Thursday 1 November 2012

Open spaces





One of the things that I'm feeling and loving about this homeschooling gig is the space that comes with it.  The space to deep dive and explore.  The space to follow a child's interest and take the time to follow it well.  We had another such opportunity today.

My son recently joined a coin club.  At his first meeting, he was given three banknotes from different countries and was given the task, by the next meeting, to learn where they were from and what they were worth.  Which is pretty easy when the notes are written in English, and a little more work when they are a different language but the same alphabet.  It's an altogether ball of wax when the notes are written with a different alphabet - like this:


What a wonderful ride we had on the internet superhighway!  Nicholas suggested we type "Kynoh" into our search engine and from there we learned about the geography and history of eastern Europe, had a brief introduction to macroeconomics, and learned about exchange rates.  We eventually learned that this note was from the Ukraine, it was called a karbovanet, and that it was worth less than a cent before the country changed currencies.  We spent most of our morning learning about the other two banknotes too, a dollar from Trinidad and Tobago and a guilder from the Netherlands. 

As I prepared lunch, I mentioned to him that our morning was one of the reasons I was so excited to homeschool.  If I were still working, he likely wouldn't be in the coin club in the first place, let alone have the time to deep dive into the research we did this morning.  I am so thankful for this road we are on.

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