Learning Notes - Week 9 (Oct. 21-26)

SO.  Listen, it's been a week.  I didn't really keep track of our learning notes and everything sort of fell apart.  My husband's mother is here for a ten day visit and we've had two doctor's appointments plus one day (so far) or 11ish straight hours in the car picking up mother in law and bringing her here, plus another day of errands and lessons.  So, really, school has not been great.

But I really want to write down some of the stuff we've been doing, if I can remember any of it.  So here you go.

The kids have been in love with the Odyssey Audio stories, and with so much car time, we've gone through a lot of them.  Here's the one we've been listening to this week:

The collections aren't cheap, but there's over 9 hours of radio drama on the sets, so I think it is worth it.  And of course you listen to them again and again.

The 9yo tends to read like I do, which is to say in fanatical spurts.  He gets obsessed with a series, devours the whole thing, and then flounders for a bit before latching on to something else.  This week has been all about this series:

Image from Amazon

There are 8 books in the series and he has read several of them this week.  Which has also re-started his fascination with origami.  We've gone through a LOT of origami paper this week.

All three children had their swimming lessons and the 9yo had piano.  We (cough. I.) finally got around to buying the theory book that his teacher wanted him to use.  This is it:

Image from Amazon

Let me just say that I had no idea piano books could be so divisive.  Man, people have opinions about piano books.  This is the theory book for level 1, and the 9 yo went through about 14 pages of it in one sitting, catching himself up in theory to where he is in the performance book.  He's also practiced several times.  The 7yo has also practiced several times.

We had one solid day of morning time this week where we went through all our memory work and also read history, geography, Bible, Christian biographies, and so forth.  We also did some seat work that day.  The 5yo especially has been very interested in math and has completed several lessons as well as a reading lesson.  And we had a second day where the children did seat work but no morning time.

We managed one trip to the library and switched up our books.  We're going to need another trip soon, though, because I've been told everyone has 'nothing to read'.

The 5yo helped me make a cake.  

The children played many games of Sushi Go and Skipbo with Grandma.

We watched a nature documentary, and also some less educational television that still sparks a lot of discussion such as The Great British Baking Show, Antiques Roadshow, and Grandma's favourite - Wheel of Fortune!  

We walked to the park and watched the ducks diving on the lake and talked about it.  We also checked out the map posted at the lakefront that shows our town.

So there you go.  That was our week.

Learning Notes - Week 8 (Oct. 14-19)

Yay! We're back!  I'm almost breathing normally and my husband's 5 day long migraine that resulted in an ER visit has been resolved!  As long as no one tries to run around we're all not coughing!  Time to do school!

Monday

Well...but not today.  Because today is Thanksgiving!  We had my parents over for supper and had a bonfire and a huge meal and then said goodbye to our guests and went to vote at the advanced poles, saw a lovely rainbow, came home and watched a movie and then went to bed.  No school, but a lovely day.

Tuesday

Morning Time

We did some of our morning time work at home, and then continued in the car.

Doxology, national anthem

Bible reading - Mark 1:35-38.  We discussed why Jesus would have craved solitude, why the people would have come to look for him, and why Jesus would want to leave the area and continue travelling.

Christian biography - the 7yo read extensively to us from the biography of Selina, Countess of Huntington.  We had hoped to finish the story today but didn't quite make it.

Memory Work - We reviewed days of the week, months of the year, provinces to New Brunswick, OT books up to Esther, and The Lord's Prayer.  All three children have the Lord's Prayer memorized now and we will continue to frequently review it.  We learned the first line of Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

History - We finished SOTW 2 chapter 4.  We were introduced to the story of Saint Nicholas and also the Eastern Church Schism.  We added 1054 AD to our history wall.

Geography - We usually do either history or geography, but we're trying to stay on top of geography right now, so we're doing both today.  We reviewed our chapter one terms and definitions again.

The 9yo and 7yo both read aloud to the 5yo and on their own in the car.

Swimming lessons for all three children

Piano @ the Conservatory for the 9yo

Wednesday

Morning Time

Prayer, doxology, national anthem.  We listened to Be Thou My Vision and read a bit about the hymn.  This will be our next song when we're ready for it.

Bible Reading - Mark 1:39-42.  We discussed leprosy and the OT requirements for lepers.  We dipped in to some of the Levitical passages.

