Now I'm not a curriculum person. There's a reason for that. Stroppiness. Also, a good dose of CM and a natural preference for living books. Ouch, I've been corrected on that one before! I mean books with a strong narrative. So for the longest time I didn't really believe in curriculum.
However. I was clicking around the net one day last week, trying in vain to find a history project based on quilting and the Civil War, which I thought I'd bookmarked but hadn't, when I came upon Intellego Maps K-2. I'd say it was an impulse buy, but it took too long for that. Password amnesia.
Anyhow, I talked it up to the boy over the weekend. He was vaguely interested. This morning he was downright squirmy as we worked our way through 'What I know about maps and globes' and 'What I'd like to learn about maps and globes.'
But then we got to the making of treasure maps! I realise I could have arrived at the making of treasure maps without curriculum, except that I didn't. It took Intellego saying click here and do this next to think "Oh, a treasure map! What a good idea!" And that, I suppose is the point of curriculum; it's like the mama bird, chewing things up for you so everything is nice and digestible. Quite pleasant, really. I could get used to it.
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| I like the way this photo has books in the background. |
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| We distressed the map to make it look old; snip off the edges, paint with a squeezed out tea bag, crumple, dry with a hair dryer. |
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| Snowy drew a map using landmarks and co-ordinate clues. |
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| Nice big sisters reading their first co-ordinate clue. |
The treasure ( hidden in the letter box, otherwise known as B1 ) was two Milky Ways and a packet of gum.
Snowy hasn't enjoyed his schoolwork this much since...the last time we did maps. And thanks to Intellego, we'll be doing map stuff for weeks to come. Ooh, I could totally do an ad for Intellego...
