Call it Courage Canoeing...well, Kayaking

We also took advantage of free kayaking Saturdays here on the Schuylkill River (Philadelphia) from the boat launch at the beautiful, historic Bartram's Gardens. Although Mafatu builds and rows in a canoe, a kayak was our alternative since I am also always looking for things to do on a budget! This was great and luckily we didn't encounter any tiger-sharks, nor were we chased by the "eaters-of-men".

There's also  a lot of great vocabulary-building words in Call it Courage, so my son kept a running list of vocabulary words and every week chose a few to delve into more deeply. For this study, I use tools garnered from the wonderfully insightful vocabulary workshop webpages of Corbett Harrison of Always Write and WritingFix.com. Throughout our years of homeschooling, I've returned to these pages again and again for ideas to creatively present writing and language arts materials.

Some of the rich vocabulary included in Call it Courage: oblique, prodigious, conflagration, pinnacle, respite, desolation, and clamber.  Who needs dry, boring vocabulary workbooks when you have such rich vocabulary in literature?

Call it Courage...and a quick intro!

 We just finished reading Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry, a legend about the journey of a Polynesian boy, Mafatu.  The book was filled with Polynesian words that my son struggled with at times, but overall he enjoyed this book.  And, we read the book as a read-aloud, were both my son and I had our own copies of the book, which is how we do all of our homeschool read-alouds.

Of course, we couldn't just read the book without making it come to life and making it more meaningful for us. So, what did we do with this short five-chapter book?  Some highlights included cooking , kayaking, vocabulary-building, engineering, and learning about albatross. I'll cover all of these in more detail in the following posts.

So, before moving on, here's just a little bit more about us. This year, I am only homeschooling one of my kids this year, my middle school son. The oldest is off at college, and my high school junior is taking online classes.

My background is in English and Professional Communications, and I love nothing better than curling up in one of the stuffed chairs in our dining room with a warm mug of herbal tea and reading a book.  My son's fav spot is in the stairwell window with his feet propped up on the wall! Whatever works, right?

Mom's fav reading spot

Window seat reader!

We live in Philadelphia, which is of course a large urban city plagued with all of the problems inherent in large, urban cities. However, the homeschooling community is also large and growing every year. There are several homeschooling local social media groups, co-ops, formal drop-off programs, informal field trip groups and playground meet-ups.

Many of our local museums offer homeschool classes such as the Franklin Institute, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. And throughout the years, my kids have benefited from of these activities.