Inspiring Moment . . . or two

A couple of weeks ago our family watched the movie, Apollo 13
(edited by Dad a few times). Afterwards we were enthralled about space
travel and moon exploration. I decided to take advantage of everyone’s
interest in space. The past few weeks I desired to implement
Thomas Jefferson Education more into our homeschool. This seemed
like the perfect opportunity. So,Sunday night I pulled all our books on
the moon, planets, stars, space exploration and NASA. On Monday
morning I had them on the floor when we began our time together.
We start every day together, reading the Bible, poetry, history and our
read-aloud book. I told the kids they could look through the books
while I read aloud that morning.

It was time to start a new read-aloud, so I chose Destination: Moon,
a book that just arrived in our inventory. Destination: Moon is written
by Astronaut Jim Irwin about the spiritual and scientific voyage of the
eighth man to walk on the moon. All the kids were listening carefully to
Irwin’s life and his experience as a U.S. astronaut. They were especially
interested in his comments about Apollo 13. When we had some other
boys staying with us, they were fascinated with the story. Everyone
seemed to laugh & snicker at the same time. Destination: Moon
was enjoyed by all!

Throughout the week, Hunter read other books about space. This was
a move in the right direction. Then, I was quite surprised to hear the boys
talking before bed about the book Hunter’s mom had read. One of our
visitors said, “Hey Hunter, do you remember the book your Mom was
reading. When they talked about dropping a hammer and feather on
the moon and they landed at the same time….” Wow! They were
actually talking about “school” at bedtime. I need to find some other
of these moments to inspire future learning.

You may remember my article, “Inspire, Not Require” where I
discussed the idea of moms inspiring their kids to learn, instead of
dictating what they want their kids to learn. When kids are interested
in a topic, they study and remember so much more than what a test
might require of them.

Do YOU have a story where you inspired your kids to learn this year?
Please send them to me because I would love to share them with our
readers. Plus, I’d like to be encouraged by some of your experiences.
You can e-mail the story to kerry{at}curriculumconnection{dot}net