Friday, March 8, 2013

Inspirational People Review

As mentioned previously, last term we started reading some books on inspirational women as I want my girls to feel as though they can pretty much do whatever they set their minds too, same as these amazing ladies have done. These ladies have something else in common, despite their backgrounds they haven't "settled", they have followed their passion and in some cases their calling  from God, and gone on to happily achieve some amazing things.

To-date we have covered Helen Keller, Florence Nightingale, Amelia Earhart, and Dian Fossey. We were going to start on the magnificent Mother Theresa today but the girls did not really seem in the right frame of mind (beans in their pants) so I secretly decided to test them to see how much they had remembered on the ladies that we had already covered.

I sent them both off to the spare room (where the dress ups box lives) and asked them to come back dressed as one of the people that we have covered and sit down on the stool that I placed in the corner of the lounge room and tell me all about themselves.



Agent Smelly came down as Dian Fossey. She has a plastic leaf in her hands which she chewed on when she sat down, like Dian did when she tried to make friends with the gorillas. Then she told me some things about herself, actually remembering where she, Dian, had lived and studied the gorillas. I was quite impressed although I did need to ask some questions to prod her along a bit but she did very well considering it's been a few months since we studied Dian.



Not hard to guess who The Fashionista decided to come as ... "The Lady with the Lamp" ... Florence Nightingale. I didn't have to ask her as many questions as she was able to tell me quite a bit about herself. I was very pleased with her efforts too. Check out the pose will you, apparently she had to sit like Florence was on the front of one of the books. Her bonnet is actually off one of her old fashioned dolls ... she certainly gets and A for the outfit!


This activity was a huge success with both girls really enjoying the dressing up and pretending that they were a famous person. They had no idea that I was checking to see what they had actually learnt and retained, which was about what I expected them to have and in some cases I was pleasantly surprised. It's funny what they find important enough to have retained about a person. A little telling at times.


I will try this again with them and they are very keen to do it again, so I had better get a move along and teach them about some more inspirational people.

5 comments :

  1. I love reading about inspirational women too! Do you have a favourite book about Mother Teresa?

    I love the costumes!

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    1. I am embarrassed to admit that I have only read one book on Mother Teresa and that was to use in this study. Of course I have read little bits and pieces of the years but never a biography of her. I read Mother Teresa A Life of Love but Elaine Murray Stone and was blown away by how truly amazing she was. The book was great and will be perfect for the girls to read. I read it in one sitting (I even cried a bit she was so beautiful) and I am really keen to read more on her now, so if you have you can recommend then please do. How amazing would the world be if there were more people like her. She was so incredible, so selfless!

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    2. Lisa,

      I am even more embarrassed than you! I have read a book of Mother Teresa's words compiled by someone. I can't remember who! But I haven't read a biography. I've seen a DVD but that's all. I shall have to do better! I saw a photo of Pope Francis kissing the poor which reminded me so much of Mother Teresa.

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    3. I thought of Mother Teresa when I heard what Pope Francis said regarding the church and that it should be poor and remember that it's mission is to serve the poor. I was pretty impressed and have some high hopes that his influence will set an example to many people, if that makes sense. My Catholic pop's name was Lesley Francis, so made me think of him too. Despite me not being Catholic, Dad is but we kids were christened Church of England and went there, I have some real hopes for Pope Francis. Let's hope this is the beginning of some good changes around the world and maybe this fella will lead the way. I am hopeful.

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  2. By the way just in case anyone thinks when I wrote "these ladies haven't settled", that I am referring to them not becoming a housewife, mother, shop keeper etc, then I wasn't. I simply meant they haven't settled for anything less than what they feel passionate about. By all means if they are passionate about becoming a wife and mother (my favourite job to-date I might add ... lol) then I am sincerely happy for those women too. I just mean I want my girls not to whinge and whine about their lot in life and let them feel they can do whatever they want to do with passion and inspiration.

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