School today

One of the things I love about homeschooling is the variety of things I can teach Ethan. We are following the Virtual Academy curriculum, but it's SO rich and full! We have an art class we are doing together and the things that he is being exposed to are amazing! Today, we learned about different shapes in art. The painting we studied was American Gothic by Grant Wood, which was painted in 1930. He was able to find different shapes in the painting and then differentiate which shape was more in the foreground and which in the background. Then he created his own piece of artwork using shapes!



Our teacher's name this year is Laura Corkern. I am in contact with her by email at least once a week and by phone at least every couple of weeks. This is her second year teaching through the Virtual Academy and she is absolutely amazed as well. She said she was very skeptical of teaching through this program and it took her a long time to come to the decision to do so. Now she says she can't imagine teaching anywhere else and she loves it. She is a foster parent and has also adopted several children. She said she is thinking about pulling a couple of her kids out of traditional elementary because she is tired of them coming home and whining, saying, "How come WE don't get to study art and history in school?" Her daughter who in school has spent the past several weeks learning about different places in the city of Des Moines, where they go to school. Her daughter that is in Virtual Academy is learning about the Rennaisance. Which would YOU find more interesting? So she waits to do art until her other daughter gets home from school so that they can learn as a family.

Ethan is now expressing interest in doing a unit study on (of all things) the platypus. That should be interesting...