I have to admit it: the more we go into our homeschool, the less structured it is. In this early stage of learning, though, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Instead, we go outside and observe, do science experiments, get paint and glue on nearly everything, and ask tons and tons of question then attempt to find the answers (sometimes asking questions takes a little guidance from Mommy). I hope that by nurturing this curiosity and teaching them how to seek out information that they will have a solid foundation for research later on.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Darling wanted to know what sound a giraffe makes, and our search for the answer turned up this video from the Blank Park Zoo in Iowa. I thought the answer was pretty interesting, and wanted to share.
We've watched a few more videos from the Blank Park Zoo, and really enjoyed them. I wish our zoo did something like this. Enjoy!
I love how easily accessible answers are, even in remote locations. Multiple times this weekend we asked questions that no one knew the answer to so we opened Wikipedia on our smart phones and answered them (while riding in a car in the middle of nowhere, no-less). Previous generations focused on rote learning to access data which was limited to one's own memorization capacity (or the amount of encyclopedias they had access to). Future generations greatest asset will not be the memorization of an overall limited amount of data, but the ability to locate any data when it is necessary (current day examples include Wikipedia, Youtube, WikiHow, etc). And business-wise, the mediums to distribute the data are already in place (and growing) so the next big business push (for small businesses at least) is not to obtain and provide the data but to create data that no one has created previously (something Mythbusters has been doing quite well at for the past decade).
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