A recent trip to Mesa Verde National Park is a great example of this phenomenon.
I always worry that my little guy won’t learn anything when we travel. I research, plan, talk about and try to get him excited about our adventure. All he seems to care about is the hotel. While he may not learn exactly what I imaged or hoped he would, he always comes home with something.
At the end of our last road trip, I decided to stop at Mesa Verde. It was a purely selfish decision. I had never been there and because I was once an Archaeologist (in my pre-kid life) I wanted to go. I had zero expectations that anything there would hold any interest for anybody except myself.
The views were spectacular, the geology was interesting. For the first hour, PJ never even got out of the car. Then we came to the top of the mesa and started the Mesa Top Loop. Suddenly, this bored and tired child wanted to know what was down the trail. I helped him out and we walked up to the first of many pit houses that we would see that afternoon. He was interested. At each stop he would ask questions. Did they really sleep on the dirt? Where did they go to the bathroom? Did they look like the naked people in the Visitor’s Center? How did they get to the cliff dwellings? All afternoon he would peer at the ruins and ask me questions. He was even interested in the artifacts on display at the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum.
I was so pleased that he was taking an interest; then he did something I did not expect. He asked if the people that lived here were like the people who built the houses at the park where the trees turned to rocks (Petrified Forest National Park). It is one of those moments that helps to validate your choice to Homeschool. Is my baby learning? Yes, yes and yes. Not only is he learning, he is making connections.
We will continue to visit prehistoric Indigenous sites around the Southwest so that he can get a clear image of the history of the area before we move on to the Pacific Northwest and beyond. I now understand that by simply exposing him to this information and allowing him to ask questions, he will learn. If I had pushed him with a worksheet or forced him to get out, he would never have participated. So for now you can say that the Four Corners States are our history textbook.