Home School Field Trip

Ok, sometimes, alright, more than sometimes, my blog can be rather heavy and never have much to do with my role as teacher to my children.  So here is a light-hearted blog that also tells a little of what we are doing in school this year.

My mom has been wanting to go with us back to that Magical place in Florida, since we all went back in 2009.  Since we began planning our trip stateside for 7 months, we have also been planning to go there as well.  We had been planning for the spring of 2013, but then we planned for after Thanksgiving of this year.  (Shhhhhhh, it's a surprise for the kids!)

I have come to the conclusion that it is going to be considered a field trip. 
Here are my arguments for declaring it as such:

1) Our second history lesson this year was on the Barbarians and Vikings.  Since many of these people were from Norther Europe, it only seems fitting that we have lunch at the Akershus castle in Epcot modeled after the one in Norway and eat Norwegian food.  Meeting the princesses was going to be a bonus until....

2) Mariama has been studying Aesop's fables. I was going to skip the part in her book that talked about myths, since we are not studying Greece and Rome this year.  Yesterday, I decided we would substitute some of Grimm's fairy tales for the myths, since she is also supposed to be reading them this year.  After those she will be looking at Hans Christian Anderson as well as learning to tell Cinderella's story.  I decided it was only appropriate that she go meet all of the princesses after reading all of their stories, as originally told before Disney.  Just to be sure she meets everyone from Cinderella's story though, we will go to 1900 Park Fare to eat with all the characters from this particular story and hopefully get to dance with the Prince. 

3) In general reading maps on the way to Florida and to each of the parks and getting a taste (quite literally) of places around the world should work into geography somehow.  We can also compare Africa, which we know well, to Asia while we are in the Animal Kingdom.

4)  Mariama's other literature assignments include Pinocchio and Winnie-the Pooh.  We will be sure to eat at Pinocchio's Village Haus. We will also be sure to tell Winnie that she read his book and maybe get it autographed when we have lunch with him and the gang at the Crystal Palace as well as ride his ride.

5) Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland were on William's literature list for last year, so we will be sure that he indeed finished both before we go meet Alice or ride the Mad Tea Party or go to meet Tinkerbell or ride Peter Pan's Flight.  His list for this year includes the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, so Tom Sawyer's Island must be explored.  This year also calls for Mary Poppins, so we must read it before we meet Mary who will be just wild about, I am sure.  He will also be reading Robin Hood, which should tie in well to Friar's Nook.

6) We will be studying castle architecture and life shortly before returning to the states. So of course lots of observing of Cinderella's castle will be necessary.

7) Preparing for the next school year, we will get a glimpse as we go to Liberty Square and as we go to the Swiss Family Treehouse before he reads Swiss Family Robinson. 

So there you have it, my arguments for why we will be considering our trip to the most magical place on earth, well in Florida anyway as field trip.