Christian biography - The 7yo and I had different memories of where we ended with our biography of Selina, Countess of Huntington.  So I read the last few paragraphs aloud and we looked up the college she founded in Wales.  It changed name, and then eventually closed in 2003, which was sad.  But we saw lots of old pictures of what it used to look like.

Geography - Another review day for the 9yo.  Then we continued with Chapter 2 reading about the Amazon river.  I assigned this book as independent reading:

Image from Amazon

9yo
30 minutes silent reading
piano practice

7yo
piano practice
R&S Math 2 - Lesson 9
30 minutes reading

5yo
piano practice
R&S Math 1 - Lesson 20

Thursday

Today started with an early (er) rise than usual and a dr. appointment so I had one plan - for the 9yo to do math and english.

9yo
R&S English 2 - Lessons 13 and 14
Saxon 5/4 Math - Lessons 17 and 18

7yo
R&S Math 2 - Lesson 10

5yo
R&S Math 1 - Lessons 21 and 22
100 Easy Lessons - Lesson 28

We read a lot - the 9yo and 7yo got hooked on these books this week, now that Spiderwick is finished:

Image from Amazon

So they spent hours yesterday and today folding origami and putting on puppet shows with the creatures and today we went to the library and they found the first book in the series and took that out.  The 9yo is also reading this:

Image from Amazon

Friday

We spent the entire day running errands, grocery shopping, going to doctor's appointments and driving back and forth for these things.  No school today!

Saturday

Thoughts about public transportation and alternate timelines

I really enjoy reading this wonderful blog called Penniless Parenting.  She blogs from an undisclosed country and (I assume) under a false name, and her writing is on many topics but all under the umbrella of living, as her tag line says, "A rich life on a minimum wage".  Penniless Parenting often posts about extreme frugality - living on very little in the way of money or resources.  And kudos to her, really; certainly I wouldn't be able to do so with as much grace as she's managed.  Recently she published a post on living without a car.  Here it is.  And here is a quote from it, that I sort of disagree with by the way:

"In order to live without a car, you will have to give up things. You'll have to make compromises. Maybe you end up taking a job that is less ideal, pays less or is in a field you don't enjoy. Maybe you'll live in a neighborhood that you don't like as much. Maybe it means your kids won't be able to do extra curricular activities because you won't be able to drive them from place to place to get there in time. Maybe it means that you won't be able to go on certain trips that aren't accessible by public transportation. It means that you'll have to structure your day to be on time to catch the bus and have to come back before the last bus for the evening. It means that you are more limited in where you can grocery shop and clothes shop and how well you can bargain shop in general, because whatever you buy you need to bring back with you by bus, unless there is delivery."

It's strange to me how people see frugality as the time when you 'give things up', because I really do not think of it as fundementally about this.  All of life is sort of about making choices, really.  I went to university, but that means I didn't go to college and get started in my career quickly and make lots of money fast.  I had three children, but that means I didn't have any other number of children.  I didn't stop at one child and make my life pretty straightforward with just one child to think about.  I also didn't have a big, vibrant family and guarantee myself lots and lots of weddings and grandkids.  I'm happy I didn't NOT have my three children, but there are many other numbers of children I could have had that I did not have, and who knows how I would feel if any of those numbers of children were the amount I had.  I have forever 'given up', so to speak, the option of having zero children.  But that's life!  If I had never had children I would have 'given up' the option of having ten children!

Every meal I eat is also a choice to not be currently eating other food in my house.  Every time I go to bed or take a shower is also showing my preference for those activities over other things I could be doing during that time.  Did I read this book?  I sure did!  And also therefore did NOT read any number of other books!

So I suppose that quote bothers me a bit because the emphasis appears to be on the things you are not getting in choosing to not own a car.  But this kind of have/have not thinking pattern, while it could exist through all areas of our lives, seems to be greatly focused on the financial side of things.  Everything on that list of examples of things you may have to give up is an example, obviously, and I understand that, but all the same I think it puts the whole thing into a negative light.  Sort of like it implies 'well you'll save money, but make no mistake, you'll have to make sacrifices and they will be difficult but if you think you can do it, you'll be able to survive on less'.  

