Goodbye Italy
This week marks our third and final visit to Italy for the summer. First we visited Venice, then Florence and now we conclude with a trip to Rome and the Pantheon.
This week we focused on the architecture. The whole trip was a bit of a let down and disappointing given that it is the final week for us (we are out of town for the 4th and final offering). The docent was different this time than the last two times. She was very animated and the children loved her. I felt that she was much more condescending and talked down to them. She explained how architecture is a kind of art, just like painting and sculpting. She explained how even little people can be architects with blocks and clay and other substances.
And then finally came the fun part. We read Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty. It was an endearing story of one boy's struggles to express his passion in face of a dictatorial teacher. Unfortunately the fun verse format was lost in the inserted commentary of the docent. Luckily the artistic renderings of David Roberts are truly fantastic and invite you to explore further.
After the story instead of being given clay or any building material, the children were asked to color the Pantheon like the painting of the Pantheon they had seen. It was a disappointment. Froggy loved coloring and had a blast but we came home and became our own architects with Legos.
You have a post in 239th Carnival of Homeschooling, history of home education edition, which now is up at The Common Room, http://tw0.us/LUJ My theme is 'the history of homeschooling in America.' It was very interesting to research and I learned some fascinating things along the way (do you know why we have age segregated classrooms in America?).
ReplyDeletePlease pay us a visit, and reciprocate in the publicity the carnival brings you by passing along the link along so others can visit as well.
Please consider other ways to spread the news about the carnival as well- the more people who visit the carnival, the more link-love you get- If you have a facebook account, you could pass on the link there (fb doesn't like tiny url links, so here's the long one: http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2010/07/carnival-of-homeschooling-239.html, and if you have a twitter account, please tweet!
Thanks!
I am sorry that this visit was not as great as others, but the book looks like fun and does invite to build with Legos.
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