Random Thoughts

Our church had the privilege last night of hosting Matthew Smith in concert. Matthew is part of a community of musicians in Nashville, TN called "Indelible Grace." They take the lyrics to old, solid hymns and put them to new music. I have all four of their CDs and love them! This song is one of Matthew's originals, on his solo album. Good stuff.

One of the reasons I love homeschooling is that we can follow rabbit trails and depart from our curriculum for a spell to study something that interests us. At the moment, that is sailing! No, we didn't just purchase a new boat (not much water left to sail on here in Georgia!) We're reading Swallows and Amazons for our read-aloud right now. It has nothing to do with our cur current history or science topics, but that's ok. The story has a lot of sailing jargon we didn't know, so we spent Friday defining sailing terms and sketching diagrams of catboats. Here are the results:(the pics are kind of washed out - click to enlarge and you can see them better.)



Tomorrow we're going to study England's Lake District, where the book takes place. We're going to look it up in our Atlas, mark it on our wall map, and talk about old-fashioned customs of taking a "holiday" in this pretty region. I may even be able to tie in some Jane Austen - broaden their horizons! (A field trip would be a nice touch, but you can't have everything, eh?)

We are going to keep our study of Old Testament History and Egypt tabled for the time being and turn to Thanksgiving. It is one of my favorite holidays because of all the rich history - both of our country and our faith. We're going to read Stories of the Pilgrims, as well as several of our favorite picture books on pilgrims and Plymouth: Three Young Pilgrims, Sara Morton's Day, and Samuel Eaton's Day. I can't wait to get started!