Here's the thing, maybe not owning a car would be a significant sacrifice for some people.  Certainly it would be for me, where I live.  And she's right when she says in her post that many people couldn't live without a car because they have structured their lives around a car.  That's very true!  I live somewhere where I must have a car, because this is where my husband works, and so this is our choice.  We could live somewhere else, but then he wouldn't have this job.  And I imagine this is what she is trying to get at.  But here's another way to think about it:

Right now, my husband has the job he has.  He's a minister in a church.  And he also doesn't have a vast number of all the other jobs at all the other places in our province, our country, or even the world.  He has this one job right here.  And the same goes with every other aspect of our lives.  We have the electrical company we have, and don't have the others.  We own the dining room table we own, and therefore do not own the other dining room tables available.  Etc.  And all of those decisions together form a snapshot of our life currently.  We have THESE children in THIS house with THIS cat and THESE hobbies and THIS brand of milk in the fridge.  We don't have another existance, or I suppose you could phrase it that this is our timeline and baring some kind of ability to move between timelines this is the only reality we will ever experience - the outcome of previous decisions.  Even our future decisions are influenced by our current reality.  I will never have to decide, for example, if I'm going to take that job in Paris because I already made the choice in grade 10 to stop taking French class.  That previous decision has removed all sorts of current and future decisions from my sphere.

Rather than experiencing frugality (or poverty, or wealth, or anything financial really) as opening or closing all of these doors in our lives, I think of it as one aspect of an already progressing timeline.  I have countless, endless, practically infinite decisions in my life, big and small.  And the same goes for everyone.  Decisions might be smaller in human scope and understanding but they are never less numerous.  Your timeline is as complex and varied as anyone's.  True, I might never make a decision that will affect the ruling of a monarchy, or the beginnings of a colony on the moon, or end a war, my decisions may be of a less dramatic cut, but make no mistake, they exist in remarkable variety and number all the same.

So here's the thing with quotes like that.  They make it all about the money.  They say 'you can live without a car, and here are things you may have to give up, without a car', but with that statement they reduce the idea of your timeline to a one trick pony.  If you have a car/money - you get all these things over here...and if you don't have a car/money, then you get to give those things up.

But human lives are so much more complex than that.  To give up a car is one decision in a huge web of interconnecting other decisions.  Take just the first compromise she mentions: 

"Maybe you end up taking a job that is less ideal, pays less or is in a field you don't enjoy."

Or, what if you make the decision to get up earlier and catch the bus?  What if you cut down your hours?  What if you telecommute?  What if you go back to school?  What if the zombie apocalypse happens and it doesn't matter?  What if you take early retirement?  What if you get a better job nearer to your house?  What if you carshare?  What if you rent a car instead of owning?  What if you bike to work?  What if it doesn't matter because everyone at your old job disliked you and it is just as well that you left?  What if you take unemployment and start a vegetable garden?  What if you become a professional gardening consultant?  What if you break your ankle planting a garden for the mayor and it doesn't heal properly and you decide to become a Buddhist and in five years you're living in Tibet?  And THEN the zombie apocalypse happens?

What I'm trying to say here is It. Doesn't. End. Here.  It never does!  Maybe you do decide to stop driving and get rid of your car and then you discover you cannot manage the bus commute and you end up quitting and get another job closer to your house and you really hate your new job.  Is this all traceable to getting rid of your car and taking the bus?  Did that one decision make everything in the future go the way it did?  It did not.  Your life was full, FULL of a million little decisions that brought you to the day when you looked up from your new job and said "I can't stand this job".  And then, is that the end?  It is not.  Because your full life full of infinite decisions has an infinite number of decisions left to go.  Until the day you breathe your last, the decisions, the choices, never end.  There is always a choice.  Even if the choice is attitude.

Learning Notes - Week 7 (Oct 7-12)

This week's theme is Real World Unschooling through headaches and breathing troubles!

Monday

Still sick.  We had a rough, not sleeping night, and got up later than usual.  I could see right away that this week was going to consist of a lot of child-led learning.  Here's some of what we did today:

The 9yo decided on his own that he is entering a science fair.  And that his project is going to be volcanoes.  He built a large Lego model last week, which he wired to light up for the 'lava', showing both above ground and underwater volcanoes.  This morning he decided he was going to write an accompaning report.  I didn't help him with this.  He used this book, which he found on the non-fiction shelves:

Image from Amazon.

He copied out the facts he found most interesting in his best printing, and then illustrated his page with hand drawn volcano comics.  Mostly volcanoes talking to each other.  He made one very neat and lovely page of facts, asking me how to spell various words as he wrote, and then excitedly went to show his father.  He also decided to play the piano for a bit.  When he was finished that he read, without the timer keeping track of his minutes.  He went with Dad up to the library and found the Spiderwick chronicles series, took out and read book one.

