Discover Green Bay, Intro

 (Earlier this week a dark and thunderous morning inspired me to create a cozy breakfast for my children...)

We have really had an enjoyable summer.

I've been slowing gathering back-to-school materials and ordering curriculum in segments.

Experience has taught me to place a partial school order in July, with the remainder in August. It is much easier on the budget that way.

I am looking forward to the new school year very much!

Roman will be a freshman and will have a heavy literature load this year. That inspired me to make it a heavy literature year for everyone. So I have been having fun enlarging our home library in preparation.

This is one of the books I just picked up...

I stood in the store to read the preface and was inspired. The author wrote about how when she was very little, before she could read, her mother would show her paintings and ask her what she saw and they would make up little stories to go with them.

It made me wonder if maybe I could do something similar with all the various pictures I have hanging around my home. Not much of a story could be derived from my still life paintings, but there are enough landscapes and portraits that a pilgrimage through the home, making up stories to go with each one, would make a wonderful afternoon this winter.

I hope I remember to do it!

This is why I've loved homeschooling.

Through the years I have made up little lessons and unit studies from my own interests.

This is where homeschooling truly starts. From a mother's prerogative and personality, she creates her own home culture as she goes.

When my children were younger it was fun and easy to create educational experiences for them.

We would walk on our trails and collect treasures, (pinecones, rocks, feathers, etc...) or examine and sketch bugs...

We would go on "color hunts" gathering whatever we could find to match our color board. (One of the kids quickly made this before we took off on a nature walk one day last fall. We've used it a few times and in different seasons.)

We would read about the seemingly countless different trees in a science book, or about the spores on the backs of ferns, then go out the back door to see how many we could identify on our own property.

As my children have gotten older, the lessons I invent for them must mature.

Inspiration can strike at any time, and when Micah and I were out for a special dinner to celebrate my 40th birthday, we were both hit with the same ingenuity at once.

We visited this snazzy hotel downtown and enjoyed a glamorous meal.

We learned that the hotel was built in the 1920s, and was recently renovated. It is just stunning! Micah and I remarked how we couldn't believe we are from this town yet never knew it existed!

That caused us to ponder... what else is downtown for us to discover? The conversation then evolved, and we began dreaming up ways to get to know our own downtown as a family.

What a fun quest!

We decided this will be our unit study for the upcoming school year.

I jotted down a list of ideas as they were coming to us.

Micah titled it, Discover Green Bay.

I'm sure we'll add more to it as the weeks and months progress, but this is the list from our original burst of inspiration the evening we celebrated my birthday...

- City deck/ walk along the river

- Shops/ Beerntsen's candy factory

- The Cathedral

- Foxy Lady tour 

- Northland Hotel dinner

- Neville Museum

- Farmer's market

- Meyer Theater show

- YMCA day pass

- City Hall tour

I personally have visited all these places, but not all of them as a family. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable and educational experience for the kids.

I plan to use this blog to record our visits.

I view our homeschooling journey as my contribution to the Kingdom of God and the surrounding society, as well as a way to bond, learn, and grow together.

A mother's heart can relate to Samuel when he said to the people of Israel, "I will teach you the way that is good and right." 1 Samuel 12:23

Thanks for stopping by to read...

💐

~ Courtney