Saturday, August 19, 2006

What They Don't Know COULD Help Them

Today, is Saturday (just in case you hadn't figured it out yet).

Which, to my children, means: DAY OFF.

From school, that is.

But little did they know....

***

The boys have been singing the praises of Day Off ever since yesterday afternoon. "Hey Caleb! We don't have to do school tomorrow!" Hey, I'm right there with them. I don't mind when the weekend comes either. Not that I don't have anything to do, but not doing school just leaves me open to do something else.

So anyway. This has been the boys' first full week of school, and they were anxious for their break. They lolled around, looked at books in bed, didn't get dressed first thing. And as they were leisurely eating their breakfast, they decided to talk about something:

The octopus.

Don't ask me how they got on that subject. I wasn't really paying attention. Yet, my ears perked up when someone made a particular comment:

"Well, an octopus can't eat a shark, though (as if that child was an expert or something)."

And believe it or not, I knew that that little caveat was NOT correct. An octopus CAN eat a shark. I had actually seen something online recently to that affect. So I piped up:

"Uh guys? I've seen an octopus eat a shark before."

To which they tried to justify such a notion in their mind. A big shark Mama? Not a big shark! It must've been a really big octopus then, Mom!

So I showed them.

It was only a quick Google search. I mean, how many articles/sites talk about "Octopus eats Shark?" And there it was, the video I had seen one day recently.

Instant science class.

***

Watching that clip ended up sparking a furor of aquatic learning. TONS of questions were asked. And as much as I could answer a good amount of them, I didn't have ALL the answers.

So the trusty "Children's Encyclopedias" came out. There's a whole book dedicated to underwater life. With a chapter on sharks. And a chapter on the octopus.

We learned that sharks vary in size from 6 inches to 60 feet.

That octopi squirt ink and have big heads.

We also went on to learn about flying fish, that only some frogs live in the water, that crawfish will sometimes lose a claw in a fight.

I think Noah ended up reading through the entire book, with Caleb sitting right next to him for most all of it.

***

I don't think I could've recreated that scenario if I tried.

I mean, my kids LEARNED a ton about underwater life. Completely because they wanted to!

On their DAY OFF!!




(Shhhhhh! Don't remind them!)

6 comments:

AlabamaBrands said...

guess you won't have to do science on monday!

See. Homeschooling comes naturally!
Who said a mom can't be a teacher? EBAY?

Anonymous said...

Those are the best kinds of lessons. Totally spontaneous. Personally, I bypassed the "Octapus Eats Shark" video. Too much information, I'll just take your word for it. Did ya find the Red Sox shirt yet??

BASF said...

You'll keep them learning by taking time to find the answers to their questions as they come up.

I remember that my mother always took advantage of every opportunity to pursue the answers to our questions.

The only thing I "dreaded" about it was that she never stopped. I would debate sometimes whether I really wanted to find out as much as I knew was coming if I asked her a question, because she went after the answer until she had exhausted every reference we had available in our home-- and that was NOT a few.

Anonymous said...

And where DID all that shark go anyway?? That octopus must have an interesting digestive system.

Chrystal said...

Ok, real creepy, I think I might have nightmares. But I guess their boys and think that's awesome. (that's what someone was chirping over my shoulder when I was watching it) :)GO YANKEES!!!!

Erin said...

Ahh the joys of homeschooling......Yes my mothers has counted SO MANY DAYS for school during the summer and weekends we don't have to do school!! But we do anyways.
OH yess!!!
That's one thing I liked about homeschool....WHO NEEDS BOOKS!!
We could be walking around on our back porch find a strange looking bug and voila! Another subject started. :-)