Project 365 – #228
One of the benefits of homeschooling is the opportunity to nurture gifts, talents, and passions in our kids. Munchkin thoroughly enjoys drawing and animals. As time passes, she’s started to narrow down her interest in animals to a passion about horses. Today, she drew this picture of a horse, Man ‘O War, from the Black Stallion book series. This is her vision of what he would have looked like. I love watching her grow in her drawing skills. She does not get these skills from me. They definitely come from Daddy and his side of the family. Daddy has a natural talent for drawing, but he never really nurtured/refined those skills. We want to allow Munchkin to develop her skills as she sees fit. (In other words, we don’t want to push her. We just want to encourage her to pursue her gifts.)
We have also decided that her high school studies will include an in-depth study in horses. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to see that here in the U.S. the courses just aren’t available like they are in Canada as well as other parts of the world. Thankfully, I have a little time before she will be starting this course. She has one more science class that she needs to take prior to embarking on her horse study. If you have any resources for putting together a full credit study in horses, feel free to share. **grin**
I love having the freedom to customize Munchkin’s course of study to what best fits her life goals. Yes, we cover the basics, so she’ll have a well-rounded education, but it’s the extras that make it fun and exciting. I think it’s wonderful to be passionate about learning. Learning is a lifelong process, and it doesn’t have to be a dull endeavor. Learning is meant to be a grand adventure. We’re using our minds and the good sense that our Creator gave us to gain knowledge, and Lord willing, wisdom to help us live our lives in a way that is pleasing to Him.
Great job on the drawing! I love that she drew what she pictured from what she read. One of the best resources we found for information about horses is 4H. Even though we don’t have as active of a group as others I’ve heard about, the girls learned a lot as they prepared for the quiz bowl and judging competitions. One summer a nearby Vet school offered a day devoted to horses for kids of all ages. They even had all of the skeleton and organs painted on the outside of a white horse- that was impressive. A less known horse related resource is hippotherapy. If there is a local therapist who is involved with that, maybe your daughter could volunteer. Parelli http://www.parellinaturalhorsetraining.com/ has many resources for training horses.
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I had looked at 4H, but it’s not really the direction that we want to go at this time. We’re looking more into the care and training of horses as well as the history of horses including the different breeds. 4H (at least from what I could tell based upon website information) seemed to be mainly focused on showing/judging horses with some horse care basics. Her study needs to be pretty in-depth if she’s going to get a high school credit out of it. **grin** Her interests tend to be more geared towards taking care of the horse (think animal rescue) and basic training (not show based). Of course, we don’t have a horse, so her knowledge (for now) would be basically book knowledge until she had the opportunity to do some practical application.
I just looked up the quiz bowl, and that is pretty cool as it gets into all the details.
wow very cool drawing well done Munchkin
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She says thank you. 🙂
I JUST gave away my Horse Unit Study to our old Co-op. Let me know look and see if I have still have a copy. 🙂 Great job on the drawing!
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