I asked the 7yo to read a story aloud to the 5yo, and the 5yo chose a retelling of Cinderella.  Then the 7yo asked to practice cursive writing.  I wrote out a sheet of upper and lowercase letters to work through.  We ended up having a conversation about how to link letters together and why some capital letters in cursive do not easily link to their following lowercase.  Then she discovered a book of Sudoku math puzzles and spent an hour working her way through some of those.  She also had piano lessons.

The 5yo wanted to do math, so fine.  She went through two lessons, mostly guided by the 9yo.  When she tired of that, her preferred work was tracing things, including my wedding band, all over my planner.  With a pen.  Sigh.

They spent a large part of the day playing outside.

Tuesday

For the second week running the conservatory had to cancel the 9yo's piano lesson.  So again, we only had swimming lessons and the day was slightly shorter because of that.

Before swimming, the 9yo begged to be allowed to go back to the library and take out book 2 of the Spiderwick Chronicles.  So, okay, we did that.  He finished it in the car.

Image from Amazon

Wednesday

Morning Time

Yes, we actually managed morning time for, maybe, the first time in a week?  We prayed, sang the doxology and the national anthem.

Bible reading - we read Mark 1:34.  We discussed why Jesus would not want to let the devils speak about who he was.

Memory work review - everyone remembered days of the week, months of the year, provinces up to Quebec (we added on New Brunswick), the Lord's Prayer up to 'as we forgive those who tresspass against us' (we added on up to 'deliver us from evil'), and the books of the Old Testament up to Nehemiah.

Christian biography reading - The 9yo read about Jan Hus.  We discussed the definition of an idol, the latin language, and how to pronounce 'Czech', and 'Prague'.  The 7yo read about Selina, Countess of Huntington's marriage and subsequent birth of her first son.  We discussed the aristocracy, primogeniture, ruling Queens of England, why Elizabeth I never married, who the estate workers would have been in the 1700s, and travel by carriage.

History - We read the section of SOTW 2, Chapter 4: Justinian The Just Emperor.  We discussed the definition of 'just', and whether we agreed with the rules of the Code of Justinius.

At this point the day stopped because we had an emergency room trip for my husband, who was on day 4 of a constant stabbing headache.  On the way to the ER we stopped at the library and the 9yo returned book 2 of the Spiderwick Chronicles and borrowed books 3 and 4.  When we got home I took the 5yo out for lunch and a walk, then we came home and started out outside work to get the house ready for Thanksgiving and the following week when my mother in law arrives.

Thursday

The children spent hours today developing a time machine out of a dryer box.  I believe they were attempting to visit the Bermuda Triangle?  The 9yo was the captain, the 7yo was the repairwoman, and the 5yo kept forgetting what she was but it may have been engineer.  They alternated this with turning cardboard, glue and a bag of alphabet pasta into picture frames.  I spent the morning trying not to cough, and cleaning furiously for Thanksgiving.

In the afternoon, we did our morning time, ironically.

Doxology, national anthem.

Memory work - we reviewed provinces up to New Brunswick, and attempted the ENTIRE Lord's Prayer (with a great deal of success and minimal prompting).  We added 'Esther' to the list of OT books, which means we've memorized the order of all the historical books now!

The 9yo finished the story of Jan Hus.  He was burned at the stake, which was a terrible ending.  We talked about awful ways Christians have been martyred.  The 7yo read to us about Selina, Countess of Huntington's donation of 10 pounds towards Bibles for underprivileged children and what that would translate into in current money.

History - we contined Ch. 4 of SOTW 2 and read about Justinian's empress Theodora.

Friday

We had to go back to the library because the 9yo had finished the 4th book in the Spiderwick Chronicles and needed to finish the series 'so he could watch the movie'.  I love that kid.

The 9yo and 7yo practiced the piano.

The 9yo also did two lessons in English and 2 lessons in math. 

Saturday

I have no memory of Saturday.  What did we do...I think we possibly went BACK to the library to return the final book and...there was school of some kind, I'm sure of it.  I can't remember...

But...that's not what that means, and other surface theology

Almost nothing riles me up more than people taking small snippets of a faith, reading them entirely out of context, and building a theological understanding out of them.  It's so aggravating.  Not just for me, but I imagine also for THEM, because the weird frankenfaith they've come up with is not equipped to handle anything beyond the most basic of problems.  There's no depth!  What are you doing with your pain?  How are you handling your difficult times in life?  What about horrible things?  What about wonderful things?  How do you answer your questions and live your LIFE???

