with a teary girl. Too much sugar, too much party, too much stimulus, not enough flexibility.

Ah well. We accomplished what I wanted to accomplish: a huge amount of information about different cultures around the world, a taste of different foods, and fun.

Scope and Sequence

Scope and sequence is an educational term that teachers use to describe what and when things will be taught. This ensures that certain subjects won't be over covered and others under. In science, for example, elementary school teachers are famous for spending lots and lots of time on zoology and almost no time on physics, chemistry, magnetism, etc. When you have a different teacher every year, having a scope and sequence makes sense.

I have no scope and sequence for science so far. This is part of freeschooling, the homeschooling model where she is obligated to learn the absolute basics (reading, writing, math) and is allowed free exploration of all the other topics. Mi'ita attends every science workshop we find out about, but hasn't really been interested in pursuing it at home.

History for some reason has become our focus and we've developed a sort of loose scope and sequence for it. Schools tend to radiate from the child outwards. Kindergarten is all about me and my family, first grade about towns and local history, fourth grade is state history, fifth grade is US history, etc.

The classic method of homeschooling turns this on its head and goes chronologically from ancient history forward, simultaneously studying ancient civilizations around the world. Since we started with classic homeschooling, we started with this chronology.

I like the idea of chronological history. US history, I think, makes a lot more sense if you have already studied democracy in Greece, tyrants, monarchies, religious persecution, and so on. What our country is came from this history of Europe.

Where this breaks down, though, is in studying all the civilizations of a time period simultaneously. You get a bite of Egypt in 2000 BCE, jog over to China in 2000 BCE, trot over to the Mayans in 2000 BCE, swing over to the Greeks, etc. Then you do all those folks again in 1500 BCE. Then again in 1000 BCE. Etc. This leaves you with a great sense of what was happening in the world at a certain time, but it fractures the history of one civilization.

I developed a method that I thought would work well. We started with hominids and stone age people. Then we went into the Egyptians, the first civilization in the world. Instead of skipping around to all the first civilizations of each region, we stuck with Egypt until it was conquered by the Romans. This means we learned a little about their Persian and Greek conquests, too. Then we moved into the Greeks, which were the first civilization that conquered Egypt thoroughly (the last eight Pharaohs were Greek.) Then I was going to stick with Greece until they were conquered by Rome, taking a foray into Persia along the way, since the Greeks and Persians very much influenced each other's history. Then I was going to stick with Rome until they were conquered by the Mongols. Then I was going to skip over to the Mongols and China, sticking with Asian history for a while until that came to a natural conclusion. Then I was going to come over to the Americas and learn about their ancient people. After I covered all the ancient people, I was going to work on the middle ages, using the same format.

I liked the idea of sticking with a civilization throughout their reign until they fell to a foreign power. The foreign power then becomes the next focus, starting at their 'beginning', relating that to what we already know about what the previous civilization was doing at that time.

We took a break for Halloween. Halloween's focus for us was historical, too. What are the Greek's beliefs in death? The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Celts? And, to top it all off, how did we come to celebrate Halloween in it's current form here in the US? The people who come to our party will be learning! We're also going to be making jello red blood cells. :-)

After our Halloween party on Saturday, we were going to finish up the Greeks and take our foray off to Persia before heading into Rome.

Then we find out we're going to Tanzania in the spring on Safari. We're switching gears again. We'll finish up Greece, quickly, and then study sub-Saharan African civilizations. There is a ton of info out there on South Africa and apartheid, but not a whole lot about Tanzania. But we'll get there, and maybe now we can work in more science.

Zoology, of course.

Where's my schedule?!

I find myself panicking regularly about the lack of organization of our homeschooling.

I had such a lovely plan laid out in the beginning. I had the white board easel all set up with math, Latin, spelling, handwriting, dictation, science, history... It was beautiful. Granted I felt a bit uneasy teaching such rote work like grammar and spelling. Those things are hard to learn and there is tons of evidence out there saying that memorizing lists of spelling words helps no one. I figured those details could work themselves out, though, as we progressed.

My little Mi'ita blew the little white board easel out of the water after two days. It took a week before it was abandoned completely, but abandoned it is.

What is our schedule now? Well, we do math and Latin first thing in the morning. We read history at night in bed. On Mondays we spend the afternoon in the library. Other than that, we do this and that, depending on our moods. I have my list of "weekly requireds" for ice cream on Mondays. She needs to have 4 math lessons completed that week, 4 Latin, one science, one history, all her library books read, and a new writing posted to her blog with art (photography accepted.) German and guitar are on the list, too, but her guitar teacher has yet to start lessons for the year and the German program just arrived and we haven't installed it yet. She always earns her ice cream, my greedy Gus, but she is usually finishing her story Sunday night.

Our days are full, for sure. Today we did math and Latin, then spent the morning setting up our El Dia de los Muertos ofrenda. She did some writing for it, and we discussed a lot about Mayan culture, and about the Greek display we're planning. In the afternoon we went to the library, played in the park for an hour, worked on a papermache three headed dog Cerberus, then went off to play practice for the play she is in. Since she is only an extra, I am teaching her how to knit between scenes.

We have a Halloween party coming up and we've planned an ancient cultures' view of the dead theme. Mayan, Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, and Japanese displays will be set up with their views of the afterlife, their various gods of the dead, their ceremonies and food. We've tossed all "regular" schoolwork out the window until November 1st. Except math and Latin, of course, and writing.

My friend told me that I would "have a blast" homeschooling my kid. I didn't to begin with, but it sure has been fun lately. But I worry and I fret. History has become our overreaching theme that everything else fits in. I love history, of course, and so does Mi'ita. But what about science? We are learning science as it relates to history. Early hominids, Neanderthals, Euclidean geometry, and how that Greek guy measured the earth, radiocarbon dating. All that is tangential to learning the history. And what about writing? Can writing once a week really be enough? I can't think so, but I can't get motivated to push it more.

I'm reading her My family and other animals, a book about an English boy growing up in Greece in the 40's or so and being very lackadaisically homeschooled or taught by tutors or left to run amok. His running amok is quite educational as he was a budding zoologist and spent all his time studying the fauna of the island. I read it and think that his math lessons are really distracting him from the real lessons of learning zoology.

I am also reading The Dan Riley School for a Girl, a book about a father who homeschooled his daughter for a year because she was lazily and unconcernedly floundering in middle school. He had a schedule, with times on it no less! Which his headstrong and rebellious daughter followed! I am jealous.

And I am torn. My daughter is learning. She is playing to her strengths--reading and history and curiosity about the world. She is busy with ballet and a play she is in. She goes to once a month all day science workshops taught by experts. She is learning Latin, for gosh sakes!

But we don't have a schedule. And I gave up trying to get her to memorize spelling. I worry and I fret.