Catching Fire

Marissa finished reading both Catching Fire and Mockingjay. I have finished with Catching Fire, and it was as good as The Hunger Games. Marissa and I spent an hour talking about the second one too. The themes are similar to the first one, the government, the president, in these books is so controlling. So, shall we say evil , I just hope that we are watching our own government and don't ever even let it come close to what is happening in these Mockingjay stories. I have started Mockingjay I will finish it in the next couple days, maybe I will comment on it too. So far it is going to end up on my favorites list too.

The Hunger Games was recommended to us by a friend of Ris's at the bake sale last week. During the same discussion other girls were asked if they were readers too. One of the girls said she liked to read but she doesn't have time for personal reading anymore (I think that is sad). I sat and listened to the other parents talk about the things their daughters were doing in their first year of middle school.  A couple of things they did were: making posters about Indians (most had to do that as homework) and they had to do a wax museum acting thing about a famous person in history. There were others things but they seemed so silly I didn't pay much attention but it all got me thinking. These girls don't really have time for personal reading but they have to make posters? I wonder if we aren't really losing site of the important things...

I am right now trying to decide where I should be going with Marissa and her homeschooling. I don't know for sure what I need to be doing but I do know that making posters would just be busy work. It would be something that would just be thrown away in a month or two...(and I am sure it would be met with a protest too) I do know that Marissa's best teaching and learning moments come out of her personal reading time. And she has been inspired to dig deeper into many things (medicinal plants from The warriors series and Archery from The Hunger Games for instance) because her reading started her imagination on fire better then any number of things I could have insisted she do. I feel very strongly about this too. She needs to be reading all the time! (we used Sonlight this year and I will probably still use at least their core which is literature based next year too)

I don't remember much from my days in school  (I view that as a blessing by the way). My learning came from my OWN PERSONAL reading and studying and it still does. I just hope that when we are done with this homeschool journey Marissa will find the things we do relevant to her life and that she will be able to always find the answers to the other  important questions she has.