Take this glorious example of ridiculous:

Taken from the Mindful Christianity Today facebook page - I don't know where they got it from.

It's from Facebook, which is obviously the best theological tool out there.  That being said, how on earth...what is this meme ABOUT?  So we've got a person giving another person soup.  Well golly, that's super nice of them.  Or maybe it's gruel.  Well, whatever - the point is I'm assuming Guy #2 is going to eat this.  Food is being passed around.  How lovely.  Now, we have two verses, separated for emphatic purposes by this picture.  Let's take a look at those.

Verse #1 - Jesus doesn't care how many Bible verses you have memorized.

Well, firstly, Jesus was an actual real, live, historical figure living in a real, actual, historical period of time, so he had a life, and his life was...Jewish.  Because he was Jewish.  He also wasn't white, but maybe that first arm is supposed to be you passing gruel to someone and not him, so I guess if you're white this picture would work.  Or if you had any gruel handy.  But if Jesus was Jewish, then the real, live, historical Jesus would have had opinions from the perspective of...a Jewish man.  So yeah, actually we have a lot of information available to us about historical Jewish men in the middle east, and based on that information, Jesus would have certainly cared if you memorized scripture.  Absolutely he would have.  He did it himself!  He did it so well he taught in the temple!  He did it so well he taught senior scholars in the temple while he was a child!  He had such a firm grasp of scripture that he developed a following and became a serious threat and was killed for it!  And what's more, the scriptures he had access to were the Old Testament teachings, not the New Testament teachings, so in fact he would have expected a decent understanding of the things LEADING UP TO the gospel accounts.  He would, in short, have expected historical faith knowledge.  But don't take my word for this - ask literally any credible Jewish scholar anywhere about the importance of Old Testament knowledge to their faith.  Any. One.

But maybe what the meme is trying to say is not so much 'Jesus' but 'The Holy Spirit'.  That's a pretty major error if that's the case, seeing as Jesus is not the Holy Spirit because they are two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TRIUNE ASPECTS OF GOD.  It would be like saying 'Listen, Debbie, I know you wrote this essay but I'm going to say Susan did because you're both human females so, like, you're pretty much interchangeable'.  This would be incorrect.  And I want to say that whoever wrote the above piece of drivel doesn't actually believe that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the same person but sure, let's, for just a moment, pretend that that's the problem.

So here is where I feel like a little Bible lesson would not be remiss.  See, Jesus DIED.  Like, he ACTUALLY FOR REALSIES DIED.  So now Jesus is dead, okay?  He's put into a tomb and he's still dead, bear with me.  Now, he COMES BACK TO LIFE.  Oh my gosh really, I know, it's shocking.  I'm not being sarcastic - this is shocking news.  It's so shocking that it literally actually changed the course of human history.  Now, what happens NEXT?  I mean, does he live a nice long life and then die again?  Does he start a religion called Christianity?  Does he overthrow the government like everyone seemed to hope he would?  Surprisingly, he spends time with various people, talks to them, hangs out, and then...he goes to Heaven!  So sometime approximately two thousand years ago Jesus goes up to Heaven, and...he hasn't come back yet.  Really!  He's still there!  Well, now that is crazy because these days you have lots and lots of things attributed TO Jesus that Jesus is not here to do.  Like, for example, caring about whether you, Susan, are memorizing your Old Testament!  But Jesus is not physically here, on Earth, because you remember he went to heaven and that is where he still is.

The person who IS here is the Holy Spirit.  Who is actually, tangibly HERE here.  No, you can't see him, he isn't in a human body like Jesus was, but he's here all the same.  So we know the Holy Spirit is here because 1) Jesus told us he would be here and 2) We can see the results of his arrival.  Like...like air.  You can't see air, but you're breathing, and you're alive, and fire works, and something is moving those leaves, and so forth.  You can't SEE air, but you can see the results of air existing.  So you can see that Jesus and the Holy Spirit, while both being God (God is an eternal, unchangeable spirit who is triune in nature.  Triune meaning 'three-in-one'  One God.  Three persons.  Three aspects.  Three separate aspects.  One God.  You'll easily able to tell why I am not a theologian.) are not The Same Thing.  Not.  Not the same thing at ALLLLLLL.  Very different in multiple ways.  In form, in purpose, in location for that matter.  Remember, Holy Spirit - here, with us.  Jesus - Still in Heaven, hasn't returned yet.

