homeschool daybook: zinnias, pumpkin painting, Ethiopia

October 10 &11, 2011

Naturally we took yesterday off for Columbus Day, but we did travel through Texas Hill Country to a little town called Marble Falls to visit a pumpkin patch.  I'll write about the trip in an another post, but want to include a few "art" and "nature study" projects Natalie enjoyed.  (life is learning, yes?!?)

Today we got back into the swing of things, reading the Gospel of Matthew chapters 7 & 8.  She and I are both going to take on the challenge of memorizing a portion of Matthew, probably from the Sermon on the Mount.  We also read part of chapter 2 in Evidence that Demands A Verdict, adding words like "papyrus" and "vellum" to her word study notebook.  (I did not know that vellum was originally from cow or goat skin, scraped and shaved to make a writing surface...did you???)

She got busy on her next chapter in Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, outlining an overview for each continent we'll be studying in more depth.  She has picked up the three-level outline with no trouble, outlining the major themes for each continent during the period of 1836-1915.  We also put up a beautiful new map.  I'll take a picture and share it sometime.

This week she is helping our small group at Christ Church with a community service project.  We are holding a bake sale/ craft sale during the next weekend's annual parish retreat to raise funds for a Forever Family Home in Ethiopia.  The agency Bring Love In, does this generative, creative work of joining together orphans and widows, setting them up with homes and physical needs to live together in a Forever Family.  Natalie spent a good part of her day combing through the website, gathering information, and making display boards for the retreat.  (also that new map came in handy looking up the location of Ethiopia!)

She also spent some time plugging away at her math assignments for the week.

So, it's been, so far a creatively-fulfilling week for my 8th-grader.  She did, however, look over her list of assignments with concern that there were not enough creative writing opportunities.  We'll have to take care of that!