Side trip

One of the things I love most about homeschooling is the chance to take a side trip.  When I was thinking about homeschooling last year (a lot), I kept seeing opportunities that I would have jumped on.  The Royal Wedding- we would have gotten up to watch the wedding coverage, had a proper English breakfast, done a quick lesson on the British Monarchy, had a nap and probably ended the day with a Monty Python movie (oh, why not?).  The day of the last space shuttle flight - watch the lift off, visit the NASA and ISS websites, research the history of the shuttle program, watch Apollo 13 and then spend the evening identifying the constellations.

Well, nothing quite that big has hit since we started homeschooling, but today was the birthday of Lewis Carroll.  So, after math and reading, we took a little side trip.  We watched Alice in Wonderland (neither the Disney nor the Johnny Depp version, but the 1999 version which is much closer to the original story); had a proper English tea, complete with funny hats; and read several of Carroll's poems.

We discussed Carroll's writing style and how the Boys saw several similarities to Dr. Seuss.  We talked about how ironic it was that, despite his wild imagination, Carroll was a math professor by day.  And, most importantly, we discussed the joy of good tea.  We decided that we might make afternoon tea a weekly event.  Who knows?  Maybe I can even sneak in a few lessons in table manners!