So what if what the meme is trying to say is that the Holy Spirit doesn't care how many Bible verses you have memorized.  Well, if anything, this is possibly more ridiculous than Jesus not caring.  What we need to ask ourselves is WHY.  Why would Jesus send us the Holy Spirit?  Why bother?  I mean, if the whole purpose of the Bible is entirely fulfilled by God the father creating us and God the son redeeming us then what's this invisible Spirit guy doing in the mix?  Well, he's there for multiple reasons but one of them is GUIDANCE.  So I'm terrible at examples but try and follow my poor storytelling.  You want to go somewhere, so you get in a car.  There's a road and it has lots of signs and everything guiding you to the place you want to go.  But signs and a road and a car are not enough to get from place A to place B.  What if part of the road gets washed out?  What if you make a turn off the road because you think you know a better way but it turns out you navigate like I do and you do not, in fact, know a better way?  What if the windshield wipers suddenly turn on and you can't get it to stop and you don't know what's wrong with the car?  Wouldn't it be handy if there was someone in the passenger seat who knew this road really, really well?  Who was part of the BUILDING of this road?  Who personally lived both at point A and also at point B and could navigate for you?  Well lucky for you, there is!  This is the Holy Spirit's JOB.  He specifically wants to help guide you along that road and all it's myriad twists, turns, wrong ways, detours and crazy oncoming traffic.  What does this have to do with this meme, woman!!!??  I'll tell you - the Holy Spirit wants to guide you.  His purpose in existing is primarily to be the guiding helper.  He will guide you despite whatever stupid stuff you may do, and thank God for that, frankly, but all the same he wants you to travel down this path.  He WANTS you to move towards Point B.  He exists in you to help you get closer to the end point!  This is what he does!  Do you think, knowing this, that he would not want you to deeply know your guidebook?  That he would say "hey, we're on this highway, but don't look at the road signs.  Or learn how to drive the car.  Or read the owner's manual."  Does this sound in any way logical?  It does not.

So okay, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (and God the father as well but I'm hoping I don't need to explain that) all do, actually want you to know your Bible.  All three of them are deeply invested in you knowing your Bible, in fact.

Verse #2 - He cares how you treat people.

Right.  Well, yeeeees, he does care how you treat people.  Yes.  But that is not really in any way affiliated with how much of the Bible you know.  I mean, those two things, if they are in any way attached to each other, actually feed positively from the Bible reading side.  So if you read your Bible and know your Bible and study your Bible you will treat people BETTER because of that, not worse.  No one is asking you to choose.  No one is saying you can EITHER know your Bible OR you can treat people well.  But you only get to pick one of those things.   That's...I don't even know where that would come from.  Absolutely none of the Bible is about choosing between living in this actual world that God has created, and being a Good Christian.  I cannot even think where this dichotomy would come from, and I'm wracking my brains.

Perhaps what the implication here is is less that you're choosing, but that the sort of person who would memorize Bible verses is not the sort of person who would care how you treat people.  That's quite possible, actually, since the world seems to have this fascinatingly strange perception of Christians as weirdos just waiting to leap out of dark corners and throw Gideon testaments at innocent people just trying to have a nice time.  I don't even own a Gideon testament!  Or a long denim skirt!  Obviously someone should be taking away my Christian card.

The irony is that IF that is what this meme is trying to get at, that you can give away bowls of gruel to hairy armed poor hungry people OR you can be all worried about stupid stuff like learning the basis of faith and salvation, then this meme curls in on itself and becomes what it condemns.  It takes its truth, and it hold it above all else, and says 'prostrate yourself in front of this, and not that.  That is wrong, but this...this over here, this social justice, this feeding of people, this is right!'  It ignores the two thousand years where for large swathes of time the Western world owed it's learning and medical care and allievment of poverty to the Christians.  It ignores the Mission Aviation Fellowship pilots flying food to drought-ridden areas of Angola, right now!  It ignores the Wycliffe Bible translators who gave me brand new lovely snowsuits for my two oldest children when we were too poor to manage much on our own.  It ignores the elderly in my own church, who from there own meagre income buy food for the children at the small local elementary school here in town, so that no child has to go through the day without breakfast and lunch.  These people, they did not ignore their responsibility to their own faith, to read the road signs, to learn about the car, in favour of the easier visible things.  They didn't give the box of cereal and then go home and say 'well thank goodness that's done and I don't have to even LISTEN in church next week.'  The study was the fuel that led them forward.

