{image credit: “To Take A Journey” by Daniel Horacio Agostini / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0}
Keep reading. It's one of the most marvelous adventures that anyone can have.
~ Lloyd Alexander
Come on in, new families! So glad to have you back, returning families! Are you ready for new adventures? Welcome to the start of another leg of our lifelong learning journey. We are delighted that you stopped by Down Home, and excited to begin a new school year with you! Especially since THIS year we are celebrating TEN years since SLO Classical Academy first began this journey.
At SLOCA we are all about educating for life and learning together. Much of the work and wonder that goes along with this happens in our homes, and therefore the purpose of our Down Home blog is to enrich, encourage, inspire, and support us as we nurture and learn with our children at home. So whether you’re reading and learning side-by-side with your child on home days, or coaching an older student who is more independent, we hope Down Home will become a useful resource that will strengthen your role as an involved parent in your child’s classical education.
We also hope to hear from you often! There’s always an opportunity to comment on anything you find here, and we will often ask what you think. We hope our community of parents and readers will interact in this way, to encourage each other and share great ideas. Don’t be shy!
The easiest way to keep current with the blog is to subscribe to Down Home via email, which allows you to receive a message in your inbox each time there is new content on the blog. If you didn’t get a chance to do this at the Parent Orientation meeting last week, click here to subscribe. (This link is also found in the right column under the search bar.)
For those who don’t already know me, my name is Jenny Bischoff and this will be my fourth year as the Down Home Blog Curator. My husband Paul, our three kids and I are beginning our 10th year at SLOCA. We are on Track A with a son in Intermediate, a daughter in Lower Middle School, and another daughter who is a sophomore here at SLO Classical Academy High School (sloCAHS). Educating this way has been an amazing and beyond-rewarding choice for our family, and I hope you will love learning SLOCA-style as much as we have!
What Can I Expect?
Down Home posts new content five days a week. This week we will be introducing the types of things you will typically see here on the blog. We are changing things up a bit this year, so check in over the next few days to see what you can expect to find here every weekday.
For instance, Mondays will now most often feature something we call Monday Mix-ins, which are videos, links and resources you can use at home to enrich and expand on what we are currently studying in history and literature. Previously we did one big blog post each trimester with supplemental links and resources, but this year we are trying something different, and will give you a few ideas each week. These are completely optional, of course, but we hope you will find them interesting and helpful from time to time.
You may occasionally see some of these “Monday Mix-ins” resources on your weekly grid as well, since our teachers sometimes share helpful websites and videos to support you on your home days. Think of it as a happy coincidence and try them out.
This year we are studying the Renaissance, Reformation, and Age of Exploration. Here are a few samples for this week that you can explore with your kids:
- Johann Gutenberg Exhibition – this website for kids from the University of Texas is all about Gutenberg. It features fun facts, a video, a coloring activity, and a “be a printer” activity.
- A quick video on Gutenberg for the young ones – Great Innovators: “Gutenberg and the Printing Press,” by StoryBots.
- Here’s a nice 13-minute documentary – Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press.
- And finally, an interesting 6-minute video featuring a demonstration of the only working model of a Gutenberg printing press, located at the Crandall Historical Printing Museum in Utah – How a Gutenberg printing press works.
Here’s to another great year of educating for life! Semper discentes – always learning together.
We welcome your feedback! If you have any questions, comments, stories, photos, or suggestions to share, you can contact us at [email protected], or leave a comment on any blog post. We’d love to hear from you!
