Uh Oh...She wants to be an astronaut...

Well, my mom called yesterday as she and my dad were driving over to Cocoa to watch the space shuttle launch. I hadn't even realized that there was a launch. I have gotten out of the habit of watching the news. I mean I can't watch it when the kids are in the room and who can actually stay up until 11:00 p.m. to watch the news. If I did watch it then I wouldn't sleep all night long because of all the icky stuff (icky is a cheney word) they talk about. AND let me tell you I have enough trouble sleeping without news stories adding to the problem. Well back to the reason I am writing this blog...

So after my mom alerted me to the fact that the shuttle was going to launch, I figured every good homeschool mom would be using this as a learning tool. So we went up to the lakefront...where we could get a clear view of the launch from our central Florida town and joined a small crowd of viewers. It was really cool...once we got past the first few minutes of Elijah's whining about not being able to see it. I tried to explain to him that it wasn't expected to launch for 3 more minutes but what is a minute to a 4 year old boy. The kids got really excited to see the shuttle break through the clouds and see the fire go up into space. We prayed God would be with them and keep the astronauts safe. We watched it until the little tiny white dot disappeared from sight. Then the kids started asking me questions to which I responded "...Um...um....we will have to do some research to find out those answers." We came home and watched replays of the shuttle launch on the news (OK, the news can be helpful...sometimes). The kids enjoyed seeing what it looked like on the ground. They were pretty impressed that Grandma and Grandad were over there and saw it go up. We also learned that 3 of the astronauts on the mission are women. The commander of this mission is a woman. Pretty cool. Then Layton said..."I want to be an astronaut when I grow up."

Now I know it is early to determine what path her career will take. I mean so far she has wanted to be a cheerleader...a doctor...then a cheerleading doctor...(John does a great version of a doctor doing spirit fingers and saying "Your healed.")...then an artist and now well we are discussing being an astronaut. This is where my "UH, OH" comes in to play. Can I teach an astronaut? I mean can I homeschool a child that could one day be an astronaut? I dropped out of college trigonometry in high school so I could take business math. I got an A in physics because my teacher said he needed at least one more A in the class and I had worked hard enough on my B to go ahead and give an A. I made it through college and got my master's degree on a public and private education. The goal for us is to prepare her for college...certainly if she can get to college and then decide if she wants to be an artistic astronaut...Can't you see her up there in space painting water colors of the earth?

So anyway my plan right now is to just teach Layton to read and add and subtract and stuff and then expose her to as much stuff as I can...like the links I have attached...live tv up on the shuttle and Nasa's Kids site. Certainly a homeschooled kid can become an astronaut if she wants to.