Our first year of dialectic classical studies was proving exciting for my kids.
True to the goal of dialectic learning in the classical model, much of our curricula was helping my kids to make connections between the integration of subjects.
Institute for Excellence in Writing
Perhaps the most helpful on our journey was our new writing curriculum.
Institute for Excellence in Writing steered my students on a path of confidence in knowing how to write about anything.
Even though my kids were at opposite skill levels, the suggested course plan was easy to implement, one unit per month.
I loved that we can use the IEW curriculum with our history books for the research portion of the writing, because that would meet our classical goal of integrating writing with the topics we were learning in history.
I let the kids choose whatever they wanted to write, as long as it stayed within the historical topic of the week.
Thus our first month we practiced a lot of public speaking, which basically meant speaking to each other since we were in a homeschool environment. That was okay, though, because it was familiar territory.
Practicing Public Speaking
They put their public speaking skills to work at our first Becoming History presentation.
While planning our presentation we began our second unit, actually writing the paragraphs we had been presenting orally.
So they pulled out their old notes, from which they had spoken in previous weeks, to write on paper, then type into the computer.
After the kids wrote out their first few paragraphs, I was so impressed, I knew they had to be showcased at our Becoming History Presentation.
Pop-up Books
Why not make pop-up books to showcase the Unit 2 paragraphs in a special way?
Pop-up books are super simple to make: Fold a piece of construction paper in half. Paste a printed copy of the completed paragraph on the bottom half. Decorate the top half as desired.
My son got super creative with his paragraph on Halley’s Comet, which he found especially intriguing after his study of Ancient Mesopotamia. (Love that integration of science within our history study.)
He created a slider for his comet! In the photos below, you can see the comet progress from right to left as if it was flying through the sky!
For his pop-up book on the Nile, he created an Egyptian boat of paper to lay alongside.
My daughter chose graphic art popular to the Egyptians to decorate her paragraph.
These cute pop-up books were displayed at our Becoming History Presentation about Ancient Egypt, then read aloud to our guests. They were quite impressed the kids had written those paragraphs.
Overall the public speaking portion went very well. The guests, who were thrilled, wanted this to become a regular event.
My kids, who also had fun, are eagerly anticipating their next Becoming History Presentation.
