Seminar Descriptions

Integrating Art into History, Susan Evans of www.susanevans.org

This seminar was very exciting to me.  I love all things creative and educational, so this was great.  I loved seeing the different time periods depicted in these creative ways.  Cave art, I don’t think I would have thought of building a cave and putting our cave drawings inside it!  Great idea!  I love the idea of making the topics come alive through experiences.  The ancient Egypt material was outstanding.  I’m ready to start this unit study now, just so I can do all the cool things that Susan Evans did!  I’m going to hold off with this for a few years, the girls are still too young, but I can’t wait to use these ideas.  She made a small storage space room into a tomb, and covered the walls with paper to draw hieroglyphs on the walls (practice for the kids, as well as beautiful decoration!), built a sarcophagus, had a treasure box, and so many other wonderful things!  I loved the ideas for the shadow boxes, and I remember making shadow boxes and dioramas when I was in school.  LOVE it!  I can’t wait to do it all. 

Using Journals to Teach Writing, also by Susan Evans

Selena loves to write in her journals. Loves, loves, LOVES to write in her journals.  We had to make two trips to Michaels last week for her to pick out some new books.  She draws pictures, practices her ABCs and numbers… she just loves to have her own special place to write. 

During this seminar, I learned how to be focused with journals for specific purposes, and the different types of journals that one can write.  I’m going to have us make a journal or workbook for the lessons that we are going to be starting this week.  Seeds and planting, and weather.  So I guess we’ll do it on Spring, since all of those things are spring specific.  I think another word for what I want to do is a lapbook?  I’ll have to look this up.

Oh well, back to the seminar.  It was great and inspiring.  I know that I sure enjoy writing my blogs.  I do this now instead of a written journal, and I seem to keep up better with it this way.