And the Bible, strangely enough, has quite a bit to say about that, too.

Links to interesting things I've seen this week

My husband is re-sick now, from the previous sick.  And also the doctor's office still doesn't have flu shots in.  Despite it being mid-October.  Isn't that fun?  Plus I think my own personal sickness has now progressed into bronchitis.  On the plus side I'm hosting Thanksgiving dinner and I promised everyone I'd cook the turkey over a bonfire in the yard, using a metal tripod suspending a metal rack over the flames.  Also I haven't picked up my wood and Thanksgiving Day is forecast to be Quite Rainy.  Please don't roll your eyes like that.  Anyway, here are some interesting links of stuff I've read/seen online this week instead of cleaning my house for the holiday.

Link

C.S. Lewis' last essay, written in his trademark accessible style. - LINK

Something funny. - LINK

Something about missions that is a bit more serious.  Without dismissing this writer's experience, I don't know how I feel about this essay. - LINK

I'm going to make this! - LINK

My new favourite singer.  Love me some folk! - LINK

The Xerxes society local plant lists for North America. - LINK

I would never make these, but I love to look at them. - LINK

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I hope your Wednesday is full of amazingness and that your own house smells like lemons.

Learning Notes - Week 6 (Sept 30-Oct 5)

Monday

It poured rain most of the day, and we sat inside and coughed and coughed.  This cold is not going gently into that good night.

Independent Studies

9yo
30 minutes silent reading
30 minutes piano
Read aloud the first chapter of The Sword In The Tree.

Image from Amazon

7yo
30 minutes silent reading
30 minutes piano
Patterns of Nature - Lesson 3 (weeds and wildflowers)

5yo
100 Easy Lessons - Lesson 27
Patterns of Nature - Lesson 3

Tuesday

9yo
R&S English 2 - Lesson 10 (review)

Swimming for all three children.
Conservatory piano was cancelled today.

Memory work reviewed in the car.

7yo and 5yo finished their unfinished Patterns of Nature lesson from yesterday.

Wednesday

Morning Time

Prayer, doxology, national anthem

Memory work - review months of the year, days of the week, The Lord's Prayer up to 'trespass against us', adding Nehemiah on our list of OT books of the Bible.

Bible reading  - Mark 1: 32.

Christian biography reading - the 9yo read about Jan Hus's changing impressions of the church.  We discussed how Latin used to be the language of church services and I read something to the children in Latin so they could hear the language aloud.  The 7yo read to us about Selina's difficulties with reading and writing.  We defined 'dyslexia' and 'tutor'.

History - We caught up on the history reading from earlier this week.  We read section 1 of Ch. 4 in SOTW book 2, introducing the Byzantine empire.  I showed the children a picture of the Hagia Sofia.  We reviewed the year the Roman empire was split.

Geography - the 9yo and I reviewed our globe work - hemispheres, climate, weather, equator, tropics of capricorn and cancer, climate zones and axis.  We reviewed some of the end of chapter questions again from Chapter 1 and began Ch. 2 - the Tropical Zone.  We read half of our chapter and then brought out the world map to find Brazil and discuss the tropics.

Individual Studies

9yo
 - Read aloud Chapter 2 of The Sword In The Tree.  The 9yo thinks the uncle is terribly rude and doesn't like him.
-R&S English 2 - Second half of unit 1 test.
-Saxon math 5/4 - Lesson 14
-30 minutes piano

7yo
-30 minutes silent reading
-30 minutes piano

The 5yo and I walked up to the library and read many stories together, just the two of us.

Thursday

We're STILL SICK HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE??

The 9yo spent a very long time playing a math game online, then the children and I went for a cold and wet walk in the rain.  The afternoon was taken up with piano practice, reading and playing with Lego.

Friday

I called a PD Day today because we had dr. appointments and also I needed to clean the house.  The children read a lot, and also watched some of the episodes on this nature documentary:

Image from Amazon.

I remember the 9yo loving this documentary series when he was younger but had completely forgotten that there were sad bits in it - like the mother giraffe dying!  Ack!  There was also some piano practice.

Saturday

I can't say I'm sad to see this second week of illness leave us.  We went to the launch of this season's Operation Christmas Child work in a nearby city and the children did no schoolwork at all.