Ok, ok, so I signed up for practicum mostly because I knew they were going to talk about Latin, and let’s face it – I needed a new vision for Latin. We stuck with memorizing it last year because I vaguely remembered that at one point in all of my homeschool research I had decided we should definitely study Latin, but in all the craziness of everyday life, and trying to keep up with our memory work, my eagerness for Latin somehow sizzled. I figured practicum would either re-ignite my flame for this language, or kill it altogether – a likely fate for what is already considered a “dead” language.
I also signed the kids up for kids camps because, well, when you have four kids under seven it is nearly impossible to find a sitter (or maybe it is just my four kids?) But primarily I signed them up because the oldest absolutely loved GeoDraw camp last year, and there were a number of times during our school year that she would recall something she had learned in those three short days over the summer. So I signed her up, put the middle two in Play Camp, and the youngest in the nursery. I was ready to be educated (and not “edutained” – a derivative of “edutainment” – the awesome term I discovered in Leigh Bortins’ book “Echo in Celebration” which you can get as a FREE DOWNLOAD from her site HERE.) 🙂 I digress…..
So Monday morning, I load the kids up (on time) with full bellies, empty bladders, and drive the hour and a half drive to get to Practicum. I casually dropped the kids off to their respective classes and made it to my room early enough to socialize with a lot of moms like me (awesome) and peruse the bookstore – because no matter how many books I have, I never have enough! After a warm cup of coffee, we got started. The first day was an overview of the classical model and an introduction to Latin. When we started into English grammar and how it translated in latin, I got a little lost. I reminded the woman next to me that although I have a Master’s degree in business, I really only have a first grade education since my oldest just completed first grade. By the way…..does that tick anyone else off? Don’t you just feel cheated out of 18 years of your life devoted to learning, in which very little learning took place? I digress….again…..
I realized that I need to understand English grammar better before parsing Latin sentences, which was a great realization because, to be honest, like Latin, I also needed to rekindle my vision for English Grammar. Even though the Latin was tedious, I left the first day anxious to go back to Latin on the second day.
The second day, I shouted for the kids to get rolling a mere 30 minutes before we were supposed to be in the car, and bribed them to hurry up by promising McDonald’s for breakfast (something we never do). After going through McDonald’s drive through, we only drove for 20 more minutes before someone needed a potty break – oh yeah, another thing we missed in our speedy morning dash! We made it to Practicum just in time for me to sign the kids in and find a seat while the morning welcome address was taking place. The third day involved McDonald’s again, another potty break, the kids signing THEMSELVES into class after “walking briskly” in the church hallways, and me finding the door that would make the most inconspicuous late arrival. (Note to self: We should probably work on punctuality to CC this year…..)
Our practicum speaker was awesome all three days. I not only felt like I had a better vision for CC, but that I have a stronger vision for our homeschool years in general. Hats of to Mikie Larsen, from Love’s Park, IL who did an absolutely PHENOMENAL job! I loved learning more about Essentials and the Challenge program! I now feel like I have a vision for what all of this “Foundation” is building towards, and am so excited for what lies ahead. I totally want to start a Mom’s Challenge class – to meet once a month and read through the books the Challenge kids are reading, discuss and debate – wouldn’t that be awesome??? Perhaps in another season of life….
If you have a chance to attend a Practicum (which is FREE!!!!), don’t pass it up! You will sure be glad you did! Check out this link to see if one will be in your area!
Here are some Practicum pics and one of the speaker Mikie and me – because, well, of course I told her this was going on the blog and I needed a picture. She reluctantly consented….. 🙂
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