Dam Day

Even though I need routines in my life, there are times when I just abhor it. Today is such a day. So I deviated, and instead of the normal "Ok kids, get your books on the table, open your math books!" I said, "Kids! Today we're going to watch this thing about dams."

A resounding "Yay!" reverberated throughout the house. Anything out of the ordinary I guess. I remember how much I used to savor 'extraordinary' school days. Anything to get out of the dull repetitive expected routine of sitting in class. From the innocent primary years up to the hormone-ravaging secondary years. The yearning for something to happen lingered on. So I totally understand how they feel.

In fact, home schooling shouldn't be constricting. But it shouldn't be too 'hippie' either. There should be both drill and play. With OHVA, I personally tend to get 'drilly' because there is so much pressure to finish the syllabus on time. Instead of enjoying the lessons, I grew to dread the lessons especially 1st and 2nd grade language arts, where I have to keep on referring to the OLS(Online School) to make sure I cover everything in that particular lesson. As I became more attuned to the way OHVA works, I started to simplify the process and read the required reading and do the Grammar part on my own time. The only problem that persists is when I need to mark 'done' on each lesson. It starts to get confusing, but in order to keep my sanity, I ignore the technical details and just make sure the objectives are reached.

I declare today to be 'Dam Day'. I wasn't sure how long the kids would be able to watch the documentary, because I have seen them fidgeting and snickering before. They grew up on documentaries, mostly on animals. I simply refused to drown them in Nickelodeon or even PBS cartoons just because I think it beneficial that they be more attuned to non fiction documentaries. I don't know if that practice has an impact at all, because I don't see my kids as being particularly partial to documentaries. However, I do think they are able to glean at least a little bit of information from the documentaries.

As we watched, I interjected every now and then, just to make sure their interest stays above the 'danger' level. Only H seemed to lose interest. I think he might have a little bit of hubby's slight ADD. He is terribly more vocal nowadays. My poor ears.

I didn't have any specific plans for this lesson. I just thought I would go along with whatever comes up. Alhamdulillah, we ended up doing something the kids seemed to love. After the show, I went on the website to see what I could do with the kids.

There were lots. We had fun at the Shapes Lab. From there, we explored the other labs and I had the kids each propose a solution to the weak structures we encountered. Their little engineering minds got to work. H glowed with delight. S poured forth her effort and actually came up with some pretty good solutions. N seemed to falter. Her strength might not be in engineering.

The Dam Challenge was fun too. Most of their proposed solution were right on target, except for the salmon one. Even I was stumped.

"Ok, now what we're going to do is, make up our own little town."

"Let's pick a name," I said.

"Shack-a Macka!" H shouted.

So Shack-a-Macka Town it is.

"It has a river flowing through it, let's name the river," I said, while drawing the town on our white board.

"N, you name it. Each of you will get to name a thing," I continued.

She paused and said,

"Little Atta."

"Ok, how do you spell 'Atta'?"

"A T T A," she said.

So Little Atta River it is.

"Now the river keeps flooding, so we need a solution. Give me a solution," I said.

"Make a channel to direct the river somewhere else and move the houses," said S.

A pretty good solution, but I was looking for the DAM. So I prompted them again.

"Oh! Oh! I know! DAM! DAM!" yelled H.

A dam appeared in our little town.

"S, you name the dam," I said.

S was never good with naming anything, so she delegated the job to N & H. H came up with 'The Dam of Looseness' to which we all laughed, and N came up with 'The Notah Dam'. S chose N's. So the Notah Dam it is.

Next assignment : "Choose one of the four types of dams we learned about, and design it for our Shack-a-Macka Town. Then write why you chose that dam. Then write about how dams are good and how they are bad."

Off they went to the computers painting away.

I learned something today along with them : the 4 types of dams.

Arch Dam, Embankment Dam, Buttress Dam and Gravity Dam. Arch and Embankment are my favorites.

This is why I love homeschooling. What a dam good day!